We left SFO at 9:45 pm on Friday April 1, 2011 and after a 19 hour time difference and crossing the International Date Line, Corey and I arrived in Auckland about 13 hours later on Sunday April 3, 2011! The flight was great- so nice to fly a non-US airlines- we were served not just one, but TWO hot meals on our flight, dinner (I had the chicken and potatoes and Corey had lasagna) and breakfast (we both had the cheese omelet). There was even complimentary wine to go with your dinner, which we did not partake in.
Each seat had its own video console, and loads of recent movies and TV shows to watch as you please. We coordinated our movie-watching so as to not cause chaos with our Netflix queue- and we both watched The King's Speech before drifting off to sleep (me more so than Corey). Because we both fight over having to sit in the middle seat, we have now given up on the romance and I chose a window seat and Corey the aisle, and luckily no one sat in between us, so we had the whole row to ourselves!
We drowsily de-planed,stepped through the welcome arch (see picture) went through passport control (a new stamp!), picked up our luggage, and went through biosecurity (New Zealand's agriculture control). We headed straight to an ATM and to the airport's i-site (tourism information sites run by the New Zealand government) in order to book tickets for the bus to downtown Auckland. We had read about the free showers in the Auckland airport in one of our tourguides, and thinking that we wouldn't be able to shower for at least another 8 hours, we took free hot showers next to the i-site, using camp towels that we borrowed from my sister Cheryl and her husband Mike. Little did we know, but we were supposed to sign up at the i-site first...whoops! After some persistent banging on our doors, we hastily got dressed and left straight for the bus stop.
Auckland here we come!
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