An intricate series of plane rides and chickens
For those who would like to know, The Red Head and I are now safely in Auckland. The Red Head (hereafter known as TRH) really had a rather easy time getting here. There was a brief delay of our first flight, which threatened to make a mess of the whole trip, but the delay turned out to only be 30 minutes, and our pilot flew like an old person and so we were about an hour late getting to LAX, leaving us just under an hour to get the next plane. Seeing as how our next flight was international, and LAX is perhaps big enough to be seen from space the two of us did the Hollywood Mad Dash though the airport only to find ourselves at the end of the biggest line in the history of lines. Standing next to us in this line was Our Nemesis. She was a middle aged asian woman in a red shirt, with short cut hair and a sour looking demeanor. She was on her cell phone and used that as an excuse to elbow her way past us while glaring. Naturally, we fought back, and the three of us made up way up the line continually passing one another. Eventually we hit the bottleneck of the line and can't move anymore, when I very nice woman looks at TRH and I and asks how many are in our party. When I say two the nice woman opens up the first class line and we walk to the front of check in, leaving Our Nemesis behind. This makes us very happy.
Everything continues according to plan until we have to go through security and take off our shoes. They had run out of those white bins that you are supposed to put everything in and while we were waiting patiently at the front on the line, shoeless, Our Nemesis walks past us, grabs and bin from the top of the machine when no one is looking, and puts her stuff on the belt in front of ours. Rage. She gets through before us and is off and running and we think nothing more of her until TRH needs to use the washroom but can't because that stupid lady is in front of her, glaring. Thankfully this is the last we see of her. Because at this point we were both cranky and tired from running and had she been in our seat or some such ridiculousness over international water we probably would have shivved her.
We manage to use the washroom and grab a snack and still make our flight with about ten minutes to spare, which stunned us both. On the plane we met Anthony, who sat next to us. He was from New Mexico and going to NZ to be with his girlfriend and set up lights for rock shows. He was very nice and gave us snacks once we successfully time travelled, lost wednesday entirely, had the 1 AM and 2 AM hours each happen two times, and made it to Fiji. Speaking of that, Fiji at 5 in the morning is the hottest, stickiest, and most humid place I have ever been to in my life. It was miserable but it smelled amazing. And it was gorgeous. Fiji's airport is essentially one small building with several covered walkways for the gates. There are very few walls and wide open doors which allowed for a rather nice breeze to blow in while we waited in yet another two lines. Once we checked in TRH, myself, Anthony and Hope, the girl Anthony had met at LAX who was on her way to Queenstown and began her journey in New York, sat down and drank very cheap beers which were very refreshing. Hope told us that the best possible thing to do if you are going to be in NZ for a while is to buy a car. They are apparently really cheap and essentially pay for themselves in the long run, so I think I might look into this once we get that whole "homelessness" thing taken care of.
The flight from Fiji to Auckland was very short and the people on it were very very nice, but the flight almost didn't happen due to a quickly approaching cyclone. Because of this, the plane got its ass off the ground quicker than I have ever seen before. It was great. Its fun outracing nature's wrath!!
Two and a half hours later we landed in Auckland, where it was about 78 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Its beautiful here. There are trees everywhere in super thick clusters, lagoons, turquoise water, beaches, and thats just the approach to the airport. We were both terrified however, because now we had to convince NZ to let us into the country for a year, with 240 lbs of luggage and the monies we had in our pockets. We had some documents printed from our home computers with no sort of official seal or anything like that to prove their validity. We make it up to customs and are met with a very jovial man who is all smiles and accents (which are great... every time someone says "check in" it sounds like "chicken" and I giggle a bit...) and asked how long we wanted to stay. I look a deep breath and said "one year, we're here on holiday work visas" and he looks at me and says "oh fantastic!! What sort of work do you do?" "We're both makeup artists" "Like for the film industry?" "Yeah, film and TV and stuff." "Wow, thats great! Do you know anyone famous??" Meanwhile the customs agent next to him has seen my tshirt (its the batmobile lost a wheel tshirt) and begins to laugh, and tells me its agreat shirt, but he much prefers when the song talks about Wonder Woman losing her shirt. The four of us laugh and the customs agents stamps our passports and handwrites "work" onto the stamped line and tells us to enjoy our stay. Thats it. We didn't have to show him anything. Not one thing. I mean, we had it, but it was in a folder, so its not like he could have seen it or anything. We then grabbed our luggage and took an $85 cab ride to our hotel, which is very tall. So yes, we are safely here. Hooray!
