Ignoring my rejection notice

  Perseverance is the word of the week.  And I am finding quickly through the fiascoes I have encountered that I am more likely to break down and cry, when I have someone to lean on, which I don't have, so as mom would say "buck up!"  As I suspected, I am learning my limits, which is part of the reason for traveling alone. I have a goal of seeing how far I can be pushed, both physically and emotionally, and so far, I feel like I am an A+ student of life.
  This morning I woke up in a hostel in Paihia, the Bay of Plenty, in Northland. I walked 2 blocks down to the ocean, and watched the waves rush upon the shore as two locals went for a morning swim.  Knowing that I am describing what sounds like paradise, let me backtrack and fill you in on the hilarity and calamity of how I finally got here, it will make you dislike me a bit less.

•   The "misplacing" of my visa/passport in the mail for 5 days. Thanks for that Fedex, oh, and thanks for being an ethical company that in no way took responsibility for the mishap in any way. But on a non-sarcastic note, and actual heartfelt thank you to Paul and Jose at the NZ embassy for being human beings and going above and beyond what they could have possibly done to help me through.
• That time my grandfather's truck broke down in the middle of an intersection on Vista while running last minute errands just in case my passport showed up the following day, fingers crossed, in time for me to catch my flights. Thank you to the gentleman wearing dirty coveralls, no shirt, showerless and shaveless, as well as the other gentleman, equally dressed to impress, who helped push the truck into the gas station lot, while a gentleman in suit and tie and ostrich boots stared on without offering help of any kind all the while on the phone.  Boy did I feel like a jerk, when after stereotyping ostrich boot man, I realized he was on the phone and not aiding me because he had locked himself out of his red sports car, and was on the phone with a locksmith that entire time. Watch out for the Shell station on Vista Ave in Boise, it's a vortex for car issues. Thank you to my sister, for picking me up, even though she was suppose to be studying, and allowing me to slowly slump into her car, and let out a pathetic cry.  Also, to my mom and grandpa for dealing with the truck issues. Super heroes all of them.
• That time my phone had issues and I was on the phone for a good long while, through 4 representatives until they figured it out. At this point I decided, the larger forces at hand were telling me to slow down, so I started the process of changing my flights to a later time, letting go of the things I cannot control, and being grateful for having some extra prep time as well as time for friends and family. I used the extra time to visit an Idaho hot springs with friends and family during a meteor shower, under a clear starry sky. I saw 5 shooting stars.
• Monday rolled around and I left my house with 5 minutes to spare to meet mom and my grandparents for the caravan to the airport to begin. Nicki, Chad, Teagan, Julia and Matt also showed up to  see me off. All of the above mentioned are reasons why it is so hard for me to leave for so long. My heart is full, I tell you! Full of love for them!  Thank you for the stress drops, the candy, the cards, (which made me bawl like a baby person on the plane, thank goodness I was sitting by myself), and the EARPLUGS!!!!
• After making it to San Francisco just fine I got on the plane to Sydney. Enter mechanical issues. Add another hour and a half of sitting in a confined airline seat to the already 15 hour flight.  I was seated next to an older couple who wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, until the last 30 minutes of the flight, then they were all of a sudden nice. People are confusing, but I guess that's why I like them so much. Bunch of weirdos. 
• I made it to Sydney, but they wouldn't let me into NZ without a return ticket so I had to buy one at the counter. Snag, defeated.
• The plane ride to Auckland was turbulent but fine, and the food was actually really great! Now onto collect my bag...just kidding! It's funny because as I approached the bagwell I knew it wouldn't be there. It wasn't even a "what if" scenario, it was a knowledge that my bag wouldn't be there. Standing there, bagless and laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of my luck I gathered confused looks from nearby passengers. I told the baggage rep that it was official, his country was trying to reject me. But I refuse to listen!!!
• Found a series of hostels as I waited for my bag and I to be reunited. It turns out that took 3 days.   Which was fine because I got to see some fun sights in Auckland. Like these sculptures of sunken buildings in the park right outside one hostel I stayed at

• And the Sky Tower ( Auckland's answer to the Space Needle)

Then the great bag reunion of 2013!!!

• And this brings us to present day. As I said, I am now in Paihia. I went on a glorious hike to Haruru Falls which I consider to be a great 8 mile warm up to the days I have ahead.

Tomorrow I catch a bus as far north as the buses run, and hitch hike from there to Cape Reinga. So within the next 48 hours the trek begins.

Auckland yes! Bag...No?

