Traveling is Exhausting

Especially if the point of travel is a sad reason. Recently, I had a death in the family in New Zealand (my mum is from New Zealand). So not only was I in very low spirits, but New Zealand is a long way to fly. It is especially long when you’re buying a ticket for the night of and you’re looking for the cheapest one. The cheapest one usually has the worst travel times and worst stops. This is true, but it was not something I was concerned with when trying to get to New Zealand as fast as possible. With a frantic packing, I got to LAX February 17th, and arrived in Fiji the 18th. Time zones start to switch hardcore now, so I’m pretty sure it was actually the 19th in Fiji, but still the 18th in the States. The airplane was cramped, but I slept some 5 hours. I then spent $40 to spend about 7 hours in the lovely Fiji VIP lounge until my flight to Auckland, New Zealand. At one point, I was the only traveler in the Fiji airport. 

With Air New Zealand, I get to Auckland (yay) and am so relieved to almost be to my family in Wellington. I’m exhausted, close to tears, and feel grimey. I take a ghetto shower in Auckland after I get some fresh air walking to the International Terminal. An hour later, I’m on an hour flight to Wellington and my mother and aunt are there to greet me (after 24 hours of travel). The funeral is the next day and for the next 6 days after that, I am just purely surrounded by family which was wonderful. Although it was for positively sad reasons, I am glad I went to New Zealand to be there with my family. 

Suddenly, Tuesday, February 24th rolls around (far too quickly, I might add) and I’m leaving my huge family. Now, I hadn’t really looked at my return ticket (as you remember I was frantically booking) and let me tell you what a mistake that was. Booking through the phone might’ve been great customer service, but I didn’t realize that I would have an overnight layover in Hawaii. That may sound glamorous, but it’s the farthest thing from that. With a good during-the-day flight to Hawaii, I arrived sometime in the evening, exhausted and still full of emotion. I expected a night of sleeping in the airport ahead of me and I had fully accepted that. It was going to be a bummer, but I had done it before. 

Until United told me I couldn’t check my bag in that night and thus prevented me from getting into the actual airport. Awesome. United is already on our bad list and offered little to no help with what to do. I was stuck in a place I had never been, after a whirlwind of a week, with nobody I knew. My entire US family was asleep due to time zones and I couldn’t even think straight. After talking to United two or three times to no avail, I just sat on a bench outside and decompressed. They wouldn’t let me in the airport so I was stuck outside because United has dumb rules and even worse customer service. With some help from my New Zealand family who was still awake, I found a hotel to shower and sleep in for 3.5 hours. By this point, I was the most drained I had been through the whole trip. 

I woke up at a nice 4am and took the free shuttle back to the airport to get ready. With a smoothie and a chai in hand, I was ready to get the heck away from Hawaii and to my home. The flight was long, loud, and full of rude flight attendants. 5 hours and 45 minutes later, we touch down to LAX. Now at this point, my dad is in Iowa, Hungry is at work, my brother is at work, and it’s at such a weird time, I don’t want to bother anyone to pick me up. This is where Blacklane saved me. After such stressful travel, I was glad to have someone professional, polite and kind to pick me up. He grabbed my bags for me and had a fresh Fiji water ready for my dehydrated, exhausted self in the car. It was a cool (as in the temperature), black car and the trip was enjoyable and relaxing. It was nice to not finally do anything. I would suggest their service to anyone (they do international as well).

When I got home, I found a note from Hungry saying he had cleaned the tub for me to take a bath and urged me to just relax. Oh yeah, that’s the reason why I came back to the States! Because Hungry and the babies are pure awesome. Despite all the travel woes, I would do it 50 times over again to be with my family in New Zealand when I needed to be. Sometimes it helps to step back and see the larger picture and just take a deep breath. I am still thankful that I am even able to have bad experiences traveling because the fact is that I am able to travel in order to spend time with family. That is what’s important! As always, stay hungry and fit.