Back to the beginning

The day before I left for New Zealand I was thinking back in my life to my old friends and classmates from high school. It had been about 8 years, nearly a decade, since I finished high school. It felt like a lifetime ago but never the less I felt the urge to talk to them all again once last time in case I decided to stay in Kiwi land. I texted them all and told them to meet up on the waterfront. My friend Bill was the first to greet me by pretending to shank me. We went up to the roof deck of Legal and order a few drinks then met up with Matt. I hadn't seen Matt in a year or 2 and hadn't had a real conversation with him since high school so we caught up and I started to remember our old friendship bond and how alike our thinking was. Steve came a little later with his girlfriend who thankfully took a group pic for us.

 I took off my shirt to show my american pride one last time before I left the country. I was kind of bummed that I was going to miss one of my favorite holidays: the Forth of July but I was definitely going to celebrate it to the fullest extend in New Zealand. I was also bummed that my good friend Tim had promised to show up and drink with us but backed out because he's an idiot and makes promises he can't keep but it was good that I saw Timmah earlier in the weekend. And that was the beginning of the reasons why I was beginning to think maybe I should consider staying in New Zealand and never looking back. I had a few more drinks with the bros and reminisced about our high school days and what everybody was up to. Soon enough it was 12 and I said good bye to everyone and they wished me good luck. Then I had an intense political debate with Bill to sober up then I went home. 

By the time I got home it was nearly 2am and I had to be at the airport by 5 so I tried to sleep for about 30 minutes then gave up after realizing all the things I needed to repack. I looked over all the things I needed and prepared all the documents I needed and when I looked at the clock it was 4:30. I said good bye to my favorite lady and headed out the door.

I got to the airport, said goodbye to my parents and got in line for security. It wasn't until I was walking to the terminal that it hit me that I was going away from everything and everyone I knew for a long time and I was happy and excited for a change of gears in life.

I got to Denver then LAX without sleeping and listened to a few tunes on my phone. I was way too excited to read or sleep. I just landed at LAX and saw a Facebook posted 4 minutes earlier about someone wanting to meet up. I searched for terminal 2 and figured out that I had to walk outside through the parking garage. I got to the street to terminal 2 and a plane fin hovering above the top of the terminal caught my eye. 

Photo Credit: Air New Zealand

It was an Air New Zealand plane and the Lord of the Rings theme was booming in my head.

I got through security and immediately ordered a beer and Hawaiian cheeseburger. Eventually I looked up and saw the random Facebook girl that was running around the airport with a giant Globalinks poster. I saw Kristen first and raised my beer and said hello. We walked back to the gate and I met Danielle and Samantha who were also in the Wellington Facebook group. We all figured out that we were going to the same university in Wellington and bonded. I turned my head and saw Maddy who was sitting nearby. I said hi and she said she was going to Victoria too which was great. I told her I was from the Boston area and she mentioned that her family used to vacation on the cape. She told me that she had a Gopro and that she was up for some bungie jumping and scuba diving there and that's when Maddy and I became adrenaline buds. More people showed up and one kid (Collin the Texan) yelled and asked if anybody wanted to start drinking. I was caught off guard and immediately regretted not joining him. I walked towards the plane and saw that THE PLANE HAD A GIANT DRAGON PAINTED ON IT. I was on the right plane for sure.

I got on the flight and in my sweaty, anxious haze of excitement I couldn't figure out how to fit my bag in the storage bin much to the dismay of the other girls in my aisle who I think might have also been in my program but am still to this day not sure. I sat down in my seat and started playing with an amazing computer contraption in front of me that let us watch movies, play music, order food, play poker and Tetris with other people on the flight and check where the plane was. I quickly snap chatted Kristen a pic of Captain America 2 that we had discussed earlier about watching.

(Little did I know that this foreshadowed my own Captain America escapades in the days to follow) I decided to stop watching Captain America and was compelled to watch Gravity. I was unaware of how awesome a move this was.

Gravity Warner Bros. Pictures

I was watching the intro scene of Sandra Bullock spinning out of control after the space shuttle is hit by debris right as our plane was taking off giving me MY MOST EPIC MOVIE EXPERIENCE TO DATE!

acuityorg.com/wallstock/ba-plane-taking-off.jpg

Imagine watching this and feeling a little extra G-force. I was an astronaut there for a minute.

So that was great then I realized how alarming my diseased looking, poison ivy outbreak arm might appear to the girl next to me so I quickly said that it's only poison ivy and she seemed to not have even noticed but it was good to cover my bases especially on a 13 hour flight. The girl next to me was Catherine who also happened to be going to the same Uni as me which was sweet. The flight went well and I managed to fall asleep for about 4 hours. At one point I got up to use the bathroom and notice this funky wallpaper in the bathroom:

Anyway, we landed and Catherine and I headed for security and immigration. We had finally made it to New Zealand and we had no clue what was going on but we figured it out eventually.