Getting to New Zealand, the Long Way

We (me and Adela) have been on vacation for two days now, I think. It’s a little tough because we left on Wednesday morning and crossed the international date line so three days have passed already. I’m not sure if that counts as three days of vacation or not though. We woke up nice and early (I think I woke up every hour because I was so excited) and got some latte’s from the coffee shop below me in the building. We took an uber to the train station and then got on the very pleasant three-ish hour train ride to New York City. Our uber driver from Penn Station to our hotel was a little bitter about the road construction in the city, apparently they do construction on both sides of the street and change four lane roads to one lane roads. Sounds reasonable.

Our hotel wasn’t ready for us to check in four hours early so we made our first stop of the trip at a Mexican restaurant for some tacos, a margarita and a beer. Definitely needed at 11:30. We then walked down to Battery Park because I had booked us some crown-access tickets to the Statue of Liberty and had no idea how to pick them up or what the protocol was. The line for people who didn’t have a reservation for the boat was about two hours long! It was crazy. We got on the ferry about 30 minutes after we got our tickets (and fashionable pink wrist bands). We both decided that staying inside was better than being outside because it was still a little chilly. After we got to the statue we got some free audio tours, but the numbers they told us to press were for Ellis Island so it was a little confusing at first. After storing our semi-confusing audio tours and Adela’s bag in the 25 cent lockers we began the 397 step journey up to the top! They only let a limited number of people up so I had booked the tickets back in December when I knew which days we were coming. I don’t think they cost that much more, you just have to plan ahead.

The inside of the crown was way tinier than we anticipated! It definitely did not look like X-Men at all. I snagged some pictures looking out from the windows and the park ranger took my camera and snagged some really cool pictures of the torch. I was a little scared for my camera but it turned out well. The tricky part of climbing up to the crown is that you then have to climb back down. The staircase is a double helix so you don’t have to worry about running into other people, but it was still a little wonky. At the base we got some snacks and took some more pictures. It was really hard to get a selfie with the whole statue in the background! We settled for like 80% of it.

Next was nap time at the hotel after walking by Bowling Green to see the bull. After nap time we got some pizza, which was very tasty. I really have no clue if it was authentic New York style pizza or whatever, but it tasted good. We spent a little bit of time walking around the 9/11 Memorial and then turned in for an early bed time. Which was only interrupted three times by random people calling our room. In the morning we snagged some free breakfast and chartered a Lyft to take us to the airport. I know the subway would be cheaper, but this was really easy and comfortable and just as fast. At the airport we checked in and the nice check-in person moved our seats on the second flight so that we could sit next to each other! We made our way to the Swiss lounge (which says it closes at 12:30, but they didn’t kick anyone out) and relaxed until boarding began for our flight.

Our seats were at the back of the front cabin on the upper level. I think the storms that were raging caused a slight flight detour which shaved an hour off the flight time. But did mean at the end we had to fly around North Korea. The seats were comfortable enough to sit in for 14 hours and all of the flight attendants were super nice. Adela got the beef tenderloin for dinner and I got the traditional Korean dish. Mine was really good but I forgot to mix the sesame oil in for half of it. Adela’s looked amazing. I spent most of the flight reading and we only ordered one in-flight ramen, which was delicious! We didn’t sleep too much on this flight which was a good idea because we needed to get some serious sleep on the next one.

The Seoul airport was pretty cool, if you have a long layover you can do a free tour of Korea! Ours was only two hours though so we just went to the lounge after going through security. The toilets in the lounge were really fancy, perhaps a little bit too fancy because the flush button was hard to find. After window shopping for a little bit we got onto our next flight where we promptly slept for six hours. Which was a great idea again! Breakfast on this flight was kinda eh, but still tasty. We landed in Sydney and made our way to the extra crowded American Express lounge where we navigated the somewhat confrontational process of signing up for a shower. Best idea! Our next flight was on Air New Zealand which was fantastic! We landed in Auckland and took the SkyBus downtown our hotel. After checking in we met Todd and Katy… at the Mexican Cafe. Adela was a little concerned with the naming of the establishment because whats a Mexican Cafe??? After getting a margarita we split off from Todd and Katy and had dinner at Orbit 360 in the Auckland Skytower. The restaurant rotates 360 degrees every hour so we got a panoramic view of the city. It was pretty disorienting at first but we got used to it after a little while.