This day was to be super easy, and in some ways, still was?

Woke up pretty early, again, at around 5AM. As mentioned in one of the posts from Saturday, it was nice to be able to wake up and watch the second game, BEL v. BRA. Belgium brought it, and Brazil looked clueless at times.

After the game, did a little yoga to complete the morning routine and popped out for my final meal at Little Bird. One of the staff members, Hannah, thought that I was a kiwi and a ‘regular’. She also said that I didn’t speak with an accent, which I found hard to believe. She recently graduated from UNC Greensboro where she played Fútbol, and moved back home where she’ll do a Masters in health and nutrition.

I got this açaí bowl. My. Goodness. So delicious. I also wanted to eat a little bit lighter because I had been putting down all this super rich food. Seemed a good decision.

Don’t know if y’all can see that small white glob in the upper third beneath the flower. That flower tasted delicious as well. That white glob was an in-house coconut yogurt. It was absolutely amazing…so I ordered another small dish of it.

Got wrapped up, got back to the hostel, and my shuttle was waiting for me to head to the airport for my flight to Wellington (WLG). Got to the airport, had some problems printing my baggage tag, made it through security and waited at the gate. Boarded the plane for the 2PM flight that was scheduled to arrive at 3:05PM. I had my headphones on, eyes closed, ready for a nap, when all of a sudden everyone around me is gathering their belongings and getting off the plane. Turns out there was an ‘engineering’ error, and they were repairing it, however, with the incorrect part.

After collecting my back, and getting rescheduled for a 6:30PM flight, went back through security and waited at the same gate, again. Had a decent amount of time to get some writing done, which y’all probably saw in the past couple days. Met a nice kiwi from the north island with his family, Jason, and we chatted it up as he enjoyed a beer and I fielded questions from his children.

The plane eventually took off around 8:00PM, and I got to The Dwellington hostel in Wellington at around 9:30PM. I walked in to a boisterous crowd celebrating the birthday of Rebecca. I took a quick shower, popped out to dinner (salmon, not pictured), and made my way back to the hostel. I joined the party, chatting with many of my fellow hostel-mates.

Interestingly, many are not from NZ. There were a lot of people from England and Australia, and not many were tourists. Most were long-term residents of the hostel, working in government or odd jobs in the food-service industry. Several people wanted to stay up for the ENG v. SWE game, and it was a little before 12AM that I returned.

One would think that after waking up at 5AM and spending 7 hours in the airport, I was going to be fairly tired. Thankfully I fed off of all the energy present, made it until 2AM, watched the first half, then promptly went to sleep after thanking everyone for their lovely hospitality and welcoming spirit. Got into bed, don’t even remember falling asleep.