(written on the NZ 2nd from notes taken previously.
Well, sometime during the night, we crossed the international date line, so I left on Saturday night, skipped Sunday, and got to New Zealand Monday morning. 🙃
After taking my first long doze/nap, I woke up to the free T-mobile Internet on planes dealie not working anymore.
😕
I didn’t work the rest of the flight for whatever reason.
I watched Moana, dozed more, and then played Chess, first against the 5-year-old computer approximation of some famous chess person, and I won. 😎
I’m better than a five year old at chess. 😅
Then I played the 12-year-old approximation of that same player.
Magnus! That was his name.
I… didn’t win. 😆 I got smoked.
But hey, I got some of his pieces. 🙃
We thelebrate thuccesses! 😅
My plane arrived something like 8:30 a.m., gratefully one of the early flights to arrive, I guess, or maybe better said, an arrival with no or few additional international arrivals, which made the lines for getting through customs and bio screening much shorter.
I didn’t realize, however, that things would have been even quicker for me, had I known about and filled out the digital declaration ahead of time.
As it was, I was one of the very last through the passport scan machine because we were told to fill out the digital declaration dealie first.
Maybe I was asleep for an announcement on the plane or something, as there were only a very few of us sitting there filling things out while everyone else was quickly through.
I was presented with a bit of a challenge, though, as I was required to say where I was going to be staying–giving an address.
Ummm… yes? 🙃
One suggestion was for a campervan company, and there was a campervan company that had a van I was interested in, so I put their address.
It worked.
I also discovered a nice way of getting toward the front of the actual declarations line itself–have something to declare. 🙃
That line is a *lot* shorter, and I had things to declare, most notably, that my shoes had been around livestock.
Quick tap dance in some kind of insecticide/herbicide/death liquid, and I was on my way.
Memories!
Even though it wasn’t even a full 3 years ago that I was here before, there’s a lot of nostalgia.
I remember the line. I remember coming out the other side and seeing Chase sitting on the floor against a wall in sort of the lounge area on the freedom side of security.
I started looking for my car rental company, walking a good little ways to wear all the car rental companies were located, but mine wasn’t there. 😶
Where’s my rental company?
So I looked at my reservation, found in the instructions that you’re supposed to call when you get through customs, and that you are supposed to walk to the offsite bus terminal, and then they’ll send a bus/van to come pick you up and bring you back to the offsite headquarters.
Cheap cheap rental car ($17/day), so no worries.
Accordingly, I walked to the off-site terminal, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile from the main airport, checked in with my sister to make sure I had international calling, and called, still not 100% sure the international calling was active or not. 😅
(just tell me what I owe you, sisteriti. 😁)
…
The phone number wasn’t working. 🤔
Hmmm…
So I did a little googling and found a different phone number, and gratefully, that one worked. Chatted with a Chinese lady on the phone, and waited in the hot (to my senses 🙃) and humid morning sun.
Didn’t have Starlink. Probably should have brought it with me, but that whole checked-baggage info debacle… 😅
So I spent some time trying to figure out what I was going to do for Internet.
Didn’t have to wait too long for the bus / van to show up. The nice little Chinese woman, probably about 25, showed up within maybe 10 or 15 minutes of my calling.
At the rental car place, I was surprised when they required $1,000 deposit.
😶
Ummm… why?
😅
But… ok.
😬
Picked up my car, a little Toyota hybrid called an Aqua, took a gazillion pictures of the damage, so as not to get hosed when I returned it when I was finished with it, and headed on my way.
The two Vans I was most interested in looking at were not available to be seen today, so I started looking at alternative stuff.
The first one I went to, I think they were asking like $9,000 (NZD), was… junk. 😅
Super steep driveway to get up to the house, super super narrow, and a crazy awkward angle at the top.
Took me probably 5 minutes just to get out of their driveway, trying not to hit anything, go off the side, etc. 😅
Erg.
