Awesome Auckland

You may be wondering why it has taken me so long to post this final blog. After all, I have been home for three weeks. In all honesty, I was just avoiding it because posting it would mean that my semester abroad was really, truly over. But here it is, my journey back home through the city of Auckland, New Zealand.

A building I like in Auckland

I stayed up the entire night my last night in Cairns since I needed to get to the airport early and I didn't want to waste my last hours sleeping. When I got to the airport I was super tired but didn't want to fall asleep for fear that I would subsequently miss my flight. So I ended up spending about half an hour just wandering around the terminal to stay awake. I got on my flight to Sydney and away we went. While on the plane it occurred to me that for some reason my layover was only 40 minutes and that this might be a problem. I began to panic. When we landed in Sydney I started hurrying towards the international terminal. Unluckily, it was very far away from the gate that I was at. When I got to the gate that was printed on my ticket I discovered that my flight had changed gates, to the exact opposite end of the international terminal. All in all, I was running all over the place looking like a crazy person but I made my flight. Not long after I landed in Auckland, New Zealand. I successfully located my hostel and then went out to explore the town.

The view from the summit of Rangitoto

The next day I had a harbour cruise scheduled so I woke up early and headed down to the pier. I got on the ferry and headed out. I went to Rangitoto Island where I hiked to the summit and explored some lava tube caves with a couple I met on the ferry. The island is volcanic and has only been there for a few hundred years. On the way back we saw an orca from the ferry. Ok, so I only saw a fin because I looked too late, but other people identified it as an orca. When we got back to Auckland proper I decided to go on a quest for food and quickly found myself in a mall foodcourt where I ate some falafel. I wandered the rest of the evening and saw many many things. Luckily, Auckland seems to be the only place my entire life where I actually knew where I was. I almost always get lost.

A Mini Cooper dealership in Auckland

On Sunday I had to be out of the hostel at 10 AM but my flight wasn't until about 3. So I spent a long time in the Auckland airport. Then I got on the plane across the Pacific. 4 silly movies, several episodes of tv shows, a couple conversations with a guy on the way home from Antarctica, lots of food, and 12 hours later I landed in LA. One good thing about Qantas is that the food is fantastic. I usually avoid eating on airplanes but I happily munched through everything they tried to feed me, which was quite a bit. I slept a grand total of one hour on the flight, so I was tired. Since I had a seven hour layover in LA I decided to take a nap on the floor of the terminal with my bag under my head. It was uncomfortable so I only slept for another hour. I also got some breakfast (since it was 6 am when I landed). Oh, and just for reference, LAX is an awful airport which is difficult to navigate and has nothing to do and inadequate seating at the gates....I spent most of my seven hours there sprawled on the ground. Eventually I got on my final flight and made my way home where I was greeted by my parents and a gingerbread milkshake.

The End