Take Off

After enjoying my last breakfast with grandparents for the foreseeable future, mom and I headed to New Haven railroad station to catch my shuttle.

I do not think I have ever driven around JFK before. I was always brought right to my terminal. This time, the driver took me around to almost every other terminal to drop other folks off before me.  What a crazy maze of roads crisscrossing everywhere. Driving round and round in circles as we go up this loop to this terminal and down these two loops to get to this terminal.  JFK is like a city in itself.

All my stuff and I

Despite being a massive airport however, turns out JFK is still rather quiet midday on Saturdays. I didn’t have to wait in any lines to get my ticket or to get through security. The few people who were there gave me some backward glances when they saw a petite woman carrying a large backpack on her back, a midsized one on her front, a small one in her right hand, and dragging along a large ski bag in her left. The guard had a smirk on his face as he redirected me to the Virgin America desks that were tucked in the corner.

***Heads up warning, Air New Zealand allows you one free check bag and charges $150 for the second one.  Later that evening I found out from an Ozzie girl, that if you call Air New Zealand ahead of time they only charge you $90 for the second check bag. I was foolish, looking at just Virgin America’s baggage fees ahead of time, so I thought I would only be charged $60 and didn't know about calling ahead. And I thought I had worked out all the loopholes in the system.

With 2 hours to kill at the airport and restless leg syndrome kicking in, I went for a walk outside my A gate zone, which turned out to be like the ghetto of the airport. Here the chairs are stacked almost on top of each other, no cushion on the armrests, low ceilings, and the restaurants of choice are McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, or an Irish Pub. Travel through a buffer zone of shops, turn to the B gates hallway and you'll first see the Delta signs, and Swiss and KLM airplanes. Then you’ll notice the high ceilings, neatly spaced chairs with small tables in-between, cushioned armrests, and stores like the “Cake Tin.”  Resisting the temptation to buy a fancy cupcake, I meandered back to my ghetto to board my flight.

My layover was in LA airport for about three hours. As I walked out of the gate from the plane, frustration quickly began to boil in my stomach and anxious thoughts began to flick through my mind. Where is the board for all flight departures? Why do I only see three different airlines here and no signs to direct you to find the others? My ticket had no gate number, not that I would know where to find it. I asked a man at a desk and he just said go all the way outside and go to the next terminal over. I followed his directions and assumed it was the international terminal to my right. "Is this where Air New Zealand flights leave from?" I asked a lady checking tickets before security.

"The sign says To all gates. Yes" she snipped as though I couldn't see the sign just to my left. I then waited in line for security for 20-30 minutes, not doing any further investigation of my location. On the other side there was no Air New Zealand to be found. The frustration began bubbling over and I started becoming panicky. The fact I hadn't eaten a real meal in twelve hours finally hit me, and I tried to calm myself, knowing it was more from hunger than my situation. I found out from a long term airport worker that **Air New Zealand was actually in terminal 2. I booked it back out to the road and went through security once again (luckily there was no line for this one) and promptly went in search of food. I made sure I enjoyed my two glasses of complimentary wine on the plane a few hours later.

First glimpse of NZ

My home for the next week in
 Auckland

At about 6:00 in the morning on July 28th, I was enjoying a greasy omelette and looking out the oval window over New Zealand which was slowly illuminated by the red glow of the rising sun. At 7:10, I walked briskly off the plane with a lightness to my step and friendly chat with customs security guards. I flew through customs and came out on the other side to find Wilma, my ride and hostess for the next week. Everything was going so smooth, I can finally relax.

Wilma is mother of Helen who I had just met climbing in Indian Creek 2.5 months earlier. Upon arriving to Wilma's home we had second breakfast and coffee before we went up the road to get those chores done. Wilma embodies the Kiwi’s generous hospitality for strangers and friends very well with her buying food to feed me, taking me to the bank so I can open my account, and directing me to lovely areas to run. However, the smoothness of the morning came to an abrupt halt when I tried to cash my bank check. I then realized I had made a huge mistake.

