Every time that I go on a trip somewhere I tend to overpack, a lot. For instance, when going to Sao Miguel in 2010 for 6 weeks, I packed two, 50 pound suitcases that had more clothes then anyone could possibly wear in the time I was gone. I also took at least six pairs of shoes, two of which were heals. I don’t even remember the last time I wore heals. Obviously I am a very inefficient packer and so packing up my life for half a year, with all my ski equipment, was rather challenging. After many freak outs about not being able to send my skis for less than $500 and not wanting to deal with the hassle of carrying them around NZ with me, I finally decided to send them through a company called LuggageForward. They have been great to deal with and according to my tracking they were delivered to Springfield on Friday. Im just waiting an email from bossman to let me know that he has got them and then I will be able to relax. My ski boots however, were not sent ahead and so they are currently taking up about half of my bag. Also, ski boots are heavy. Leaving Spokane Airport, my bad weighed in at a whopping 43lbs. No wonder my shoulders are achy. And so, today, I am giving in and I am ready to admit that I am not Hercules and I am going to mail my boots from Waitomo to Springfield and I am praying that they get there safe and sound.
I brought with me my dads historic backpack that he took to Europe with him when he went just shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. Im amazed at how much I have been able to fit into it and thankful that the zippers are somehow super man strength and haven’t exploded the contents of my bag during traveling. At every airport, while we are waiting to collect our baggage I half expect to see a big blue bag with piles of clothes exploding out of it coming towards me on the carousel.
I know that when I started writing this post a couple days ago it had a point. And now I have no idea what that point is supposed to be, other than I am a super packer and my dad used to live with the dinosaurs.
And so I’ll move on to my side note - visa!
When I started to seriously consider coming to work in NZ (around the end of January), I knew I would need a visa and so I jumped on the computer to apply only to figure out that my passport needed to be renewed! Right then and there I decided the trip was not going to happen and called it quits. I figured that 3 months to get a new passport and 3 months to get my visa - I just wouldn’t have everything I needed in time. But the next day I sent of my application for a new passport and 2 weeks later my horrifying mug shot was printed in my new passport. I then applied for a visa and again decided that this trip was not going to happen because they weren’t going to let me into their country. However I didn’t get a chance to finish that tantrum because less than 20 minutes later Immigration New Zealand had emailed me and approved my working holiday visa. It seemed like this trip was going to happen, until of course I decided I wasn’t going to be given any job offers and went and re-fractured my arm a couple times. By the time that I left Trail on June 2nd, I figured that this trip might actually happen, but obviously not without great difficultly clearing customs at every stage. At the Waneta Boarder, the guard was super confused as to way I would want to go somewhere where it would be cold and wintery. At Spokane Airport, they couldn’t have cared less about my visa. At LAX, they decided I was a special case and it took a whole 2 minutes to sort out (Im not even sure what was wrong; It probably had nothing to do with my visa). Leaving Sydney, they wanted to see my return ticket and the man at immigration asked if I had ever instructed before. When we arrived in NZ I had to declare that I had sports equipment on my little sheet, but that was about as hard as it got. The moral of this story - I should probably apologize to Michaela for so many unnecessary freak outs and, of course, my dad used to live with dinosaurs.
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