Arrival

December 22, 2010

I arrived this afternoon in New Zealand.  Somehow I left on Sunday night and arrived Tuesday afternoon and there was no Monday.  but I've been told I'll have a double long Monday when I return to the USA in January.  Such is the International Dateline.

That was confusing my airline reservations.  My ticket showed me leaving at 10:45 pm Sunday night and arriving 14 hours later in Sydney at 8:45 am. What it didn't tell me is that there was no Monday and that 8:45 am was really Tuesday. In booking my 10:00 am flight from Sydney to New Zealand for Tuesday I thought I had an overnight in Sydney.  But in fact, I had one hour.  Ooops.

Did I tell you that the angels do double time when they have to cover me? Since my ticketing was on two separate bookings my bags were checked only through to Sydney.  Then I was supposed to go through passport control, recoup my bags, go through Australian customs, check in at the arrival desk for Air New Zealand, reenter security control and wend my way to the gate.  It wasn't going to happen. So angels were a definite must.

The first one was standing at the entry to the international transit terminal.  She suggested I go directly to the gate, stopping at Air New Zealand to see if they could help me.  So I headed through the security check sans bags, was directed to the International Transit Desk and saw the huge long line.  A nice gentleman was directing traffic and suggested that I try using the phone on the wall to contact Delta and see if they could transfer my bags directly.  Voila! The nice lady on the other end of the phone took my baggage information and arranged for the transfer. I rushed to the gate and was told that they would closing the flight within minutes.  The nice angel at the gate said she'd help me.  However, I didn't have my New Zealand entrance visa which required info on my flight reservation out of New Zealand back home.  I didn't have it (I had only printed off the arrival in New Zealand portion); she couldn't pull it out of the system and time was short. So she booked me in, sent me running upstairs to the New Zealand Lounge to see Susan; she called Susan who in the meantime looked it up in the system and printed it off; I picked up the info, filled in the form back at the gate and loading began.  I made the flight!!

My bags didn't.  But then I didn't expect them to. After all there was only an hour transit time; they had to unload all the bags from the huge plane; find my bags based only on the numbers, then get them over to Air New Zealand.  It wasn't going to happen.

Here in Queenstown they were very helpful in beginning the search for my bags.  Hopefully they will show up tomorrow.

It took a while to get all that taken care of and clear customs. But Norman was waiting patiently for me and drove me home just in time for a quick tour a shower and a nap.  Tomorrow I get to explore Queenstown a bit.