**Don’t bring a bank check to a foreign country for depositing. Westpac was going to charge me $50 dollars and said it would take 4-6 weeks to process. Cancelling the check would cost $25 (and then I couldn’t access that money from my account for almost 2 months). I would then have to wire money which was going to cost more than $50. I actually didn’t figure out what to do about my financial situation until Wilma and I spent 2.5 hours at her bank the next morning. I ended up opening 2 new accounts. Long story short, due to new regulations, the only way to avoid enormous fees (potentially up to $100) and weeks of waiting to access my money, Wilma and I had to open a joint account. She had the finances and good credit history with the bank to back up my check. Don’t ask me how that works, because I’m not actually sure. Next time though, I'm just going to wire the money.

Oh and I'm sure some of you think I am absolutely crazy for opening a joint account with basically a stranger to deposit a large sum of my money in. Not as bad as you think though. We set it up that any money to be withdrawn from that account would require both of our signatures. It was also not her idea, but the 2 bankers working with us who understand that we are doing this only so I can access my money sooner and upon completion of the process, we will be moving that money into my personal account and closing the joint. ***Oh, and on a side note: NZ saving accounts make about 4.5% interest. Sounds like I need to move all my money into a NZ bank account and leave it there for a few years to collect interest. 

On my run in Auckland

Since I arrived 48 hours ago, I also have managed to correct my sleep schedule, run, look for cars online, test a car in person (much thanks to Wilma for driving me to see the car and test driving it for me), and scheduled to see another car, Ugg, I hate looking for cars, because it consumes me and I'm so indecisive. I do like the fact though there are tons of Honda and Toyota station wagons in New Zealand. And I need to start squeezing in some exploration time in between looking for cars. I’m getting a little fixated and not taking my time to enjoy where I am. I may not have many exciting things to report until I finally purchase my car. 

Getting It Done and Checking It Off

Tick Tock, Tick Tock. How has the month passed me by already? I’m unemployed and still couldn’t balance getting everything done and exercising consistently. Everything always takes longer than you’d think. And without a schedule, I seem to be rather good at faffing around. Well, I leave tomorrow and I think my “To Do List” is done enough (despite growing longer in the process). If not, I’ll just have to deal.

Well, here’s what I got for you. I’ll star the things that are “hot tips” to know for travelers or general gear stuff.

• Find Insurance to cover $8000-10,000 worth of gear (incase it gets stolen from my car).

After looking up the statistics on how often cars in New Zealand were broken into, I became almost frantic to find insurance coverage for my belongings. I sat down to make a list of what I was bringing and to do basic math on how much it was all worth. If everything of mine was stolen it would be about $10,000 to replace it assuming I paid retail price. As I mentioned before, regular traveler’s insurance won’t cover that. I even called Squaremouth.com (a general travel insurance search engine) and they said they couldn’t help. So the search intensified.

I looked into Renters insurance, but that was not helpful. They only cover 10-20% of the total value of all your personal items when you travel off your insured property. I’m taking about 50% of all I own to NZ. Do you think if I left a note in my car that said, "Please don't steal my things. It's almost all I have and it's my life." it would deter a thief?

            One insurance company I called referred me to another company I believe was called Rocky Mountain Insurance. They were exceptionally friendly; they even looked into writing a special insurance policy for me. They thought they could adapt this inland marine policy to meet my needs. Despite their efforts and friendliness, I got a call later that day saying they couldn’t make it work. They recommended I look for insurance in New Zealand to cover my equipment. 

I called an auto insurance company in New Zealand (**via Google Hangout: 2 cents minute, FYI). I asked if I could get insurance that would cover a car break-in, including the items in the car. No go and the man said he didn’t know of any insurance company that would cover theft of my equipment.

**My dad then suggested seeing if his homeowner insurance could cover it. I mean if Renter’s covers 10% for travel, surely homeowners would do the same. The difference? My dad owns a heck of a lot more stuff. The catch is the high deductible. No good. So we tried to see if we could put a “rider” on the insurance policy to cover my gear without having to pay the deductible. No such luck since my stuff didn’t meet the requirements for a rider (nothing was worth several thousand dollars).

In the end after many hours of those redundant phone calls with the insurance company, my dad claimed me as a resident of the household and lowered his deductible. I think it increased his insurance bill by $200 for the year, which I will be paying. Not exactly what I hoped but better than nothing.

• Fix security set up so they stop sending verification codes to my phone, since it won't be working in New Zealand.

