I haven’t posted to this blog for a bit because I wanted to immerse myself in my travels and not in my computer.
We are eight days into our trip and so far it has been amazing.
We lost two days in travel…one full day traveling and one day with the time change (which still confuses the heck out of me). It was a long day of travel, but really not as bad as I anticipated. We went through security three times and customs in New Zealand where I had to claim the 15 pounds of food I packed. I felt like the closet alcoholic who hides liquor in every little nook and cranny in the house. I was pulling gallon bags of food from every compartment in each of our luggages to be exposed on the cold, metal table. Quite embarrassing when the customs lady says, “You know we have food here, right?”
Ryan may have given me a hard time then, but we haven’t had to buy breakfast once. We’ve had plenty to eat for lunches and snacks if we are out and about. (Note…I’m not picky. I just have so many allergens and breakfast is the hardest for me to work around.)
We arrived back at our hotel after our first time driving on the opposite side of the road. It was similar to when we taught Austin how to drive. We asked him to talk through everything he saw on the road and what he needed to do. Ryan and I kept repeating “Center median is to our right…center median is to our right.” Ryan did an awesome job driving except for the windshield wipers he activated every time he wanted to change lanes and the natural tendency to hug the outside shoulder. As a reward for his solid driving, he was treated to the awesome visual of my ankles which had turned into the size of my calves and my calves into the size of my thighs…all due to the hours upon hours in the plane. My husband is one VERY lucky man.
We are eight days into our trip and so far it has been amazing.
We lost two days in travel…one full day traveling and one day with the time change (which still confuses the heck out of me). It was a long day of travel, but really not as bad as I anticipated. We went through security three times and customs in New Zealand where I had to claim the 15 pounds of food I packed. I felt like the closet alcoholic who hides liquor in every little nook and cranny in the house. I was pulling gallon bags of food from every compartment in each of our luggages to be exposed on the cold, metal table. Quite embarrassing when the customs lady says, “You know we have food here, right?”
Ryan may have given me a hard time then, but we haven’t had to buy breakfast once. We’ve had plenty to eat for lunches and snacks if we are out and about. (Note…I’m not picky. I just have so many allergens and breakfast is the hardest for me to work around.)
We arrived back at our hotel after our first time driving on the opposite side of the road. It was similar to when we taught Austin how to drive. We asked him to talk through everything he saw on the road and what he needed to do. Ryan and I kept repeating “Center median is to our right…center median is to our right.” Ryan did an awesome job driving except for the windshield wipers he activated every time he wanted to change lanes and the natural tendency to hug the outside shoulder. As a reward for his solid driving, he was treated to the awesome visual of my ankles which had turned into the size of my calves and my calves into the size of my thighs…all due to the hours upon hours in the plane. My husband is one VERY lucky man.
Auckland is a cool town with LOTS of college students. It reminds me a bit of Seattle and Vancouver BC. I was so thankful to know we traveled halfway around the world to buy a Seattle cup of coffee…
Our first full day in Auckland started out by sailing on an America’s Cup Sailing boat in the Auckland Harbor. Ryan was stoked about this because we got to grind (umm….raise and lower the sails) and steer the boat. It was very fun and a beautiful way to start the trip.
After sailing, we decided to drive an hour out of town to Piha, a black sandy beach. When we told the concierge of our plans, he did seem to have a little smirk on his face. Perhaps it is because he thought he could give away our room, as we were very unlikely candidates to make it through that drive unscathed. The road was crazy scary. Extremely narrow with cliffs on one side of the road. Try coupling that with driving in a new city, in an unfamiliar car, driving on the opposite side of the car AND the road. I lost a few years of my life on that drive and truth be told, Ryan was white knuckling it the entire time. When our GPS lady announced we had a round-about approaching where we needed to ‘give way’ Ryan would respond with “Dear God!”
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The second day in Auckland was spent by taking a trip up to Mount Eden where we had a vantage point to see the whole town. Then we visited the Auckland Zoo so Ryan could finally see a Kiwi and share a special moment with a giraffe. I guess SHE didn’t have swollen ankles.
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