Anyone for a Juice?

Silly of me really. I should have known the moment the tap fell out of the 20 litre (or there abouts) orange juice container in my hand whilst pouring myself a glass of it at 5am in the Koru Lounge that things were only going to get worse! Lucky it was only 5am and not 6am rush hour when the Lounge would have been packed to the rafters! Of course 20 litres (or there abouts) of orange juice goes a long way and it went EVERYWHERE…………..and I mean everywhere. I was drenched, the table was covered, the floor was an ever increasing tide of orange. Thankfully everyone pretended not to notice my cursing and swearing, my wet clinging trousers and orange flecked shoes. Everyone except the kind man who ran over and lifted the container off the table and lent it backwards so the hole was facing skywards, and the panicked staff member who took the tap out of my hand and tried to plug it back into the container to stem the flow. HG was oblivious to the commotion and was busy making a cup of tea for him and me over the other side of the room – he was  surprised to come back and find me in such a predicament and stood there with two cups of tea saying “oh Sha” – a small grin on his face. Then came rushing all the other Lounge staff who looked at me and said things like “ummm”, “oh no”, and “sorry, that’s never happened before”. I looked and felt a bit like a strange animal in a zoo enclosure so asked for a towel – my request shook them into action and they all started rushing about. The towel and I took off to the toilets where I whipped my trousers off and ran them through the mighty, high speed hand dryer and waltzed out of there 5 minutes later chin up looking like nothing had happened …………… although smelling rather orangey.  As we jovially strolled off to board our flight from Christchurch to Auckland my Knight in Orange Armor did say he thought it was a rather extreme effort to get my clothes laundered.

Got to Auckland in time for our 9am appointment at the U.S.A. consulate to be told they didn’t have our visa application approval in their system, and couldn’t issue the visa until they did – this could take another day or two and we were booked on a flight to Vancouver and from there to Seattle the following evening at 8pm! This is despite the fact that the Immigration Lawyer in the States had the paperwork confirming that our Visa Application was approved!  Still, being ever positive and with 19 hours still left before we need to check in we think “no sweat”! Well – it was not meant to be. We got word on Friday afternoon around 2.30pm that the visas would be ready between 4 and 5pm Monday afternoon. The travel agent HG’s firm uses is an angel, she managed to get us on the last 2 seats to USA Monday night 7.45pm.

Of course, not all has been bad – we were fortunate to spend our first night in Auckland with my gorgeous friend Anna’s parents, Jo and Ian, in their beautiful apartment in Parnell. That was a treat – we were thoroughly spoiled.  The firm then booked us into the Crowne Plaza until Monday (very nice thank you).  I have walked miles, visited museums, found fabulous shops down hidden alleyways and enjoyed lazing about in our room at the Crowne Plaza while HG has been working . Bit of a treat being in a buzzy city which seems not to ever sleep!!

This was the start of our 6 month adventure in Seattle, Washington, USA – HG’s secondment in Bellevue.  So now, fingers crossed we collect our passports and get to Auckland Airport in a timely manner to make our Monday night flight.