North Island Day Two
I spent the night of tossing and turning, with a t shirt draped over my eyes to shield the lights and headphones in to block out some of the noise. Finally 4am came about and we got a wakeup call from the front desk employee. Groggy and stiff from the bean bags, we headed upstairs to the food court area. We found some couches and made ourselves comfy. I decided just before 5am to walk around and see what breakfast options I had to choose from. I finally settled on a $16 scrambled eggs, toast, bacon and a mochaccino. Gotta love airport prices. While I was gone, apparently Hira had laid down on the couch and an employee walked by and told her not to sleep on them. Well, looks like this is going to be a long day...
Hira and I discussed our frustrations and concerns about our upcoming class registrations, people watched, welcomed the sunrise and surfed the web until about 9:30am rolled around. Security literally took 2 minutes (you don't even have to take off your shoes!) and we headed to our gate, where we sat and waited even more. By the time our plane boarded for Wellington, we had spent a grand total of just over 12 hours in the Christchurch Airport. Whew, time to let this vacation begin!
The duration of the flight was only scheduled to be about 45 minutes from Christchurch to Wellington. Just enough time for a power nap. Except I had the window seat this flight, and I tried my hardest to stay awake to catch the views. Unfortunately, the views consisted mainly of clouds. Flying over the Cook Strait that separates the two islands, you could see the waters were really rough. The entire flight there was accompanied by constant turbulence too. Clearly we were on our way to Windy Wellington!
Usually on domestic flights in New Zealand, the snack provided is a Cookie Time cookie, which Hira loves. I mean it's a cookie! I certainly don't hate them either! She had even mentioned before we got on the plane that she was looking forward to getting one. Well, because of all the turbulence, the flight attendants were unable to come around and hand out snacks. Bummer.
We arrived in Wellington after a bumpy landing and headed towards Jucy to pick up our rental car for the week. Unfortunately, they are not in the airport terminal, so we had a bit of a walk. Cabs were too expensive and out of the question. We walked three miles to the Christchurch Airport, what harm would another mile do? We'd have a car by then! Turns out walking in 40-50mph wind gusts is quite a challenging task. Yes, you read that right. And of course it was blowing right at us. I'm surprised I still had my hat on the entire walk. We ended up passing what was supposed to be a Hollywood-like sign for Wellington, but for some reason it now says Wowington. Cool. We kept trudging along and finally made it to Jucy (after I missed the turn and we had to turn around of course). We got a tiny bright red Hyundai. We decided fish and chips was a good lunch option, so we searched a place on our GPS and headed that way. We cut through neighborhoods and ended up on a stretch of shops and cafes, yet there was no fish and chips place in sight. Humph. We were about to leave until we saw a sign for half priced pasta. We didn't have to think twice! We both got homemade pumpkin ravioli for only $9. Wasn't fish and chips, but it did the trick!
I spent the night of tossing and turning, with a t shirt draped over my eyes to shield the lights and headphones in to block out some of the noise. Finally 4am came about and we got a wakeup call from the front desk employee. Groggy and stiff from the bean bags, we headed upstairs to the food court area. We found some couches and made ourselves comfy. I decided just before 5am to walk around and see what breakfast options I had to choose from. I finally settled on a $16 scrambled eggs, toast, bacon and a mochaccino. Gotta love airport prices. While I was gone, apparently Hira had laid down on the couch and an employee walked by and told her not to sleep on them. Well, looks like this is going to be a long day...
Hira and I discussed our frustrations and concerns about our upcoming class registrations, people watched, welcomed the sunrise and surfed the web until about 9:30am rolled around. Security literally took 2 minutes (you don't even have to take off your shoes!) and we headed to our gate, where we sat and waited even more. By the time our plane boarded for Wellington, we had spent a grand total of just over 12 hours in the Christchurch Airport. Whew, time to let this vacation begin!
The duration of the flight was only scheduled to be about 45 minutes from Christchurch to Wellington. Just enough time for a power nap. Except I had the window seat this flight, and I tried my hardest to stay awake to catch the views. Unfortunately, the views consisted mainly of clouds. Flying over the Cook Strait that separates the two islands, you could see the waters were really rough. The entire flight there was accompanied by constant turbulence too. Clearly we were on our way to Windy Wellington!
Usually on domestic flights in New Zealand, the snack provided is a Cookie Time cookie, which Hira loves. I mean it's a cookie! I certainly don't hate them either! She had even mentioned before we got on the plane that she was looking forward to getting one. Well, because of all the turbulence, the flight attendants were unable to come around and hand out snacks. Bummer.
We arrived in Wellington after a bumpy landing and headed towards Jucy to pick up our rental car for the week. Unfortunately, they are not in the airport terminal, so we had a bit of a walk. Cabs were too expensive and out of the question. We walked three miles to the Christchurch Airport, what harm would another mile do? We'd have a car by then! Turns out walking in 40-50mph wind gusts is quite a challenging task. Yes, you read that right. And of course it was blowing right at us. I'm surprised I still had my hat on the entire walk. We ended up passing what was supposed to be a Hollywood-like sign for Wellington, but for some reason it now says Wowington. Cool. We kept trudging along and finally made it to Jucy (after I missed the turn and we had to turn around of course). We got a tiny bright red Hyundai. We decided fish and chips was a good lunch option, so we searched a place on our GPS and headed that way. We cut through neighborhoods and ended up on a stretch of shops and cafes, yet there was no fish and chips place in sight. Humph. We were about to leave until we saw a sign for half priced pasta. We didn't have to think twice! We both got homemade pumpkin ravioli for only $9. Wasn't fish and chips, but it did the trick!
