New Zealand Day 1: Arrival

Got out of work at 330; made it home changed and matt and I trekked through the negative windchill and 2-3 inches of freshly fallen snow with our rollarboards and horizontally blowing winds to make it to the light rail (and avoid the stopped traffic). Got to the airport to find security lines all the way to the center escalators. Jumped the line using precheck and made it to the United gate by 445 (515 departure). Missed that flight by 1 seat-- didn't want to make matt fly in the uncomfortable jump seat for four hours). No fiji then as that flight departed sfo at 8 pm and the delta flight arrives at 740. And the delta flight departing 555 had 15 seats open, we were 2-3. Sooooo, then we headed to the delta flight. Delayed. Slowly the number of available seats diminished. But we got on with exit row middle seats in front of each other. Watched a couple movies, used some expired drink tickets and made it to sfo 2 hours before the united flight to Auckland. 47 seats open we were 32/33 on the list.

Found our way around sfo to the internationals departure terminal and to the gate just in time for boarding to being. Slowly the list was being cleared. Thought we would get comfort but we got two seats together in the middle of a 4row and matt was on the aisle. We had three rows of screaming babies ahead of us and I had a kid with sharp elbows on my left. Yuck. I passed out had some gross airplane food. And slept. Ankles are missing and replaced with cankles. Matt pulled out the maps and book 1hoir before landing. We decided we didn't want to get on another plane and we would spend a couple days on the north island. Rented a car one way from Auckland to Wellington $50/day yuck! Made it through customs (andrea did super easily as they had an electronic gate walk through area and Matt's passport got hung up. Then to customs and cleared that X-ray machine and off to find a bathroom to change.

Changed, matt got a coffee-- he claims he only slept for 1 hour but on the 12 hour flight he watched 2 documentaries and 1 movie before I woke up 2 hours before landing. ... which means he too could have had 6+hours of sleep. And I picked up breakfast pitas. Then down to hertz to pick up our car rental -- left side of the road driving and round abouts will be fun; then we set our destination to hobbiton because why not.

Drove the 2 hours to the hobbiton movie set paid the 80$ a person to see it and ordered a beer and cider and bag of potatoes chips while we waited the hour for our turn. Did I mention the drive to hobbiton was gorgeous with cows everywhere and sheep fearing in the rolling hills? Anyway; booked a hotel for two nights in taupo, some town on a lake which would allow us to sleep in the next day and not worry about check out. Then just enough time passed, we boarded the bus to bring us back to the set area which was in the middle of this guys family farm which is still a farm today. And proceeded through hobbiton. The different doors are different sizes to allow to fool the eye into the different sizes of the characters. Oh--side note, when they made hobbiton for the lord of the rings movies they made it like any old set out of polystyrene and plastic which would easily be taken down-- but the attraction was so great and the set was falling apart that for hobbit movies they spent 2 years building the set as permanent fixtures. Anyway. We toured through the town and saw all 44 of the hobbit holes and the fake oak tree they erected to make the tree from lord of the rings appear 60 years younger. It was pretty cool. Ended at the party tree and then down to the green dragon inn for a pint (included) and then back to the car. Maybe I'll have to watch these movies now.

Then we drove for another 2 hours to taupo pulled into our motel at 6pm exhausted. Grabbed dinner at the crafty trout brewing (margarhetta pizza and a beef weiner schnitzel) and picked up quiche, sandwich stuff and water from the grocery store and passed out at 9pm. Next day: glow worm caves and mount rupeho