Create Every Day

13-April-2010

Packing for our trip home was equal parts sadness at having to leave, happiness at the prospect of being back in our own bed, and the deep-down tiredness that comes from going full speed for as long as we could remember. There was also a little bit of sleep deprivation in there as well.

As it always does, packing everything securely for the flight back took quite a while. Pull everything out and dump it on the bed. Pick out anything fragile or expensive and put it in the carry-ons. Put anything else breakable deep down in the pack against the frame. Pack dirty clothes (and we had plenty of those) around the outside. Look down and realize that your belongings have somehow magically gotten bigger. Pull everything back out and start again.

A few more iterations, and we finally had everything stuffed in place and all of the little bits and pieces stashed in their pockets. We did a final check of the room, and headed out. At the front desk, we found out where the luggage room was, and went down the stairs to drop off our big bags for a few hours. It was about ten in the morning. Our flight wasn’t until seven that evening. Time to kill: nine hours.

We went to breakfast at a pub next door, where we had a nice traditional big breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, a bagel with cream cheese and jam, coffee and tea. Packing had taken longer than we’d expected, and by the time we got the food we were famished. We launched in with gusto, and filled ourselves to the gills.

Around an hour later, we headed out toward the Auckland central library for its promise of free Internet and comfy chairs. It provided both, and we spend a nice relaxing hour checking up on everything back home, reading, and writing more of the blog. After a while, though, we started to get a bit antsy, so we packed up and headed out to wander around Auckland a bit more. Time to kill: seven hours.

We walked through Albert park, which judging by the statue of Queen Victoria, was probably named for Victoria’s royal consort, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. (Okay, I looked up his exact name on Wikipedia, but I did actually randomly hear that Victoria was married to an Albert a day or so after visiting the park.) The park was very nice, but the major attraction for me were the trees. There were a number of very cool trees in the park, including a banyan tree with long hanging root tendrils and an enormous tree that I could not identify, but which had a huge base that was partially hollow. It looked like an army fortification. I was sincerely jealous of the children that were playing in and around the hollow. Damn them and their… littleness!

We continued walking down the hill back toward Queen street, and found that we were getting quite hungry. We decided to look for somewhere to eat once we got back to the main drag. On our way, however, we ran into a very strange procession that stopped us in our tracks for a few minutes. There were a number of women in black tights and day-glow orange reflector jackets (the type you see, for example, police wearing in many European countries). They were all carrying silver horns that they alternatively listened through, held up to hide their faces, looked through like a telescope, and put to their mouths to amplify the plethora of bird and animal noises that they made. The sound of their calls echoed off of the buildings, making a pretty decent impression of the classic Hollywood “jungle” sound that I’m sure everyone has heard at some point or another. They moved wordlessly through the square, flowing around people without interacting. It was actually somewhat eerie to watch, and more than a little confusing. But overall it was really cool to see — and in some part become a part — of such an odd performance art piece.

After watching for a few minutes our stomachs got the best of us, and we continued on down a side alley to Queen street. With nothing pulling us one way or another, we randomly chose to head up the street away from the harbor. We didn’t immediately see anything to eat, but Dore remembered that there were a number of restaurants near the Sky Tower, so we made for the cross street and soon had more than enough options from which to choose. We seriously considered a Thai restaurant, but then we saw a Turkish restaurant named “The Midnight Express Cafe.” A quick glance at their menu had us licking our lips. Delicious middle-eastern treats of all descriptions clamored for our attention. Without a glance back we headed into the cafe.

We knew we’d made the right choice a few minutes later when we received our plates loaded with delicious lamb kebabs and other deliciously seasoned meats-on-sticks, salads, hummus, tzaziki, pita bread, and a wonderful fruit compote that I think was a dressing of some sort. I don’t think we talked much for the next ten minutes or so except for the occasional exclamation at tasting a new morsel or sauce. The food was all the conversation we needed. We finished completely stuffed, but somehow regretful that there weren’t just a little more of everything. Sometimes the tongue is willing, but the stomach is weak.

Check the watch. Two o’clock. Five hours to kill.

Damn, this was harder than we’d thought.

That’s the funny thing about that last day of travel. You never want to do anything too ambitious, for fear that it will run to long and you’ll get off schedule. But you don’t want to do nothing. So you try to find all of the little things that you can do to make the best of your time.

