Monday, July 12th: Fly the friendly skies?

We left early morning on the 11th and are arriving early morning on the 12th, because we've crossed the date line. We've missed practically all of the 11th, a lazy Sunday where people sit around, maybe have a walk in the park, possibly turn on the telly in the evening and ...oh ... WATCH THE FLIPPING WORLD CUP FINAL! Did it even happen? And if it did, what did we miss? Who won?  As we walk into the Auckland airport terminal it's 8:30AM and the game's halfway through the second half. One of the pubs in the terminal has the game on, a few men are standing up under a rather large TV screen, pint of beer firmly held in their right hand, clearly ignorant of the earliness of the day. But let's think this one out for a minute: what are your options as a football fan,really? Could you honestly dress completely in orange, wear a viking helmet up top your head, then ask the bartender for a cup of Earl Grey and a croissant? It's still 0-0, the tension is still building up. We've clearly missed our connection, at this time the Pacific Blue plane is about to taxi on the runway. By the time we've cleared customs, the game is over, no need to find another TV screen. All of Holland must be weeping by now. We missed the footie, and we've missed the connecting flight, that's 0 for 2, not a real impressive record.

I decide to go through the motions of making our claim as the LAN Chile crew described, in the hope to recover at least some of our money. 

1. Agency covering fo Pacific Blue: "I think it's a LAN Chile problem sir, but please call Pacific Blue from a courtesy phone."
2. Pacific Blue operator at other end of courtesy phone: Sorry to hear about your problem. I can give you a preferential rate on the next flight, the day after tomorrow. Only NZD 600 instead of NZD 1100. That's way over our budget sir. OK, the best I can do is to give you credit for the money spent on the missed flight. Good luck. It's one of the nicest guys I've ever had on the line. OKay, I didn't get anywhere concretely, but I hang up the phone with a smile.
3. LAN Chile desk: If you have insurance you could possibly claim something back. But check with the LAN Chile office upstairs, they're open in an hour.
4. VISA-card financed call to Europe Assistance Belgium: a waste of time and money. NZD 20 for a 5 minute phonecall just to find out they don't cover this kind of incident.
5. LAN Chile upstairs office, after waiting 1 hour. "Sir, LAN Chile has kept it's promise to bring you from Santiago to Auckland. That's as far as we're required to honour the contract (flight ticket) with us. If you had a LAN Chile connection, then we could try to do something for you. (OK, how about if I tell you that LAN Chile doesn't fly anywhere near to Vanuatu. Duh.) If you wish, I can type you up a complaints form." Hell yes, you haven't heard the last of this.

Basically, all this blah blah that makes my ears hurt. And frankly they're supposed to hurt, because I've just come off a 10 hour flight crossing the dateline and we're getting nowhere. I overlook the foodcourt where we've been waiting for an hour: everybody is smilingly trying to sell us something. Frankly, I could shove that blueberry-mocha glazed muffin in your face, then stamp on it, buddy.

A little research reveals that if we're still interested to make it out to Vanuatu, then our best bet is to buy brand-new Air Vanuatu tickets for tomorrow's flight at NZD 300 each, bought from their downtown office. Ouch! We've got no other option, really, so off to downtown we are, glad to leave this airport with its air so tense you could cut it with a knife.

Auckland Accomodation base-X

A shuttle bus takes us to the centre of Auckland, where we check into a backpackers hostel on the 6th floor of a downtown office building. XBase offers pretty kewl rates. All we want is a clean, basic room with a clean bed for one night only, and NZD 60 gets us exactly that. The windowless room - windowed rooms cost more - is about 50 cm bigger than the bed, there's just enough space to put our backpacks on the side. Bathrooms and showers are shared, yet squeeky-clean. A paradise for backpackers living on a tight budget.

Waggling in Auckland
Jetlagged as we are, we kip for a bit, then go out and give downtown Auckland a go. Outside, I wonder what to do with this day that landed on us out of the (Pacific) blue. Nothing much cultural to see in downtown really, only malls, boutiques, hotels and restaurants. We get our handwritten Air Vanuatu tickets straight from the downtown office (didn't know they still do that), from a ball of curly Pacific hair, who's so excited that she offers to come along. Tickets in the daypack, we leisurely stroll down to the waterfront, feasting our eyes on the local handicrafts on display in every other shop window. It's turned out to be sunny winter's day, a day that promises a nice New Zealand summer in the making. We're too jet-lagged to really appreciate it like the locals do, we're focused on coming up with an afternoon entertainment plan that would take care of our afternoon. A plan that doen't involve sleeping at any point, because if we give in to our tiredness now, we'll wake up at 3AM and never get rid of our jetlag.

Tunnel vision
How about if we chilled a bit with the whacky penguins at Kelly Tarltons Antarctic Encounter? It's really a kids thing, but hey we can be big kids if we want to.

Blandine: "Did you see that? Wooow! Can we go again?" She grabs my hand, pulls me off the conveyor belt and runs us all the way back to the starting point. We've instantly become kids again.

Once outside we stroll hand in hand down the pier on the opposite side of the road, to take in the view of Auckland bay. It's a bit windy, so we retrace our steps to the Aquarium's parking lot, where a courtesy shuttle bus in the shape of an open-mouthed killer shark waits to take us back. It's only 6PM, but sleep is steadily winning ground on us, so we groggily stumble back into the hostel, stumble into our bed-room, and pass out. Not having dinner is quickly becoming a habit.