I'm here...

I'm sitting out by the pool in Auckland enjoying the 74° weather. I arrived a couple of hours ago, around 3 pm on Jan 21 - for you guys, that would have been 9 pm on Jan 20. I am a day ahead of you because I crossed the international dateline. I feel like I should be able to predict what tomorrow will be like for you...

The flights were better than I expected (it helps to have low expectations). Several of my flights arrived 20-30 minutes early, which also helped. I spent most of the flight to Los Angeles talking to a young lady returning home, which made the 4 hours go fast. The 14 hours (was supposed to be 14.5) to Sydney was not bad either - I was able to sleep about 6 hrs, watched a couple of movies I brought with me, ate several times (or at least picked at it), and talked to several other passengers.

Thank goodness for the movies I brought...the movie situation on the overseas flight was even worse than I expected. They showed four movies on overhead screens one right after the other (i didn't realize any airlines still used overhead monitors on longer flights). Since I went to sleep right after dinner (it was after midnight in Cleveland), I missed all the movies. They showed a few TV shows after the movies, but all we got the last 2.5 hours of the flight was a picture of the plane over the water. On the last leg from Sydney to Auckland, NZ, i flew New Zealand Air. What a difference! Even on this 4 hour flight we had our choice of over 60 TV shows and 20 movies, as well as several video games. The food was great too.

One girl I met on the flight to Sydney told me she was just finishing a "round the world" ticket. Good thing I didn't know about it ahead of time or I would have been tempted to do that. Basically you pay a flat amt (in her case 4000 Australian dollars), and can go to up to 15 cities anywhere in the world within a twelve month period. Her only limitation was the number of total flight miles (I think it was 30k). It works on any one of several airlines.

So today is a light, boring day, laying by the pool, going to the gym, and making it to happy hour at the hotel bar.

I leave early tomorrow for Nelson on the south island (Auckland, the capital is on the north island). I'll have the day to myself, then join up with the other 4 people the next morning. That's when the fun really starts.

Interesting fact day 1: i knew that they drove on the "wrong side" of the road here, but I did not realize they flipped the hot and cold spigot too. The hot water is on the right side of the sink.