Kiwi Roads: Leaving on a Jetplane/Welcome to the Land of the Long White Cloud

I made it! …and mostly in one piece. My intentions were to post from the LAX airport during my lay over, but once again the dreaded airport lived up to its reputation (Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the endless list of things that went wrong here). I got off from Philly without a hitch, and after being dragged through my personal hell in LA, finally made it onto the flight to NZ around 2:30 am West Coast time (5:30 am on the East Coast). However, my luck finally started to turn back around almost as soon as we took off. The woman sitting next to me bolted out of her seat as soon as the seatbelt signs went off. I thought she just desperately had to use the restroom so it took me awhile to realize through all my delirium that she had taken all her belongings with her too – score! Almost cried with happiness that I had the two seats to myself to spread out and get at least some decent sleep during the 13.5-hour flight. So after 33 hours of travel I’ve made it to Hamilton and my new flat. Met two of my new flat mates today (the third is out of town for the weekend) and have just managed to put something in my stomach, take a shower, and crawl into bed before posting this. Anyways the last week at home flew by, and again I have a million thank yous to write! I’ve attached some pics from all the great send offs. Seriously can’t thank you all enough – almost made me want to not leave ;)