Boy oh boy did I forget how stressful driving in cities are - all the one ways and buses and traffic to deal with. And both of us running on only a few hours of sleep certainly didn't help. Even with a GPS it was difficult! We finally found our hostel placed high up on a hill. Not seeing where to park, I just pulled next to the hostel and had Hira go inside and get the deets. Our friend Megan back in Dunedin made us mixed CDs for our trip so we could have some tunes to jam to if we weren't able to pick up any radio signals. The 4 CDs she gave us consisted of songs from today's hits, country, 90s and even an entire Boyce Avenue CD. It was quite the mix. I was jamming to some 90s music when the CD just stops playing. I try multiple things to fix it but no such luck. Ugh, one more thing to frustrate us. She returns to tell me our room wasn't quite ready yet, which was understandable because I'm pretty sure we arrived early. She also told me that the hostel had overnight parking for $20 a night. Or we could park on the street, which is free overnight but $4/hour during the day with a two hour limit. Or we could park in the lot near the hostel which is $17 for 12 hours. Ahh the frustrations of city parking - where there are hardly any spots and nothing is free! Makes me really appreciate the light rail back at home I tell you what. As most of you may know, I avoid driving downtown at all costs.
We decided the museum would be a good first day activity that didn't require much energy, since we didn't have much anyways. We finally found it and had to find a space to pay for parking. We only paid for 2 hours and would just have to keep an eye on the time. We also wanted to walk to the nearby New World to pick up some groceries. We had to breeze through most of the museum, and we even skipped a floor. We then walked across the street, through the 40mph gusts, and shopped like two traveling college students on a budget, because, well we were. PB&Js and soup were our go to. The frustration continued as we headed back to the car, trying to figure out what to do next. We drove around for a bit until I just decided to pull over near a beach. I thought there might be free parking there, but I guessed wrong. We parallel parked into a spot and just sat there, trying to figure out what to do. The wind continued to shake our tiny car as Hira glanced over the maps we had of the city. We decided to give the Mt Victoria lookout a try. Through neighborhoods, winding, narrow roads, and rain, we travelled up to the lookout, where we actually found a parking lot which was FREE. While the sky was clearing slightly, the rain left a slight haze over the city. It was still an incredible, 360-degree view of Wellington. We battled the wind and snapped some pictures before returning to the car for warmth.
We headed back to the hostel to finally check into our room. We decided to park in the lot near the hostel because we saw there was an option for overnight parking for $6 from 6pm-4am. Well, I would be up at 3am to register for my classes back at DU that night, maybe I could just move the car then, or go pay for early bird parking. We decided to give it a try and went to pay. I didn't think it would be challenging, but we could not figure out how to choose the overnight $6 option. We pressed all kinds of buttons and nothing. By that point, there was a man behind us and we asked him if he knew how it worked. I'm not sure he understood really what we were trying to do, so we just let him purchase his ticket. Just then, a couple walks into the lot and gets our attention. "Would you like a free parking ticket?" I was stunned to say the least. "Oh my gosh that would be so great!" They gave us the ticket that was good until just after 8pm, which would give us more time to figure out what to do with the car and to eat some dinner. We went up to our 6-bed room to drop off our things and were greeted by two girls. We looked around and noticed all the beds were unmade. One of the girls told us that someone came in and stripped the beds, but never came back to remake them. So we headed downstairs to see what the issue was. The guy at the front desk was just as confused as us, so he offered us an upgrade to a 4-bed room for free. That's a no brainer! Our room was now on the purple wing of the hostel. Clearly it was meant to be.
We concluded free parking on the street was our best option. There was also a good strip of shopping nearby, which supposedly had a market open that night until 11pm so we decided to park by there and just walk back to the hostel afterwards. Heading over, I went straight through an intersection when I noticed the blacktop said buses only. It was too late for me to turn and the road was too narrow to turn around. We were both freaking out and unsure what to do. I was sitting behind a bus when a Dominos car pulled up behind me, flashing its brights. I was confused to see another car where I thought only buses could go, so maybe I wasn't in the wrong after all. Apparently I wasn't moving fast enough for his liking and he continued to be right on my back bumper and continued to make frustrating arm gestures. I could feel my face turn hot as I yelled "I'm not from here! I don't know where I am going!" We both turned and he sped on around me and I continued to search for a spot to park. When I found one, I had to put my parallel parking skills to the test. Thank goodness they didn't fail me.
We walked to Cuba Street where all the shops were. Turns out that night market doesn't exist on Wednesdays anymore and all of the shops were already closed. So once again, we struck out.
Registration was in about 5 hours when we returned. Luckily the hostel had wifi to purchase. $4 for 24 hours? I'll take it. I don't have much of an option either. Oh just FYI, my registration time of October 29 at 8:10am in Denver equates to October 30 at 3:10am in New Zealand. Awesome. With the way this day was going, you could say I was kind of nervous on how this was going to go. I woke up to my alarm at about 2:30am and was pleased to see sufficient spaces still available. I breathed a sigh of relief and got a decent schedule. Thank goodness.
Our first day on the North Island was frustrating day to say the least. What a rough welcome.
Thanks for keeping up with me :) I will write soon!