San Francisco!!!

Well we've finally arrived safely in San Francisco!
What a drama;

Our plane was a bit late leaving wellington, the pilot blamed the fact that he received it late, bad weather in akl i think =)
But this was nothing compared to what happened next!

Our plane left Akl on time, but we had to turn around and head back, 5 hours into the flight!
Apparently Rolls Royce had been monitoring the engines, and found a good reason for us not to make the full trip, so the plane had return to Auckland for repairs with us on it. At first we all thought it was a joke when the captain made the announcement, but it ended up being real.
So we had 10 hours in the air, only to end up back where we started.

The whole thing was a bit of a farce, they even made us fill in the NZ customs arrival cards.
Air NZ did a good job in managing the situation, and fixing up people's connecting flights (fortunately not us), but it was obvious the situation wasn't part of their normal action plan.

We arrived back in Auckland at 5am, and were scheduled to get a 9am plane back out, arriving in San Fran at 2am. However the American's didn't like that idea, so while they prepared another plane for our departure at 2:30pm, we got sent to a nearby hotel for a 'day room'. We grabbed a few hours sleep, and some complimentary food and phone calls before getting back on the bus to the airport at midday.

Hehe, then while they were calling the rows of people to board, they had to stop while crew attended to 'a problem with the onboard computer!'. The whole gate lounge let out a big groan...

Our plane then left on time at 2:30pm, NZ time, 19 hours after we left the first time.

So after sitting through the most turbulent ride I've ever been on, we arrived here. We were in row 62 of 65 rows on a Boeing 777-200er (9 seats across, 314 passengers total). The tail was wagging around like a dog on speed for most of the trip.

US Customs was a real interrogation for me, what school did i go to, where do i work, how did i pay for the ticket etc... Aimee said the guy was talking to her about other things. Her American accent must be helping.
So after picking up our bags from the conveyor, it was simply a stroll to the kerb. We are so used to NZ customs checking for all these banned items it's strange when our bags don't get searched and we walk right out of the airport.

Then it was a short cab ride into 'downtown' and we've checked in a day late. Will try to claim the room (pre-paid) back on insurance.


The time now is 10:30am, so now we're taking a well deserved break and heading off for a tour of the city at 2pm.

Bye bye
Chris and Aimee