It was Monday, but now it's Tuesday ...

... and this is all the same day.  I swear ... the Date Line messes with my brain so much. 

But regardless, it IS Tuesday night to us at 8PM, and we have safely been in Christchurch for 3 hours.  And in Tucson right now ... it is Monday night at midnight.

After 5 flights, and 27 hours of travel, we arrived only 10 minutes late. 

But wait, this feels like Montana!  Jae .... it is still light outside!  So different than Tucson at 8PM.  Even as tired as we feel, I'm not sure I can fall asleep while it's still light outside.

Air Tahiti Nui has FABULOUS Business Class seats that lay down almost completely flat, so that gave us a few hours of sleep.  But it was a little hard to swallow down breakfast at 3:30AM.  We landed in Tahiti at 5AM. 

We were both excited to have gotten that far ~ and look how happy Dennis looked ~

But this smile lasted only until we realized that we had BOTH lost our logo'd Efficiency Experts fleece jackets.  WHAT?  Us completely organized, all of our T's crossed and I's dotted, having our shit completely together ... WE LOST OUR JACKETS?  The funny part is that we think we lost them independently .... Dennis while going through pat-down security, and I think mine is tucked way up in an overhead bin in that plane right behind him.  Oh ~ and my $1.00 pink scarf from White Elephant is gone, too.  I guess the first thing we will buy in New Zealand will be fleece jackets.

Had a lovely 5.5 hour flight into Auckland ~ watched two movies, had ANOTHER identical breakfast, and drank champagne.  Not too bad.

Hung out in the Air New Zealand Lounge in Auckland and enjoyed FREE FOOD AND WINE for about 90 minutes.  Damn that New Zealand wine is good! 

And then a quick 90 minute flight into Christchurch.  We sat next to the NICEST man from Auckland who gave us TONS of info about New Zealand and gently corrected our mispronunciation of city names.  We feel truly initiated.

Off to sleep ... its getting a little darker.  We pick up our rental car in the morning and hit the road, heading south.  Now if we can just remember to drive on the left-hand side of the road.