My kind of place

After a shower, a hot meal and some sleep, I finally feel a bit human again. Out my window is a beautiful storybook view of a cozy neighborhood and I can see the sun burning off the clouds over Auckland's city center. New Zealand is beautiful. I've forgotten what it's like to travel in a country where English is the main language, and where you can drink the water. New Zealand is amazing, and very green. As soon as I arrived it felt a bit like home. Only two other places in the world have felt like that to me off the bat. Of course, I do have a strange tendency to randomly pick places that throw me into my comfort zone. When I stayed in Dubai, I somehow managed to choose the one neighborhood and singular hotel known to be the mini-Iran of the place. Many Iranians even owned hotel rooms where I stayed because they were there so often. When I arrived in New Zealand, I took a bus into Mt. Eden -- the neighborhood I'm staying at -- and when I got off the bus I immediately heard two guys speaking farsi as they went by me. Then I saw a kebab stand. On the other side of my hostel I found that I was in the middle of a full-on Chinese neighborhood and shopping area. Nearly everyone was speaking Chinese. It looked a bit like the Din Tai Fung strip mall area in Arcadia. I thought the whole thing was pretty hilarious. But also kinda nice.

Anyway, it's about 50 degrees here right now, with temperatures hitting the high 60s during the day. I'm glad I brought a warm jacket. Birds are chirping outside and it's so peaceful and quiet. There is a lot less traffic, people and noise here in general. I'm 20 hours ahead of LA time, which means because of my flights over I lost Friday, Oct. 22. Speaking of flights, let me backtrack a bit.

My flight out of LA was for 11:30 p.m. Oct. 21. I got to LAX at about 9:30 p.m. went up to the ticket counter and was told I needed to buy a ticket out of New Zealand in order to travel into the country. I'd read about that, but didn't realize they'd be so strict and need a physical ticket. Plans don't count. I was directed to the Qantas counter. Great. So much for budget travel, I thought. At the counter I was offered a $232 ticket for a random date in the future (Auckland to Sydney) with a $50 to $100 date change fee. What about a fully-refundable one-way ticket? $830 dollars. Holy crap. For a three hour flight? But I decided to go for it. I'd just have to cancel the ticket asap so I didn't actually get charged. Then it was back to check-in for the flight, and wait in the lengthy security line. I was still in line at 10:30 p.m. as my flight started boarding, but made it just fine, if not a bit sweaty.

The Air Pacific flight was roughly 10 hours to Fiji with a five hour stopover in Nadi, and then another three hours to Auckland. The red eye leg of the journey was actually pretty painless, though very low maintenance. It was an old 747, and boy did the winds over the Pacific kick the heck out of it. They gave us turkey sandwiches on the way over, though free drinks -- the Fijian Gold beer is delicious! I read a lot (loving the Kindle) and tried to meditate on good posture. I slept maybe two hours or so. But the flight, quite literally, flew by. We got yogurt, fruit, a banana nut muffin and orange juice for "breakfast." (Do flights feed people according to the schedule of where they're coming from or going? I can't ever seem to tell. But I think the latter is far better for jet lag purposes.)

At the airport in Nadi I met a 28-year-old Aussie named Ben who was returning home for the first time after a four-year trip to the States and Canada that entirely changed his life. Now married, he and his wife were going to check out life in Australia for a bit. He had an incredibly healthy respect for American friendliness, hospitality and the alleged "can do" spirit that made me feel honored to be an American. He wanted to put the lessons he'd learned abroad to work back home. We spoke a bit more about it all over a couple beers -- and later I realized I'd never had a beer at 5:30 a.m. before -- before he boarded his flight. My own flight to Auckland was short and uneventful. Oh, there was a great chicken salad sandwich and chips, plus free Fiji water (always very expensive back home). In the Auckland airport I immediately had them refund my ticket, bought a local sim, and changed money (WestPac doesn't charge any ATM fees to Bank of America customers). I caught the AirBus into town, and now we've essentially come full circle. Time for breakfast. I'll write more later -- my stomach won't let me continue.