Hāere ra, Aotearoa (Goodbye, New Zealand)

My bags are packed. My flights are booked. My itinerary is set. And now, after over four months in the Land of the Long White Cloud, it's time to say goodbye to New Zealand.

I've spent the last few days saying my farewells to this country and the people I've met here. That, and running around doing last minute errands to make sure all my affairs are in order before I leave. Not to mention trying to plan out my 32-hour (at least) trip back into the US to make sure it goes smoothly (I'll be impressed if it all goes according to plan). With all of this, completing the trip report to Australia completely slipped my mind until it was too late each night. Sorry about that, and I'll finish it once I get back home.

It's nearing 11:00 PM on the eve of my departure. Soon it will be 16 November, the date that has been circled in my mental calendar for the last four months as "Adventure Over: Back to the US." And while I probably should be getting some sleep right now (my SuperShuttle leaves for the airport in just over six hours), I just wanted to jot down some last thoughts before I leave the country. I'll follow this up with a more thought-out, reasoned response once I get back to the States and have had a chance to reflect on the trip. But for now, consider this post the writings of a traveler running on adrenaline, and whose adventure is nearing its twilight moments.

I should start by thanking you, the reader, for your interest and your enthusiasm in reading the blog. I've had over 2,100 views of the blog in the past four months, which I think is truly atonishing. So, thank you for your support--you've motivated me to want to continue to write and document my journey. I hope you've had as much fun experiencing my trip along with me as I've had sharing it with you.

My New Zealand experience has simultaneously been easier, harder, more exciting, more mundane, more familiar, and more foreign that I ever could have expected. I feel very fortunate that I was able to have the opportunity to see this little corner of the world, and stay for a period longer than just a normal holiday. I truly believe that the best way to visit a place is to feel like a local, and Auckland has slowly opened itself up to me over the last four months as I've settled into my routines. Whether it is the comfort of my favourite table at my regular donburi shop or the hidden beauty of Auckland Domain, the most memorable and most satisfying parts of this journey have been found where I've least expected them and hidden underneath the touristy surface. Perhaps that's what makes them so valuable.

I'm also glad that I got the opportunity to do so much traveling while I was here. From the glaciers of the South Island, to the rocking 70,000+ strong crowd at ANZ Stadium in Sydney, to the natural marvels of Cleland Conservation Park in Adelaide (more on this to come in my next trip report!), traveling within New Zealand and abroad to Australia has been exhilarating and at times exhausting.

Now that my room is all cleared out and my suitcase packed, it looks as though I've only just arrived. I certainly feel that way--in retrospect, although sometimes weeks filled with university classes, stresses, and assignments would crawl by, it feels like my entire New Zealand experience is ending all too soon. That said, I'm certainly looking forward to being home, seeing family and friends again, and reclaiming some of the comforts that are so often taken for granted.

After running downstairs an hour ago to throw my last bags of rubbish in the dumpster, I stood on the balcony outside my building for a minute and watched the cars go by on the motorway. Overhead, the twinkling lights of planes slowly moved towards their next port of call. Assorted lights flicked on and off in the windows of the hi-rise student apartments next door. I did a 360-degree turn, making sure that I would breathe in Auckland, breathe in New Zealand, for the last time. And again, as has been happening a lot in the last two weeks, I was struck with the feeling of being a small part of an enormous world.

I know I beat that theme to death in the last two posts, but I couldn't help thinking back to the wall-sized map of the world posted in one of my hostel stops in Nelson, South Island. I remember looking at that map thinking that I had only covered maybe a cumulative total of one square inch out of the entire wall-sized map. I was itching to do more, to see more. After all, underneath all of the international flights, the customs and arrival documents, the foreign currency exchanges and the language barriers is the pure, human desire to expand one's horizons, to explore new places, and to see things that you've never seen before.

So while this journey may be coming to an end for now, and while I'm sure after a day or two in the States it'll feel as though I never left, the spirit of adventure persists.

Australia Revisited: Day 2-- Melbourne, Victoria to Adelaide, South Australia

Tuesday was the day of my train voyage from Melbourne to Adelaide--one of the motivating factors of the trip and something I was looking forward to. Unbeknownst to me, Tuesday was also the day of Melbourne Cup: a big horse race that is sort of like the Kentucky Derby of Australia. It's actually a public holiday in Australia--some businesses were shut down or running on reduced hours and trams and buses were running on holiday schedules. All across the country, people were placing their bets on which horse they thought would win.

