Traveling to Middle Earth

It's hard to believe this is only our fifth day in New Zealand. We have accomplished quite a bit in those few days, all the while learning about New Zealand culture. Where to begin?

I guess I'll start with the travel over here. I'll save the immigration stuff for later. Jeremy left early to see his family in New Mexico. I had just seen mine a few weeks before so I wrapped up the week at work and finished the cleaning of the apartment.

Headed to Boston on Sunday because Archie had to be dropped off at the United cargo area at 5 a.m. I was so nervous about missing the drop-off time that I hardly slept. But I got him there on time ... actually like 30 minutes early so we hung out until an employee actually got there to check him in.

My flight left at 5 p.m. I had a 50 lb bag to check (49.1 lbs actually), a carry-on roller bag, and a smaller camera bag/purse. Everything went perfectly in Boston. Car rental guy helped carry my heavy bag to the shuttle, curbside check-in guy helped me get my bag checked-in, and the rest I could easily handle. Plane left on time and the 6+ hour flight was long but smooth.

Then I got to LAX and nothing else went smoothly.

I land and was able to check my messages. Jeremy's flight was delayed and he was concerned he wasn't going to make the connection but when I tried to contact him it went straight to voicemail. He must have been in the air, which was a good sign. After figuring out that I did not have to pick-up my luggage, which took way too long, I found the shuttle I needed to get to the other terminal. There was only one shuttle at that hour and it took forever.

Finally made it to the correct terminal and went to get into the security line but was told the boarding pass I had didn't work. Went down to counter to get the correct boarding pass and was told that my carry-on bag was too heavy and I would have to check it for $150!! We had packed exactly for the instructions most airlines require. No more than 50 lbs for checked bag, 30 lbs for carry-on, and one personal item that fits under the seat. Air New Zealand only allows a 15 lb bag, "for your safety." Of course, once we got on the plane we saw several bags in the overhead bins that were well over that weight. I guess we just got caught.

I was headed to the security line and finally heard from Jeremy. He was at LAX but wasn't sure if he needed to pick up his bag or if it automatically got transferred. Four different agents had split 50/50 on their answers. Since mine automatically transferred and he needed to rush his butt over to the terminal he skipped baggage claim.

He got to the ticket counter, went through the same rigamarole I did and was escorted through security in order to make it to the gate in time. As we were boarding we noticed our seats weren't together, despite paying extra to be seated together in a two seat row. We were told to take our assigned seats and we would sort it out later.

Eventually we were able to sit down together and the 12 hour flight was fairly uneventful. Slept, ate, watched a couple movies.

Arrived in Auckland and all of our luggage came through except Jeremy's bag. Apparently he was supposed to pick it up at LAX. Of course we had to wait until all the luggage had come out to start a claim for the bag to be delivered to us in Wellington when it did arrive. That made us late to check our bags in again for the Wellington flight so we were escorted to the area we needed to drop off our checked bags. My 50 lb bag would not scan so we had to go through the process of inputting the information into the computer. By the time that was done we had missed the cut-off time for checked baggage. We would have to lug it over to the terminal to have it put on the flight.

Made it to the other terminal, got some odd looks going through security but they didn't tell us where to go to drop it off. Made it up the stairs, to the gate, and were told it needed to go back downstairs to be dropped off. Did I mention we couldn't take carts (trolleys) past security so Jeremy had been carrying the 50 lb bag all over the airport. Finally got it to the right place and we made it on the plane to Wellington and all of the luggage that had made it to Auckland made it to Wellington.

The one hour flight to Wellington was lovely. Had fun answering trivia questions on the screens.

That's probably enough for one post. I'll pick-up on our first few days here in the next post.