The time has come for the New Zealand trip and the timing is bittersweet with the recent lost of my maternal grandmother. My mom and I hope her spirit joins us as we embark on this very long trip. With the government shutdown literally just ending I was a bit nervous about delays/cancellations but we were fortunate. My mom flew up on the 1st flight out from Greensboro, NC to DCA and had a few hours to rest before we headed back to the airport.

We flew from DCA to LAX and had about a 3½ hour layover there which ended up being a bit longer because our direct flight to Auckland was delayed by 2 hours due to a mechanical issue with the bathrooms. A little before midnight on Thursday California time, we boarded and were off on our 13 hour flight. I slept about a good 8 hours while on the plane and when awake watched movies, listened to music and ate airplane food (which wasn’t bad).

Finally after arriving in Auckland going through passport control was a breeze and so was getting our baggage. I’d arranged for a driver to take us to our hotel and after going to the ATM to get some NZ cash we met up with our driver Mohammed and he took us to Takapuna where our hotel is. Check-in was smooth and luckily we were able to check-in  bit earlier. I had put in a request for a suite with a balcony city view and the view is indeed pretty from the room.

The room included 2 queen beds, a kitchenette area, and a balcony. We took a moment to rest and then prepared to go to a wine festival I booked for us. Thankfully the bus stop is just across the street from us and taking the bus is simple but one thing we learned is that to pay you tap upon entering the bus and leaving too. We had to get off and transfer to another bus which was easy. We arrived at our destination with no problems.

The South Natural Wine Festival I found out about on Eventbrite and thought it’d be a nice introduction to Auckland. My mom and I went around and tasted different wines (many with unique flavors) until we needed to take a break and get some food. We ordered some burgers and fries while having some water to coat our stomachs with. Afterwards we went in for round 2 which was short lived but I did buy a bottle as a souvenir for someone.

Next we wanted to find some food nearby that we could take back to the hotel. Thankfully there was an Indian place nearby that had good reviews on their lamb so we walked there (Mohammed told us to try beef, lamb and fish while we are here). Once our food was ready (we got a fish appetizer as well) we went to a nearby store to get some drinks to take back to the hotel and proceeded down the street to catch the bus.

By now the sun was out and the rainy day looked like that of the past. We basically took the reverse route of coming back to the hotel. Once there we both agreed we needed to lay down for a moment and I fell asleep fairly quickly and my mom wasn’t that far behind. We ended up getting up around 11pm, got ready for bed and then ate some food (the lamb was good). I looked up and mapped out our activities for tomorrow and we called it a night.