Monday morning begins with a start at 7:00am. My alarm rings familiarly in my ear and Claire thumbs at my phone to turn it off. It’s taking her ages and the alarm rings louder and louder, agitating us both. Eventually the alarm is off and thus begins the next part of day one.
In the car and we’re driving along. Claire and I are being driven 3, hours to catch a 3 hour train, to catch a 3 hour plane. It’s 8:00am, I am in the car with my brother, his girlfriend, my mother, her dog (yes, believe it) and Claire. Why half of my family had to come I do not know, probably to add to the drama of this trip.
The next point of interest is the shitty McDonald’s service. 20 minutes to get some McMuffin’s and some coffee and to almost lose my patience at the daft 16 year old standing behind the espresso machine. We’re back on the road and by my calculations we’re going to make it with about 4 minutes to spare. If we’re lucky. I rarely am.
47 kilometers to go, every single person in the car except Claire and I needs to go to the bathroom and the car needs fuel. We’re stopped, fueling up, going to the bathroom and by my calculations we can no longer make it on time. We’re late, there is no catching up and our holiday is ruined.
Like hell.
I get behind the wheel and we cruise at maximum optimum speed and make it with about 2 minutes to spare. I’ve been stressing so much I feel sick to my stomach and I am dry heaving. I cannot believe we’ve made it. Claire and I spend a few minutes catching our breath and hugging and then spend the rest of the time watching Family Guy on my Mac.
Not much worth mentioning until we get to New Zealand and going through customs. I walk to the counter for Customs and hand over my passport, visitor slip and ticket. The lady looks at them for perhaps 0.4 seconds, punches a few keys and throws it to me. I walk a few steps and hear the guy taking Claire’s passport barely.
Guy: “What do you do for a living?” (As if it’s not on the card she gave him)
Claire: “Uhm, a student!”
Guy: “Cool… What are you studying?”
Claire: “Arts…?”
Guy: “Cool… Here on business or pleasure?”
I come to the sudden realisation that the customs dude is hitting on my girlfriend. Blatantly. And I couldn’t even make the old, rather unattractive lady who took my passport even look at me. It suddenly becomes abundantly clear who ‘has it’ and who doesn’t. I concede defeat and accept my trophy and take Claire’s hand. He might have a fancy customs counter, but I have Claire. Great success!
Claire and I wander from the airport and jump in a cab. Turns out that the taxi driver has a daughter living in Australia and loves the country. He gives us a few tips on being in New Zealand, drops us at our (cheap) accomodation and we drop our bags off.
Holy crap, Christchurch is just beautiful. The city is amazing and Claire and I spend about an hour wandering the streets and admiring. It’s the middle of the night, the streets are empty and it qualifies as possibly the most romantic setting ever. We wander, talk like we haven’t talked in weeks, wander home and fall asleep in each others arms.