It was another early start for me as I woke up at 5:15 to begin my journey to Melbourne's Southern Cross Station. As it turned out, I wasn't too upset to wake up early thanks to my roommate "Henry." "Henry" was a guy in his 40s from Trinidad who was in Australia for a conference and decided to travel around afterwards. As I found out as I was trying to get to sleep the previous night, he also must have some kind of sleep apnea or something. Two minutes after he went to bed, "Henry" began to emit snoring sounds from the bunk below me that, compared to everyone I've heard snoring in my life, were unrivalled in both volume and character. I actually laughed out loud when the snoring away--remember that I had begun the previous day at 4:30 AM and had walked around Melbourne for a good 10 hours. Somehow thanks to my exhaustion I was able to get a few hours of sleep peacemeal between "Henry's" snorts and snorks, but my early alarm was met with a great deal of relief. I fumbled through the dark room for my things, bid a silent, thankful goodbye to "Henry" (as well as a note of empathy for my other roommate, an Asian guy who had already had to put up with "Henry" for several nights) and began my trip downtown.

Interstate train travel isn't really used much in Australia, since the distances between cities are a little too far to make it practical. The Overland, operated by Great Southern Rail, is one of the few journeys still around, and the only one operated by GSR that can be completed in one day. You could, for instance, travel by train from Sydney to the far western city of Perth in a three-day journey on the Indian Pacific train. Not wanting to spend three days on a train, I picked the shortest journey possible (which was actually cheaper than both Qantas and the bus) and planned my trip around it.

I was surprised how small the train was, relatively speaking. The Overland was actually only seven cars: two standard passenger cabins, a cafe car, two premium cabins, and a two-car locomotive. There are rush hour subway trains in DC that are longer than that. Nevertheless, the train was very comfortable, with cushy seats and an ocean of legroom. My seatmate was a chipper older woman who was returning to Adelaide after spending the weekend helping her granddaughter plan her wedding in Melbourne. We left on time, moving at low speed through Melbourne's outskirts before picking up the pace and heading west towards Adelaide.

Eleven hours is a long time to do anything, and it was an enjoyable yet lengthy trip to Adelaide. This part of Australia isn't blessed with the same kind of diverse natural beauty as New Zealand, so much of the scenery flying by outside the window was flat green farmland that reminded me of driving through rural Pennsylvania. Every so often, we'd pass through a little industrial depot or a far-flung service town, and the train's service manager would come on the intercom to share a little anecdote about the stop we were making.

As the train glided along from Victoria to South Australia, I watched the color of the grass outside change from dark green to a lighter, paler color. To celebrate the Melbourne Cup, service manager Melanie ran a "sweeps" onboard the train, where people could come up to bet into a $1 or $2 coin pool and pick the winner of the race. Seemingly all of the Australians made their way to the cafe car to do so, and a queue formed into my car. My seatmate came back clutching a little ticket bearing the name of a horse and smiled impishly at me. "Might as well celebrate the Cup," she explained. Around two PM, a crackly radio broadcast of the race came through on the PA. I could barely make out what the announcer was saying thanks to the static and his accent, but apparantly a horse called Americain won the race, sending a few happy people to the cafe car to collect a little paper sachet of their winnings. Besides this little excitement, the trip proceeded uneventfully. I'd like to say that I spent the time thinking about profound things, but I was content to just watch the world go by, listen to some music, finish the book I had brought with me, and catch up on some sleep from "Henry's" unique sleep sounds. And thinking again, just a little bit, about how many people there are in the world.

My window view for much of the eleven hours

The train arrived in Adelaide at about 5:30 PM, after eleven hours on the rails. I didn't have much of a plan to get to my hostel--the interstate train station was located near the city centre, but too far to walk and not connected to any public transport services. I was prepared to take only the third cab ride of my life, but a long queue formed outside the station as no cabs arrived thanks to the Cup. I ended up jumping aboard a shared shuttle bus that took me into the city, where I walked a few blocks to my hostel for the two nights that I'd be in Adelaide: Hostel 109.

