Go Travel, See the World

We'll say this for our Emirates flight: we saw a lot of airports. And we got there. So it wasn't all bad. Having said that, I'd never recommend that kind of flight, with lots of stopovers and short (6-hour) flights. On each one, it takes a couple of hours before the meal service comes around, then another hour for the trays to be cleared, and then a half-hour before landing the cabin starts being cleared again, so there's barely any time to sleep. And going through security at each and every airport along the way is, how'd you say, tedious. Grosi got to sleep quite a bit anyway, while Philip and I only got about 5 hours sleep during the whole trip. But we did get to watch a lot a lot of movies. 

We were pretty much exhausted and relieved to find ourselves on the last flight from Christchurch to Dunedin. It's a commercial flight but it's such a short hop that it's more like the pilot taking a few of his buddies for a spin. No security. None. No-one to look into our bags, no x-rays, no grumpy-faced guards snarling at us to throw away all of our just-purchased water bottles. Just a sliding glass door that opens up to the tarmac, and smiling attendant scanning our boarding cards. 

You can then imagine our surprise to hear the announcement, in addition to the usual instructions about what to do in case of an emergency: "We congratulate Kristi and Peter [close enough by New Zealand standards], sitting in row 5, who recent got married and are moving to Dunedin." The whole plane clapped - including, briefly, Kristi, before the announcement wormed its way through her exhaustion and she realized it was about us. The welcome in Dunedin was even warmer: both of Philip's parents, as well as his sister and brother-in-law, were there, holding a huge sign that read "Welcome Home Kristi and Philip," carefully lettered in Swiss German. We got home, ate some dinner, and collapsed into bed.

The weather the next day was classic Dunedin. It was misty in the morning, then the sun came out. But before I could get the camera out to take a picture of the harbour it was pouring down with rain. Then the sun came out. Then it was lunchtime and a huge thunderstorm passed overhead. Then the sun came out again, and by the afternoon it got really windy until sundown. My favorite part that summed up Dunedin was that it's summer here, but there was a street-corner vendor selling possum hats, scarves, and sweaters. And people were buying!