As it was my checkout day I had to get up early. I packed my luggage and fortunately everything fitted in. I left my luggage in M.’s room.
At Harry’s Cafe de Wheels I had a real breakfast – a bread roll with ham, egg and mustard sauce. The roll was much too soft but it tasted wonderful. Afterwards we met the guys in the city. I bought a nice T-Shirt.
Everywhere in the shopping streets there is free wireless internet access. I took the opportunity to write some mail.
M. and the guys are from South Tyrol, so they are speaking dialect. At lunch time they talked about „pappen“ which means to eat something. I only understood Pub and asked „Oh do we go to the Pub now?“. They had a lot of fun. I thought I’m here to learn English, but it seems first I have to learn the South Tyrol dialect!
Another friend showed us a nice lunch bar where we got some food. We went into the park, sat down under the trees and enjoyed our meal. Everywhere there were these black and white birds with the crooked beaks. These wicked animals are walking around you and trying to steal your food. One guy put a plastic bag into the trash bin and the bird pulled it out and threw it at him.
After the lunch I said goodbye to my new friends and after a short visit in the St. Maries Cathedral I walked back to the hostel. I picked up my things and took the airport shuttle. Despise the air conditioning it was very hot inside the van and I was melting. The driver was from Greece and had moved to Australia in 2001. He told me life is good in Sydney and he was very lucky to get here. Today it is much more difficult to immigrate.
At the airport I had to wait until 16:45 to check in. I filled up the remaining time by using the free internet. After checking in I bought some sweets and went to the security check. They checked me twice. Maybe I looked a bit dangerous with my black Bucaneros sweater with the pirates skull on it. They checked me for explosives, but of course didn’t find anything.
At gate 37 there was no internet access so I had to walk to another gate. Eventually they called my flight and I entered the aircraft. There were lots of Korean people travelling in the same aircraft. Being so tired, I found them to be loud and very unfriendly. I tried to sleep but it turned out to be difficult because it was so loud and I was very hungry and thirsty. I’m flying with Jetstar, the low cost airline from Quantas. They don’t offer food and only very expensive drinks.
(update 12.02.11 17:46)
Finally I arrived at Christchurch airport. Because I had no pencil in my little backpack I had to fill out my entry papers at the airport, so I was one of the last people in a very long queue. Fortunately the security guy opened another queue. The Koreans behind me, stepped on my bag and on my feet. No guys it won’t go faster. Stay calm, please!
You are not allowed to bring food, plants or anything possibly containing living organism to New Zealand. So they check your luggage before you can enter the country. I was declared as clean and could enter.
The airport shuttle was waiting in front of the airport and after a few minutes we started into the city. The driver was very friendly and told us some interesting things about Christchurch.
I arrived at the hostel at 02:30 in the night. The manager on duty was, despite his sleepiness, also very friendly. He showed me my room and told me to do the necessary formalities in the morning. I put my luggage somewhere in the corner, had a shower and went to bed.
