Flying Off

On Thursday our dad was flying out to Melbourne at 7.20am in the morning as part of this 'Familiarisation Programme' with Air New Zealand, which meant we all had to wake up at about 4am to set off for the airport! We were all pretty excited as we haven't been to the airport in yonks!

We got there in plenty of time, and my dad joined his workmates, who then checked in. We just wandered around the airport looking through the shops and the places. The arrivals area was slightly different to what it looked like when we were last there several years ago. A lot of the chairs had been removed. There were heaps of people hugging and kissing each other. There were also people sleeping on seats!

Being around the planes did kinda remind me of the passion I once had for aircraft when I was a little wiener at primary school. Back then I always used to read books about civilian aircraft and draw planes (like Air New Zealand and QANTAS planes!) to the point where I could just look at a plane and identify it by the number of engines, the body and wing type (like a Boeing 747-400 or an Airbus A380)....yeah psycho! Anyway I couldn't remember much when we were on the viewing platform. It was fun though watching the planes being loaded, taking off and landing. There were several Air NZ planes, one QANTAS plane and a Cathay Pacific plane. The Cathay Pacific plane had a large brown mark near its rear wing, which looked like a burn mark. I would be freaked out if I was flying on that plane!

While waiting for our dad's plane to take off, I was freaking out a little bit. With everything that has happened in the aviation industry in the past few years such as September 11 etc, I was a little apprehensive about my dad being on a plane. I was hoping and praying his plane would take off safely and he would get to Melbourne in one piece (alive)! After one hour of waiting, the plane he was in (Boeing 747-400) took off safely!! We then left the airport quickly before we had to pay for three hours of parking.

Because we had all finished exams, and Aonghas was driving, we decided we'd just check out shopping malls around the area. We went to Sylvia Park, thinking Stage Two would be worth checking out. We were also looking for breakfast/lunch as we didn't have any time to eat earlier. It's amazing how when you wake up so early it feels like the day has passed but then when you look at the time it's not even midday!

Sylvia Park turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Stage Two was made up mostly of fashion stores, which were of no interest to us. We ended up just buying some food from Pak N' Save, eating it and then leaving. We went into the city so I could check on my Auckland University application (which turned out to be fine...my photo ID is still being processed!).

We got back home at a time we thought would be late afternoon, but turned out to be only midday! I got my EFTPOS card in the mail which was cool! A milestone for me! I can't wait to try it in ATM machine! Now if only I had money in that bank account...