DAY ONE QUARANTINE - AUCKLAND

 Well... let's start off with yesterday's trip shall we?

ABOVE: Weigh in at the airport and my bags were BANG ON the correct weights!

It was a slow and tedious wait to get on the plane, but once on, I lay down across 'my' three seats and WOW!

I slept until the last 25 minutes of the flight!

Sadly, that meant I missed lunch... which had pretty bad repercussions later on in the day.

ABOVE:  As you can see... the plane was virtually empty!

Over 200 seats empty, and about 25-30 passengers.

ABOVE:  I love being able to follow where our plane is!

ABOVE:  It felt RIGHT that as we came into land, all we could see was a long, white cloud.

AOTEAROA:  Land of the Long White Cloud.

ABOVE:  My first sight of HOME.  I cried.  Just a little.

We landed at 5.57 pm.  A full 35 minutes ahead of time.

Didn't matter much.  It then took 2 bloody hours to get through all the airport checks, onto the bus and to the hotel.

Traffic was abysmal.  

I am at the Grand Millennium Hotel, in the heart of Auckland City.

Once we arrived at the hotel, it was another half an hour of checks and questions, information thrown at us... then off to our rooms.

We were assured that dinner would be delivered to our door 'VERY SOON', as it was by then, 8.30 pm.  

REMEMBER: I was STARVING, having missed lunch on the plane.

So.... 9.30 arrived, still no dinner.  So I rang down to the Service Desk, to be told "Oh so sorry, I will get your dinner sent up right now".

And I waited.  And waited.  And at 10.15  I rang AGAIN.  And was told "Oh I'm so sorry, has it not arrived yet? ... I will send it up immediately".

And I waited. And waited.  And started to actually feel really sick.  Like sweaty, got the shakes, felt like vomiting.  

In other words, a HYPO.  Low, low blood sugars.

So at 10.40 I went down to the Lobby (we can do that as long as we wear masks)... and I stood in front of the three people at the Service Desk and burst into tears!

Dammit.  

But I did manage to get out that I was fucking starving, having a HYPO and WHERE THE HELL WAS MY FOOD???

HUGE APOLOGIES.... man running off to the kitchen.... food shoved in me hands... and a FREE Pepsi Max.  They don't have damn Diet Coke... of course!

And I cried all the way back to my room.  It was all just a bit MUCH.

ABOVE:  And yes, I cried again when I looked at it.

Fucking chicken, CAULIFLOWER, BROCOLLI AND CARROTS.!!!! And some rice.

This meal gets a 3/10.  

ABOVE:  So, I sat down to my dinner at 10.51 pm.

OMFG this better not be an indication of how it's gunna be in this FIVE STAR Hotel.

NOT A GOOD START.  

BUT... moving on.  Let's see what breakfast is like eh?

And I am going to explore the 'exercise' options.

Seems you can go down to the lobby where there's an area you can be in, or you can 'book' to go to the Level 4 Deck for exercise too.

Tomorrow I will show you my room.  And the view... such as it is.

And ... that's me for now.

Catch ya later.

ONWARD...

I've not been able to do an online grocery order yet.  I NEED DIET COKE!!!

I shall keep trying...

ABOVE: I'm pretty sure I'm in the higher one.

ABOVE: This is where I am... outside view from my window.

AND... according to the information I have read, ANYONE can drop stuff off at the MAIN ENTRANCE ON MAYORAL DRIVE:

ABOVE:  This is the main entrance, it's on the opposite side of the building to where I am.

If anyone were to drop anything off for me, you do it at this entrance.  And you have to clearly state who it's for (Mrs Christina Harvey), in ROOM 401.

Not that I expect anyone to send me a thing... but Stew/you kids... if ya want to? 

Now.... back to today:

ABOVE:  Because we didn't get here in time to order what we wanted for breakfast, ya get a lucky dip.  This is my lucky dip breakfast, I shall give it a solid 6/10.  Cos at least it's not GREEK YOGHURT!  

Thankfully, you are given a 4 day menu to choose your meals from.  So tonight's dinner and going forward will be meals I've chosen.

You get THREE choices for every meal!  I didn't see any snacks on the list, I think you have to buy them from the Hotel's shop.

I don't think I will be doing that, I don't want to gain weight!

SUCCESS!!!  I've managed to get hold of Countdown and have ordered SIXTY cans of Diet Coke!

That should last me the entire time I'm here.

So relieved.

Now I can get myself dressed and start the day properly.

10.08 am:  And I went down to the Lobby area to sort out the pick up of my Diet Coke this afternoon.  DONE.

Then I booked myself into an exercise 'slot' for 6 pm tonight.  You get a 40 minute session on Level 4, which has an open deck outside.  I'm on Level 4, so it shouldn't be hard to find!

There is also an exercise area on the ground floor... outside as well.  You don't have to book for that one.  I will check it out tomorrow.

I am feeling MUCH HAPPIER now.  Last night I was so upset I just wanted OUT OF HERE so bad.

Now though, it's all coming together.

I'm very happy with my room.  And the overall set up here.  I'm not TRAPPED IN MY ROOM 24/7 at all.

ABOVE:  The view from the corridor leading to my room.  All the rooms open out to an open corridor that overlooks the downstairs lobby area, which is huge.  That photo only shows a tiny area of the lobby.

It is decked out with all sorts of areas:  Booking for exercise, delivery pick ups, arrivals/departures and so on.  And there's HEAPS of personnel, security, police and military around too.  NO escaping allowed!  😂😅😇

I just spoke to Reception, to clarify if this is DAY ONE, considering I arrived yesterday.  And yeah, yesterday is classed as DAY ZERO.  Today is DAY ONE.  F*#K it.

ABOVE:  My 'lucky dip' lunch arrived.  It's not bad.  Seems snacks are thrown in?  I give this meal a nice round 8/10.  I won't be eating the popcorn... or half that bread!  But... it's OK.

ABOVE: Have you EVER seen a better stocked fridge?  Nope, me neither.

I'm SET now.  Very happy.

The nurse called in just before, took details of medications I'm on, took me temperature etc... and declared me well.  Why thanks.

ABOVE:  Well that ain't what I ordered!  And bugger me ... it's pretty much the same dinner I got last night, except they threw in a piece of potato to 'spice it up'.

WHAT THE FUCK?

I hate saying it, but I cried.  AGAIN.

I ate the chicken, and I will save the friggin pear for later.  When I'm starving again.

This dinner is getting a damn pissed off 2/10.

On the bright side, I got out for  my 1st walk on the 'sky deck'.  There were about 8 of us walking around and around in a circle.  It was OK.  I feel like I got some exercise.

I caved in and bought a toasted sandwich and fries from the In House Dining Menu.

And they charged it to me credit card.

And an hour later I got a phone call from Reception.  They are not going to charge me for my sandwich and fries, because they realise they stuffed up by giving me the same dinner twice, AND they knew it was not to my liking.

COS I TOLD THEM.  Of course I did.  I ain't taking this shit lying down.

So, very nice of them to not charge me for my dinner.

And then I got a note under my door.  Fantastic news!  I will fill you in on that... tomorrow.