We left DIA at 5:47pm (MST) on Aug. 31, 2009. After two tasty airplane meals, free drinks, a few hours of choppy sleep, crossing the Equator, over 200 pages of vampire reading, 2 movies, crossing the International Date Line, watching the moon turn into an almost full moon, a few more hours of choppy sleep, and almost 16 hours of total air time we arrived in Auckland, New Zealand at 4:55am (New Zealand Standard Time) on Wednesday September 3, 2009. New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of MST. So the easiest way to figure out what time it is for us (if you live in MST) is to add a day then subtract 6 hours. For example, if it's 4pm (MST) on Tuesday, you add a day, so it's 4pm on Wednesday then subtract 6 hours. So it would be 10am NST on Wednesday. :)
We took a shuttle, the scenic way, from the airport to our hotel. Luckily they had a room available at 8am. THANKS DAD!!! Since we arrived so early in the morning we decided to stick it out and stay up all day so we can start adjusting to the time difference. Sitting down sounds like a recipe for sleepiness, so we tried to stay very busy in our zombie form. We had a very tasty lunch at an authentic New Zealand Wendy's, set up a bank account, found the library, visited The Sky Tower (the tallest tower on the Southern Hemisphere), went swimming on the roof (it was a little chilly), and ate at Mexicali (the best mexican restaurant in Auckland). Then we watched our first sunset
in the Southern Hemisphere.
Things we have learned so far:
1. Bathrooms are called Toilets.
2. Elevators are called Lifts.
3. When ordering coffee with cream you need to specify pouring cream not whipping cream and that it should be a little bit added not half of your drink!
4. Looking both ways before crossing the street is as important as ever.
5. Ordering lunch meat from the deli in grams is very tricky!
6. It is difficult trying to figure out how much fruit costs when it says NZ$ per kg.
Stay tuned for our upcoming adventures....buying a van, driving on the left side of the road, and navigating through New Zealand's biggest city :)
How exciting - I LOVE it!!! Wish we were there with you guys!! Sounds like it's been awesome already & you're learning lots!! What an amazing adventure! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Remember to look Left-Right-Left before crossing. It will take a while to get used to. Also green peppers are called capsicum. It took me a while to figure out what this pizza topping was! Good luck with the van situation! I'm glad to hear you are doing well.
ReplyDeleteHooray! It looks like you guys are having a great time! :-) I can't wait to hear more about your adventures. :-)
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