First piece of trouble

There iAuckland, New Zealand

There it goes. It had to happen. First piece of trouble. And I'm not talking about my eardrums which almost burst when the plane landed. Or about that cold who refuses to die.

Trouble came in Los Angeles airport, yesterday (technically, it's the day before yesterday because of the jetlag).

It's always good to know, before boarding a plane, if the country of your destination will let you in if you only have a one-way ticket.

Even if New Zealand loves Canadians, even if they don't require a visa for us to stay for three months or less, they don't like us enough to take the risk of us staying. Me, I didn't know that.

In fact I did. Another guest in my hostel room, in Los Angeles, asked me if I had a plane ticket out of New Zealand. I don't know why, I didn't check if I needed one. Could have saved me some trouble.

So it was impossible to check my luggage in and to get my boarding pass without a ticket that would get me out of Kiwi land.

I had to leave, my little bundle of joy on a shoulder, to buy a ticket as fast as possible. With the Quantas Airline desk in front of me, I tried to get the best price for a one-way ticket to Australia, out of NZ. I knew I didn't have a choice anyway, especially since I didn't know either when I wanted to leave New Zealand. I gave a random date. I'm good these days to find randomly the cheapest day. But I was sure that I could have found a better deal if I could have used the internet myself in that airport.

Until anybody proves me wrong, I'll leave from Christchurch to Melbourne on March 11. And by the time the girl behind the desk ended her fight booking with a non cooperative computer, the price of the ticket... doubled. What are you gonna do? It's my luck! I need it anyway. Kaching!

Time was still going by and that annoying computer couldn't print my proof of purchase, essential for me to board my plane. It took one hour, total, before I got my document. Good thing I got to the airport three hours before take off.

I just had time to go for the check-in, eat a very bad sandwich very fast and clear security. Even if I had taken out all my liquids in a little see-through bag, two officers had to look into my Purell to make sure I wouldn't try to bomb the plane. Damn it! Gotta do what you gotta do.

In the end, everybody wanted to make sure everything was in order. Security in Los Angeles. Security in Nadi, Fidji, for the stopover (note that we just got out of the plane and that it was technically impossible to have changed the content of our luggages). Security on arrival in Auckland.

That said, a night flight seems shorter than it's 10 hours (before the stopover, 13 total). About the jetlag, I'm now 18 hours in the future compared to Quebec.

I'll see if I can get a refund for my ticket. I found one that was cheaper for the same day, same destination, even after they will have charged me some penalties.