Tuesday.

A day in which we discover how easily plans can go awry.

Highlights – definitely the deliveries!

• The wine arrived bright and early, and the lovely lady at reception confirmed that she is allowed to send us two bottles a day – “looks like very nice wine”, she said! Not that we’re planning to drink two bottles a day, but good to have choices!
• Biltong! A luxury – but why not. When in doubt, eat meat! And this is the best biltong in NZ (all the way from Hamilton).
• Cleaning supplies, including a toilet brush – OMG, what has my life come to that the delivery of a toilet brush is a highlight in my day?

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• And the best meal so far – which is actually saying a lot, because as you might have noticed, the food here is pretty good in general. Spaghetti Carbonara is just what we needed – real comfort food.

Lowlights

• Missing out on our booking to exercise on the rooftop terrace.
  With bookings up there hard to come by, we set off with some anticipation for our 8.30am walk on the roof. Masks on, into the lift – wouldn’t go to Level 10? Okay, let’s go down to Ground, and they can let us up to L10, we assume. Lift door opens on GF, to army security man in full PPE, looking very alarmed. Why are we in this lift, how did we get into it, what are we doing? And STAND BACK!!!
  Okay… I explain, we’re just trying to get to L10. A bit of a flurry of confusion – more defence force people standing around the lift. All we know is “this lift should have been locked off – it has just been used to transport someone….” Hmmm! We are instructed to return to our room and await further instructions. Okay – but still waiting for those further instructions. So no exercise for us today then – apart from a short walk on the forecourt for about 15 minutes later in the afternoon when the booking lady took pity on my and pushed us to to front of the forecourt waiting list (thank you!)

• Day 3 Covid test – no amount of “it’s only 10 seconds” and “it’s just uncomfortable” will make this anything less than the worst part of the day. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that probe up my nose all the way up to digging into my brain (or that’s what it feels like to me, anyway – I guess everyone is different). The pain in my sinus continues for hours after. Eugh!

• Discovering I accidentally ordered the vegan version of the Greek Salad for lunch – bugger! A greek salad without feta is definitely not a greek salad, no matter how crunchy the lettuce is!

Discoveries so far…

• If you love coffee, an Aeropress is a must have for travelling, and definitely for MIQ! Being able to make yourself a good coffee somehow makes everything better.

• If you think MIQ is difficult for adults, spare a thought for those families travelling on our flight with two or three kids. Yes, they obviously have two rooms, but getting those kids out on a tiny forecourt, and expecting them not to run about and not to go within 2m of anyone else on the forecourt is simply impossible. We happily cut short our walk yesterday to give some kids freedom to run about in the exercise area – the parents were SO grateful. I wanted to weep for them (only 11 more days to go).

Tomorrow will be better – although we still don’t have a rooftop terrace booking, so we’ll be out on The Ramp at 9am in the morning (this time I’ll take a wee video for you!)