Jan 27

Saturday, January 27

When we got off the plane in Auckland, it was kind of like Mexico with a tropical breeze and tropical plant/flower smell. We went through immigration without any problems, picked up our bags (we had 4 checked and 4 carry ons so we needed two luggage carts), went to the Air New Zealand transfer desk because that is the carrier to Palmerston North.

We got to the transfer desk the clerk lady was really rude and told us that we couldn't take the rolly bag carry on onto the small plane with us as a carry on and that it would have to be checked AND we'd have to pay an overweight charge. There were other people at the next counter arguing about having to pay the fee so in the end we didn't have to pay the charge...


HOWEVER, when she put the bag that previously was our carryon onto the luggage conveyor belt we didn't see her put a tag on it and it had no other tags on it because it wasn't previously checked baggage....Basically, this bag had no id whatsoever and was sent out. It wasn't until we had walked 12 minutes outside to the Air New Zealand Domestic Terminal that we realized there was no tag on that bag. We checked with another gate agent in the domestic terminal and they said that there was nothing we could do, just go onto to Palmerston North and check there.
Well, the flight to Palmerston North was on a turboprop and I have never flown on one of those (intentionally). Pretty much, you wait in a lounge for a sign to say your flight is boarding and then you walk outside and get on the plane...and you'd better be there when the flight sign changes from no status to boarding status because the whole process takes less than 10 minutes and then they say the gate is closed and boarding has ended. Basically, we just made it on our flight due to trying to handle the bag issue.

The flight was uneventful and my fears of flying in a turboprop were unjustified (this time). We saw Lake Taupo and the snow capped active volcano, Ruapaehu, from the air (very cool). It was cloudy as we landed in PN but soon we saw the mountains on the east and the flat land to the west. It was very green. We landed and I got off the plane (doing one high leg kick) thinking I'd be able to change shirts and clean up a bit before meeting the Rotary hosts, however, as soon as we stepped inside the airport there were six people there to greet us (David and Bernice are our hosts and Bernice had flowers for me....Lindsay and Jill the President of the Rotary club and his wife...and their two granddaughters. It was a bit overwhelming. I wasn't ready for that but they are really friendly and nice.

Our suitcase didn't make it to Palmy, so we headed to the check in counter to explain. The guy, Jeremy, said he'd work on getting our bag to us. We headed out of the airport and loaded the luggage into the two cars. We went to David and Bernice's farm house....and by farm house I mean two story English style cottage with rose gardens. It is a very nice and updated house. Not like I imagined at all. Very posh.

They showed us our room and bathroom and they are separated from the rest of the house bedrooms which are upstairs. The part we are staying in is newly built on and the rest of the home is the original historic family home. We had tea and biscuits (how New Zealandish/British) with David, Bernice, Lindsay and Jill while the girls played. After that, Lindsay and Jill left and we had some lunch and then went into town to see our home.

The landlord happened to be in, so we got to see the inside of the place. It is bigger than the pictures show and although it has a funny smell of bug spray or something, I like it. It could definitely use a paint job as baby pink paint doesn't go with much and the drapes and furniture are outdated but it is OUR HOUSE and it is clean, quiet, and well located. It is halfway between downtown and the university. It's a ten minute walk to the park and river walk.

We then got a driving tour through Massey University...it's more like a botanical garden than a school. It is thick with plants, flowers and so on that you hardly see the buildings. The buildings are a bit 1970's looking on campus. We then drove out to International Pacific College where Japanese students go to school. We checked out a new shopping complex being built out there as well as a new housing subdivision. A note on the new houses. They have large picture windows on the front and back so that when you're looking at the front of a house from the street, you can see all the way through the house out to the mountain ranges.

The mountains are spectacular too. The Tararua Range. Yeah, learning how to pronounce everything correctly is going to be a chore. You can see the large white wind mills of the wind farm on the mountains.

Next, we went into town to buy supplies for the house. The first store we went to was like a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We bought bedding, towels, and some dishes. Then we went to a store called the Warehouse which is like Wal-mart. Uh...we should have shopped there first as it was much more affordable. Example, 16 piece dishes at the first shop were $49 NZD and a 16 piece set at the Warehouse was under $9 NZD!!! We don't need fancy, quality items since we're here short term. Oh, and a blanket at the Warehouse was $49 and at the other shop was $169. So, today we took the expensive things back.

After shopping we were going home but got a call from the airport. They had our bag! Impressive! We went out there and picked it up no problem. Went back to the farm and I think we sat down to watch the evening news but to tell the truth Josh and I were REALLY DRAGGING at that point. WE WERE EXHAUSTED!!! I thought Josh was going to fall asleep sitting in the living room window seat. I said I was going to take a nap because we had 45 minutes before we were scheduled to meet Jill and Lindsay for dinner. Josh followed. We crashed and did not want to wake up when the knock on the door came to tell us it was time to head to town for dinner.

It was a beautiful sunset when we did make it outside and guess what? there ARE sheep everywhere and they are so cute! We drove into town to the area known as the Square and had dinner at the Fisherman's Table. The restaurant is upstairs in a building overlooking the square. The six of us sat around the round table and Josh and I learned that New Zealanders eat there salad with the meal rather than before the meal. Dinner was OK, Josh had Flounder still on the bone with it's head and fin attached (glad I didn't get that!) and I had fried scallops (ok).

Dinner lasted from 7:30 until 10:30ish...I could hardly keep my eyes open any longer. Must....sleeep....now. We went back to the car, headed to the farm and saw McNaught's Comet, however, it was really faint. We crawled into bed around 11.

Hard to believe that was DAY 1!!!! So much happened.