No homo. Literally the worst travel experience of my life.
It all started innocently enough at Sea-Tac airport. I brought mini-shots for my flight and had 2 hours to kill at the bar before I left. I tossed a couple beers back, blogged and hopped on my plane at the last minute. I reserved an aisle seat and was sitting next to an attractive young asian girl. Yes! This is going to be a great start to the trip. I tried sparking up a conversation...
Me: "Hey, do you know if the plane has internet?"
Her: "No Engrish"
Just my luck. So my dreams of becoming heir to an Asian throne is crushed.
Once we are on the runway I pop on the Dre Beats (best investment of the trip thus far) put on my world famous sleep mix playlist and passed out. I didn't wake up until the end of the flight. I slept for a solid hour and a half on the way down to LAX. Not too bad of a start...
I had a 3 hour lay-over at LAX because my plane arrived over a half-hour early. I hit the bar once again for a couple drinks. We board the flight and I am sitting next to a couple that is heading down to New Zealand for a Dragon Boat Race. My curiosity gets to me and I ask what a Dragon Boat is... turns out it is a boat that is shaped like a Dragon haha
The plane is huge and they serve us dinner a couple hours in with one free alcoholic drink. As I drink my Whiskey Seven and eat my vegitarian ravioli I am read to fall asleep. I down two more shots and then pop a melatonin (over the counter sleep pill) and sleep the plane ride away. Melatonin is NOT Ambien!! I fell asleep for an hour and then woke up feeling like crap and couldn't fall back asleep. I am 3 hours into a 14 hour flight... awesome. I would tell you what happened the next 11 hours but it was a combination of trips to the bathroom, drinking water, and watching a couple movies.
We finally land in Australia at 5:30 AM and my flight doesn't leave until 9 and I cannot leave the terminal. Then we it's finally time to board we are told it's going to be late 15 minutes but didn't actually get on the plane until 2 hours later. Once we finally leave I am sitting on a window seat and actually had no one sitting in the middle seat. The lady sitting in the aisle didn't speak English because she was French which was coo because I didn't want to talk to her anyways. The flight is about 3 hours and then we arrive in NZ. I'm finally here! Just got to clear customs and then meet my host that is waiting for me.
Some sweet photos I took from the plane as we were coming in for landing
I'm making my way through customs and finally arrive at the agent. They ask what I'm doing in NZ and I explain that I am teaching at a school. Then it's a whole process of trying to figure out what type of visa I need. I try and explain that I don't need a visa (because I've researched the crap out of that I don't actually need one). After 20 minutes of explaining to the customs agent that I don't need a visa she asks for my return ticket.... I don't have it on me.
I get pulled off to the side by an immigration officer, taken into a back room and questioned again about my stay in NZ. Explain again that I don't need a visa. Then he tells me that I need a return ticket. I don't have the information on me but I can pull up my email and show him but of course I cannot access the internet while being investigated. Awesome. I have to call the airline and ask for my return flight number, while I'm on the phone Virgin Australia figuring out my predicament the V Australia is trying to sell me a credit card for frequent fliers... WTF!?
I finally clear immigration and luckily my host is still waiting for me even though I'm over 3 hours late. She is so sweet and takes me to her car to drop me off at my host families place. All said and done it was over 32 hours of travel with no more than 4 hours of sleep during the whole flight. UGH!! Thank god I don't have to do that flight again for another 3 months.
