This post was written at O'Hare prior to my O'Hare to LAX leg, and then more written in LAX, followed by more on my Auckland, NZ to Queenstown, NZ flight.
December 23, 2001
It still hasn't sunk in. Not even in the slightest. I arrived at O'Hare and it was empty, shocking, being it is one of the busiest travel days of the year. I didn't start packing until about 10PM last night and finished around 2am and went to work a few hours later. Blue line to the airport - no problems. I packed half my clothes in my carry on as well as my vitals and the other half in my checked bag in case it got lost. Despite having 2 backpacks, it appeared like I took much more with me than I did in reality. I had my scuba fins, booties, snorkel, and mask which took up a considerable amount of space. I also brought a sleeping bag with me, as we realized we would need it on several nights of the trip. I brought my hiking shoes, water shoes, and a pair of flip flops. 2 polyprop shirts, 2 polyprop long sleeves, 2 polyprop boxers, a fleece, 2 swimsuits and 3 pairs of wool socks. I probably could've gotten away on just these the entire trip, but i brought a few cotton shirts, boxers, socks, sleeping pants to lounge in in the evenings or for less grueling activities.
I get to O'Hare and attempt to check in at the kiosk, but it's giving me an error, so I wait in line and go to check my bag with the travel agent.... Travel Agent: (looking at my ticket/passport) "well, that's not good." Which let's be serious, how many worse things could he possibly have started with? Fortunately though, I have a 5.5 hour layover in LA, so I don't panic, plus travel isn't stressful to me like it is many other people. Agent: "well, your flight is cancelled..." (my mind, you've GOT to be kidding me, i was thinking my LAX to Auckland one was) and he tells me its the ORD to LAX leg, so no big deal. He books me onto the next flight, aisle, and upgrades me to the exit row. Good deal! Now i have an extra 3 hours to kill at O'Hare and still a 2.5 hour lay over in LAX where I'll meet tim. Let's hope this goes smoothly....
***
I get to O'Hare and attempt to check in at the kiosk, but it's giving me an error, so I wait in line and go to check my bag with the travel agent.... Travel Agent: (looking at my ticket/passport) "well, that's not good." Which let's be serious, how many worse things could he possibly have started with? Fortunately though, I have a 5.5 hour layover in LA, so I don't panic, plus travel isn't stressful to me like it is many other people. Agent: "well, your flight is cancelled..." (my mind, you've GOT to be kidding me, i was thinking my LAX to Auckland one was) and he tells me its the ORD to LAX leg, so no big deal. He books me onto the next flight, aisle, and upgrades me to the exit row. Good deal! Now i have an extra 3 hours to kill at O'Hare and still a 2.5 hour lay over in LAX where I'll meet tim. Let's hope this goes smoothly....
***
Dec 23 @ LAX Airpot
As I sit here, the sun is setting over the pacific....a salmon-ish, pink-ish color, very much like one of my friend Dan's shirts that we always give him a hard time for. I realize that I'm sleeping on the airplane tonight and arriving 2 mornings later because of the international date line. Total flight: 4.5 hrs to LAX, 13.5 hours to Auckland and one night passes, but when the sun rises its the following morning. We land and connect on a flight to Queenstown 2 hours later and get there around2:30pm on Sunday. I figure if i stay up til around 9ish (2am Chicago time) I should be good for conquering jet lag.
Retrospect: I sleep the first 6ish hours of the flight, wake up, stretch, talk to some people in the back galley for an hour and 15 minutes about NZ and traveling the world, have 2 beers (even though its like 4am local time)...but i HAD to celebrate my birthday some how...afterall, my birthday is the 24th...which didn't exist this year. I departed on the 23rd and arrived on the 25th = no birthday for Kyle. The flight attendants weren't phased at all by someone asking for a beer at that time, it must be the norm.
