A week without a Tuesday. New Zealand at 5am.

No, Tuesday? Ok that is also a surprising thing to say.  Yes, we skipped directly from Monday to Wednesday because we crossed the International Date Line headed West.

We had a breakfast, a VERY early breakfast on the plane. 

​Since we are arriving at 5am we had to eat by 4am.  We did get a very nice meal.  A choice of a Cheese Omelet or French Toast which we all decided to try.  It was very good and came with some nice sides.  Again, the very best food I have ever had on a plane.

We are very spoiled now and will judge all other plane food by Air New Zealand standards.  No American airline even comes close to the quality.  Sad thing to say but very true.

Off the plane and off to get our bags and customs. 

We got our bags and then stopped at the Money exchange to get New Zealand dollars.  Today, the NZ dollar is worth about 60 cents in US dollars.

Customs was not bad but it still to an hour to process.  The customs here looked VERY familiar. Guess that was from watching all the border control shows.  In fact the customs agent that worked with us, said they were filming but they must have been in the back because we never saw the camera crew.

Our shuttle picked us up outside and we were off to the hotel.  Being so early, we asked that they hold our bags till the room would be ready.

We took a short walk down to the Rose Café for some coffee.  Very nice café with lots of locals.  It is also popular with the police and fire department.  A half dozen of each stopped off for coffee while we were there.

​The Rose Park is just across the road so we took a walk and looked at the roses.  There are 5000 roses in the garden with a wide variety of colors.

Behind Betty is our hotel.  We can see the garden from our hotel room balcony.

We decided to walk back over to the hotel and were surprised that our room was ready for us.

The Rose Hotel is under renovations and our room is one that has already been upgraded.  Very nice.  I was so impressed with the bathroom that I took photos.

We rested and napped then went to the Garden Restaurant which is part of the hotel.  The view overlooks the Rose garden.  Our food was great.  Shawna had pan fried fish, Betty a large salad, and I had a hamburger.  All the food was great.

Today… Yesterday… Tomorrow ???  Ok when you leave on one day and skip a day entirely it is strange.  Time for bed and try to recover from jet lag.