"God is good... Air Canada is not" - BD

So basically the journey so far…

Just some friends to see me off on my way at the very beginning!

Basically my parents were (and probably are still) worried that I would be super disorganized and lose everything. And as I was walking through security I almost left my laptop there as they were watching and then I dropped my suitcase and everything was everywhere, so I think they were really assured by seeing that. But I did in fact get to Calgary completely intact. I thought I might be on the same flight as Kelsey from Calgary but my flight left a few hours earlier and I got to Vancouver before Bryan and Kelsey (I actually found the gate with no help, how amazing). Joel, on the other hand had already been at the Vancouver airport for about 15 hours (crazyness). I didn’t know how to find Joel and told him the wrong time I was coming, so I just hung out for a couple hours till I ran into Joel. Then along came Bryan and eventually Kelsey, and then the four of us were altogether for the 15 ½ hour flight to Sydney, Australia. We couldn’t get this one guy to move so Bryan and Kelsey were separated from Joel and I by this one guy. He was actually a really nice guy… but he would not move to the window seat when we asked him? And what kind of person doesn’t want a window seat!

15 hours is a long time, but I actually didn’t find it that bad at all. Maybe Joel did though… he started making decorations out of the buns Kelsey, Bryan and I gave him. This one is a whale but you can't really see it.

The plane ride was really weird because it was like over 12 hours of darkness because of the direction we were flying it was constantly night. But eventually we did finally get to Australia!

At this point Joel had a way earlier flight direct to Christchurch (final destination) while Kelsey, Bryan and I had a 5 hour layover in Sydney.

At this point we’ve been travelling for 20 some hours. Kelsey, Bryan and I were separated from Joel right after the flight and we didn’t really know what to do or where to go exactly. And Bryan and Kelsey were too afraid to ask this one lady, she kind of scared us, so we just kind of followed everyone and had to wait in this super long line and fill out these customs papers for Australia. When we finally got to the front of the line the person working was like, “You guys know you don’t need to come through this way right?” Apparently we didn’t need to go through customs or pick any baggage up yet… I suppose waiting in really long lines when you don’t have to can be a great time? A nice Australian lady who was working down the hall showed us what to do and where to go and everything was good… until AUCKLAND.

P.S. Australia had no recycling bins in their airport. Kelsey and I were not impressed.

So we get to Auckland and we actually went in the right line this time through customs when we were supposed to. Our connection from Auckland to Christchurch was pretty quick we only had an hour or so to get our baggage and take this bus to the next terminal. So that was fine, but then baggage pickup came. Kelsey, Bryan and I got basically our entire luggage (like 13 pieces of stuff) except I am missing this one bag. So we wait so long going over all the suitcases again just scanning for this one piece of luggage right. So we realized that my luggage is definitely not there over time. We have to go to the end of the terminal and talk to this lady who tells me that one of my suitcases was sent directly through to Christchurch. Only one? It didn’t make sense at all. They randomly sent one of our bags (of course mine, the one with ALL my clothes in it) on a different flight to Christchurch. The lady tells me that my suitcase will be there when I get there. Ok so we got that figured out, but then we realize we have like 15 minutes till our flight leaves and the next bus to the terminal we need to be at comes in 13 minutes. So we decide to run instead of wait for the bus or we would miss our flight. We have to run so far, so fast with these carts carrying around 13 bags of luggage. It was madness. The first time we had been outside in 24 hours and we just had to book it as fast as possible. We finally get to this other terminal and we have only 5 minutes till our flight leaves, but this lady tells Kelsey she can’t bring her big hiking backpack as a carryon (even though she had for four other flights) and we have to weigh it and get tags and we really didn’t have time for that. Then we have to run to the opposite end of the airport like crazy. As we are running through the airport we have to speed through security, we are throwing things everywhere and pretty much going crazy and we are so tired from running outside. We continue to run to our gate and as we are trying to find it we hear “Final boarding call for Bartel, Custead and Darnell”. We reach these glass automatic doors and of course they don’t open until we slow down and completely stop in front of them. Amazingly enough we made the flight! On the flight we all just sat in the back dying because we were so tired and the flight attendants gave us a 2L bottle of water, they were sympathetic haha.

This is us on the back of the airplane after that crazy running.

