Our Last Experience in Auckland

Taco- the same guide we had yesterday met us at 11:30 on Saturday morning the 26th. He was terrific!

 

First we went to the Sky Tower- a structure you see in photos from yesterday. The views from the restaurant were just stunning. Gave us a great different perspective on the city. The Tower  is 1076 feet tall and contains restaurants, a hotel, and shops. We saw the Harbor Bridge and the War Memorial Museum where we were headed after lunch.  There is a Westin Hotel in the harbor where you can even bring the dingy from your yacht through some locks into the center of the hotel and go right to your hotel room. We had seen it from the water, but the view from the Sky Tower let you see how it really worked. Pretty cool!

There are also two exciting options for brave or crazy people. You can pay to walk around the building on a platform or experience a controlled descent from a platform that is 630 feet high above the street. People are wearing a harness to do both of these. We saw one person jump and two walk around. Not us, however!

The elevator we rode had a glass floor so you could watch yourself go up. Interesting but scary!

The War Memorial Museum was a huge building with Natural History, Maori Culture, and items from the various wars. We saw a games, dance and weapons demonstration by some Maori. The games are designed to improve hand-eye coordination by quickly passing and tossing sticks to each other. They moved so quickly that it was hard to get a good photo.

   

The Maori language was banned until 1952. But in the beginning the language was not written down- it was an oral culture. The history and stories of the people were told by the elders in a tribe and by the beautiful carvings. When the English came they had the Maori write down everything in an attempt to bring order and control. There are only 15 letters in the Maori alphabet and most words are long and have many, many double vowels.  The carvings also often contain the Paua shell-like our abalone shell- as a highlight or accent. Can't imagine how much work goes into these carvings, but it did serve the dual purpose of keeping the story alive.

We left the War Memorial Museum and headed to the airport- arriving at about 4:00 PM on Saturday the 26th. Our plane took off on time at 7:15 PM. We flew New Zealand Air and had one of those cool flat beds with on demand movies and many "comforts." The seats were strangely at an angle and Jim and I were across the plane from each other. A lady changed her seat so we could be closer- although with these seats and beds it didn't matter much. We could even take-off and land with our seats in a reclined position- strange to me! Service was excellent and we arrived 45 minutes early into Los Angeles at 9:25AM on the same day we left- Saturday January 26.

Got our luggage and even were lucky enough to get a friendly and smiling customs man who helped us figure out how to avoid paying duty on the $1000 we spent over the $1600 limit. He suggested we consider the money we spent on opal be considered our first allowance and since the other stuff was non dutiable we would only owe in duty $10 and they'd write that off rather than do the paper work. I was thrilled!

We then learned we had to get our luggage to a different terminal and recheck it in with Delta. That was a struggle and not fun...but we made it.

Then we learned that our Delta flight to Atlanta had been cancelled but the good news was we had been rebooked on a flight leaving in 40 minutes. We checked our bags and raced through security just in time to board the plane at 11:40 AM. 

We arrived in Atlanta at 7:00PM- it is still Saturday by the clock in Atlanta- Atlanta time. Our flight to Sarasota was to leave at 9:15 PM....but it actually left at 10:15PM after having to off-load some fuel. We landed in Sarasota at 11:25 PM- still January 26. We flew 17 hours and spent about 8 hours in airports and it still was the same day!

We got to see the sunset in Auckland at 7:15 as we flew away on the evening of Saturday, January 26 and we got to see that same sun set as we flew into Atlanta on the evening of January 26. Really strange how this time thing works.

BUT we had a wonderful time and home and our bed looked good to us. Travel is such a wonderful experience- even when you get weary, and things don't work out the way you planned. Learning about the history of the world, seeing how other people live, viewing different wild life, meeting new friends, and experiencing life in a different way is wonderful fun!