Rich:
Well, I tried to write this last night but ran out of gas. Its now the morning of our 2nd day in New Zealand and we are heading down to rotorua to do something called zorbing, and also to check out the hot springs.
The trip was for the most part uneventful, the worst part was probably the 5 hour layover in Los Angeles. We were exhausted from the last minute packing, rushing around to the airport, and then the flight from DC to LA. This was not at all helped when I found myself surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of Canadian retirees gloating rather audibly about their Olympic win.
In either case we arrived safely in Auckland at 9AM ready to start the day. When picking up my car I encountered my first experience with just how far technology has come since the last time I traveled. I foolishly didn't bring my driver's license, and they wouldnt rent us the car without it. I texted our friend Doug (thanks Doug!), with whom I had left my wallet, to see if he was home, as luck would have it he was. Within about two minutes he had texted me a picture of my drivers license and we were one our way, pretty amazing.
New Zealand (so far) is very much like California, except they drive on the wrong side of the road. Auckland reminds me a lot of San Franciso (we are near Albert Park and there are a lot of hills). We checked into our hotel (The Quadrant) and grabbed lunch.
It was later in the evening when I had my next brush with modern technology. On previous trips calling home to let people know we were safe was probably my least favorite thing to do, as it usually involved buying a phone card and then dialing roughly 75 numbers, crossing your fingers, and then sometimes getting someone on the other end. Once you were connected you were usually able to speak for about two minutes before you were prompted that your $20 phone card was running out of minutes. Today
it involved connecting my iPhone to the WiFi connection in the hotel, opening Skype, and dialing home, total cost about 4 cents a minute.
Melissa:
The weather in New Zealand is very lovely and warm. I don't remember large parts of yesterday, as I was delirious with exhaustion, but we had pizza for lunch at a wine bar (Rich must also have been out of sorts, as he ordered us a pizza with about twelve kinds of meat on it) and we had Korean food for dinner. The food is quite nice, but pretty much the exact same as the food in DC.
We're headed out to go zorbing today. I am already sick of all the clothes I brought for the trip, which is problematic as I will be wearing these clothes for another three months.
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