Wow, it feels good to be home! Don't get me wrong - I had a fabulous time! But there is something so wonderful about coming home to your things and your bed and your city. I guess that is why they call it home.
Anyway, it took a long time to get here. We got to the Wellington airport at 9:30 am NZ time Sunday morning. It is now 3:00 pm Monday in NZ and I just got home two hours ago. So that is something like 27 hours of traveling. And most of that time was spent just waiting around in airports. We waited for 3 hours in Wellington and then 4 hours in Auckland and then we missed a connecting flight in Los Angeles and ended up spending another 5 hours there. So 12 hours of waiting in airports for just under 15 hours of flying time. That is a lot of terminal time people and believe me - it felt terminal.
We did have some fun things happen today. While we were mulling around in the Auckland airport (killing some of that aforementioned four hours), a page came over the intercom system 'Will the party that lost their digeradoo please return to Emeritas Chicken?'. That is not something you hear every day. And then, all though we failed to see them, the NZ rugby team came through the airport on return from a match and did their haka (think war chant) in the terminal. I heard some of it but couldn't get over to the area fast enough to see it happen. I snapped some blurry pictures of the team (or at least people in team jackets) but it was murky at best. On a side note, I did get a good clear picture of the 'no spitting' signs I mentioned in an earlier blog.
Finally, as we were waiting to board the flight to LA, Susan noticed that the band members for Crowded House were boarding our flight as well. Of course, they flew business class so we caught only a glimpse of them as their were whisked through the line and up to the upper deck of the plane which I imagine to be a very luxurious place. Still, we were all breathing the same recycled air and that is something.
Anyway, after many hours of waiting and hauling ridiculously heavy luggage around, we made a standby flight home to Phoenix and here I am typing to all of you from my very own laptop. No time clock ticking away, no other hostel patron standing in line to use the computer. Just me and the cats. It is good to be home.
I will probably do a wrap up and pictures will be up soon. For now though, I am exhausted. I am going to take a shower, have a diet coke, and then curl up in my own bed with all 8 of my wonderful pillows and my two cats and have a really good nights sleep.
Cheers!
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