The Departure

I'm off to another trip to Auckland. This time, though, the story started way before the departure.

So here's the deal. Billy's family is coming over to New Zealand to watch Billy's brother graduate in Christchurch. Before they go over there though, they're staying the weekend in Wellington in our place. In our two bedroom flat. And it's Billy's parents, sisters, grandparents and aunt. In our two bedroom flat. And they're not going to go out while they're here. At all.

Naturally, I'm headed to Auckland. It's not that Billy's parents aren't nice, because they really are, especially his mom who is a very nice person, but I cannot be here when Billy's whole clan is shacked up for an entire weekend. It's like being stuck in Cheaper By The Dozen and not be a member of the family.

They were supposed to arrive here at Thursday night so basically, I was trying to find a way to get out of town by Thursday afternoon. The problem was, through another convoluted situation, I couldn't get my money till Friday morning. I spent all week trying to borrow money from everyone I know just so I can travel to Auckland to no avail. I was resigned to spending a night with the whole Yueng Clan. Out of nowhere, Billy sent me a message saying that their flight was delayed and they got stuck in Auckland for the night, which meant I wasn't going to be crammed into a house with them. I couldn't believe it. It felt like someone was looking out for me. It would turn out that that notion was pre-conceived at best.

So last night, I can barely sleep thinking about what I'm going to do today. Visions of 300 on Imax and opening bottles of Pinot Noir kept me awake till 430am. So naturally, when I wake up, I find out my ATM card expired. It meant I don't have any money. At all. When Billy and I went to the ATM to try out my current card, the machine ate it. We couldn't go to the bank because it's a holiday. So I was stuck for minutes thinking about ways to avoid this weekend at all costs.

See the second half of this story was that the bank sent me a new card over the mail about three months ago. I just never took it off the envelope. So before Billy and I went to the ATM, I was frantically looking for it, but couldn't find it. When we came home from the ATM, I was half-defeated, frantic about finding a way to get money to travel. When I sat by the computer, I checked underneath the table and the first thing I find is the new issued ATM card. Literally seconds after going home after the old card was eaten by the machine. We came back to the ATM and finally, money received!

After typing this, it doesn't really sound that harrowing, but believe me, it really was. Especially cause it's even noon yet and I've been running all over town. Anyway, I'm off in about three hours to go to the airport to take the 4pm flight, while Billy's family, ironically, is also taking the 4pm flight to get here. Again, it's not that I have anything against them, I would enjoy going to dinner with them or something to that sort, but definitely not spending a whole weekend crammed in a small house with them.

So this weekend, it's movies, wine and poker. Wish me luck.