Visa crisis part 2

Hello from the future! We've crossed the international dateline and are happy to report that Wednesday was lovely. We almost didn't make it though...

When we tried to check in for our flight at SFO, we were told that our visas didn't allow us to travel to NZ without a return ticket. This didn't make a lot of sense, because we went out of our way to provide "proof of means to leave the country" in place of a return ticket when we applied for our visas (both times - don't forget that they lost Liz's passport the first time).

After much discussion on the phone with a NZ immigration official, I figured out that the visa office had screwed up our application, and neglected to give us the one way ticket exemption. We were told that our only options were to try to work it out with the visa office in Washington DC the next day, or buy a return ticket right then - they couldn't make an exception over the phone.

So, with about 11 minutes to go before check-ins closed, I was on the phone with Air New Zealand, saying things like "I want to fly from Auckland to Boston sometime in April, just give me the cheapest thing you see in the first 30 seconds." I managed to book us 2 refundable return tickets with well over a minute to spare. They even ended up coming in below our original budget for our return tickets, so if we happen to finish close to April 21, we can actually use them.

You can tell I'm really happy and relaxed in this picture. 

Overall it could have been a LOT worse, but I could have done without that panic and sinking feeling in my stomach as I watched the desk attendant on the phone with immigration, and knowing from the look on her face that she was about to look up and tell us some really bad news. 

The flight itself was pretty good - it was on time, we both got some sleep, we made it through customs pretty quickly when we landed, and we caught the bus into the city right away. They did confiscate our honey sticks - NZ is very serious about biosecurity - but they were at least very polite and efficient about it.

Now we're hanging out in an AirBnB apartment in downtown Auckland, and trying to fight jet lag by not to sleeping too much until it's actually bedtime. Tomorrow is grocery shopping and the Red Sox game (if we can find it on TV anywhere), then Friday we take a bus up north, and Saturday we'll start for real!