Gayle and Ruben's Kiwi Blog: Good-bye New Zealand, bula Fiji

4 March 2018

Knowing we had a 0600 flight out of Christchurch Airport Sunday morning, we spent Saturday night at the Sudima Airport Hotel. Waikari Health Centre Practice Manager Wendy Allen had her daughter who lives in Chch drop her at the hotel to bring the Dream Machine back to Waikari. We were happy to have a few last minutes with Wendy, who made our time in Waikari a delight. She has a great team at WHC that R very quickly came to respect and appreciate. And he fit right in.

Packing up the "sub a roo" with household items to go back to storage.

Last look at Rocking Frog Cottage.

Last look at downtown Waikari from the cottage.

Sudima Airport Hotel has everything R loves in a hotel: climate control, cable TV with movie channels, and a comfy bed with big pillows and crisp white sheets. We didn't have too long to appreciate those amenities since we needed to leave the hotel at 4:30 am to catch that flight. We had a final, awesome meal at Burger Fuel. That place is great and would take off like a brush fire in Colorado.

Chch Airport at 0445 is bananas. Not what we expected based on most of our NZ experiences. One of the things we look forward to upon our return to the US is innately knowing how the culture works. It's something everyone takes for granted in his or her homeland, but the truth is that etiquette and protocols are subtly different in ways that are hard to describe and can be extremely frustrating in environments like airports when all are a little stressed and sleep deprived.

We made it onto our flight to Auckland and when we arrived there we had a 2-hour layover before our international flight to Fiji. We don't love Auckland Airport. Soon enough we were en route to Fiji! That flight was comfortable and we both caught some Zzs. And watched Big Bang Theory. We don't know what season is on currently, but we feel ready to jump back in when we arrive in Colorado March 11. But first, Fiji!