The stresses of being back in a big city
13 December 2016 | Auckland
Fine
I got up early yesterday to catch the bus from Tauranga to Auckland. Dad and Jen picked me up from Sky City in the heart of the city and took me to their new home. It is an old house in Eden Park which they renovated in the past year. It has been nice catching up and hearing about what they have been doing over the past year and sharing my journey as they don’t have a computer and have not seen our videos or blog.
Today dad and Jen wanted to take me to lunch at a nice café in the Northshore area of Auckland. We drove there in busy traffic, but could not find any parking once we got there. We drove around the area for ages and in the end we decided to go somewhere completely different (the other side of Auckland). The traffic was so busy and so many cars were looking for parking spots. It probably doesn’t help being close to Christmas. I could not believe how stressed I was starting to feel, as we were in long traffic jams and in bumper to bumper queues looking for a parking spot. Normally Neil is the one who gets stressed and annoyed in busy traffic and I was almost going to say to dad to forget about going out to lunch and let’s just go back home for lunch. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as we could. I was also wondering if I was I was becoming like Neil and it was so weird, feeling so stressed about busy traffic. Not being in busy traffic for so long obviously reduces your tolerance level. I also wondered if I would just adapt quickly to busy traffic once back in Perth or my feelings about living in a busy city have permanently changed. The lure of city lights has definitely diminished at this stage for both Neil and I. Being in small quieter locations is more appealing.
In the end, we went to a great Chinese Restaurant called Grand Park. It was very popular and was crowed just like the streets! It was so busy and it was Tuesday lunch time. We had Yum Cha and it was very yummy. We all ate heaps and did not need much for dinner. When I got back I needed to help Neil with booking his flight to Perth as he had sent me a text message for assistance. I also realized once talking to the travel agent back in Perth that I only had luggage allowance for one bag and as I naturally travel with heaps of stuff, plus have heaps of boat stuff, I have two bags. The times I have travelled to the states I had two checked in bags as an allowance. When I came back from the states to Australia for Emily’s wedding I had two checked in bags allowance. I thought I had the same this time, but realized today that I only have one checked in bag allowance and so I have to pay for my extra bag, plus the extra bag I left for Neil to bring back. According to QANTAS flying between New Zealand and Australia is not classed as international but a trans-Tasman flight and so my luggage allowance is the same as an Australian domestic flight. However flying from Auckland to Perth direct is about double the time from Perth to Bali. So, to take the extra two bags back to Perth it is costing us the price of another ticket and half (not much change out of $1000)! Not too happy about that but the gear needs to go back. I won’t be happy about eventually paying that amount to return to the boat, so I will be looking at different options like flying via Fiji might be cheaper!
I am flying to Melbourne very early tomorrow and Neil is flying back to Perth on Saturday night. He will be staying with Emily and Ross and will borrow a suit from Ross to go to his job interview. Neil’s clothes are all in storage at the moment. Luckily, we have a son-in-law similar size and nice enough to let Neil use his suit. Looking very forward to seeing Jess and Thil tomorrow and Lily and Leo, my two dogs who now live with Jess.