I’m always impatient to get off a plane once I’ve landed, but Mason and Katie set a new standard for that. Once the plane has gotten to the gate, it’s nonstop, “When is it going to be our turn’ until the line actually moves.
The first stop is getting through customs, where we had to show our passports. I was very relieved when I saw they had a line for children and people in wheelchairs—I like New Zealand already. Katie decided to pass the time while we had our passports checked climbing on the front of the desk where the customs guy sat (it was elevated a foot or so higher than a normal desk). She would hold on to the edge and try to pull herself up, using her feet to boost her. The customs agent asked for proof of our exiting flight, and while I was looking for it, Katie slipped and bumped her face, landing in a bloody heap on the floor. Make that a really LOUD bloody heap, because she started wailing so loud the entire customs area started staring at her.
My first thought was that if any of her teeth are broken, I was going to be really mad at her since we didn’t come to New Zealand to check out their dental services. So although I was interested in whether she was in pain or not, I will say that the first thing I did was check for the teeth. Luckily with as forcefully as she was crying, I had no problem seeing her teeth. After assuring myself that we would not be leaving New Zealand with less teeth than we had come, I took her to a nearby bathroom to try to get her cleaned up. She had cut her lip and was bleeding pretty badly. For Katie, the one and only solution to blood is a Band-Aid. Unfortunately, the inside of a person’s lip isn’t exactly the easiest place to put a band-aid. Even more unfortunately, Katie wouldn’t get it into her head that she would survive without one.
What followed was a solid half an hour of moaning and wailing. At first I would meet peoples’ stares with a polite smile to say that everything was under control, but after a while I gave up and just let her go for it. Who cares—I’ll never see these people again anyway. After gathering up our luggage and getting through the rest of customs, we found a phone to call for our car.
The man who ran the car rental agency was great, and gave us all the help we needed to get to our destination about 3 hours south of Auckland. Unfortunately, he was unable to rewire our brains for driving on the other side of the road. It would be hard to drive on the left hand side no matter what, but add in that we were working on about 4 combined hours of sleep over the past 36 hours, and have us driving in a place we don’t know with three tired kids complaining in the back seat and you would think it would be a recipe for disaster.
We managed to navigate to a shopping center to grab some lunch, and got out onto the road to go south. The New Zealand government must have known the state I would be in as I drove to Rotorua since there were no less than 15 signs I passed warning of the dangers of driving while you’re tired. “Driving Drunk, Driving tired—No Difference!” “Power naps save lives!” “20% of all accidents are caused by driver fatigue” Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no way I was stopping until I got to my destination.
A friend of mine, after hearing I had chosen Rotorua as our destination, warned us that it did have a pretty strong smell due to the thermal activity in the area. After we finally found the place we were staying, we discovered that she wasn’t pulling our leg. It was like you ran into a wall of rotten-egg sulfur smell whenever you got close to the geyser/hot springs. The place we were staying was called “Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park.” I think they could have chosen a better name like “Smells Like Crap Holiday Park.”
We all got out to go to the check-in place, which doubled as a small convenience store for those staying in the park. While I talked with the pleasant woman at the desk, Mason and Katie provided background commentary like, “It smells like poopy diapers!” and “I wish my nose was broken so I wouldn’t have to smell this.” They pulled their shirts up over their heads and pretended to gag. I apologized for what they were saying (although I was in agreement with them), and she said that she can’t even smell anything. She wasn’t missing out.
The reason I went for the accommodations I did was because it was really hard finding a place that allowed 3 children plus 2 adults in one room. The place I got was kind of like a cabin, which I thought would be great because there was a separate sleeping and eating area. I also had visions of just buying groceries and making some of the meals at home (that sure didn’t pan out). Overall, it wasn’t a bad set up, if you could get used to the smell.
We got there about 4:00 pm, and all we had energy for was to find a place to eat. We followed signs to the city center, and got out and started walking around. It’s harder than you’d think to find a place that is fast enough to get food to our children before they go berserk, but yet has food that you actually want to eat. Plus they were tired and hungry, and were letting us know. As people were passing us, I could tell they were thinking, “Man, I wish I had three kids with me to haul around this dream destination! Some people have all the luck!”
We eventually settled on a kebab place, which was our staple when we went to England. They had a plate of fettucine with tomato and meat sauce on the outside of the restaurant, which we thought would be great for our kids. I got some lentil soup and tabouleh (I’m not sure how that’s spelled), which felt pretty healthy compared to my previous five meals.
When Ryan brought the pasta out, Mason and Katie started eating it, but said it tasted strange. I tried it, and although I agreed with them, I made them eat it anyway. It turns out that when Ryan was ordering it, they had just put the meat on the pasta. Ryan said he wanted the tomato sauce on it as well, and they were more than happy to oblige. Before he could say anything, Ryan found out what “tomato sauce” was: ketchup. They put a nice generous helping of it all over the pasta. Generally Mason and Katie love anything with ketchup on it, but I had to agree that pasta was not so great with it. Luckily for us, the gelato we had afterwards was on point.
After finishing our dinner and dessert, we were all much happier and went home to our little cabin with a little less complaining. Once inside, it actually was fine and the kids loved the bunkbeds. For Andrew, we turned a couch around so it faced the wall and became a sort of padded cage for him. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job. We all slept until about 5:30 the next morning (the kids were in bed by 8:00 and Ryan and I crashed by 9:00), which was about as successful as I could hope for.
I'm now two days behind on blogging, but since my wake-up call at 5 a.m. is already going to be brutal, days 2 and 3 in New Zealand will have to wait until we get to Australia. I can't wait!
