Day 1 Auckland to Manchester

Day 1

We were about 45 minutes late leaving Auckland which made us a bit grumpy.  We only have  3 hour layover in Los Angeles and last time we went through there were massive queues and we were running through the terminal to catch our next flight.  The flight was about as good as they get, no screaming babies, very little turbulence, we both got some decent sleep and time seemed to pass quickly.  We were only about 10 minutes later than schedule landing in LAX,  but then we taxied for miles, and waited on the tarmac for ages because the plane that was on our gate was delayed.  Eventually we docked about 50 minutes later than scheduled, and of course it took ages for every slow faffing person in front of us to get their stuff out of the overhead locker and get moving.  Because of the delay we were given orange “connection” cards which were like a magic queue-jumping ticket, that allowed us to get in the shortest lanes. 

The immigration queue was relatively small this time around and we breathed a sigh of relief, and duly headed for the machines that scan your passport, take your photo and your fingerprints.  Bizarrely though you still have to queue to meet an actual person who askes more questions , takes another photo and eventually says welcome to the united States, even though you are only passing through for  a few hours.  But US rules say anyone entering the US must clear immigration and agriculture at port of entry, even if they don’t intend to stay in the US.  So we then had to go to baggage claim and get our Bags off the carousel, and go thru the “nothing to declare” line (with the magic orange tickets once again cutting us to the shortest queue), and we were out and winding our way through the “connection” channel to drop our bags for the Manchester leg. 

We ended up being spat out into a concourse area that was a heaving mass of people.  There were buses for any number of airlines except ours (Virgin Atlantic), and signs for various terminals and departure points, but we stupidly had no idea where we were supposed to go or where our next flight left from.  There were no departure boards (that we could see) to direct us, and as our boarding pass was issued in Auckland, no gate number to give us a clue.  So it took three different attempts at asking someone before J was able to establish we needed to be in Terminal 2, which was an unknown but walkable distance away.  So we set off, dodging small children, and slow walkers to eventually arrive at Terminal 2.  We checked through TSA, with the usual inconsistent rules about whether shoes or belts needed to be removed, and eventually got out our designated departure gate to find it chock full of people waiting to board.  Our aircraft hadn’t even arrived, so we could actually have taken a leisurely stroll and still had plenty of time. 

We were about an hour late leaving LAX, and had another quiet and uneventful flight across the US and the Atlantic to Manchester. 

We had ended up being on a replacement plane due to some technical difficulty on an earlier flight, and it was old and grotty compared to the Air NZ bus.  I could have had a whole meal from the crumbs down between the edge of the seat and the side of the fuselage.  It was one of those ones with the stupid head phone jack in the armrest, the ones that require a two plug adapter, or so I thought.  My adaptor was in the headphone case already in the overhead locker, but J had a spare which he found and passed to me.  I promptly dropped it, and it disappeared, a black plug on black carpet.  J eventually had to get out of his seat and retrieve it on hands and knees, which he was not pleased about.  All made worse by finding out that it wasn’t needed it at all, the headphone jack was a single plug.  Oops.  The we had a bit of trouble with the seat pockets.  Quiet roomy, but someone clever had thought it would be a good idea to use Velcro to secure them to the seat at the bottom.  Why, I don’t know.  J duly put in his big heavy book, his heavy surface, his bottle of water, his phone, only to have the phone drop onto the floor.  I guess thinking it had slipped out the side, he repeated procedure, and nek minute, everything was on the floor.  The woman across the aisle cheerfully piped up with “my, someone has dropsies”.  I was laughing uncontrollably at this point, silently, but the heaving shoulders were obvious, which did not please J and in fact, did not help his temper one little bit.  The more funny I found it, the more thunderous his scowl.  For the 2^nd time in about 5 minutes, he had to get out of his seat and feel around on the floor to retrieve all his belongings and get them back in the seat pocket. 

With that little drama over, we settled in for the next 10 hour leg.  Again it was quiet with very little turbulence, and only that last 4 hours seemed to drag. 

We arrived in Manchester to be met by Heather’s smiling face and caught a cab to her & Tom’s place.

We chatted for a while to her and Tom, divested about 3kg in goodies ad gifts from NZ (Perky Nana lumps, and Whittakers chocolate) and then it was time for a shower and teeth clean to feel human again.  It was about 2pm by this stage so we wandered down to the local shops for lunch, keen to keep moving until our goal crash-out time of 6pm.  We had lunch at an amazing tapas bar, lots of small plates of delicious goodness.  The local shops are quirky and unique, and we all found something that appealed.

Then it was a slow wander back to H & T’s for a cup of coffee, before Tom left for his night shift.  He is a paramedic here in Manchester and working 6pm – 6pm shift for the next two days. 

We watched old episodes of Friends on Netflix until we started to nod off, and we it the hay.