From there I went to the grocery store, Pak ‘N Save, bought some food for the next few days, and then headed to The Warehouse to buy more things I needed (a pack of socks because in my effort to keep my packing light, I didn’t bring socks, and a set of plastic dishes)
Looked for a “little John” bucket and lid, but no dice. Looks like maybe RepCo has one?
Gosh, it’s so expensive in New Zealand. I think minimum wage is about $14 American, and gas is like $5.40-$6.00 gallon?
😶
And food is expensive. And housing is expensive. 🙃
After going to The Warehouse, I sat in my little rental car charging my phone and might or might not have been eating a tub of ice cream that I might or might not have purchased from the Pak ‘N Save.
🙃
That… proved to be a mistake.
As my phone was charging, the car shut off and started making funny noises that wouldn’t stop even with the key out and the car completely off.
Ugh.
How on earth does charging my phone kill the battery? I figured it had to be a bad battery, good enough to start the vehicle but not good enough to run much of anything while the engine is off.
I grabbed my trusty multimeter and checked the voltages, and sure enough, it was reading just over 5 volts from the cigarette lighter when it should have been 12+.
Ugh.
I called the rental car company, and they, very quickly, came out to take care of the situation but mentioned after switching cars out, that I might be liable for a service call.
I wasn’t happy.
At all.
No, they should have told me that before. I already knew what the problem was. I told them what the problem was before they ever even came. Had I know they might be charging me a service call, I would have just gone in the store, bought jumper cables, and asked someone to give me a jump.
Not only that, but as I had started doing some research into the rental car company, I had found that there for multiple reports of people not getting their $1,000 deposit back with no good reason to explain why. 😬
My fear and justice response kicked into high gear, and I started living in the fear of what could happen.
It was raining, so the new car they brought me… When I went to take pictures of everything, I knew that with rain all over the vehicle, it was quite possible that it was going to hide dings and dents and whatnot.
At first, I wanted a refund. I just wanted to start all over and find another company.
Accordingly, I drove back to the rental place, she saying that they were going to need to have someone inspect the car that I had been driving to see if the issue was my fault or theirs, and then if my fault, then I would be charged.
My thinking was, there’s no way a healthy battery would get drained down by charging the phone, and additionally, had I known of the possible charge, I would have just jump started it, so I wasn’t… happy.
Then getting a wet car, combined with the bad reviews… I didn’t trust the company at all anymore, and was scrambling to figure out how to keep them from charging me more, as well as trying to figure out how to get my $1000 back.
Very frustrated and angry and anxious I stewed. I called my credit card company and told them not to accept any future charges from that company.
I started requesting a refund from Expedia, having forgotten the rule I learned a while back to find the deals on Expedia, but never to buy them on Expedia.
Never buy from the third party. Find the deal using the 3rd party, but go to the provider’s direct page, and buy from the actual company.
Too late now.
After a while, I calmed down a bit, apologized, and asked the lady what she recommended. She suggested keeping the replacement car and going from there. That… was, realistically, the best course of action, so… I anxiously went ahead and did so.
As I drove away, there was a guy with his hood up in a nearby parking lot, so I pulled up next to him, and he had just gone through the same thing that I had, not with a rental car, but with a friend accidentally draining his battery down, so I gave him a jump, and we were both on our way.
It was nice to be able to help somebody, but I was discouraged and anxious, discouraged with the van-buying situation, anxious about the van-buying situation and the rental car debacle.
I downloaded the CamperMate app and found a place in Onewhero that offered free camping without needing a self-contained vehicle.
It was a little ways away, but definitely cheaper than a hotel, so I headed that way, was happily surprised to find that the place had free wifi. 🙏
Stressful first day. And no blankets or pillows for the chilly night ahead. 😅
I could have bought some bedding when I was at the The Warehouse, but I didn’t want to spend money on something I wasn’t going to need later, and the camper vans usually come with their own bedding. 🙃
I did buy some socks, though, as I had only brought just the one pair that I was wearing. 🙃
Day one in the books. Curled up the back seat of a compact hatchback. 😅
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 
❤ ❤ ❤