Day 76/77, 1st/2nd November 2011. LA - New Zealand

Technically day 76/1st November 2011, didn't exist for us, because we jumped forward an entire day on the flight, so I will resume from day 77, the 2nd November 2011.

So after I took the sleeping tablets, it knocked me out for a good 8 hours or so, I was literally so surprised when I woke up and saw what the time was. I never sleep on planes, ever. It was totally the most unexpected thing ever. It was now 9am LA time, on the 1st November. I changed my phone to New Zealand time, and we went back to 5am, but jumped forward a day, to the 2nd November.

We had about 4 hours until we were due to land, so I watched the Hangover 2, I just love those films, so that kept me happy and entertained for a while. I then ate some of the snacks we had bought last night at the airport, and saw how close we were to landing.

Even though it was the longest flight we had ever done, it felt like the shortest. I actually could not believe how much I had slept and how quickly it had gone. Gary had slept quite a bit too, but he watched quite a few films at the start of the flight so he hadn't slept as much as me. I sat listening to my ipod for half an hour and then it was time to land. That was the best and easiest flight I have ever been on!

We had arrived in Auckland, New Zealand. It took us about an hour to go through security and stuff, we had a bit of a panic because we had to fill in the tourist visa card things with the address we were staying at, which we didn't know because we were staying with a friend. 

I don't think I actually mentioned this before, but the reason we were going to New Zealand was to visit one of Gary's very good friend Fabian, and his wife Treena. They used to live over in the UK and Gary and Fabian had worked together and had been the best of friends. Gary was so sad when he had left, so we had always said that we would be coming to New Zealand to visit them. Seeing as we were already half way there in Los Angeles, it would have been silly not to go the other half of the way around the world and come to see them. 

Anyway, Gary managed to text Fabian when we were waiting in line at security to get their home address, so that we would be allowed in the country. As we were walking through the airport, looking out of the windows, my first sight of New Zealand made me thing, 'oh great, it looks just like England'. It really did, it was rainy and everything looked the same as it did back home. I said to Gary what has he done bringing us to a place that's exactly like England. 

Once we were though security and had collected our bags, we came out of the airport to see Fabian waiting for us and Gary was so happy to see him again, it had been about 2 years since they left the UK. They hugged a lot and then we all got in the car to drive to Tauranga, where they live. It was about a 2 hour drive, and luckily, it had brightened up and I got to see that New Zealand was really pretty. It was very green and we had some nice scenery on the drive. 

We arrived at their house at about midday, and it was really nice. Treena was still at work, because she is a teacher, but we got all our stuff in and got settled in our room. We met their doggie, called Archie, who Gary totally loved, and their neighbours dog called Zero, who was only 8 months old but was literally the biggest dog I have ever seen, it was like a bear!

I had a shower because I felt all gross from the plane, and to also wake me up a bit because I was feeling a bit lethargic from the drive. Then the 3 of us went out for lunch. Their town was really nice, we went to a English style pub/restaraunt because all Gary wanted was some baked beans. Gary got a full English breakfast, complete with baked beans, and I got some fish and chips. The food was nice, apart from the fact  that they didn't have real ketchup, it was like watery tomato sauce stuff, and it was gross. 

We then walked around the town for a little while, I got 2 cute skirts and a playsuit in a little clothing store, and we looked at some tattoo shops because Gary wanted to get a tattoo. All the tattoo shops in New Zealand only seemed to do tribal tattoos LOL and that was not what Gary was looking for (thankfully) so he gave up on the tattoo idea and decided to wait until we got home to get it. We then drove down to the beach area that is about 10 minutes from their house, how cool. It was really pretty.

When we got home, we relaxed for a bit, then Treena got home and she was real excited to see us. We went out for dinner to a Mexican place which was so cool. It made me feel like we were back in the USA (no complaints there) and the food was really good, we all had Nacho's. I think I forgot my camera because I have no photos of this night, which is annoying, because it was the cutest little place ever.

After dinner, we went to a supermarket, it was called Countdown, and got some snacks and food. They had  all types of Cadbury's chocolate which made us go a bit crazy and we bought loads. This also brings me to my side story...

Before we left, Fabian asked Gary to pick up a few of these energy bar things that they don't sell in NZ and bring them with him. This meant taking them all around America with us. Gary went out to get them before we left and I expected him to bring back maybe like 10 or 15 of them. He came home with this humungous box of 50 of them. I shouted at him for being so silly saying we did not want to lug them around the USA for 11 weeks, especially considering we had limited packing space. You can imagine how annoyed I was when we had been packing the day before, and we were wasting valuable clothes space with a huge box of bars. But Gary wanted to take them to his friend, and it meant so much to him that I couldn't argue. There was even one night on Trek where we had no food from Mark, and me and Kirsty wanted to eat one of these bars because we were so hungry and Gary wouldn't let us take even one! Anyway, funny story, when we got to New Zealand and Gary gave them to Fabian, they were the wrong ones LOL!!!

Anyway, we got all our food from the supermarket, and the boys rented a film from the rental store opposite, and then we went back home. The boys watched their film, Treena had some work to do and I just played with Gary's iPad for the rest of the night. We finally went to bed at about 11.30pm, I don't even know how we managed to stay up so late. I must have really got a good sleep on the plane. We had a good first day in New Zealand. I didn't really know what to expect from it, and I was still sad from having to leave America, but it seemed like we were going to have a good time here.