After 32 hours of traveling, I am finally here.

Hey all

I have finally made it to Wellington. My journey started on the 4th of October in Chicago, where I took a five hour flight to LAX, which wasn't so bad. I flew Virgin America which has really comfortable planes with pretty interior lights (it's the little things that amuse me). The flight was fine, but LAX must be one of the most confusing airports I've ever been to. There are no signs telling you where to go, and people aren't too willing to help you out. I only had 2 hours between when I landed and when I started to board, but needed to check in to my flight to Fiji before I could go to my gate, where EVERYONE ELSE ON MY PLANE was checking in. It was a very long and slow process, but luckily since everyone on my flight was in that line, they wouldn't leave without us, right?
Oh and did I mention that I had a really bad cold for this whole trip? Yeah not fun. Try traveling when you're coughing and blowing your nose every ten minutes. I'm pretty sure everyone on my flights all thought I had the plague. So upon arriving at my gate in LAX, I took all the cold medicine I could and prepared myself for the ten hour flight to Fiji. I was unlucky and got an aisle seat, so about 3/4 of my flight consisted of me trying to comfortably sleep in various contortions and trying to avoid being used as a cushion by the old Indian man next to me. Air Pacific isn't too bad, and they give you dinner (I opted sleep over food at midnight) and an OK breakfast, but their coffee is actually reallllly good. Just for other people's information.
Fiji itself was really pretty, but it was a cloudy day. But still. Fiji. I mean... Come on.

Food court in Fiji airport with anything from hot dogs to samosas and more

They actually have Fiji water here. I had to buy some. 

Fiji from the plane

I hung out in Nadi for five hours before my flight to Auckland on Air Pacific again. Being from the States, I'm not really used to flights under four hours giving you food and drinks for free, so when they came around with lunch for us FOR FREE, I was very pleased. Unfortunately, I had a child on some sort of crazy sugar/caffeine combination in the window seat, while I was in the aisle. He refused to keep the window open, bounced around and screamed a lot, and got up to use the toilet every ten minutes. I wish I was exaggerating. I'm not. His dad was just really apologetic, but I was already sinking into the "I'm way too tired for this s**t" grumpiness which we all know so well. I stayed calm, ordered a glass of wine, and tried to watch Spiderman.
By this time I had been traveling for around 22 hours, and still had quite some time to go. I'll skip through my struggles at the Auckland airport, which ended with my flight getting to Wellington an hour late. I arrived at my flat around 8 pm Wellington time on Saturday Oct 6, met my flatmates, showered, and passed out for a very long time.
My first impressions of Wellington are that all of the houses look like they are dangerously situated on all of the hills here, it's gorgeous, there is a strange mixture of architecture everywhere, and it's very chilly. Today is actually pretty lovely (60F/15C and sunny). Of course, it is windy here, but I've given into having 24/7 windswept hairstyles. I feel like it's a sort of UK-light. There are a lot of very British things about NZ, but at the same time, I feel like it is very different. The weather so far is much milder, there are palm trees everywhere, and it just overall seems much beachier. I'll try to take some pictures today to post later this week. But just a very wordy update for interested parties.
Until next time-
Safe travels everyone!