New Zealand

Yesterday I left the hot and sunny shores of Australia, and came to the lovely, but quite cold, shores of New Zealand. (Today is raining. The first rain I've seen since November! At least now I'm in the mood to buy long underwear, which I will need for my hike on the Milford Track next week.) As soon as I got in line to board the plane, I knew I was going to a different world. First of all, I noticed that the NZ passport is about twice as thick as ours. Clearly, these people travel. Upon entering the plane (Emirates Air), I noticed the mood-enhancing atmosphere coming from the vents. Literally. There was smoke or steam or haze or (could it be?) actual moisture puffing out of all the vents. All I needed was a little black-light and maybe some strobe lights, and it would have been a flashback to the endless 6th grade plays at my school.

There were two things I enjoyed about being on that plane (beside the ridiculously large selection of movies I had to chose from). First was the sign which read "Please open hatracks with care." I think they were referring to the overhead compartments. The second great thing, which I had heard about but not seen myself, was the camera on the underside of the plane somewhere, which showed us the runway on take-off and landing. That was pretty cool.

My favorite thing about NZ so far (I've been here about 20 hours, and half of that was spent asleep), is that we started our descent into Christchurch (on the east side of the south island) before we even had gotten to the west side of the island. We crossed the entire country in landing the plane! I was glued to the window the whole time, for the mountains on the western side of the country were spectacular. It should be a good stay here (even if I have to buy lots more warm clothes).