Way easier than I expected. On the note of phones as well, **I actually remembered to change my voicemail to inform people that they can’t contact me for the next year via that number (and maybe never again because if I can, I’m cancelling my policy to save money on the phone bill). Email, Facebook, or Skype are now the way to get in touch with me.

• Get at least 6 months worth of prescriptions. 

**Here’s my advice and fair warning on this subject: if you need prescriptions filled for more than a 3 month supply at a time, tell your pharmacy and insurance company at least two weeks before you leave to get it done. Expect to have phone calls from the pharmacy and insurance that have discrepancies on what needs to be done and what has been done. Expect them to make you middle man/woman between pharmacy, insurance, and doctor. Don’t let this happen because you’ll be sent in circles. Get them to talk directly to each other. Don’t believe them when they say some medications were filled in full on the first attempt.

•  See if I can get a new sleeping bag for my birthday 

What an idiot. Didn’t do the research until 2 weeks before departure. I found what I hope to be the perfect sleeping bag set up and ordered online to save over a $100. I then realized I was cutting it close for getting them in time. Luckily, despite one getting lost temporarily, both bags arrived today, the afternoon before I leave.

I wanted a sleeping bag set up that would be resistant to water and ideal for winter mountaineering and summer in NZ. My 0 F bag was not ideal; my friend Danilo informed me I’d need just a 15 F bag for winter mountaineering. After listening to a gear guru friend rave about his Phantom sleeping bag, I did some investigation and figured out the lightest warm set up would probably the Mountain Hardwear Phantasia 32 with its hydrophobic down and a sea to summit heavy sleeping bag liner. Put the two together and I should have 12 F bag that weights about 2 lbs.

•   Test, Repair, and Re-waterproof gear. 

I got my pack back from the Gear Doc just the other day. The new zipper makes the new pack a little ghetto looking, but looks like it will last. His patch jobs were good, hardly noticeable actually, except he didn’t complete one of his stitches.  While he did a good job, I would say he was on the pricy side I think for what he did, but I’m grateful for the last minute fix. Gregory would have been a free option, but I wouldn’t have had my pack for the trip.

Ooh, I just remembered I was gonna clean my stove and test it...oh well. Tent and rain gear is cleaned, waterproofed, and the zippers are lubricated. 

• Inform Bank of Travel Plans

So on a trip to the bank to discuss some account changes and transfers, I was able to rework a flawed plan.

**I had expected to open a bank in New Zealand soon after I arrived and simply wire some money to my new account. This way I would save significant money on transfer and currency exchange fees. I hadn’t thought twice about my plan because it had been so easy last time. Not until the Banker informed me that it would be about $50 to wire my money. WHAT! That’s more than 5 hours of work for me. Oh wait, I forgot. Last time I went I had an account with Bank of America who’s sister bank in NZ is Westpac. So wiring money or taking money out of ATMs was cheap. Fees were a fraction of what they would be now without that account. What’s my new cheapest option? I got a bank check addressed to me. I will deposit it when I open an account in New Zealand. I’m bringing cash to get me by until the bank can process my bank check.

**Oh, and I went to AAA with my American currency to exchange it for NZ dollars. They had the new currency ready for me in two days (I forgot how pretty their money is). AAA doesn’t charge you the exchange fees you’d have to pay in the airport or other places. I’ve wasted way too much money on previous international trips on those fees. I’m going to be smart about it this time.

•    Computer Repair

            An unexpected obstacle while home-a crack in the screen appeared and from it blackness began to seep across my screen. Just when I promised to keep up on my blogs since I had a computer. I almost lost it when Mac said they would charge me 465$ to repair it-more than half the cost of the computer! Luckily, dad jumped in to help again, and found some cheaper options through ebay. I investigated one: iknowrepairs out of New Jersey. They promised to have my computer back before I left and that they would charge me $160 for the new screen, the repair service, and the return shipping. And that’s exactly what they did and they did a fantastic job! With shipping the item to them, I spent $182 dollars; a cost I could swallow.

•  See As Many Friends And Family As Possible 

            Well, I didn’t see everyone I hoped to, but I did manage to see most of them and I also saw some I didn’t expect to catch. Had some great moments with the friends and family and yes, I finally met my adorable grand nephew.