The first stop is getting through customs, where we had to show our passports. I was very relieved when I saw they had a line for children and people in wheelchairs—I like New Zealand already. Katie decided to pass the time while we had our passports checked climbing on the front of the desk where the customs guy sat (it was elevated a foot or so higher than a normal desk). She would hold on to the edge and try to pull herself up, using her feet to boost her. The customs agent asked for proof of our exiting flight, and while I was looking for it, Katie slipped and bumped her face, landing in a bloody heap on the floor. Make that a really LOUD bloody heap, because she started wailing so loud the entire customs area started staring at her.
My first thought was that if any of her teeth are broken, I was going to be really mad at her since we didn’t come to New Zealand to check out their dental services. So although I was interested in whether she was in pain or not, I will say that the first thing I did was check for the teeth. Luckily with as forcefully as she was crying, I had no problem seeing her teeth. After assuring myself that we would not be leaving New Zealand with less teeth than we had come, I took her to a nearby bathroom to try to get her cleaned up. She had cut her lip and was bleeding pretty badly. For Katie, the one and only solution to blood is a Band-Aid. Unfortunately, the inside of a person’s lip isn’t exactly the easiest place to put a band-aid. Even more unfortunately, Katie wouldn’t get it into her head that she would survive without one.
What followed was a solid half an hour of moaning and wailing. At first I would meet peoples’ stares with a polite smile to say that everything was under control, but after a while I gave up and just let her go for it. Who cares—I’ll never see these people again anyway. After gathering up our luggage and getting through the rest of customs, we found a phone to call for our car.
The man who ran the car rental agency was great, and gave us all the help we needed to get to our destination about 3 hours south of Auckland. Unfortunately, he was unable to rewire our brains for driving on the other side of the road. It would be hard to drive on the left hand side no matter what, but add in that we were working on about 4 combined hours of sleep over the past 36 hours, and have us driving in a place we don’t know with three tired kids complaining in the back seat and you would think it would be a recipe for disaster.
We managed to navigate to a shopping center to grab some lunch, and got out onto the road to go south. The New Zealand government must have known the state I would be in as I drove to Rotorua since there were no less than 15 signs I passed warning of the dangers of driving while you’re tired. “Driving Drunk, Driving tired—No Difference!” “Power naps save lives!” “20% of all accidents are caused by driver fatigue” Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no way I was stopping until I got to my destination.
A friend of mine, after hearing I had chosen Rotorua as our destination, warned us that it did have a pretty strong smell due to the thermal activity in the area. After we finally found the place we were staying, we discovered that she wasn’t pulling our leg. It was like you ran into a wall of rotten-egg sulfur smell whenever you got close to the geyser/hot springs. The place we were staying was called “Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park.” I think they could have chosen a better name like “Smells Like Crap Holiday Park.”
We all got out to go to the check-in place, which doubled as a small convenience store for those staying in the park. While I talked with the pleasant woman at the desk, Mason and Katie provided background commentary like, “It smells like poopy diapers!” and “I wish my nose was broken so I wouldn’t have to smell this.” They pulled their shirts up over their heads and pretended to gag. I apologized for what they were saying (although I was in agreement with them), and she said that she can’t even smell anything. She wasn’t missing out.
The reason I went for the accommodations I did was because it was really hard finding a place that allowed 3 children plus 2 adults in one room. The place I got was kind of like a cabin, which I thought would be great because there was a separate sleeping and eating area. I also had visions of just buying groceries and making some of the meals at home (that sure didn’t pan out). Overall, it wasn’t a bad set up, if you could get used to the smell.
We got there about 4:00 pm, and all we had energy for was to find a place to eat. We followed signs to the city center, and got out and started walking around. It’s harder than you’d think to find a place that is fast enough to get food to our children before they go berserk, but yet has food that you actually want to eat. Plus they were tired and hungry, and were letting us know. As people were passing us, I could tell they were thinking, “Man, I wish I had three kids with me to haul around this dream destination! Some people have all the luck!”
We eventually settled on a kebab place, which was our staple when we went to England. They had a plate of fettucine with tomato and meat sauce on the outside of the restaurant, which we thought would be great for our kids. I got some lentil soup and tabouleh (I’m not sure how that’s spelled), which felt pretty healthy compared to my previous five meals.
When Ryan brought the pasta out, Mason and Katie started eating it, but said it tasted strange. I tried it, and although I agreed with them, I made them eat it anyway. It turns out that when Ryan was ordering it, they had just put the meat on the pasta. Ryan said he wanted the tomato sauce on it as well, and they were more than happy to oblige. Before he could say anything, Ryan found out what “tomato sauce” was: ketchup. They put a nice generous helping of it all over the pasta. Generally Mason and Katie love anything with ketchup on it, but I had to agree that pasta was not so great with it. Luckily for us, the gelato we had afterwards was on point.
After finishing our dinner and dessert, we were all much happier and went home to our little cabin with a little less complaining. Once inside, it actually was fine and the kids loved the bunkbeds. For Andrew, we turned a couch around so it faced the wall and became a sort of padded cage for him. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job. We all slept until about 5:30 the next morning (the kids were in bed by 8:00 and Ryan and I crashed by 9:00), which was about as successful as I could hope for.
I'm now two days behind on blogging, but since my wake-up call at 5 a.m. is already going to be brutal, days 2 and 3 in New Zealand will have to wait until we get to Australia. I can't wait!
2 comments:
1. The picture of Andrew asleep on the plane is priceless.
2. It's too bad Katie didn't break her nose instead of her lip when she fell off that desk.
3. I'm excited to hear about the fun stuff in New Zealand (not as excited as you are to start DOING the fun stuff, I'm sure)
4. I've decided I should have been praying for your trip to be as painless as possible the past couple days. Sorry, I'll get on that.
You are so making me look forward to our little jaunt. Aaaahhhhhh!
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