So… here we are in our hostel using the last dying minutes of my laptop battery. Today was the first day in our new home abroad, and honestly, it hasn’t been a great day. But really, when the god damn airlines lose your bag, you’re dead tired from flying for 20 hours and just want a shower and sleep, and your room smells like hamburger helper, how can that be a good day? Seriously, it smells so bad we were breathing out the window of our room as if somebody had had an ample helping of beans the night before. And the guys that are cooking it have 3 noisy little kids that are annoying the heck out of poor sick Kenna. The smell isn’t helping her nausea either.
Kenna saying goodbye to cold winter in Edmonton!
So first the baggage story… hilariously, Kenna blogged yesterday about how we thought we averted disaster by picking up my bag on the carousel and informing them that they had misplaced it. Apparently even with that stroke of good luck, my bag wasn’t going to make it to New Zealand after all. And they can’t even tell me where my bag is… is it in LA? Will it be here tomorrow? At least if I knew these things, we could move on… I’d go buy some new clothes, a plug converter for our various electronics, etc. As it stands now, I can’t recharge my laptop since the converter’s in my bag. The worst part is, I’m walking around everywhere in the same smelly sweat pants and stained shirt I wore on the plane. And we’re supposed to pick up our van tomorrow and head north, but I can’t really leave without my bag, so it looks like we’re going to be stuck in Auckland for another day waiting for the airline to sort it out.
Dinner at La Porchetta with my mom's friend Lynda
On a positive note, Kenna seems to be ok. We went for dinner with a family friend named Lynda, and Kenna managed to eat a couple of pieces of pizza, which is by far the most food she’s had in 4 days. Another stroke of good luck is that we’re literally half a block away from the place we pick up the camper van. So, maybe there’s hope for the fun to begin yet! No, I’m sure it’ll be awesome and we’re just tired, grumpy, and a little hopeless.
Ok.. I’m going to try to sleep, if these damn kids would stop screaming and banging on our door. Who travels in youth hostels with 3 years olds anyways? I guess the same kind of people that live on hamburger helper…
Scott, I thoroughly enjoyed your timeline image. I hope to see more images like this in the future?
Perhaps a “fun graph?”
Get better soon Kenna, the world awaits you! Hope you find your bag Scott. Have a great time guys!
wow…
It was the samething for Alysha when she first left.
Trust me… thing will be getting better.
I hope they find your bag
Thank you for the excellent diagram, Scott. I especially appreciate that you timelined the Hamburger Helper Smell.
Sean – I will definitely try to include more diagrams and graphs, and hilarious images semi-pertaining to the situation. Thank you for your kind feedback.
Update: still no bag. Thanks for the comments everyone. We’re feeling a little like we’re in limbo.
A family with three children staying at the hostel? And you two thought you were too old to be doing this?
You didn’t by chance use a platinum visa card to purchase your airline tickets did you???? You should check and see because if you did Visa will reimburse you up to $500 each in order to replace items that are missing (they only have to be missing 4 hours in order to claim)!
Hey Guys, Sounds like things are getting off to an interesting start so far. Those will be the things that you look back on fondly when your trip is rolling. Makes it all seem more worhtwhile. And scott, it may finally give you a legit shot at wearing Kenna’s underwear!