I'm off to see the wizzard

I can't believe that it's really real; I can't believe that we are really leaving on Sunday. It seems like a million years ago that we booked our ticket. It was in fact "only" 10 months ago. The 5th of February to be exact, the day before Waitangi day. Dodo was doing the dishes and I was sitting at the kitchen table perusing the New Zealand Herald online (having cooked dinner, I was relieved of the washing up duties...)

You know those ads that pop up unwanted? The ones that promise you cheap this and cheap that? Well, I guess this was the day that I was destined to use my itchy mouse finger to explore the unknown. I clicked on the cheap flights to New Zealand ad and was rerouted to the STA website.

I tapped in some dates, just out of curiosity and was pretty shocked at what came back. The quoted price was around half of what I had seen up till then so my skepticism was well founded.

Enter departure airport, click, enter destination, click, enter dates, click, enter number of passengers, click... All of a sudden my doubts were washed down the drain with the dirty dishwater...I was almost frantic trying to convince Dodo that this was the flight and today was the day that we NEEDED to book our far off in the future holiday. She presented many reasons why there was no way that we should book right this second… Most I have to say were very good, although I can’t remember a single one right now… tick tick tick….. the seconds, the minutes, moved on and then, my persistence was rewarded... I got the green light!!!!

Then there was a frantic tap, tap, tapping of keys and scurrying around to find a credit card…Enter departure airport, click, enter destination, click, enter dates, click, enter number of passengers, click...Shock, horror, disbelief... “There are no available seats to this destination on this day” With a shaky hand I refreshed the page and a new flight popped up at the top of the list. With hand eye co-ordination only rivaled by John Wayne in his heyday, I clicked, confirmed and entered names, birthdays and the all important credit card number into the correct boxes and clicked one last time to secure my quarry but once again… Shock, horror, disbelief... “There are no longer any seats available on the flight you have chosen” I whipped my hands back up to the keyboard changed the departure date and began the whole click and confirm ordeal once again...”Your request is being sent to the airline for confirmation, please wait”...

I stared at the tiny squares on the screen that were ever so slowly changing from white to blue, indicating that the computer was thinking…Once again I heard the clock in my head counting off the seconds tick, tick, tick. Without warning the screen turned white and in the middle in small black letters was the answer that I had been hoping for “Your request has been confirmed please check your email for more details...”

I breathed a sigh of relief and fired up my email to check the details that would put me back on the Yellow Brick Road… One that in this fairy tale didn’t lead to Oz but to the land of Jaffas and volcanoes…. Look out Auckland here I come!!!

I don’t really think that we slept much that night; I really can’t remember much of that night except for the clicking marathon and that elated feeling that I had when my email account announced that there was one new mail in my inbox… Bliss… True Bliss maybe...

 

After the initial excitement had worn off and we had decided that it was far to early to be talking about packing suitcases and the like, the Yellow Brick Road had an under construction sign hung on it and the world returned to normal.

Of course there was excited chatter on both sides of the planet and there has been a constant exchange via Skype and everyone’s favorite social media site ever since but now with the day of departure in sight I almost can’t believe that it’s really all going to happen.

Wicked Witch of the West be damned… I've got my red shoes and I'm about to click them together three times...