To Auckland and Beyond

The guy sitting next to me was named Wooster. He was a strapping young chap from Alaska. Pretty chill guy, and he had been all over everywhere apparently. A big traveler, it would seem. He was on his way to Sydney to go travel with a friend, which seems pretty awesome to me. Sadly, I had more important things to do, like go to New Zealand and travel with myself. We talked some, but the flight was rather uneventful.

Air New Zealand was super cushy though, and I am going to do my best to find cheaper flights on it every single time. Not only were there lots of entertainment options, we had two meals that were actually pretty decent. Some pasta thing with some other stuff for dinner, then an omelette* with sausage and a side of fruit for brekkie. And, free drinks the entire time. And, apparently I'm of legal age in midair. Who would have thought.

*Omelette looks like the most awkward word ever. Apparently it's also proper to spell it omelet? They both look terrible. I am sitting here debating whether to cull it entirely and just call it "eggs with cheese." But then readers will think, does he mean an omelet? What kind of asshole doesn't even know the word for omelet. So, it appears to be a losing wager for me.

After what didn't seem like thirteen hours at all, I was in Auckland. I was waiting in the customs line, and learned many useful facts about New Zealand that all of the other foreigners from the hostels started to repeat over the next few days. New Zealand is slightly larger than Great Britain. Over 75 percent of the local flora is unique to New Zealand. Child pornography/child molestation earns you a minimum 25 year sentence in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

I step into the international arrivals terminal, and I have 120 New Zealand dollars. They weren't imaginative enough to come up with their own name for money, so they just stole the United States' name. Never mind the fact that we weren't technically the first to use it. It's 7:00 in the morning, and I hadn't slept for about 30 hours. I just needed to stay up all day! Easy, right? And, on top of it all, it was raining.

Pleasant weather, no?

I had me, my duffel bag, and a Rockies hat. I took the bus into the city, which is apparently half an hour away from the airport. Luckily I got off about five stops too early, and I had to wander my way into the city centre. Except it wasn't just called the city centre. In the next two hours I saw it referred to as downtown, CBD, and city centre, all on road signs. Nothing quite like parity. As I started wandering around Auckland, it started raining harder. And then harder. But, I saw lots of cool shit.

Like this really ugly, tall thing. I later found out it was called Sky Tower. And it's right next to the ugly ass casino, Sky City.

Cool tower, bro.

That is the tallest "free-standing" structure in the southern hemisphere. And it's ugly as sin. Good for you, Auckland!

Ice skating rink!

It kept raining. And it started raining harder. I had been wandering around for more than two hours, and I decided I was sufficiently wet. I kept wandering, and found a friendly looking coffee shop. I sat there for probably an hour, exhausted and soaking wet. Luckily, the people working there didn't disturb me. And I got to watch lots of intriguing people talk about intriguing things. Some astute observations I made in my notebook during this time:

"I talk funny here. Like, not even close to normally. It's okay though. It's not my fault that they have a silly accent."

"They have yield signs here, but they don't say yield."

"This weather kind of sucks."

"I'm fucking freezing."

It's easy to say that I wasn't on top of my game that morning. Regardless, I wandered back into the rain to find my hostel. I found it in short time, and got checked in and everything. I put my linens on the bed, and didn't even bother making my bed. I just set my shit down, and walked back out. If I had taken the time to make my bed, I would have ended up passed out in it.

I marched back out into the murk, but luckily the rain was stopping. Yet, it was still before noon. Rest of the day later, because it was a long one.