Off the ranch…
I’m sitting at SFO, waiting for Air New Zealand check-into open. We thought we had it all figured out… we’d come by SFO early today, unload our checked luggage then spend a healthy chunk of Sunday just hanging out somewhere in South San Fran. One small hitch is that Air New Zealand only operates one flight a day, so their counter doesn’t even open till 5:30PM. So we get four hours of babysitting our luggage at the airport, then checkin, then three hours of waiting for the flight, then 12 hours in the air, then customs, then another flight.
Honestly, I should be glad for the rest. The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of packing checked luggage (final tally: two suitcases, two backpacking packs, and two boxed bikes, plus carry-ons) and apartment cleaning. I don’t know why I feel so guilty about our stuff ballooning out to a third piece each (we had initially, foolishly, hoped we’d get by with one bike & one giant suitcase apiece). Something about the consumerist American hoarding all of his precious, precious goods.
We wrapped up our lease in Soquel yesterday, as well. We’re unbelievably indebted to Anna’s folks for the food, encouragement and help with the apartment cleaning.
We’ll hit the ground in Christchurch at 10AM local time on Tuesday (which will be, uh, mid-afternoon Monday on the west coast). At this point I’m mostly tired and anxious about all of the little details of getting the NZ, making sure we actually have money to spend, not to mention the worries about finding an apartment and car. All in good time. First we have to get ourselves there with all of our luggage, and our minds, intact.
Category: New Zealand One comment »
April 1st, 2007 at 3:25 pm
After leaving Anna and Aaron (and sunny California, as it turns out) at SFO, we drove to Red Bluff. Had a nice view of Mt. Lassen first thing on Monday morning, then it poured all the way to Siskiyou pass and resumed again after Medford. Is there another mountain along there somewhere?
Arrived in Vancouver in time to go out for dinner on Monday with Dane and his mother. Successfully delivered the car to Elsbeth. (After adding the delicious odor of the spilled contents of a box of cocoa behind the passenger seat to the melted margarine in the trunk, we started referring to the grey ghost as “fudge”.)
Met up with Bill and Corliss on Tuesday at Elsbeth’s apartment, went out for a nice dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in Vancouver, and handed off the remaining boxes. I think we got everything to the correct destination!