Where on earth am I?

UPDATED BELOW!

I'm back in Australia now. I've been to New Zealand overnight, so that's another country stamped on my passport. Jeez have I got a load of stuff to gibber about!

First and foremost though, I must give tribute to a wonderful girl I met at the airport. Not the usual kind of meeting, the meeting with a fellow traveller. This wonderful girl worked at the airport. Christchurch International information desk to be specific. I arrived about 11pm and I was all out of smokes. And there wasn't a bar or shop open in the whole airport. I nearly cried.

I knew there was a hotel nearby so I went outside to see if I could spot it. Nope. No hotels in sight. But I did see a bus terminal complete with waiting bus. I went along and asked the driver how much and how long to the city (you know, airports are always a way out). He told me he'd be happy to take me for a couple of NZ$ but that the buses didn't run early enough to get me back for my return check-in. I asked him if he knew where the hotel was. He said there was no hotel which dented my confidence in him as I'd been looking at their website only hours earlier!

Filled with doubt as to pass my 7 hours until my flight home I went back into the terminal building and spotted an information desk. I wandered over and asked the nice girl at the counter if she knew anywhere I could buy some smokes. She regretfully informed me that no, there wasn't anywhere.

I asked her if my plan of going to the airport hotel and using a cigarette machine was plausible. She said the hotel didn't have a machine! Then, guess what? She made me such a kind offer I'll always remember it. She said "Hey, I finish work at 12.30 and get a taxi home. On the way we pass a Caltex (Petrol station with shop) so you could just jump in my taxi and get him to drop you there?"

How's that for customer service? She said that she'd send out a tannoy announcement asking me to go the info desk when she finished work. I asked how much the taxi would be and she said "Well, I'm going home anyway, so you just pay to come back here if you want"

As most of my readers will know, I travel lots. And although I meet lots of nice people very few ever actually do anything memory-worthy. In fact, I only have two very vivid memories of people. One is Lisa, the wonderful German girl I met on a flight over here, and the other one was an exteremely kind old lady I'll tell you about another time.

Now I have three! The wonderful girl finished work and as she was locking up the place I asked to borrow a pen. I used it to write a note to her:

[I was going to post a photo of the note but my computer is being an arse]

Instead, here's the text I can (just) read from the image on my camera phone:

"Thank you very much for your extremely kind guesture of sharing your taxi. I truly appreciate it. I don't know if you use the internet at all, but if you do please check www.tb100.blogspot.com where you'll see glowing comments about yourself in under 24hrs"

I didn't give the note to her then (Shy. Yeah, me=shy and lacking confidence(!)) because we stood outside talking about stuff until the taxi arrived. Including of course the title of this post. I honestly had no idea where in the world I was. I've never seen a map of NZ. Apparently it's two islands and I was half way up the southern one.

When the taxi arrived he dropped "wonder-info-girl" off and then took me to the gas staion free of charge. He was a decent bloke.

So all I need to do now is call the manager of Christchurch and tell him how wonderful she is at her job and how much she goes beyond duties to help out poor morons like me.

Got loads more about the trip of course, give me some time and I'll be happily posting away. I typed up loads into notepad at the airport and I think it covered 13 different points all in all!

UPDATE - PLEASE BE SEATED COMFORTABLY...

As I suspected, it's been a very eventful trip.

i) Saying goodbye

The first thing that suprised me was how sad I was to wave goodbye to TT at the local trainstation. For the last week I've been saying (quite honestly) that this is the first time I've not been scared of Brisbane International Airport. In the past it's always meants we're going to be apart for undetermined number of weeks. Today I knew it was just going to be overnight. And yet as we hugged and kissed goodbye I almost felt like crying. It's been four years now and yet we're still getting closer and more attached everyday.

ii) The joys of being British

There were a British couple on the train that had very brummie (Birmingham) accents and obvious drug problems. It was like listening to Ozzie Osbourne. He was saying things like

"Oooh man - Look at that! Shit, it's a fookin plane! I thought it was a fooking big red bird going faster than the train"

"Why do they poot the fookin airpurts soo far away from fookin city man? Evry fooker lives in city so why dunt they poot the fooker right there in the middul?"

After two minutes of sharing the same carriage I wished I was deaf. And not British. People like that should be culled or castrated to prevent the breeding of further imbeciles.

iii) Oh no! I'm a pauper!

I went to the duty free in the airport and my credit card got refused. The embarassment! I've got a bloody platinum card fully creditted up! I could buy a bloody house over here on that card! I only wanted $50 of smokes and spirits! I think it's a security thing because I've not used it for so long and suddenly it's being used on the other side of the world. I only brought that card and $50 cash with me so I apologised profusely while being very red and told them to keep the goods. I didn't want to spend my cash incase I needed it for anything proper. Food for example. Except the vodka. It was on special at $9 so it would have been criminal not to buy it?

iv) Mr Brains-of-Austrlia, the check-in guy

I checked in. The bloke at check-in looked suprised I'd not been assigned a seat. I suggested it wasn't too suprising since it was a budget airline and part of the reason for check-in was to get a boarding pass and seat number. He said no worries, he'd sort me out a seat number. "Oh good" I think to myself, "at least I wont be standing for three hours...." But I say nothing. I've learnt, never piss off airport staff, they can arrange anal probings through security/customs and all sorts of things. But I'm proud to say that's never happened to me.

