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Published: February 22nd 2009
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After flying from Sydney to Auckland we stayed at a sketchy airport hotel - they are designed to pick up foreigners at midnight, give you a bed to sleep in, and then bus you back at 5 am for your next flight. (it wasn't that bad! they had this cool art installation of fish in the lobby and i pretended to sleep with the fishes - not to be missed photo op!).
RANT: i'd like to go on record now about air new zealand. they suck. it's like the american airlines of nz - slightly too old planes, shitty service, and ridiculous fares. you have to check yourself in, print your ticket, print the tag for your bag, TAG your OWN BAGS, then lift them onto the belt to the flight while "attendants" stand around doing nothing. THEN you have to SCAN your own ticket. i was not having it; i would purposely fuck up the scanning and they would take the tickets from me forcing them to do the jobs that they were being paid to do. ugh. Susan: However, the flight itself was beautiful - I wish I had been on the left side of the plane because
mostly I saw the ocean but once we got over the south island, I got to see all the mountains!
yay! lord of the rings day!!! so we had to catch an indecently early flight out of auckland to make it to queenstown for our all day lord of the rings tour :] we were picked up at the airport and then it was off to middle earth! it was SUPER fun. i would totally recommend doing this even if you're not all that into the movies. the best part was reenacting the scenes and getting to play with the weapons! yay! weapons. so this day was mostly about LOTR so it's mostly a picture driven post :] I (Susan) would love to come back to do the full North and South Island tour of lord of the rings - we only saw a fraction of the sites, but even those few sites were very cool. It is amazing how someone saw all the scenes in such random places that in many cases don't look like the movie.
We got back early in the evening and stayed at another great hotel by the lake (Novotel - it is
very affordable and the rooms were great). I (Susan) saw that there was a buffet and all the reports were that they were divine, so I took Toisha there. Here's what she said: we did go to an awesome buffet though! weird thing about the new zealanders is that they don't waste food at buffets AND they eat them like it's a seven course meal in the proper course order. we being americans though hit up the desserts and entrees first :] (And it was all very yummy - pork bellies, lamb curry, mousse, shrimp salad!) you could only get to the place via these ski lift things and i was for sure that i was gonna vomit coming and going, but i made it and the view was just stunning :]
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