Muriwai Beach - Worth the wait

I can't believe I'm actually in New Zealand. Finally. Part of me felt like I'd never actually make it here, yet here I am. My flight to LA was quick and painless, and I got to LAX with more than enough time to prepare for the big daddy flight to Auckland - a 13 hour trek across the Pacific on a two-story plane. I hung out in the airport for awhile, had dinner, read, walked around, and waited for Kelsey to arrive. Turned out that she happened to run into every traveling roadblock possible between SeaTac and LAX - oversized baggage that had to be divvied up into boxes, 3-hour delay of a flight, and poor directions from airport staff on how to get to the Air New Zealand terminal. I was mentally preparing myself for a 13 hour flight by myself until she finally showed up at 9 pm, with 15 minutes to spare. The flight actually went by surprisingly fast, and we landed in Auckland at around 7:30 am. After going through customs and getting my luggage (Kelsey's didn't make it...poor Kelsey) we set off to try to figure out what was next.

We did a quick little money exchange at a kiosk in the airport to get some NZ change to use in the payphone, but then spent close to fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to use it. Apparently cell phone calls are super expensive here, which we found out by trying to call my dad's client, Guy, on his cell phone. We had put $8 into the phone, but it wouldn't let us dial. We resorted to using a little pay-as-you-go computer to email him, which proved successful. Guy and his family live about 40 minutes away from the airport and Guy's wife, Bridget, was going to the airport to drop off her dad, so we waited around for about 2 hours to be picked up. We were both exhausted and a little sick of being at the airport, but it was TOTALLY worth the wait.

Bridget needed to run a few errands, so we stopped at a local fish market with her, and then at a produce stand to get some fruits and veggies. Everything was pretty familiar, although there were a few different names for things, like bell peppers are called "capsicums". Anyway, after we stopped at those two stores, Bridget gave us a driving tour of their surrounding area as we made our way to their house. They live a short walk from a beautiful beach where surfers and swimmers abound, and there are lots of walking trails nearby. There are TONS of cicadas in the trees which makes everything sound so alive. It's warm and breezy, and I can tell just by standing in it for a minute that the sun is so much more potent down here. This is the ideal beginning to this adventure, and I can't wait to go explore Muriwai Beach.