Trip to the other end of the world

Let’s go… I flew out on a Saturday evening from Frankfurt. I flew out from Frankfurt all the time in the past but I no longer like doing that. It is only a 50 minutes train ride but German railway has become so unreliable that nowadays I am planning in additional 2 hours ahead or when I went to Madeira and the flight was in the morning I went to Frankfurt the evening before. This time I was lucky as my train was only 10 minutes late but taking a later train would have been a problem because a weird person thought it was a good idea to take a selfie from the top of a train while train was stopping at the station. He survived but disrupted the traffic. That is what I am saying – you never know what happens so better be VERY early but it still makes me nervous.

Check in at Singapore Airlines counters started 4 hours before departure. Got rid of my suitcases and when went through security. I was flying Premium Economy again. I know that this is more expensive but it is for health reasons in additions to just being more comfortable that I do that. If you fly economy you often have to wait on long lines at Check-In or security and standing for a long time it not easy for me. But in addition after departure I could order my Singapore Sling. 😀 It does have advantages… 😉 But it has become one of my personal traditions that I drink one Singapore Sling while flying Singapore Airlines. The flight was a bit delayed. When I landed in Singapore I just sat down to fill out my Traveller Declaration for New Zealand and then went to the gate to get on the next flight. That one was Air New Zealand and for the first time in my life I was online during the entire flight. 😀 Weird… Air New Zealand wifi is free of charge so that was funny. When they knew your name it was displayed on the entertainment screen at your seat. They didn’t know mine so it was just the seat number displayed. They had good food too so it was a pleasure to fly with them.

Once arrived in Auckland I was very impressed with the processes at the airport. Passport control is electronic now and with my traveller declaration I was assigned to different people to talk about what I thought I better declare (even if not necessary – but better declare more than not declaring something you should have). I knew that New Zealand has very strict rules so better be safe than sorry. But I was still through within 10 minutes. Then a driver who had been sent by Booking.com (they payed the transfer for me! 🙂 ) waited for me and drove me to my hotel. I was there at 9 AM but they already told me that my room was ready and they let me go up without any early check-in fee. That was really great.