At the same time, though, when you’ve been traveling and doing things every day for weeks, at some point all you really want to do is lay down and take a nice, long nap. But… it’s our last day. We have to do something.

Predictably, despite the fact that I was about to fall asleep where I sat, we got up and headed out again, this time up the street again. We wandered by various shops, poking our head in and looking at the various souvenirs and knick-knacks on sale. There were a couple of things that somewhat interested us, but nothing that we couldn’t do without. We moved on.

Then we came to a curious shop that we just had to check out. It was an Asian $3 store. And it was awesome. From the display of patterned fake eyelashes to the wall of toothbrushes to the cat-shaped cookie cutters, the walls were crammed with a thousand odds and ends and bric-a-brac. We wandered up and down the tiny, cramped isles, calling to each other as we found each odd, funny, or just plain neat trinket. It was really fun, even though we didn’t find anything that we really wanted. Don’t get me wrong: there were a couple of things I seriously considered buying, but we were out of cash, and somehow using a credit card in this store just felt wrong somehow. We moved on with just our memories. I suspect that’s probably for the best.

The back of the store contained a second cashier, and let out into a mini mall that turned out to be part of the giant cinema complex on Queen street. We’d visited this complex on our first time in Auckland. As we had done before, we rode the elaborate system of escalators up to the top floor just because they were there, leaning over the railing to look at the people way below us. What is it about escalators that tickles me so?

Of course, there’s nothing on top except movie theaters, so we headed right back down again. At the bottom we shared an ice cream cone and rested at the food court tables. Honestly, at this point I was happy to pay just for the chair. I was seriously dragging. And we had a twelve-hour flight in a few hours. Check the watch. Two forty-five. Three hours fifteen minutes left. I put my head back down on the table.

I’m never going to make it.

Dore was starting to feel pretty tired as well, and despite it being a bit early we decided to start heading back. We took the opportunity for a restroom break, then gathered ourselves up and trudged down Queen street in the direction of the hostel and the bus stops where we could catch the bus out to the airport. We popped in to a few stores along the way, but mostly to kill time. Dore did find a nice merino-wool-and-possum-fur (the fancy fabric of choice in New Zealand) shawl, which was cool because she’d been looking for one at a reasonable price the whole trip.

We finally made it to the hostel and grabbed our bags, then headed out to the bus stop. I saw the bus make it to the stop when we were about a half block away. We knew that the bus ran every fifteen minutes, but I really didn’t want to hang around the stop for that long. I ran the last few feet, and caught the bus just before it was about to leave. Dore caught up a second later. We were on!

As it turned out, our timing was pretty much perfect. We got to the airport exactly when we’d been hoping to. Four thirty. Two and a half hours to go.

Being the middle of the week, checking in and getting through security was relatively simple and straightforward. As simple and straightforward as it ever is, anyway. At least we got to keep our shoes on. We did make sure to only check our bags through to L.A., as we were going to skip the connecting flight to Santa Barbara and instead pick up our car where we’d left it on the way out. I wasn’t terribly keen on having a two hour drive home after the flight, but on the up side we were cutting out a long layover, so this did get us home earlier.

Inside the gate area, we had a bit of time to wait before we found out which gate we’d be boarding at, and we scoped out our food options. Hmm… Burger King or prepackaged sandwiches. Despite the fact that we’d managed to avoid all American food chains the entire trip and weren’t keen to break the streak, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to eat a prepackaged sandwich, so we broke down and got a Whopper meal. I have to say, that Whopper tasted so darn good. On the whole American fast food hasn’t done the culinary world a whole lot of favors, but when you just want a burger there really is no substitute. There’s probably a life lesson to be learned there somewhere. I’m not seeing it at the moment, though. If you figure it out, let me know, okay?

By the time we’d finished eating, the gate had been assigned, so we queued up for a secondary “super-duper security” screening that was more or less exactly what we’d been through before. If anything the security here was more relaxed. As far as I could tell there was really no good reason to do it other than that’s what the US demanded. I have no idea why the original security screening wasn’t sufficient. I’d be willing to bet no one else in the airport — staff included — did either. Sigh. Finally through the last hurdle, we plopped into a couple of open seats by the gate and tried as best we could to save our energy.

About thirty minutes later we started boarding, and at seven fifteen we taxied out for an on-time departure.