Today I am leaving New Zealand and I have mixed emotions. I am excited about the next stage in my adventure, I am scared about the next stage in my adventure and I am leaving somewhere I have had such a range of experiences that I now feel connected to it.
I first have to drop off the piece of crap car back at the Jucy lot. I wake up, throw clothes on and head down. I am really not in the mood to deal with the idiosyncrasies of this car and I look forward to being rid of it. I arrive at the lot, turn off the engine and feel relief at being able to say goodbye to this 4-wheel nightmare. I walk into the Jucy office, complete with beanbags for the rental car driver that likes a bad indoor seat as well as a bad car, and I hand the keys over to the guy at the Jucy desk:
This is the international terminal. I prefer the internal terminal, it's less expensive and less pretentious. Can you tell I'm not in the best mood? ;) 
This is Peta without hats and in a bad mood. She looks pretty much exactly like Peta without hats in a good mood. I need to work on my bad mood face and my hat retention! 
"Any problems with the car?"
"Ahahha! I think you know there is! The lady I spoke to when I picked up the car said the automatic setting wasn't great on that but she neglected to mention that the manual setting also is really terrible, the brakes are a little on the twitchy side and the radio is possessed by the devil or at least a high volume 80s version of him?"
"Oh you have the little Fiat semi-auto... Yeah they're horrible! I've had trouble with that radio too."
This I wasn't prepared for. I sort of wanted 'really? Oh my goodness... Tell me more and let me compensate you!' But instead, confronted with a simple acknowledgment of the fact that I had paid money to rent a really terrible vehicle, I wasn't sure how to react and so found myself replying
"Well I'm glad you know... Erm... Well you shouldn't rent those out... They're bad!"
"Yeah I know right?!"
"Yeah right!... Right... Erm... Ok well then, Cya!"
"Bye!"
I leave confused. It's early, I'm going to blame that interaction on it being early. The rest of the day I can not blame on that but I was spaced out for the rest of the day so something was up.
I walk back to Alice's after orientation myself to the quickest walking route and plan the day in my head. I will shower, pack and then go to the store to look for clothes for Costa Rica. This turns out to be a bad plan. My packing goes fine except I make the mistake of thinking I can stack hats on my head rather than packing one which results in my later losing two hats rather than one in ironically a clothes store at the airport.
In addition to this poor decision, I have woken up with a fair bit of muscular pain in my left thigh and the speed walk to the shops (Alice walks at a pace that may set off the odd radar gun) leaves me feeling almost I'll from discomfort. I am also a little grumpy from my bites and from sleeping badly on an air bed. I hope this grumpiness doesn't come across but I'm not sure I fully pull it off. I get back, take a second shower, pack and call an uber.
I say goodbye to Alice in a short but sweet way, as if I will see her in a few days, and I'm off with my heavy load, which I am already trying to work out how to eject most of at the soonest opportunity.
The uber drops me at the skybus stop and there I transfer to the bus within a few minutes. There is a gentleman at the stop with an expensive looking briefcase and he smile kindly as I sit down. He discusses a problem with his bus card to the driver in a very patient way and takes his seat. When a lady tries to board the bus but thinks she can pay with card as she had no cash, he gets up and pays for her ticket. He then promptly moves when another elderly couple need a seat. He is clearly a man with a decent income, expensive suit, case and headphones. It is nice to see someone who has done well for themselves and yet maintained a sense of the importance of others. It disappoints me that it feels like this is a surprise and not the normal behaviour and I realise that from what I have observed people generally seem to be nicer to each other here in New Zealand.
I arrive at the airport and soon have to deal with some US immigration paperwork. That completed, I then have to deal with an obnoxious woman behind me in the bag drop queue who doesn't like it when I don't move a foot when the person in front of me does in the queue. I am rarely irritated by people but today I am closer to what I call the line of tolerance and she is doing a little jig along it and I want to scowl at her. I say nothing and just look unimpressed and she spends the rest of her time behind me justifying herself to the the person next to her who consequently looks unimpressed at having the attention from this lady. I just want to get on the plane with all my stuff... This is a fail! I end up leaving my hats (urg!) in a clothes store! I do not realise this until part way through my movie marathon however. Until that time I am blissfully unaware and having cake and looking out this window.
I head to my gate after cursing the lack of free internet beyond 30mins in the international terminal - I like to distract myself with online funny things when grumpy. I get on the plane and am immediately impressed... Air New Zealand is the way to travel! Forget the hats for a second (ok I find this hard, I am actually quite upset by the hats): the seats are good, the console is good, the service is terrific, the water tastes like glacier water... It's a really nice ride. The films look great! This is going to be a sweet trip. *Happy hatless face*
This is how you ask for more drinks, nibbles...
The only trouble is once I realised that I have lost my hats and I feel really bummed. I have never actually dealt with loss-through-error well. If it is an act-of-god type situation, I am fine. If it is my fault I find it harder not to wish myself different. I hear the criticisms from childhood errors in my mind.
This is an opportunity for some mental pull ups.
"It's easy to feel good when everything is going well. It's when things aren't going well that you have the opportunity to do the work in to improve yourself!" I am poorly quoting a man whose name I have forgotten unfortunately but if I remember I will come back and add it in.
I will post about the movies separately and also about 'loss' as I think it deserves some discussion ;)
I can now say that I have left New Zealand, I absolutely plan to be back and the post cards from this trip will have US stamps on them ;)
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