GIdday Getaway Day

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Trip Start Sep 01, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Sep 23, 2008

  Los Angeles, California, United States
Tuesday, September 23, 2008

We sleep in; until after 6:00 at least, which has been about our normal wakeup time. We had an excellent meal last night at the Grove, hosted by Michael, an American transplant from Connecticut by way of California. The food was wonderful.
It is a cloudy morning and we lazily read the newspaper, drink coffee and surf the internet for email and news. We see the Chiefs have performed poorly, only slightly less so than the stock market.
We head up Queen Street a couple of blocks to Ronnie's for breakfast. The intersection of Queen Street and Custom Street has the world's most unique pedestrian crossing process. Somewhere there must be a YouTube video of it on the internet. Its fun to watch and even more fun to be in the middle of as the "walk" light goes on in all directions simultaneously and a human free-for-all ensues.
We then stroll along the waterfront as the day warms. There are boats large and small, power and sail, private and commercial, fancy and tacky with several for sale. The same is true for condos which ring the wharf area.
Back at the hotel, we pack for the trip home. It is time for lunch and we yearn for one final order of fish and chips. The concierge says to go to the Waterfront which we do. Snapper and fries and our favorite N Zed varietal, sauvignon blanc. We have time to kill so we skip dessert and opt to walk up town for that. Seeing Starbucks, we grab some good American coffee and dessert. We walk across the street to a bookstore and spend an hour looking at books, and eventually buying 2 for the plane ride.

Our view from the Hilton

Then, after strolling still more we settle in at the Hilton lobby for one final glass of wine and are entertained by two tug boats which nestle a Panamanian freighter into a mooring immediately outside our window. Tugboats have amazing maneuverability and it is fun to watch the two of them work in tandem.
It is time to head for the airport so we gather up the Holden Commodore, stopping en route to top off the fuel tank and return it to Avis, none the worse for wear.
Just down the hall is the check-in counter for Air New Zealand and no one is in line. Check in complete we head for immigration and security. Again, no one is in line. I love travelling off-season.
We have $18.90 of New Zealand currency remaining. The airport bar has $9.00 glasses of sauvignon blanc. We leave the ninety cents on the table and head for Air New Zealand flight number 2 to London with an intermediate stop in Los Angeles. We have plenty of time. We are to take off at 9:30pm Auckland time (2:30am LA time) on this Tuesday night and arrive at LAX at 2:30pm on Tuesday afternoon making this a scheduled 12-hour flight. We are in premium economy in an exit row on the upper deck of a 747. Our plan is to sleep immediately upon departure for as long as we can. If we sleep six hours, we would awaken sometime around 9:00am LA time (11:00am Kansas City time). The plan is to jolt our body clocks back to US CDT as rapidly as possible. It is a good plan but it has a low probability of success.
New Zealanders are a mostly happy, almost always friendly lot, delighted to have you in their country. In the cities, the younger people exhibit signs of discontent and rebellion similar to what one sees with "kids" in any and every country I have ever visited. But anyone in their late twenties and older seems happy to be living their lives as they are. Their economy is in the doldrums just like to rest of the world but it doesn't seem to weigh on anyone very much. They are totally consumed with "sport" (rugby, soccer, netball, Australian football, and cricket), are well versed on world affairs and are very interested in American politics, asking many questions about our presidential election. They universally believe the duration of our campaigns-and the amount of money we spend on them-to be exorbitant. They like Americans and, for the most part, like America. Most believe that either Obama or McCain will be an improvement over Bush. They think McCain is too old and are a bit amazed that a black man could be elected in the United States to the position of President. They like Palin but can't imagine her being qualified to succeed McCain as the most powerful person on the planet. Biden is a non entity.
Twenty-three years ago, when Debi and I left Australia after a short visit, we said to each other that we thought we could live there. We like New Zealand but neither of us would want to live here. We can't say why, really. It is beautiful without question. It is relatively inexpensive. Infrastructure and services are adequate. Maybe the rural areas are too rural and the urban areas are too European; I don't know. Anyway, we won't be moving here soon.
I would recommend a trip to New Zealand for travelers who don't require fancy accommodations and who like to drive around (on the left) and see nature at its unspoiled best. I would spend more time on the south island than on the north island. I would definitely jump out of and off of things. I'd come in the off season as we did and I would travel without a plan, letting whim and whimsy determine my next steps. I would smile at people and rest assured that they would smile back. I'd drink a lot of white wine and eat a lot of "chips." I would travel light with only three changes of clothes and plan to do laundry at my place of lodging every other night. I would bring a couple of credit cards and just a "wee bit" of cash to convert to New Zealand dollars. And I wouldn't think of being without a GPS and a camera...and an iPod with speakers for the car.

By the time you all read this, we will hopefully be snoozing across the ocean. Hope you all slept well and enjoyed reading our travel blog as much as we enjoyed writing it. This has been a fabulous 3 weeks.

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