The sun rises, and the flight tracker is showing New Zealand coming up. Out the window, I see my first sites of New Zealand! It is incredible, so beautiful. The perfect green coastline and gorgeous sea. There is a plethora of small island off the coast, and as we wind our way to Auckland, it is constantly changing between water and land, as there are so many inlets! I was in love. It was so exciting, and little did I know how much better it would become!!
Dec 25th (still the "same day?") JetStar Flight from Auckland to Queenstown
(this is written exactly as i wrote it on the flight...per usual, my writing becomes very jumpy)
Alright, ....I think it hit me....I'm in New Zealand!!! Holy Hell. I calculated while at ORD, that in the following 24 hours and 0 minutes, I would be on a plane for 19 hours and 40 minutes of it. The 13.5 hour LAX-AKL leg wasn't awful...but then again, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It was cool following along with the flight path and realizing I had crossed the equator for the first time in my life and finally the interntaional date line marking the end of my birthday...that never was. Left Dec 23 from LAX and landed Dec 25 in AKL. Its never felt liess like a birthday or Christmas in my life. Tim was kind enough to buy me a bday beer at LAX and that was the extent of my birthday haha.
My first sighting of NZ was pretty cool, gorgeous rolling green hills with water surrounding the coast filled with inlets and jutting out into the sea. A constantly changing coast line and then endless beaches....and i hear the south island is the more picturesque one...I can't wait!!
Every second of this flight, I traverse further south, each second I'm going further south than I've ever been in my entire life and I'll possibly never go further south than this in my life. Fun fact: The capital of NZ, Wellington - is the southernmost capital in the world. Barely nudging out Canberra (Australia), Johannesburg (South Africa), Santiago (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay). All places on my list of places to go in the near future, less Canberra. Almost the entire country of NZ is south of Australia ("Oz" as I will continually refer to it as) and NZ is entirely south of South Africa. Chile and Argentina have land further south....otherwise its Antarctica.
Backtracking...I slept the first 6 or 7 hours of the flight...so cramped up and then hung out in the back galley and spoke to a young mom with her 16 month old and she told me about her brother backpacking, meeting a Kiwi (what NZers are called) and shortly after he married her and moved to NZ full time. So for the wedding the mom I was speaking to and her husband decided to move to NZ for 8 months as well following the wedding and then travel Australia for 4 months because it didn't make sense economically to fly there for the wedding, and not stay longer.
I also spoke to an Iranian man who emigrated to Canada and he told me about the beauty of Tehran (Iran's capital) and how 95% of Iranians disagree with the government, but if you speak up....well, i'll just say, bad things happen to you. He also said that 95% of the girls are not covered head to toe, as most american's perceive them, and they are gorgeous.
Each day it becomes more clear to me, and astronomically more clear to me while "on holiday" (what the rest of the world calls "vacation") and while speaking to fellow travelers / backpackers, that I think to myself- how do i NOT pack up, live and work somewhere else and see where the wind takes me. It's a life experience unlike any other and in our 20s is the time and the place.
*****(i will use this throughout the blog as the sign of a tangent, as several of these blog posts were handwritten while traveling within NZ) - and i will end the tangent with ***** too.) (note i'm still flying from the north island to the south island, and we cut the corner to go over the ocean)
HOLY HELL!!! Perfect timing finishing that last hought! Just hit land again....The South Island...WOW!!! GORGEOUS!! Picture the barren mountains out west in the USA, make them green everywhere, rolling trails throughout with the unassuming pacific coast and miles of beaches just minutes away!! Wow, we're going to be driving countless hours through that! If there is anyway for long car rides pain to be eased...I think I've found it. This country really is as beautiful as I have heard from everyone who has been here. I can't wait to explore it for the next 15 days! It's going to fly by, but its going to be incredible!
