All the Way to Someplace Else (and back again).: Return to Aotearoa

Sometimes going all the way to someplace else and back again can take a lot of travel time. 40 hours in my case.

I got up at 3:00 a.m. on January 2, and took about a half an hour getting ready to leave for Philadelphia airport. Then we were off! And then we forgot my sister's medicine. We spent about twenty minutes going back to retrieve it. Now, by this time, I was really starting to get bored of sitting in the car. We finally got to the airport, where we said farewell to my dad who could not come on this trip.

We got on our first flight, a 4 hour United flight to Houston, Texas. There we had a 2 hour layover during which the group started to get to know each other I actually remembered some of the names that I learned! Then we got on our second flight, another 4 hour United flight, this time to Los Angeles, California. There we had another layover, this time it lasted 7 hours. I played some of the games that I had brought with me such as Tenzi, with the students. After what felt like the shortest 7 hours of my life, we caught a glimpse of our Air New Zealand plane, a massive Boeing 777-300.

This is the type of aircraft we flew over the Pacific on

On that aircraft, we would have a flight that would seem forever but really last 12 hours (still a long time). After dinner on the plane, I watched a movie and fell sound asleep.

When my mom woke me up, it was almost time for breakfast. Then I played a few games, and watched another movie that was pretty cool. By that time we were almost to Auckland so I eyeballed the digital map in front of me, being pretty excited about getting back to New Zealand. When we got to Auckland, we had a 4 hour layover during which we switched terminals after going through customs. The customs agent said, "Welcome back!" as she stamped my passport.

Finally, we got on my favorite flight, a 1.5 hour flight from the North Island to the South Island (or the Mainland as South Islanders like to say) over the Cook Strait and following the Southern Alps to the city of Christchurch. I love this flight because of how blue the water is. When we landed in Christchurch, some old friends were there to meet us along with our bus driver Robbie. Robbie has been driving University of Delaware students around New Zealand for many years.

Robbie took us on a tour of Lincoln, the little town where we are staying, after which we stopped and had lunch. Then we got back on the bus and Robbie gave us another tour, this time of the lookout over Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains and of Lyttleton, a port town that is on the other side of the Port Hills from Christchurch. Afterwards, we all went shopping, unpacked bags, and turned in for the night.

Welcome to my someplace else, Aotearoa!