In the hierarchy of flight types I like, my flight to Christchurch from Melbourne was second from the bottom in my list:
- Midday flights with decent arrival times
- Late evening flights
- Overnight long-haul flights
- Redeyes
- Flights with screaming babies
- Early morning flights
- Redeyes with screaming babies and parents who feel no obligation to calm their hell spawn
I had to be up at 4:00, before the sun and most birds were awake, and my eyes still had that sandpapery feeling for which the only cure is to not wake up before the sun. I un-parked the car from the compact car labyrinth parking lot behind our rental condo and managed to make my way out of the alley without destroying anything – success!
Upon returning the car, I found that the employees were not awake yet either, as the office was locked despite the clearly labeled office hours of 4am – midnight on the sliding glass doors. The locked glass office contained several employees chatting and staring out at a confused family from Singapore, who were staring back in at them. A woman from Perth and I walked up and knocked on the glass to poke the employees into action. Some of us have flights to catch and we, with our car keys out and rolling luggage behind us, were here to in fact return our rental cars, and as they were employed by the rental car company and it was indeed after 4am, they should probably do their one job and take our cars back.
Melbourne’s rental car location is at least convenient – rolling across the street to the airport was about all I could handle after convincing the befuddled employees to take our cars.
After proving to the lady at the airline check-in counter that yes, I had indeed prepaid my bag, don’t make me pay again, I made it through security and decided to take this last opportunity to research Hungry Jack’s as my breakfast, with its logo that was nearly identical to Burger King’s.
After a bumpy, anxiety-inducing flight across the Tasman Sea, we flew over the New Zealand Alps and finally landed in Christchurch 🙂
My host mom and the girls picked me up at the airport (yay!) and we headed back to their downtown Christchurch apartment. Despite being down under for a week and driving for most of it, I still tried to get into the wrong side of the car. Whoops.
The last time I was in Christchurch, it was 2012 and just a year after the earthquake. Streets were closed, buildings were in various states of construction and repair, and the city’s recovery was just beginning to peek out from the ruins.
Fast forward four years: there’s still plenty of construction, but downtown Christchurch now has a funky, artsy feel as buildings begin to return to their previous glory.
But more importantly, my host sisters had transformed into giants!
We ate lunch and drank the world’s greatest chocolate milk, full of creamy, chocolately glory and too many calories for a human mind to fathom. We were also able to exchange presents – I received the most amazing Cadbury chocolate tube of all time, some tasty cookies, hokey pokey ice cream straws, and a 2016 calendar so New Zealand can taunt me from my desk.
We headed over to the hotel for check-in and due to the insane levels of construction, had to perform some shady traffic maneuvers to even get into the lot next to the hotel. It was brand-new and had a funky, chic feel. My room was reminiscent of a capsule hotel: compact, mostly bed, clever storage, and a giant mirror in lieu of windows.
There were lots of weird little quirks in the hotel room, which let you control things from a panel beside the bed. My favorite was the different LED light colors for the shower and I quickly discovered a bug with the console in our room which made the LED lights in the shower cycle through all available colors. I knew my plans for the evening would include a rave shower!
After storing all the things, including the Cadbury tube from the gods, we went to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. The last time I was there, it was spring and the flowers were beginning to peek out. Summer was in full swing and we wandered through the roses and hydrangeas until we felt like we were positively melting.
After wilting in the summer heat, we headed to the Christchurch Art Gallery, which had recently re-opened after its rebuild. It had a lot of Maori-inspired exhibits, as well as a plethora of displays made from various creative mediums.
There was also a gallery focused on displaying art inspired by Canterbury and its surrounding plains – gold and green fields and blue skies backed by mountain vistas. We only had about an hour to explore but I’d definitely recommend spending a few hours there to take in the variety of exhibits.
After dinner in which Madoka scienced chicken parts, we watched a movie and my day’s travel caught up with me all at once. The rest of the party were arriving on a redeye at 7am and I had to at least be semi-functional. To bed with me!
