The Long Haul

I’m writing now from the number 2 terminal in LAX (the most poorly planned airport I’ve ever been in, impossible to navigate)and I’m about to face boarding for my god-only-knows-how-long flight to Auckland. Which I’m not thrilled about because I got impatient just on the 3 hours ride to LA. Groan. BUT it is 4^th of july and as we were flying into LA at sunset, you could see hundreds of fireworks exploding over the city. That was fantastic and I will fly on independence day in the future. Also, i had to exit the airport and catch a bus to change terminals (stupid) and then go through security AGAIN. And I couldn’t tell if the security guy was harassing me or flirting with me or what. But he took my passport and kept saying that it wasn’t me, and I kept saying it was, and then he was like, “oh born in Japan?” and tried to impress me or test me with a little Japanese, to which I replied that I didn’t speak Japanese and that I was only born there. But all through arguing with me he was grinning at me and then he told me that it was a great picture of me and told me to have fun. And this was the guy whose job is to see if you have metal on your body, he wasn’t even the passport check guy. Sketchy as helllll.

Then I was famished and ran into the most overpriced burger king I’ve ever been to in my life and headed to my gate. The international terminal is by far my favorite terminal. I’m listening to so much French around me because we’re right next to the AirFrance gate. Oh I miss it, but the little kiwi flight attendant over the loud speaker’s voice is super adorable, so that’s nice too.

Thanks everybody for the well wishes before departure, you’re all wonderful and I’m looking forward to seeing you all again when I return. I’m going to run and change my voicemail message now before I don’t have service for the next 12 months. See you on the other side!

Okay so I’m now sitting at my gate from Auckland to wellington and I’ve got some time to kill so I thought I’d jot down how crazy everything has been. Got onto my flight to New Zealand (which ended up being 12 hours rather than 18 like I had thought, lucky!) I had a window seat which ended up being useless since it was dark for the entire ride. So, I wish you could have met this guy I was sat next to. He was this crazy old man who talked to himself FOR TWELVE HOURS. And he smelled. You know how you look at some old people and you just make a mental note to never smoke ever? This guy. He couldn’t figure out how to work the tv, and I tried to help him a couple times but most of the time he just watched mine over my shoulder with no sound. And he didn’t have much of a grip on the idea on personal space. The first 4 hours I was debating with myself how to get him to stop sleeping on my arm, but then I just kind of got used to it and didn’t care. He also had on this crazy hat with all these signs hanging off of it about how he is a world traveler and listed how many times he’d crossed oceans and how he was a “world champion and proud of it!” he also had cards he’d Xeroxed with the same information about him being the “world’s amazing working man” that he left on the tables and seats and stuff. At one point he started repeating to himself, “we’re wretches. Wretch. We’re wretches. Wretch.” It was a hell of a long flight. i have had about an hour and a half of sleep in what, the last 40 hours? I don’t even know. I have lost track of time and entered this weird zombie state (which I had anticipated). It’s down here out the window but it feels like 4 in the afternoon and I’m all flipped around. Good news is it’s about 50 degrees in Auckland and it feels lovely. I know because I accidentally gave myself a self-guided walking tour of essentially the entire airport. (I finally swallowed my pride and went to the nice old lady at the help desk and she said, “oh you’re in the wrong airport. Go to the building next door.” Great, Maggie. I made it to my gate though, obviously, and had about 20 minutes to kill so I decided to seek out some breakfast. I came across a little coffee counter, but all they really had were these weird lemon cupcake things so I just opted to skip food and have some coffee (4 dollars for what can’t be more than 8 ounces, thank god for the exchange rate).

Anyway, I’m trying not to let this whole entry be a bitch fest but I’m wearing new boots which are totally blistering right now because of all the airport circling (with approximately 100 lbs of luggage in my hands to boot!) and I’m exhausted and grumpy and this whole day has been one huge pain in the ass.

To be a little positive, here are some things I’m thankful for:

1. Sneaking my coffee past customs (suckers!)

2. Neither of my first 2 flights crashing to the ground. Always a plus.

3. How attractive the boys seem to be here so far.

4. The sun is out!

5. No missed flights!

6. Cofffeeeee

7. I’M IN NEW ZEALAND! AHHH!

Alright, actually this is amazing (that's the view from our window) and scratch all the whining. I love it! Updates soon!