Everything continues according to plan until we have to go through security and take off our shoes. They had run out of those white bins that you are supposed to put everything in and while we were waiting patiently at the front on the line, shoeless, Our Nemesis walks past us, grabs and bin from the top of the machine when no one is looking, and puts her stuff on the belt in front of ours. Rage. She gets through before us and is off and running and we think nothing more of her until TRH needs to use the washroom but can't because that stupid lady is in front of her, glaring. Thankfully this is the last we see of her. Because at this point we were both cranky and tired from running and had she been in our seat or some such ridiculousness over international water we probably would have shivved her.
We manage to use the washroom and grab a snack and still make our flight with about ten minutes to spare, which stunned us both. On the plane we met Anthony, who sat next to us. He was from New Mexico and going to NZ to be with his girlfriend and set up lights for rock shows. He was very nice and gave us snacks once we successfully time travelled, lost wednesday entirely, had the 1 AM and 2 AM hours each happen two times, and made it to Fiji. Speaking of that, Fiji at 5 in the morning is the hottest, stickiest, and most humid place I have ever been to in my life. It was miserable but it smelled amazing. And it was gorgeous. Fiji's airport is essentially one small building with several covered walkways for the gates. There are very few walls and wide open doors which allowed for a rather nice breeze to blow in while we waited in yet another two lines. Once we checked in TRH, myself, Anthony and Hope, the girl Anthony had met at LAX who was on her way to Queenstown and began her journey in New York, sat down and drank very cheap beers which were very refreshing. Hope told us that the best possible thing to do if you are going to be in NZ for a while is to buy a car. They are apparently really cheap and essentially pay for themselves in the long run, so I think I might look into this once we get that whole "homelessness" thing taken care of.
The flight from Fiji to Auckland was very short and the people on it were very very nice, but the flight almost didn't happen due to a quickly approaching cyclone. Because of this, the plane got its ass off the ground quicker than I have ever seen before. It was great. Its fun outracing nature's wrath!!
Two and a half hours later we landed in Auckland, where it was about 78 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Its beautiful here. There are trees everywhere in super thick clusters, lagoons, turquoise water, beaches, and thats just the approach to the airport. We were both terrified however, because now we had to convince NZ to let us into the country for a year, with 240 lbs of luggage and the monies we had in our pockets. We had some documents printed from our home computers with no sort of official seal or anything like that to prove their validity. We make it up to customs and are met with a very jovial man who is all smiles and accents (which are great... every time someone says "check in" it sounds like "chicken" and I giggle a bit...) and asked how long we wanted to stay. I look a deep breath and said "one year, we're here on holiday work visas" and he looks at me and says "oh fantastic!! What sort of work do you do?" "We're both makeup artists" "Like for the film industry?" "Yeah, film and TV and stuff." "Wow, thats great! Do you know anyone famous??" Meanwhile the customs agent next to him has seen my tshirt (its the batmobile lost a wheel tshirt) and begins to laugh, and tells me its agreat shirt, but he much prefers when the song talks about Wonder Woman losing her shirt. The four of us laugh and the customs agents stamps our passports and handwrites "work" onto the stamped line and tells us to enjoy our stay. Thats it. We didn't have to show him anything. Not one thing. I mean, we had it, but it was in a folder, so its not like he could have seen it or anything. We then grabbed our luggage and took an $85 cab ride to our hotel, which is very tall. So yes, we are safely here. Hooray!