Day One

How is it possible that yesterday morning Brandon and I were strolling along the boardwalk in Laguna Beach with all of our family and today we are cozying up in our Auckland hostel? Second question: how is it possible that everything is going so well? Now, where to begin? I feel like I should start this whole weblog off by thanking everyone for such a lovely send off. Really, I don't think I felt like a year in New Zealand was such a big deal until everyone else started making such a big deal about it. We thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for such a wonderful weekend.

Of course, everything didn't go entirely smoothly. Though, the bumps along the way give the journey its character. We arrived at LAX on Monday afternoon and discovered that our plane was delayed an hour, which meant that we were five hours early for our flight. Though, that gave us all a nice chance to hang out with our families before we had to say our goodbyes for the year, or at least until people start to come visit us.

Once alone, Brandon and I sat down for some comfort food in the international terminal and basically waited for a good opportunity to call our parents one last time (though I ended up calling my mom two more times before we boarded the plane). The plane was 70% full, so Brandon and I had a three-seat row to ourselves. Though, I think the most comfortable sleeping position was the one that I discovered last: sitting up with my chair slightly reclined. Note to travelers: it is very difficult to assume the spooning position on economy class airplane seats.

I have to admit that I was a little frightened when I learned that an entire section of the plane was closed due to "technical difficulties," especially since the whole thing smelled suspiciously like burning rubber, but, of course, everything got up in the air just fine. The flight was peopled by a a bunch of kindly-looking folk with lovely accents and uber-helpful flight attendants. Brandon and I spent the 13 hour flight finding ways to snag the 6-or-so hours of sleep that we eventually got. Brandon spilt some wine on his pants, which was funny, and I think that I was mostly delirious.

We landed in Auckland at 5AM, Auckland time, on Wednesday, which is confusing, and then we slowly made our way through the airport, to our luggage, which was quite manageable with the use of a cart, through customs, which didNOT confiscate our friendship bread, and out into the country without any trouble at all, which was, to us, surprising. I guarded the luggage while Brandon bought chai tea, bananas, a croissant, orange juice, and some pretty funky peach juice. We walked a few more steps and found a vodafone kiosk where we stopped to buy our SIM cards.

Then, Brandon had his heart set on going to this place called "One Tree Hill," so we took a cab (driven by a friendly Ethiopian guy) in that general direction. I guess that our cabbie doesn't spend much time on One Tree Hill, because at one point he actually got out of the car to ask someone for directions. It was pretty cute.

So, he drops Brandon and me off at the very tippy top off this really beautiful park, where there are sheep, and tells us to call that cab company when we want someone to pick us up. By now it's about 8AM, and I'm a little bit wondering what we're doing there, because the whole idea was that we needed to find a place to hang out before we checked into our hostel, but it was almost that time. But, being in a new country, and in no particular hurry, I was down for climbing to the top of the hill where there was a monument seemingly styled after the Parisian Bastille. It is dedicated to John Logan Campbell, who did something or other for the Maori people. Anyway, it was an INCREDIBLE lookout point. There was a 360 degree view of the whole city. The sun was still a little bit pink with dawn-thoughts, and the lambs were bleating. It was pretty cool.

So, I take out my camera and start to take pictures while Brandon is over somewhere with the luggage. I'm taking a little video of the sheep when he comes over and says something about this being so beautiful, which I agree to, and then he says something about making the moment more exciting and pulls out a little black box, which he opens, revealing a ring, and asks me to marry him.

Bear in mind, this is all within the first three hours of our year in New Zealand.

I said yes, because I love Brandon so much I'm about to burst, and now we're engaged.

I can't exactly say that the day gets cooler from there, but there are a few pretty amazing things to add. You see, after Brandon proposed we sat down on a little towel on the top of that amazing hill and had our breakfast. This older man jogged by and said something about the view, and I said something about us just getting engaged, at which point he started to tell us about the history of One Tree Hill. He wished us luck and went on his way after telling us that he owned a vineyard and that we should buy some of his wine to celebrate.

Later, when we were waiting for a cab to come pick us up, two women walked by, and I told them that we just got engaged, and they gave Brandon and me both hugs and kisses on the cheek.

Then, the vineyard guy drove back up the hill. It had been a good 45 minutes since he'd left, but apparently he'd gone back home, showered, printed out some information about a specific bottle of wine from his vineyard, and brought us a bottle of it in a little wooden case. He said that it was very special that he'd been there when we got engaged, and he wanted to give us something. Then he just wished us good luck and drove back down the mountain.

New Zealand is awesome.

The next cabbie we had totally ripped us off, but it really wasn't that big of a deal, and now here we are in our room, wondering which to do first:

1) Apply for our IRD numbers at the post office
2) Go to vodafone to figure out what is going wrong with our phone cards
3) Eat something

So, for a quick recap: Brandon and I said goodbye to our families, moved to a new country, and got engaged.

And this was only day one.