Hostel 109 was one of the best hostels I've stayed in during my trips. A small place with only 20 rooms, it is run very capably by Malcolm, a very pleasant bloke in his 50s who greeted me at the desk (even though I arrived after checkin was supposed to be closed). Malcolm spent a full 15 minutes with me getting me settled, annotating a map of the city, and answering all my questions about how to get to the places I wanted to see the next day. He personally walked me up the stairs to my room, greeting the other guests by name and introducing them to me as we went. The room was spacious and outfitted with the most comfortable beds I've slept on in four months, already made up for me. There was also free, unlimited usage internet (which ended up being very valuable, since I had to register for classes for next semester at AU while I was in Adelaide) and a big TV lounge where I watched the first TV I'd seen in months. I was physically taken aback when I saw commercials advertising for Christmas--as the days were getting longer and warmer, it was shocking to think that Christmas was just around the corner. I had forgotten what time of the year it was...already November!

I headed out into Adelaide for a late dinner. I'll write more about Adelaide in my post tomorrow, but I had a very positive impression of the city. It's easy to walk around and has heaps of restaurants and things to do. I went down to one of Adelaide's "eat streets:" Gouger Street, which is home to Chinatown and a huge proliferation of restaurants, from Japanese to Italian. I picked a Thai place at random and had an OK Pad Thai, and finished it up with a gelato. I snapped the picture below from the menu at the Thai restaurant, which offered several meat choices that you wouldn't find in the States!

Australia Revisited: Day 1-- Auckland, NZ to Melbourne, Victoria

Ahh, the sweet relief of finishing my exams! It's a great feeling to be done, no matter the results. I think my final three exams went pretty well, and now the wait begins to get my official results, followed by what I'm sure will be another long wait until they're posted on my official transcript.

Now I only have three more full days in New Zealand. Incredible. Time has both flown by and come to a halt here. I imagine that coming back to the States will feel similar to coming home during breaks in freshman year, back before I had built up a community in DC and it felt like I was living in two separate worlds. I used to describe it as coming home feeling like no time had passed and nothing had changed, except that some of the furniture had been rearranged. We'll see if I encounter any reverse-culture shock as I make my re-entry back into America.

Speaking of re-entry into the US, Qantas' A380 fleet remains grounded. I got an email saying that my flight from Sydney to L.A. had been switched to a 747-400. A little disappointing that I didn't get to experience the more comfortable A380 on a long flight. I'm glad I got the chance to fly one with Emirates...who knows how long it'll be before they're back in service. Now, only 32 hours of travel on Tuesday and a tricky connection in LA stand between me and home!

And with exams out of the way, I can do my last trip recap of my voyage to Australia two weeks ago. I'll try to get these done before I leave the country. Here goes...

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I've learned over time that having to get up early generally sucks, no matter the exact time. Whether it's 5:00 or 6:30, I still get the focused grogginess and sour stomach of the early morning. But there's something about 4:30 AM that makes it a particularly unpleasant time to wake up. I watched a TEDTalk a while ago about how "four-in the morning is the new midnight," a strange hour of limbo where human activity generally ceases except for that of night-owls and unsavoury characters. On the walk to the bus to the airport, I saw a few of both. Lights were still on at the student apartment buildings near mine (not surprising, given the upcoming exams), and the dairy built into the base of one of the apartments was still open for business. Other than that, Auckland was quiet and tired, and so was I as the bus arrived.

Auckland at 4:45 AM

The bus driver was a short Maori guy--no more than 4'6"--whom I recognized as my driver from the last time I took the bus to the airport. A nauseatingly upbeat soundtrack of muzak versions of terrible 70s pop songs played in the background. I don't know if the music was of the driver's choosing or some sort of torture test from the bus company, but I fished my iPod out of my pocket and tried unsuccessfully to overpower it with my own tunes. The bus stopped to pick up a surprising number of other passengers: a couple of sleepy backpackers, a rather chipper gray-haired older woman, and a pilot for Air New Zealand who clipped on his stripes to the shoulders of his white shirt as he boarded the bus. He looked very tired of the whole routine. I breezed through security and passport control (hallelujah for better planning) and killed an hour watching planes take off through the sunrise.

A Qantas jet departs. I don't remember taking this picture, but it was on my camera.

