Monday, July 18
After all of our busy and exhausting travels we slept in
this morning and it felt great! The
kiddos did so well in the hotel, and were so quiet even when they woke up. We slowly got up and checked out of the
hotel. It was really nice that we were able to check out, but leave our luggage
with the hotel while we had a chance to explore the city. This wasn’t something I had ever done before
Mason and I went to Japan, and I’m glad that Mason thought to ask if we could do
it. It would have been an unpleasant/impossible
morning if we had to tote luggage with us, and it wasn’t worth it to get a car
just for the day.
We decided to take a taxi from our hotel to Darling Harbour
and walk around for a few hours. The
kids thoroughly enjoyed the taxi ride.
While I find car seats frustrating and annoying at times, seeing these
tiny humans in the taxi without them made me grateful that they do have to be
seated in them, plus it was hard for them to see since they were shorter than
the windows. It was interesting to drive
through downtown Sydney. I’m not sure
what I was expecting it to be like, but you could definitely tell the different
sections of town.
Darling Harbour was a nice little area. I was surprised that there weren’t more boats
in the harbour. Many of the docks were
empty and there were only a few boats docked.
Even though it is winter here, I still expected the boats to be in the
water. The highlight for the kids were
all the seagulls and pigeons. They
haven’t spent much of their life near water or cities, apparently. Theo especially liked to try and get as close
as possible to them. Luckily we didn’t
receive any “presents” from the birds.
We walked along the Harbour and over a bridge which the boys also
enjoyed. I’m not a huge bridge person,
but the view was nice. I’m hoping on our
way back through Sydney we get to Sydney Harbour and get to check out that
bridge and the Opera House.
We found a food court along the water and each grabbed food
that appealed to us. Mason and I grabbed some Thai food. My fried rice didn’t have much flavor and had
way too much Bok Choy; I should have gone with the make your own meal
option. The boys voted for…McDonalds. The menu options here are fun. I like seeing familiar American restaurant
menus in other countries. This McDonalds
had frozen cokes, loaded fries (salsa and Guac was an option) and super packs
which was like multiple burgers and fries for a shared meal experience. Also Fanta is huge here. We sat outside and enjoyed the fresh, cool
air along the ocean.
Since we still had time before we had to leave we decided to
wander into the city a little bit. A
block from the Harbour was a great city park for kids. We spent an hour or a little more there. After a day of airplane rides it was great
for the boys to be able to run, climb, and play. Theo loved climbing this huge webbed jungle
gym and Woodrow thought the little slide was the best. The temperature was getting warmer at this
point, so between spotting kids Mason and I got a few rests in the shade. I
overhead a little girl with an Australian accent say to her dad, “Father, when
we come to Darling Harbour again, can we please bring our swimming
costumes.” It was so cute…you have to
say it with the accent though.
We walked through the city a little bit for about
half-an-hour before having to catch a taxi back to the hotel to get our luggage
and then the airport. We wandered
through China Town, and the Harbour neighborhood. It was nice to just be outside and in the
cooler temperatures. We hailed a taxi
who took us on our errands and dropped us off at the airport. It was a littler concerning when we first
arrived because there were several people in the Air New Zealand check-in
lines, but no one working at the counters.
We eventually discovered we could check-in in a different area, and this
is where things went South.
Of course they have the self check-in machines, but there
were two people from Air NZ hovering and basically doing the steps for
Mason. He got all the way to the last
step when the machine wouldn’t process for us, so they had to do it on their
machine for us. The first problem that
came up was that we didn’t have a return ticket from New Zealand to Australia. This was the only ticket of our journey that
we didn’t purchase because the prices were really high when we looked on
Saturday, and we were hoping to look midweek in hopes for some cheaper fares,
but the airlines didn’t allow us to not have a return ticket.
Ugh! So, they sent us
to some computers nearby that had free internet so we could search for
tickets. Of course this was not the
situation we wanted to be in for purchasing airline tickets. We found some and purchased them, but Mason’s
American Express card has been giving him some trouble and so he received a
confirmation email that the tickets were confirmed, but the payment was on hold
and we’d hear back in 3 hours. GRR! So, we went back to the ticket counter hoping
that we could just give them the flight info, but the woman had to see the
confirmation number and so Mason had to go to the JetStar counted somewhere
else in the airport. In the meantime,
they had discovered that the ticket reservation had been made by American
Express for this flight using points and the must have used the name on the
account (Mason W. Kehs) which does not match Mason’s passport, which became a
HUGE HUGE HUGE issue. We got some people
calling to work on that, while Mason headed to the JetStar office. This took
awhile, and the kids were not behaving at this point. So, I was frustrated with the kids, and Mason
frustrated with the airlines, and the minutes are ticking away getting closer
to our flight.
When Mason returned with our flight confirmation number, it
was definitely time that we needed to be making our way through security and to
our flight, but the name issue was still not resolved. Mason was trying to make calls to American
Express to have them fix it, the airline was trying to call themselves to change
it, and it was a HUGE problem that they weren’t easily fixing. So here’s the image for you…angry Mason
losing his cool at the ticket counter over a middle initial, Ellen bawling at
the thought/suggestion that I should go ahead with the kids and get on the
flight with or without Mason, kids bickering…yeah, it wasn’t great. Someone FINALLY fixed the problem, and we
were able to check our bags, go through security and customs, and high tail it
to our gate. Thank you moving
walkways! I think were were there just
5-10 minutes prior to boarding and baby belly was sore!
Fortunately the flight from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand
(3 hours) was pleasant and they had in-seat entertainment, which passed the
time for all of us. Three hours isn’t
bad when you just watch a few tv shows or a movie, and thankfully the kids
really like that too! We got to the
airport, got our rental car, and headed for our lodging. Go Mason for being brave enough to do
left-side of the road driving for the first time in the darkness. We stayed at the Best Western BK’s Pioneer
Lodge. This was a really great
motel. You never really know, and
pulling up I had my reservations, but the room was nice. We had two separate spaces. A king size bed in the bedroom and two single
beds in the living room with a small kitchen.
There was also a HUGE jet-bathtub that the kids really liked to soak
in. Mason went out and grabbed food,
McDonalds, which was just something to put in our stomach s after the really
long, exhausting day. NZ is also two
hours ahead of Australia, so it was fairly late by the time we were settling
down for the evening. 
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