Arrival in New Zealand

We flew to Auckland overnight, arriving at 6 a.m. local time. We flew on Air New Zealand from Honolulu. Air New Zealand served us 2 delicious and wholesome meals on our 8 1/2 hour flight. United served only wraps and sandwiches, which were subpar in my opinion, and if you wanted these food items you had to pay additionally for them. Oh, they only take credit cards for these food purchases. They do still provide water, soda, coffee or tea free of charge, really gereous of them, eh? As I said to Chuck on the flight into Auckland, if Air New Zealand can treat its customers this well and still make a profit, why can't United?

Air new Zealand served a dinner meal of Chicken Frittata, a delicious salad, broccolli and a very nice cake and pudding desert. In addition, the flight attendants went up and down the aisles offering red or white wine a no extra charge. The breakfast was an omelet, grilled tomoato and very nice fruit salad, along with a glass of juice, which they refilled on request and coffee or tea. Later a muffin was also served. Prior to departure they also offered pieces of hard candy.

Air New Zealand's aircraft was a much new plane with a number of movie, tv, documenary, travel and public intrest videos available individually to each passenger, free of charge. United's video was "what you see is what you get".

Needless to say, Air New Zealand wins the "Doebler favorite airline" award!

We arrived in New Zealand and breezed through customs. We picked up our rental car (A Ford Falcon) and then the real adventure began - driving on the other side of the brain! It has to be called that because it is not just a matter of pointing your vehicle down the opposite side of the street. It seems that EVERYTHING to do with driving is opposite. The steering wheel in the car, the shifter for transmission gear selection, the turn signals are opposite where they are on cars in the U.S.! I have driven cars on traffic circles, but the circles here go the other way! I turned the windshield wipers on countless times, because I actually wanted to turn on the turn signals, and the wipers are where the turn signals should be in my mind. You are required to think in totally different, unfamiliar ways when you are driving here.

Chuck and I had about an hour before Lindsay was due in by plane from Wellington, so we drove around Auckland a bit to practice the driving thing. Chuck did the navigation, I drove. It is obviously a problem when people come here and are not familiar with the left side of the road driving. There is actually a lighted little dummy light on the dashboard that says 'Keep left" with an arrow. We thought this was funny, until we started driving. We hope to master this skill by the time we leave the country, but we also got full insurance coverage! We viewed that insurance as a neccessity. Of course everything is also in kilometers, which takes a bit of converting, so this is really challenging our brains in so many ways!

Finally Lindsay arrived from Welling, we had such a nice reunion, and then off we went driving helter-skelter again. It was wonderful to all be back together, laughing and joking and yelling (as the Doebler clan is abt to do when they are driving on the wrong side of the road)! What a great time! We drove to downtown Auckland and parked with no incidents!

We walked around until we found a nice little cafe to enjoy a nice breakfast together. It was a wonderful breakfast (I had the Turkish breakfast, which was foccacia, jam, buter, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and a poched egg).

After our meal we walked a few block to a small shopping area and browsed around some of the stores. Lindsay took us into a local store similar to a Target or Walmart. It was fascinating to see a majority of the products there were unfamiliar. Chips, soda and juice drinks, baked good, canned goods...all totally different flavors or items unfamiliar to us. When we visit China, I expectd such differences, but I think I expeced an English speaking country to feel a bit more familiar than this does.

We left the shopping district and walked down to the wharf. Auckland is a city on a bay and has beautiful boating and beach areas. Along the wharves there are large red light posts with the head of Posideon as far as the eye can see. They look very dramatic as you stroll along the waterfront area. The area generally reminds me of a very modern Boston waterfront area. We are going to eat at one of the many waterfront restaurants there on the wharf this evening.

Finally we walked away from the waterfront area and we went to Auckland's version of the Seattle SpaceNeedle. They call theirs the "Sky Tower". They have trips up to the top and you can be strapped into a harness system and they take you outside on the metal decking. It looked really exciting, but Chuck and Lindsay said, "no"., so we just watched as they suited up another group to go up.

Now we are at our hotel, a block from the Sky Tower. Our room overlooks the Sky Tower and Bungie Jump Ride a block away also. Apparently New Zealanders like to Bungie Jump alot and there are many places you can do this. I know many friends believe I am crazy, but frankly, I would never do a bungie jump, okay?