Jet-lagged Rambles

Here's the post I promised... Written on Monday morning.

It’s 6.20 am New Zealand time and I have just lost 4 hours of my life. I left Perth at 7 pm yesterday and after being in a 737 jet for 6 hours, I am now suddenly thrust into dawn breaking over Auckland Airport.

However, I have had a wonderful experience this morning and am not too distraught about loosing those 4 hours. As I sit in the domestic ‘lounge’ in the Auckland Domestic terminal waiting for my flight to Taupo, munching on magical Dunkin Doughnuts that really should be illegal at this time of day, I thought I might kill some time with a blog entry that is well overdue. 

But lets go back to the beginning of Monday the 2^nd of February, 2009. 0730 Perth time. I got up. Pretty eventful huh? I have had the fortune of lodging with my good friends Iain and Lauren for the past week and they kindly lent me their car Ernie for the day. The only condition to the loan was I had to take Iain to work. So, 0745 and one Wapol Supervisor delivered to the office, a quick wave bye bye to what was my office for a year of my life and my half-marathon of a day was about to begin. I compare my day to a sporting event because of the sweat that was leaching from all pores as if I had just run 21 kms. (Actually, I lie. With my current fitness level it would only need to be 300 metres before I would work up a comparable sweat.)

I thought it was going to be one of those days where everything goes wrong. – Can’t find a car park. Find a car park and you have to pay before you go in and it’s a flat $8 rate, even if you only plan on staying an hour. No worries but you have to pay by cash. No cash. F**K. Find another car park. Go to the bank. Huge queues. Close account. Enquire about buying New Zealand dollars. They’re out. Run across the city to find some. Even bigger queues. Quick stop for an OJ with Hughes, Jock and Mo and farewell hugs. Back to the bank. 36 degrees. Into the car park. $21.00!!????? Machine won’t take my money. FUCKITY. Petrol, Sallies, ANOTHER BANK, to the old flat, pick up bike, go to airport, pay excess luggage of $240.00.

No worries.

I successfully managed not to burst into tears until I got close to the departure doors and poor Lauren bore the brunt of my “I don’t want to goooooooooo” wah wah. A few hugs for the Westies and Mel and Ash and I was off into customs. On the plane, and like a magical mystery tour I’m now in New Zealand.

So I guess you’re wondering what the ‘wonderful experience’ is that I experienced this morning…

I was feeling a bit confused as we touched down in Auckland. As the voice over the PA announced that he wanted to welcome us all home, (too bad for those non-kiwis!) I suddenly missed Perth. I blame the lack of sleep.

But after skipping the huge line on customs due to my wide load, (my bike box, not my derrière,) I managed to find free coffee, poured by the most helpful elderly women you would ever care to meet. And all of them volunteers. 5.15 am and you’re volunteering to pour coffee to weary (read: grumpy) travellers? I secretly think that some South Auckland rest home has pimped them out and told them that they are volunteering and they are actually keeping the wages themselves. Images of Ben Stiller in Happy Gilmore come to mind.

But anyway, I digress. These volunteers are simply lovely. My encounters with them, coupled with seeing Telecom phone booths, North and South magazines, beautiful Maori faces, New Zealand Heralds, Bluebird chips, and plenty of other random kiwi things gave me a lot of tired smiles.

However, I have one gripe. Every single time a flight is announced that has the numbers 6 or 7 in it I consciously think someone is taking the piss. (Or should that be pus?) Due to having someone copy me like a parrot every time I have said either of those two numerals lately has made the Kiwi accent really stand out. It’s weirdly irritating. Like fingernails down a blackboard irritating. But I’m sure it will go away soon and the kiwi accent will sound normal to me once more.

So I’m in New Zealand and so far it’s great. Off on a tiny plane to Taupo and hopefully some sleep!