an(n) exciting arrival

I spent this morning (loosely speaking – got up quite late because I’m not feeling 100% and also worked late last night) getting ready for Ann’s arrival – doing laundry, making room in my tent for another person, and writing notes so she could find everything in the hostel and me at the pub. Because my tent is luxury accommodation, I even put together a little basket of stuff for her like a towel, toiletries and some snacks, nicely arranged and all. Well, okay, I did that because she’s bringing so much stuff over here for me that she doesn’t have a lot of room for her own stuff, and because I felt really bad I won’t be there when she arrives!

Sabrina sent Ann her NZ phone ahead of time, so I got a text from Ann when she was about to board her domestic flight from Auckland to Christchurch – she only had a short amount of time between connections and we weren’t sure if she’d make it, but she did! It was really weird getting a text from Sabrina’s number a month after she left the country, though…I’ll have to change that entry in my phone. Ann sent texts when she got to the Christchurch airport and when she arrived at the hostel, but she was planning to shower and get something to eat before coming so I wasn’t quite sure when to expect her and was surprised to see her at the bar when I looked up from serving a customer – it took a lot of self-control to finish serving him before running out from the bar to give her a big hug!

Ann was, understandably, exhausted from her marathon trip (4 or 5 flights, a shuttle bus and a 3 hour drive to the airport in Florida) so just stuck around for a drink or two before heading back to the hostel. I’d run into Rina from the hostel earlier in the day, and knew she was usually up for going out, and told her to look out for Ann who’d be staying in her room (no tent for the first night after the journey), so Ann had someone to hang out with while I was working, and she also didn’t have to find the pub on her own.