Wow, another wow, I just realized I'm going to be "tramping" (hiking) up to many of these ridges and along them! I keep looking out the right side window to the coast and I'm hoping to see the Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier just off the coast, stretching 20km - we will be doing an all day hike of the Franz Josef. (Retrospect - we did see one glacier on the flight, on the other side of the mountain as the 2 aforementioned ones.) I think the glacier hike is going to be one of the days that I end up enjoying the most, despite not being the thing i'm most excited about now. Riverboarding...I can't wait for it! What on Earth is it going to be like?!? White water rafting on a giant kickboard with fins on for more control. Wow, what a rush its going to be!
AHH!! SNOW!!! Where on earth did snow come from?! It's everywehre!! Peak after peak of snow and i see waves crashing on the beach just past all the peaks! Incredible! (retrospect, it'd all been sunny, hot and clear on the north island...and the south island is warmer...)
AHH!! SNOW!!! Where on earth did snow come from?! It's everywehre!! Peak after peak of snow and i see waves crashing on the beach just past all the peaks! Incredible! (retrospect, it'd all been sunny, hot and clear on the north island...and the south island is warmer...)
_________
We landed in Queenstown, walked onto the tarmac...and I took my first step ever in the southern hemisphere! Off to get our bags, and we attempted to catch the city bus, but being Christmas, it wasn't running. Another couple informed us of this, and we decided to split a cab with them. We ended up running into them at Ferg Burger a few days later - SOO delicious!! (The same cabbie was making trips back and forth from the city. We put our bags in the back, the girl got in front, and us 3 were to get in the back...and then Tim opens up the drivers door and almost climbs in before realizing that the steering wheel is on the other side! It was hilarious. 15ish minute ride, along stunning Lake Wakatipu and we're in Queenstown! We check into the hostel, and immediately I can sense that this is going to be a good time! We get a tour of a hostel and walk into the common room and say hello to everyone, they had just finished a Christmas feast at the hostel, and in a friendly Scottish accent one of them asks, "Are you from America mate?" And I sarcastically respond, "Was is that easy to tell?" and then multiple of them, instantaneously start chanting and fist pumping: "U. S. A. U. S. A." It was hilarious...and not so shockingly, this would occur many times over the course of the next few days.
Our new friends informed us they were going to "the beach" (think small rocks, not sand) to play American football and Ultimate Frisbee, so Tim and I get settled in, I call my parents from the hostels free international phone (that was crazy) and go play. It was a blast! 8 on a side, played in the grass, and we were down 9-6 and came back to win 10-9! It was all around good fun, and its always amusing playing with people from all over the world. We broke a sweat and about 6 or 7 of us guys decided we're definitely jumping into Lake Wakatipu, it was cold, refreshing...and incredible. There is something about traveling that just really livens up your senses, you appreciate everything more, enjoy it more, and take it all in as opposed to taking it for granted. I love it!
Our new friends informed us they were going to "the beach" (think small rocks, not sand) to play American football and Ultimate Frisbee, so Tim and I get settled in, I call my parents from the hostels free international phone (that was crazy) and go play. It was a blast! 8 on a side, played in the grass, and we were down 9-6 and came back to win 10-9! It was all around good fun, and its always amusing playing with people from all over the world. We broke a sweat and about 6 or 7 of us guys decided we're definitely jumping into Lake Wakatipu, it was cold, refreshing...and incredible. There is something about traveling that just really livens up your senses, you appreciate everything more, enjoy it more, and take it all in as opposed to taking it for granted. I love it!
Tim and I grab dinner, and then everyone in the hostel hangs out on the outdoors wrap around balcony / common room, sharing stories and drinks, and having a good time. One of the guys somehow ends up with the girls painting his nails, putting blush, and eye liner on him and then we get him a green wig that the hostel had...he looked ridiculous, yet it was hilarious, and then took it even further and put on one of the girls summer dresses. Good times all night long, and we crashed, after an incredible first day in New Zealand, and we knew this hostel would lead to further good times, but more importantly, we were excited to go canyoning first thing in the morning!!
No comments:
Post a Comment