He assigned me a seat, printed me a boarding pass and then said "Oh. Someone else has that seat. Hang on, I'll find you another." and he beamed at me as though he was doing me a favour. I think "Hmm, well, yes, that would be the obvious thing..." but I supress my brain to mouth communication and nod politely and say "Thank you". I'm British after all. We're not allowed to be rude you know.

v) The runaway

I had about 40 minutes to kill before I had to be at the gate. So I bought a bottle of diet coke (or was it coke zero? More about this later!) and transferred some of the newly purchased vodka therein. I'm not scared of flying, I love it in fact, but I like to have some VC because it makes me a little pissy and I talk to people more. I find most of the fun part of travelling is in the meeting of people.

I then went to the outside smoking area. I got chatting to a woman who had just run away from her husband. They had no children because in the five years they'd been married he'd done nothing but beat her up. Nice fella eh? He wanted kids and she desperately wanted some too, but she didn't want to procreate with a beast like him. Very understandable. So she'd spent the last year putting small amounts of her wages aside to save up for a plane ticket. He doesn't work of course. When she'd saved enough for the ticket to New Zealand (He's not allowed there as he has a criminal record) she'd got him mightilly pissed until he fell into a drunken slumber and then packed her bags, emptied the bank account and left!

You go girl! I sincerely wish her the best of luck in starting a new life overseas and finding happiness.

vi) Tannoy ahoy

While chatting to the lady above there was a tannoy announcement. "Could please contact the staff at check-in gate 81" Bollocks! I've never been tannoyed directly before! I often wait for the "Would remaining passengers for flight XYZ please make their way to the gate as the aircraft is almost fully boarded" announcement but that's not normally targetted exclsuviely at me. This was the first time I'd been requested, and well before boarding begun. As I started walking to the gate I realised what the problem was. I'd not looked into visa requirements for New Zealand. It simply hadn't crossed my mind. Shit. Bollocks. Arse.

I got to the gate and was hugely relieved to be told there were no visa requirements and that they'd only called me to ask if it was Ok to switch my seat. Apparently the guy on the check-in had screwed up and assigned the same seat to two passengers. Mr Brains-of-Australia? Cocked up? Well, no suprises there then! I was really pleased it was nothing serious, but also cursed myself lots for not thinking of checking the visa requirements. It could have been nasty!

vii) Boarding the plane

The story of Mr Brains the check-in bitch doesn't end there. Oh no. I boarded the plane and took seat 26D, my newly assinged seat. It was an airbus so it has 3 x seats, aisle, 3 x seats. ABC on the row over the aisle were empty. As was the row behind them. The seat to my right was empty, and some guy was in the window seat, F. I'd just gotten out my books, my VC and taken off my shoes when a guy walks up the aisle, pauses next to me and then politely produces his boarding pass. Yep. 26D. He and his wife had been allocated the two seats that were occupied by me and the guy at the window! A stewardness asked us all to go and wait at the rear of the plane while she sorted it. I put away my stuff, put my shoes back on and went to wait. It turned out that they were of course supposed to be in the empty row on the other side of the aisle.

As we took off I noticed that the row of three behind them was still empty. I decided that as soon as a hostie walked by I'd ask her if I could move. It's only a three hour flight, but why sit when you could lift up the arm rests and lay down for a sleep? However, the moment the seatbely light went off some fat cow rolled down the aisle and wedged her fat arse right into the middle one. Bah. The hostie told her that she shouldn't be there as the seating arrangments had been prepared to balance the plane. I knew what she meant but the fat cow thought it was an insult about her elephant like weight and went ballistic. It was very funny. In the end the hostie just apologised and walked away quickly before the woman started eating her or something.

viii) I suppose I did look a little suspicious...

I presented my immigration card to passport control. In the "intended length of visit" box I'd put 1 day. He was suspicious but he let me through anyway. Little did I know what the sneaky shit had done...

I proceeded to baggage reclaim and walked straight past because I had no baggage to claim. I was travelling light with just my small backpack. A securty guy at the door told me that the baggage wouldn't be long and I should wait. I explained that I had no baggage and again, he looked suspicious. He let me out though. I then walked through the customs control, choosing the "Nothing to declare" route. I was just about to step out of the corridoor into the arrivals lounge when suddenly a voice behind me called "Mr X! Could you stop a moment please?" Shocked I turned around. There was a very official looking lady stood there. "Our passport control guy rang his alarm and suggested that I should have a word with you. Would you mind?" It wasn't a question though.

An hour later, having repeated my story for the umpteenth time and having had my bag very, very thoroughly searched they finally let me go. They confiscated a sandwich that I'd been saving for laters and told me I was lucky not to get a $200 fine for attempting to smuggle meat and vegetable matter into New Zealnd!


ix) This kiwi is much friendlier!
As I related at the start of my story, it was at this point I got bored and then met the very friendly Tourist Information girl.

x) Upon arriving back in Brisbane guess what happened? Give you a clue. See viii)

Yep. Stopped and searched for the second time in under 12 hours. Repeated story again and again. And it turns out that my business visa does not entitle me to work in Australia. Well, I can work, but not be employed. That throws rather a considerable spanner in the works. She told me I was lucky not to be deported on the spot. She was a kind of Jeckel and Hyde character, being very friendly and sympathetic one minute and then snapping at me the next. Having slept for only four hours in the last 48 hours really didn't help either.

And that's my story. Bet you're glad that's over aren't you? Now I've got to get a different visa sorted out very quickly. Oh the joys....