Air New Zealand 123 was operating with a Boeing-777-200LR (registration #ZK-OKE [for my own reference only]) which was another new airline and another new plane for me. I think the 777 is one of my favorite planes to look at. It's perfectly proportioned, and gives off an air of both sleekness and power. One inside, though, I didn't notice much difference from the LAN Chile Airbus A340 I flew from Sydney--they're both comfortable widebody aircraft. The Air New Zealand crew was decidedly members of the over-50 set, an equal mix of gray-haired men and women. My seatmate was a Maori woman who needed a seatbelt extender to hold in her infectious, chortling laugh as she joked with her friend and nearby seatmates. Good winds over th Tasman made the crossing quick, and we landed 30 minutes early.

After a good bit of search, I found my public bus to the city. Three bus drivers, in a perfect demonstration of the Aussie "no worries" mentality, stood around the bus, chatting noncommitedly about the ramifications of a shattered turn signal near the driver's door. As I boarded the bus, the driver told me to "just take a seat, mate" since apparantly the farebox was broken too. No complaints from me--that just means I got a free ride! As I had done in Sydney, I took the bus with the broken turn signal to a suburban train station, where I bought an all-day transit pass and took a commuter rail into the city.

I still like cities. They inspire me with their blend of people, capital and potential. I like their architecture, their public transportation, their crowds. I'm not sure if I'd actually like to live permanently in the CBD of a major city, but I still like visiting. This was exactly what Melbourne was: a city. Nothing more, nothing less. It has pleasant architecture, a few tall buildings, an effective public transportation system centred around an extensive tram network that runs down the centre of the major arteries--all of which seemed to exist for the sole purpose of its residents and occupants. There's nothing wrong with that, but I realized as I was exploring Melbourne by foot, tram, and train that there wasn't much to differentiate Melbourne from other places.

That's not to say that it was unpleasant. Melbourne is simply another location where you could choose to live your life. One thought that kept popping into my head during this trip was the realization that there are a lot of people in our world, and how small any single person's life is compared to the full glory of the human machine. Seeing a few other parts of the world (and I've only just begun) has shown me that people have created a lot of little ecosystems for themselves around the planet, all self-functioning yet inseparable. It's been fun to participate in some of these other ecosystems, even if just for a day or four and a half months.

Hungry from my early wakeup call, I somehow located a tiny Japanese restaurant near the University of Melbourne that had gotten rave reviews online called Don Don. True to the reviews, you place your order, pay for your food, and as you're in the process of receiving your change you are presented with a bowl of steaming rice and toppings, all for about six bucks. I wolfed down the rice and tofu steaks seeping in a bowl of generously spicy Japanese curry, and was in and out in about ten minutes.

More meandering brought me to Federation Square near Flinders Street Station. A classic church sat in the background, flanked by a newly constructed, modern Melbourne visitors centre. On the square, a street performer was in the finale of his act. He had culled some people from the audience, and was attempting to get them to juggle increasing numbers of bowler hats. His Korean volunteer kept dropping the hats, and flat out refused to participate when the performer attempted to increase the number of hats to four. If this was the finale, I'm glad I didn't catch the rest of the show. I moved on before the performer tried to pull me into his act. On the other side of the Square was "ABBA World." Truly this was the place of the bizarre.

I had seen two separate people on the trains into the city eating fries out of a paper cone adorned by logo of one "Lord of the Fries." Since two people on two trains were partaking, I thought I should try it as well. The flagship store was easy to find, on the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth Streets. The sign proclaimed "the best fries you'll ever try." I ordered a cone of fries with a peanut satay sauce, selected out of a tempting list of over a dozen different sauces and combinations. The fries were decent, but not the best I've ever had.

After my fries, I decided on a whim to jump on a tram showing South Melbourne Beach as its destination. The two-car vehicle drove agreeably down the centre of the city streets, releasing a satisfying, old-timey "ding" of a bell with each stop. It deposited me after about 30 minutes at a skinny beach south of the city. With its murky gray water and wimpy surf, it's not one of the beaches that would be displayed on the cover of an Australian tour magazine, but it was a nice escape from the urbanness (if that wasn't a word, it is now) of the CBD. There was a even this fishing pier, which was much cooler and windier than the rest of the city.

I went back at sunset, too.

Later at night, I went to Southbank, which is the city's constructed arts and entertainment distrcit. People flock to places like this to feel hip by eating at restaurants with one-word names like "World" or "Umami." Of course, truly hip people probably wouldn't be seen anywhere near this constructed hipness that was reminiscent of the Circular Quay area near the Sydney Opera House. It was a nice area, though, with sculptures lit up in all sorts of colours, and I got some good views of the skyline on either side of the Yarra River.

