Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. Another 1,000 Miles in NZ.

New Zealand Travelog #41
Back at the Airport Hotel - Sun, 21 Apr 2024, 8pm

We're back at the airport hotel enjoying a shared dessert with a couple of complimentary drinks (yay elite status!). We didn't eat dinner here, though. The menu's too narrow and spendy. Typical airport hotel fare. Instead, after spending much of the day hiking in gloomy, windy weather and then making a chance window-shopping visit to the only Costco in New Zealand, I felt like treating ourselves to some good food and a sit-down meal.

Finding good food has been kind of tough the past few weeks. Part of that is New Zealand is not a country that would ever be associated with the phrase "fine cuisine". The most common food frankly seems to be meat pies, similar to Australia, and similar to Australia a totally reasonably place to buy them is at a gas station. A lot of our meals the past two weeks have been purchased in gas stations and eaten in the car.

Another reason why good restaurants are few and far between is that businesses being open in the evening really isn't a thing in New Zealand. Like, if you want to sell dinner at a restaurant, you really need to be open through dinner time, say 'til at least 8pm, right? Yet lots of restaurants close for the day at 4 or 5pm. And outside of super-touristy towns like Queenstown, most of the restaurants are bare-bones takeaway joints.

Thus it took a lot of searching but tonight we found an Italian restaurant that had a menu of familiar favorites, good reviews, and a cozy little dining room with table service. Oh, and it was open past 5pm... though it did close at 7. When we left at the ungodly late hour of 7:30pm the co-owner had to unlock the door to let us out.

* * *

On the drive home from the restaurant we crossed the 1,000 mile mark— again. Yes, after driving over 1,000 miles on South Island we have now driven over 1,000 miles on North Island. As I parked at the hotel a bit ago the car's trip odometer showed 1,610 km— just a hair over 1,000 miles. I figure we crossed the thousand-mile mark as we exited the freeway a few blocks from the hotel. And when I say "we" I mean I. I've done all the driving, averaging over 235km/day (145 miles/day) in addition to all the hiking and sightseeing we're doing.

Souvenir Shopping & to the Airport

New Zealand Travelog #42
AKL Airport - Mon, 22 Apr 2024, 12pm

Well, we're wrapping up our two weeks in New Zealand. In another 2 hours we won't be in the country anymore. Our last day here has been a taking-it-easy day. ...And that's because it's barely even a half day. With a flight departing at 1:50pm and the time needed to pack, return the car, clear security, and all the other rigamarole for an international flight, there just wasn't time for much else.

One thing we did carve out time for today was souvenir shopping. Remember a few days ago when I had a feeling we'd rue not buying souvenirs at the many shops in touristy Rotorua? My suspicion was right. We didn't see a glut of gift shops like that again this trip. ...Not that we're really the kind to go looking normally. So today we had to go looking. We found a nice little family-run store about 20 minutes away. It was a perfectly sized side trip this morning to fit between packing up and doing the airport shuffle.

Speaking of airport shuffle, we're mostly done with the shuffling. At least on  this end of the flight. We're relaxing in the Air New Zealand club lounge. Yay, gold elite status on United Airlines. ...Not that it's a particularly charmed life here. This is frankly the second least impressive airline lounge I've visited, in terms of its offering of food and drink. (The least impressive was Air New Zealand's lounge at Queenstown airport a week ago.) But the chicken stir-fry with broccoli and noodles and couple of beers I've had here are way better than airplane food and preferable to paying $35+ for at best similar stuff in the airport food court.

I'm not looking forward to this flight home. I mean, aside from the obvious reasons of a) our vacation is ending and b) it's a 12 hour flight in economy class (even if it is United's economy plus). I awoke today with an awful ache in my back. I gobbled a bunch of ibuprofen with breakfast, but that didn't help the pain. Now I've gobbled some paracetamol, too, and that seems to be softening the pain. I'm worried what this will be like as I sit in that economy class seat for 12 hours....

Home from New Zealand. Time Travel.

New Zealand Travelog #43
Back home - Mon, 22 Apr 2024, 8am

We're back home from New Zealand now. ...Well, when "now" was Monday morning; it's taken me until Tuesday night to post this blog.

Our flight landed at SFO a bit early, around 6:30am. The journey had been nearly 12 hours in economy class, albeit United's Economy Plus, with a bit more legroom. This time there was no empty middle seat between Hawk and me. And the person between us was not exactly small.

I got zero sleep on the flight, absolutely none. Partly that was due to the cramped seating, partly it was the timing. 6:30am San Francisco time is 1:30am New Zealand time. Staying up the whole flight was just like staying up late. Except now it's Monday morning here, and I've got a whole day ahead of me. Yeah, I think I'll be crashing early tonight.

One curiosity of flights back from Asia is that they arrive before they depart. Our flight left Auckland Monday the 22nd at 1:50pm and arrived San Francisco Monday the 22nd at 6:35am. That's an effect of crossing the International Date Line. It's (spoiler alert) part of a plot twist in the classic Jules Verne novel I read as a child, Around the World in Eighty Days. Or, as I like to call it, the second closest I've ever come to time travel.

Thankfully things moved swiftly once we were off the plane at SFO. US immigration and customs move quickly now with Global Entry. It took them several years to get things properly automated, and the cost has been surely billions of dollars plus all our privacy from the government (the system uses biometric identification), but at least now it works. And the Uber ride home was pretty quick, even though we hit the early end of rush hour traffic. We walked through our own front door at 7:45am. And while I could technically have made today a workday, I very intentionally took it off. Today's a day to unwind from travel and get back on the local timezone! And likely also take a nap to make up for being up all night.