We also had a very interesting safety video on that flight, Bryan pointed it out. Apparently it’s a new thing they are testing it out. In the video the flight attendants are completely naked but they look like they are wearing uniforms, but it is just painted on. It was so ridiculous I don’t think anyone else noticed at first but we were laughing so much. At the very end it said something like “from a company that has nothing to hide” and as the woman walks away you see everything from behind all painted. I don’t think it is a very effective video though because we were laughing so much we didn’t pay attention to any safety information… kind of defeats the purpose eh?

When we got to Christchurch we found out that my luggage was legitimately lost… all my clothes and a bunch of my toiletries which I need. I can’t live here without clothes or any of that stuff. So I didn’t know where it was and we had to talk to this guy for about an hour about where it might be and he really didn’t help much. We did find out though that the people had labeled one of my suitcases wrong and it came on the wrong flight somewhere, so totally the company’s fault. How do they lose just one of my suitcases, why would they label it differently? The airline is not the smartest. The lady in Auckland told me it would be waiting for me in Christchurch, but when I got to Christchurch the guy in Christchurch was like “Oh we actually have no idea where it is.” Lovely.

After that because we had to talk to this guy so long the part of the airport we were in was abandoned. We started walking around and we realized we were locked in. We couldn’t get out anywhere! Who gets locked in an airport? Apparently we do. Eventually this lady comes and opens up this door into this area with so many people; we were like oh there are still people here. Then one positive thing happened, we found recycling bins! Then we had to call a shuttle to our hotel and that took about 20 minutes to call and find out where we go but we got there. Driving on the other side of the road was so weird; it kept feeling like we were going to crash.

Kelsey and I locked in the airport.

We did get to our hotel and it was all good, the beds were so ridiculously comfy. We hadn’t seen much of New Zealand at this part only airports and hotels. We went to bed around 1:30 am NZ time, and then we had to go back to the airport again [BOO]. We had to wait for our shuttle there for about four hours. In the mean time I went to talk to someone about my luggage again, last night they said if they found it they would drop it off at the hotel, but they never did. I went and talked to this new guy and he’s like oh yeah it is in Vancouver. Well at least they found out where it is exactly. But I can’t believe I was all the way in New Zealand and it had not even left Canada yet. They told me they would drop if off at the school sometime tomorrow.

Then we decided to take a nap in the airport while we waited for the shuttle for the next four hours. When we were waiting for the shuttle we met this guy named Scott Brown who is a pastor who owns this sweet scenic campground he was telling us about. He drew us a map of places in NZ we should go if we get a chance. Next we took the shuttle to Orari and there were 6 of us who got off that bus going to the Crossing. Dale picked us up and we drove to the school. The landscape here is really quite beautiful.

The house we’re living at is an old bed and breakfast in the country, it’s really quaint and adorable, I love it so much. We had our first supper altogether at the house which was really nice, all the people I’m going to school here seem really sweet. Then after supper Joel, Robert and I were cleaning up, they had a HOBART machine and I was on pots and pans haha I felt like I was at camp. (Except cleaning up after 15 people took way less time, rather than cleaning up for 100). The house is just really old and antique and just gorgeous in general. I’m going to put a video up later of a tour of the house and grounds because we all decided photos can’t capture it. There are 15 people here in total 10 guys and 5 girls. All the girls are in a room together, and then there are 3 rooms of the guys and we all live upstairs. We just had some introduction stuff last night and all unpacked. My suitcase actually came at 9pm that night instead of tomorrow J that was nice!

This morning all the girls (Kelsey, Angela, Amber, Cameron and I) went for a run through the countryside at 7am. The landscape was so amazing and there were so many sheep everywhere haha. So far today we’ve taken a tour of Geraldine, went and saw Dales house and were given an overview of our semester. Right I just finished lunch and am hanging out with everyone in the main lounge. Soon I’m going into town to use the internet to put this blog up for you guys! The internet here at school doesn’t work that well so we have to go into Geraldine to use Skype and whatnot, but we can bike into town in like 10 minutes so it’s not bad at all! I shall keep you all updated. I love and miss you all.

Oh by the way it’s colder here than in Canada because their winter is just ending! It’s so cold in the house, because it’s only heated by fireplaces. But soon it’s going to get super hot so I can deal.