Arrival Day

The flight left Los Angeles, California at 8:00 PM on Thursday, January 5th. We flew for 13.5 hours and then transferred to another flight which took another two hours. We arrived in the capital of New Zealand at 8:15 AM on Saturday, January 7th. Considering a travel time of 16 hours, the missing 20 hours is due to the internationl dateline. When we arrived in Wellington, it was 2:15 PM on Friday, January 6th in Atlanta. For me, Friday, January 6th, was only 4 hours long.

Saturday proves to be a tough long day due to the little sleep on the plane coupled with the adrenaline of being in this part of the world and having to stay up so many hours straight. We arrive at the Weir House, which is on the campus of Victoria University. The Weir House is often where international students stay when they visit the country. I have my own private bedroom and everyone on the hall shares a community bath. There are two showers and two toilets for eleven people on my section of the hall. My room looks like this from the window.

When we arrive at the Weir House via bus from the airport, we gather in the dining hall. Keys for the bedroom doors and swipe cards for the exterior doors are given out. A number of people are starving and decide to immediately go for food in town since lunch isn't for 3.5 hours. I stay behind and unpack. When the lunch crew returns, only a short time later, they are yelling and excited about the tons of liquor and alcohol they bought. Everyone under 21 is going quite crazy. Many bottles of alcohol and cases of beer are placed in the community fridges (since we don't have fridges in our room).

I am writing this on Tuesday and I have already forgotten some of the stuff I did Saturday through Tuesday. In future entries, I'll break up the bits and pieces of interesting things.