So, Melbourne came and passed as a place to live and work, not leaving too much of a distinct impression. I'll take fault for this for not looking harder for unique things to see and do, but I'm glad I went regardless. Melbourne, if nothing else, is a comfortable place, and one that I wouldn't mind visiting again in more detail. For this trip, though, the most important purpose it would serve was the starting point for my 11-hour train journey to Adelaide, South Australia.

The Final Stretch

So, I'm back from my whistle-stop tour of Australia. Three capital cities in four days was somewhat exhausting but pretty exciting. Now I only have 10 days left until I head back to the States, and three exams also stand in my way. I have a few days to study, and then I have the three exams back-to-back: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Then, all that's left is four more days before my departure on 16 November.

Final exams are handled in an interesting way here. The lecturers (professors) aren't present at all during the exams. Instead, volunteers come in to proctor the exams--basically, they just read a list of instructions, make sure we fill out our sign-in cards correctly, and cross elapsed time off of a projector or computer screen. These volunteers are probably all in their 70s, and almost all women. For my maths final, I had this adorable grandmotherly lady with a German accent proctor the test. You also have to follow a list of strict directions: you must use pen, you must not bring anything to eat or drink into the room, calculator memory must be cleared, and if your cell phone or watch so much as beeps during the exam, it's a $150 fine. It's all part of education en masse at a big school like this one.

Also of note concerning my trip home are Qantas' latest issues with their A380s. I'm not sure if this is being covered much in the US, but on Wednesday a Qantas A380 (their first one delivered, named "Nancy Bird" after the Australian aviation pioneer) operating flight QF32 from Singapore to Sydney suffered an uncontrolled engine failure a few minutes after leaving Changi Airport in Singapore. Basically, something happened to cause one of the turbine discs in the #2 engine to fail, popping some good size pieces off the back of the engine that landed on some guy's car in Batam, Indonesia, among other places. The wing was also damaged as well. In a testament to the incredible redundancy built into these modern airliners, the crew was able to turn the superjumbo around, dump some fuel, and land safely back at Singapore an hour later. Further complicating issues, once on the ground another one of the engines wouldn't shut off and had to be doused by fire crews. These things don't happen often, but they do happen--it's only newsworthy because it happened to such a new plane. Incredibly, the very next day, Qantas flight QF6 operating Singapore-Sydney with a Boeing 747 also suffered some kind of engine failure and had to return to Singapore. Amazingly, the crew of QF32 were also aboard this flight as passengers.

I took this picture of VH-OQA "Nancy Bird," the A380 aircraft involved in the incident, at LAX in July as I arrived from my Southwest flight from Phoenix.

In response to the uncertainty of the cause of QF32, Qantas has grounded all six of its A380s--leaving one stuck in Europe, one in Sydney, the damaged one in Singapore, and three in Los Angeles. Singapore Airlines (whose A380s also use the same Rolls-Royce Trent engines that blew up on QF32) also grounded their fleet for a time, while Emirates, Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific et al. have kept their A380s operating because they use different engines. I'm sure a planeload of Qantas and Rolls-Royce engineers are in Singapore right now trying to figure out what happened. Of course, since these are the largest planes in the Qantas fleet, this has left the "Spirit of Australia" scrambling to rebook passengers and get aircraft to fly people where they need to be.

This impacts me directly because I'm scheduled to fly an A380 from Sydney to Los Angeles on QF11 on my way home. I was looking forward to the chance to fly the A380 on such a long flight, but we'll see if Qantas has them back in service a week from Tuesday and if my flight operates on time (I'd imagine it should be on schedule, two weeks after the incident, but you never know). It may turn out to be incredibly fortunate that ended up flying that Emirates A380 to Sydney a few months ago, since I might not be getting my chance with Qantas.

Anyway, disregarding that lengthy aside, Air New Zealand and Pacific Blue did a good job of getting me where I needed to go this week. As far as recaps of my latest and last trip, I'm unsure if I'm going to get any posted before my finals are over. I've been doing much more procrastinating than studying today, and that's probably going to have to change if I want to leave New Zealand with my academic record still intact. Therefore, just as a teaser, I'll leave this photo, with promise of more updates to come in the week to follow.

Yep, that's me standing three inches away from a real kangaroo. More later.