I figure I'm gonna write about the important stuff and then add little sidenotes about things on the bottom that I don't really feel like fully explaining or whatever.
So I was able to sleep a lot on the plane thanks to the sleeping pill I took =) But before I did I met this nice older New Zealand couple who sat next to me. They were super friendly and had accents which was fun, although the woman was slightly hard to understand which scared me a bit haha. I was super excited once I woke up and we only had like 2 hours to go and they were serving me breakfast lol and it was a pretty cool view out the window. I'm so excited to explore everywhere and just go on so many adventures here =)
Once we got here and went through customs and got our bags and things, we went to the hotel to go over the itinerary for the day, drop our stuff off and wash up quick. I walked around a little bit with a few of the girls and saw some shops and things until we went back to the hotel where everyone met up. From there we walked down to the harbor where the ferry was and took it over to Devonport, which is a harborside suburb of Auckland. It was my first taste of the nature side of New Zealand (as opposed to the city we walked around in) and I absolutely loved it. We took this short little hike up this hill that was apparently part of Maori fighting grounds long ago. There was this military tunnel type thing on part of it which was pretty cool too. I had lots of fun just walking around and exploring =)
Now I'm back in the hotel and finally showered which felt so good after the longest travel experience ever, and I have some down time until we go out for dinner together. Luckily I was able to sleep on the plane so I'm not completely exhausted and jetlagged because it should feel like 1am like it is back home. Instead it's almost 5pm and I skipped an entire day. Kinda crazy going from June 29th directly to July 1st.
I guess that's enough for now and maybe I'll write more after dinner. I really need to make a habit of writing in this all the time so I can remember everything =)
- I had a super long day in the airport, but I guess it didn't feel too long because I was so excited and anxious and not really checking the time much
- I finally found people after like 8 hours alone in the airport haha, and I'm happy to say everyone seems nice =)
- First excited New Zealandy thing - all the flight attendants have accents! =)
- Our cameraman looks like Jack Black, kinda funny.
- On of our tour guide guys, Tommy, went to uconn - isn't that so bizarre? He studied abroad in Auckland and ended up just transferring here and now he's about to establish residency, pretty awesome. He also just lies and makes things up sometimes when he doesn't know the answers to things... now I can't trust anything he says lol He's fun though, and was a Psych major, so that's cool.
- Our group is soooooo separated by gender it's like we're in 7th grade. There are 4 guys that all just stick together and all the girls just kinda talk to the other girls. So funny.
- The cars are backwards! And the roads are backwards! Funny how I noticed the cars first when looking out the window that didn't realize until afterwards that we were driving on the wrong side of the road compared to normal...
- I saw a middle aged man on a razor scooter. i hope that's the norm here cuz that's awesome.
- I'm in room number 1313 in the hotel and the lobby floor is 6, so naturally i'm like wtf where's floor 1 with my room on it, and before I can press a button the elevator goes down a flight and a guy gets on. I ask him what floor 1313 is on...and he was like...13... hahaha so I'm such a silly American.
- The hallways of this hotel are too narrow to drag both bags behind me... kind of a pain lol.
- The hotel room is super cute but pretty little all over. And it's got a little kitchen and I guess common room and a door to the bedroom unlike American hotel rooms. And the beds are on wheels.