I finally made it to Auckland! I am sitting on the top bunk in a dorm room in a hostel called the Bamber House, and I think I could really get use to the place if it weren’t already booked out for the next couple of days, forcing me to move on. I would have liked to have gotten food supplies tonight to prep for the journeys beginning but I seem to have been separated from my bag, which is going to set me a bit behind (more so than I already am). I am grateful to have finally made it to Auckland, but my bag got tired and decided it was done traveling once it reached Sydney.  For now, I am thankful to be sitting anywhere near a bed, and once I make a phone call to find what time my bag will be arriving, I will then decide to go get it tonight, or just sleep and retrieve it early tomorrow morning.  Sleep sounds so great.  I found myself falling into it while waiting in the airport terminal before my last flight, and at least 3 times on the bus ride to the hostel.

  One exciting note, is that the first guy I met at the hostel actually new where Idaho was, without hints or prompting. Fairly impress indeed!

  I know this is a short update, but I have no photos, it turns out airports are only exciting to those who are in them, and half the time, the people in them are less than excited and more annoyed at having to be in one, so I will spare you the sorted details. Lots of waiting, great people watching specimens on display, some crappy airline food, and a couple of flights later, oh and one small ordeal where I was forced to buy a return ticket in order to be allowed on the plane out of Australia. You know, traveling and such. 

  Honestly I am just too worn out to be witty and funny, and who wants to read a whole lot of blah blah blah with no point or punchline?

  Signing off to make a phone call about a bag. And to sleep.

  Well, here I am one day before departure sitting in my empty house, as I have already moved everything out, save for the bare essentials (blankets and pillows, a few tea bags, pb&j, a few slices of bread, oh, and a plethora of beer and cider, of course!).  So I sit down to write my very first blog post, which is something I never saw coming. Not in a million years. I promise to do my best to keep whoever reads this at the very least, entertained enough to continue on to each line. Thanks for reading.
  
  So, today should be a day full of nerves, and mindless wanderings toward all the possibilities this trip has in store for me, but it's not! Not at all. Today is a joke. I often refer to myself as life's jester, or walking Murphy's Law. If someone is going to fall through societal cracks and further on down the rabbit hole of impossibilities, it will most certainly be me. I am thankful that at least to this point, I have come out of most situations relatively unscathed, and once given the time to process what has happened, I add the strange happenings to my list of improbable stories. Seriously, someone should consider doing a statistical analysis of my life.

  For example, did you know that I have fallen out of 2 roller coaster rides? I have also been so stuck in a roller coaster ride that the compartment I was in had to be disassembled to free me from its nasty clutches. One time my house burnt down. I have been in numerous car accidents (never my fault, for the record I am a very safe driver), the most exciting of which was when we hit a patch of black ice and rolled down a cliff, to then hitch hike a ride from the high mountains of Idaho, mid-winter. Have you ever known someone to get locked inside of a public restroom and have to have the cops get them out? You have, if you have ever met me! But these are all stories for another time. Let's focus!

  So, here's what's happening today.

  While ramping up for this crazy trip to New Zealand, which I have been waiting half of my life for (pre-Lord of the Rings, for the record. I cannot emphasize that enough), my passport and visa have been lost in the mail. I'm sorry, did i say "lost in the mail?" Yes, yes i did. What!!!? What year is this? Can that actually happen? Yes, apparently it can, and of course it happened to me.
  
  The gentleman who processed my visa is named Jose. We are on a first name basis now and he seems like the nicest man, and I am grateful for it. Well, we had a few snags in my visa for a second, concerning minor details that were quickly sorted out and I received confirmation that it had successfully processed last Monday (the 14th), and we had sent a FedEx envelope for the return mail set as next day shipping. So you can imagine my concern when it hadn't arrived one week later.

  Details of what actually happened are still under investigation, and detective Mom is on the case. My mother is amazing, you will hear me say this often. She has been steadily on the phone the last 24 hours with both Jose and Fedex. My visa has quite literally disappeared. Fedex has no record of ever picking it up, and Jose has a solid memory of taking it down to its drop point. PS Jose's memory is phenomenal, when I told him my name and issues over the phone he remembered who I was and that he had personally processed it, and said that he was excited for my art project. Rad! Thanks Jose!
  
  So, there you have it. Falling through the cracks again. Let me be quite clear about one thing, while this blog post is both calm, and gathered, know that I did have quite the freak out yesterday morning. Tears abound. I threw myself a pity party, and boy I had quite the time! Thanks to my sister for the massage to calm the headache that I had already woken up with that had increased drastically, and for my mother, the super glue to my life.
   
  Last December I had written something I hold to be very true:

I have accepted that I am fallable, I am breakable, and there is a tiny hairline fracture that, some days, runs the course of my entire being. Today, my friends and family were all the kings horses and all the kings men, who through their thoughtfulness and presence brought me out of a dark place I fell into, and put me back together again. On the days it feels like part of your heart is missing, if you're lucky enough, someone will show up with a flashlight to at least help you find what it is you have lost. To all the steady beams of light in my life, thank you.

Soon!