We got up this morning, took showers and headed out to church and lunch with Cynthia, Felix and Olivia. Then hung out until it was time to head for the airport. Out flights are from Houston to Los angles, a two hour layover, then an 11-12 hour (6611 Miles) flight to Auckland. We left Los Angles just before midnight, crossed the international date line and landed in Auckland around 9 am, the day after. So we lost a whole day, 29 January. We were able to get some sleep on the plane down. It was magical watching the sun come up over the Pacific Ocean from 41,000 feet! We flew past many of the islands we will be stopping at on the cruise back. After immigration and customs, we picked up a cab to the Sheraton Four Points in downtown Auckland. Our cab driver Sammy (from India) talked most of the way to the hotel. He was a wealth of knowledge and we arranged for him to pick us up in the morning. Since we were early, our room was not ready yet. So, we had them lock up our luggage and walked down Queen Street toward the harbor. Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city and is a wide mix of Asian, middle eastern, and western cultures and food. We stopped at the Occidental Bar (a Belgium style bar) for lunch and to relax until our room was ready. We wandered back to the hotel and checked into our room. We had a short nap and cleaned up before walking down to the water front and walked along the historic buildings and new development. We grabbed dinner in the Amona (Italian) before making our way back to the hotel before dark. We had a fun time talking with the bar tender at the Amona about the local weather, lack of dogs (we walked downtown most of the day and never saw a dog!) and her move from London to Auckland. Then it was time to catch up on our sleep. Amazingly we were not really feeling any jet lag.
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| Sunrise over the South Pacific from 41,000 feet |
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| Welcome to New Zealand! |
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| Auckland Water Front |
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| Looking up Queens Street |
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