Hello my dearest,

I cant believe 6 months ago I booked this trip, not knowing what to expect and not sure what I wanted to do but I knew I wanted to do this o my own and be with just me… Doesn’t matter that I live alone, I spend most of my weekends alone, at home there is always something distracting me, here – that is pretty much impossible and I am loving it.

After a very long flight and a couple frustrating moments which I thought – holy crap – seriously why am I going… Then I remembered to breathe and thought, it is not the end of the world that you set the alarm off at your house at 2:45 am with a newborn next door… Just breathe… It also didn’t matter that you couldn’t remember if you locked the door cause it was 2:45 AM and it was pouring rain and the wonderful Lyft Driver was getting soaked waiting for me to get my bags… It is all ok, at that time… Just had to relax and breathe… After that, I thought – hey – I am good still getting to the airport at the right time and checked my bag in. – no problem.. Went to go through TSA and noticed TSA pre-check wasn’t open.. That almost sent me over the edge… I know – I know… spoiled… I just cant remember the last time I had to take my shoes off and my laptop out of my bag… After pouting about that, I walked the length of Portland airport no problem – cause why would TSA open both sides at 3:15 AM???

Once inside, no problem – I went to get coffee and a pastry, got on the plane with no problem. In Seattle, I was again blessed with walking from one side of SeaTac to the other side of SeaTac to catch my next flight… With plenty of time, 20 min to spare, I decided to walk in extended circles knowing I would be on the plane for about 6 hours…

Once on, I am grateful that I upgraded to Economy Plus, there was a kid and his mom next to me, before took off, I learned that this beautiful kid is ranked 13th in the world for speed kayaking… I didn’t even know it was a sport… He was a good kid, told me all about it… he placed 3rd in this tournament just last month in Hungary… Apparently it is a big thing out there.. No idea… Sometimes I love meeting new people in the plane, you never know who you will be meeting. Thankfully we didn’t speak throughout the plane ride… Boringly we landed in Hawaii, wow – hello humidity and heat… It was like I was home, I loved it… My hair quickly responded by growing in volume. Walking again to the other side of the airport – just another airport, I looked and I had walked already 3.5 miles when I have been on an airplane more than on land… 🙂

On the plane in Hawaii, I experienced the wonderfulness of Hawaiian Airlines (upgraded to economy plus emergency exit). Not Business Class but pretty close, for a nine and a half hour flight, it was actually pretty comfortable.

Arriving at 9:50 PM we arrived and quickly went through the passport control line. It was amazing, just put your passport in the machine, unfortunately no stamp though. I was bummed about that. Getting my bag within the first 20 bags, I went through the rest of checking out and found Vodafone which had my card ready, within 3 minutes I was all set with my new SIM card ready to get some cash which was again easy… It was amazing, less than 16 hours ago I was frustrated about setting off the alarm and having to walk all the way around Portland Airport – all that was forgotten when everything after that went perfectly. And now in my room at midnight, I am ready to sleep and get started with looking around Auckland for the day.

Love you and am so glad you are as adventurous as you are.

~me