Leaving New Zealand

My flight to LAX leaves today! Wow, it seems like time flew by and I feel like I just boarded my plane to New Zealand yesterday!

My bags were all pretty much packed (from last night).
I ate breakfast with Camilla (who had to go to class at 8am) and then I checked my email and called my mom ( "see you soon :)" )

I also met up with my roommates before I left, and said "bye" to some other friends at The Railway Campus.

Luckily, I could leave my bags at the reception, so I was free to stroll downtown Auckland and find some lunch.

I walked down to the waterfront one last time, and got a burrito at a Mexican restaurant for lunch. I actually just picked the place because they had chairs outside on a deck overlooking the harbour. But as soon as I made a move to take a first bite out of my burrito, something small collided with my hands. As it turns out, little birds also fancy Mexican food, and quite a few of them were brave enough to try to pick my food off the plate.
I finished my meal inside (still a nice view through the window).

Afterwards, I wandered around some more and then returned to The Railway Campus for my bags.

I planned to take the Airbus to the airport again (I took it before, when I went to Christchurch, and it worked out well).
The Airbus just recently changed its route, and there is now a stop that is even closer to The Railway Campus. Somehow, over night, my bags became about 20 lbs heavier... so I was quite glad about the new stop ;)

We arrived at the airport about 45 minutes later. I checked in my bags immediately because I really didn't feel like carrying them.
Since I got to the check-in early (yeah, about 3.5 hrs early!) I was able to change my seating arrangement - my old seat was at the very back of the plane.
Also, with some clever rearranging and repacking, I managed to stay just below the limit of 40 kg (for checked-in luggage) and 7 kg (carry-on).

Relieved of my bags, I had to make one final mandatory stop to pay the "Departure Fee."
As it turns out, everyone leaving New Zealand needs to pay a 25 NZD fee. I'm not quite sure where the money goes (hopefully to some good cause, but I doubt it...).
My friends had warned me about the fee, so I had saved some cash earlier this morning. Instead of a paper receipt, I got a nice little sticker on my boarding pass.

Since I had gotten to the airport rather early, I had a lot of extra time to kill. I strolled through the shops, bought some "last" New Zealand chocolate with left-over coins and played with my laptop :)

At 6:30, I went to the gate, and we got to board the plane around 7pm.
This time, I sat in the middle row in the plane, but the seat next to me was empty :)

As this was an overnight flight, the flight attendants pretty much served dinner and then shut off the lights - "bedtime, everyone" *lol*

To my utter disappointment, they did not show the new Simpson's movie. Instead, I watched "Blades of Glory" (what a silly movie, but funny, too) and "Becoming Jane" (almost boring).
I also slept a little, but not as much as on the flight to NZ - not enough space to stretch out this time :)

The lights magically turned on again, we got breakfast, and before we knew it, we could see L.A. underneath us! As it turned out, the flight was only 12 hours long (when I flew the other way, it took us 14 hours - probably because of the winds).

We got to L.A. on time, but they didn't have a gate ready for us! So we hung out on the runway a little longer (only about 20 minutes, but you could tell that everyone was anxious to get off the plane now).
Getting through the passport controls was quick (*yay* for the green card) and literally 10 minutes later, I was waiting at the baggage claim area.

However, there was no baggage to be claimed...! Apparently, the crew had problems unloading the containers from the plane. About 20 minutes later, some bags slowly came trickling in. However, half of the baggage carousel wasn't working! So they divided the bags between two baggage carousels...

I got so far already today that I didn't care about things like that anymore :) However, I realized how very useful an embarrassing bag can be (did I mention that I bought a bigger bag a few days ago? Well, the right-size bag came in the wrong color... bright pink... think "Barbie's Dream House" here *haha*).

Anyways - it was very easy to pick out my baggage because of the pink bag :)

One final security-officer-squinting-at-my-passport later, and I was out the door and smack in the middle of California temperatures and L.A. smog!

I took the FlyAway bus to the Union Station. By now, I had missed my train (too many delays at the airport) so I booked a new ticket for the later train.

The train ride took about three hours, and I got to San Diego at 7pm.
My journey took about 21 hours.
Now I'm exhausted... I want a shower.