I'm the Friendly Stranger in the Black Sedan

Classes are over! It's amazing...another semester has flown by. Now I have three and half weeks for my exam period before I return to the US on 16 November. That's a long time with only four finals, so I decided to book another trip!

I'm heading back to Australia on a pretty exciting itinerary. The trip is centered around a 10.5 hour train ride through the Australian outback (kind of) on a train called The Overland. It's operated by Great Southern Rail, which runs train trips throughout the country--some of which can take up to three days! It should be a really cool experience, and the transportation side of me is geeking out over the thought of it. I'm flying to Melbourne on Air New Zealand on 1 November (on a Boeing 777--another new plane and another new airline!). After a day in Melbourne, I take the Overland to Adelaide, the capital of the state of South Australia. Then after a full day in Adelaide, I'm flying to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, on Virgin Blue before flying back to Auckland the next day on an Air New Zealand 747. It should be a fun trip where I'll get to see another side of the country apart from Sydney, and I'm looking forward to it!

Anyway, on to our normally scheduled blog post.

Aucklanders love their cars almost as much as Americans do. A large majority of the population owns a car, and 17% of households own three or more of them. It's not surprising, then, that Auckland has one of the lowest rates of public transportation utilisation amongst cities of comparable size--and as Auckland expands, its car dependency is going to lead to huge problems as the city continues to expand outwards and upwards.

So what type of cars do Aucklanders drive? Definitely not the same ones they do in the US. Of course, all New Zealand cars have the steering wheel and pedals on the right-hand-side. It was a bit of a shock at first to look up and see, for instance, a small child sitting in the left-hand front seat where the driver sits in the US, or even worse, seeing that seat empty entirely. While there are some Australian-made Fords and Chevrolets driving about, most of the cars I see on the street on a daily basis are imported from Japan and Korea. I don't profess to be a car person at all, but it's been interesting to see a totally different mix of cars than what I'm used to. Here's a mix of popular models (*none of these pictures are mine):

A Peugeot 106

There are a bunch of cars from companies that don't export many models to the US, the Daihatsu, Isuzu, and Citroen. All of these models are completely new to me, like the Peugeot 106 that's parked near an apartment building on my walk to university every morning.

The Mazda Familia

I'm not sure if Aucklanders prefer small cars or if it's a function of the Japanese and Korean companies that export them, but most of the cars I see around here are small and boxy. One of the most popular ones is the Mazda Familia, which I think is New Zealand's version of the Toyota Corolla (although there are also Toyota Corollas here as well, albeit not at all like the 1995 model I learned to drive with). The Toyota Prius is also popular, and is the only car that looks like it's a direct port from the US market.

Nissan Sunny EX Saloon

One of my favorite car names is the Nissan Sunny EX Saloon. There's one of these parked right outside my building, nearly 24 hours a day.

There are also a bunch of old German BMWs and sparkling new Lexuses (Lexii?) for the well-to-do set. At Countdown the other day, I nearly walked right into a pristine Ferrari something-or-other that was imposingly parked in the space closest to the front door. If I owned one of these things, I probably wouldn't feel comfortable taking it anywhere.

Holden Commodore. This orange colour is actually quite popular

For all you "boyracers" out there (a real Kiwi epidemic, they're all over the papers), your car of choice might well be a Holden. Buy an old one of these Australian-made cars, pimp it out with rims and other things, and race down Symonds Street at 1 AM to impress your mates.

Another common sight are these Courier Post vans. New Zealand Post competes with a bunch of other local companies (I've never seen a UPS or FedEx truck here, but DHL is plentiful) to deliver packages and high-importance documents. The owner-operators of these vans are really adept at getting in and out of tight spaces, and you'll often see them speeding out of driveways, pulling quick 360s in the middle of the street, or performing some other "manouevre" to get to their next delivery quickly. They also have a habit of driving down sidewalks.

So, that's a little taste of what the cars are like here in Auckland. Not too many America-sized vehicles, which is kind of refreshing.

Sydney--Day 4: On Which We Fly LAN Airlines

The next day was my birthday, September 26, and LAN Airlines was nice enough to call and wish me a happy birthday. Well, sort of. At 6:45 AM, my phone, which I had lashed to the metal bedframe of my bunk bed with my watch, starting vibrating, shaking the whole bed. My tired brain processed the following: (1.) It's too early to be my alarm. (2.) Must be a wrong number. I hit cancel. Then it rang again. This time I processed the following: (1.) It's too early to be my alarm. (2.) I don't recognize that country code. (3.) There's only one possibility.

Sure enough, it was Fabian calling from Chile on behalf of LAN Airlines to let me know that my flight "tomorrow, September 26," would be delayed by two hours. Great. Wide awake now, I headed back to start gathering my things anyways. Then the phone rang once more: it was Fabian again, wanting to let me know that when he said "tomorrow," he really meant "today." "Because we are in different time zones," he explained. Got it.

Even though the plane was delayed, I decided to head to the airport only 15 minutes after I had originally planned to leave. Good move. By the time I got there, a long queue had already formed at the LAN desk. Checking in took forever. With each person, the agents needed to check with a supervisor about something or another, and then process the inevitable mountain of luggage that the passenger was bringing with them. The guy in front of me was upset because the delay of this flight (which would continue to Santiago, Chile, after Auckland) would mean he would miss his connection to Buenos Aires. After two hours I was finally the next to be checked in. It was 9:55 AM--on the original schedule, my plane would have departed. Good thing it was delayed. As I was about to step up to the desk, the agents decided to close down check-in and move it to the opposite counter. This meant another 15 minutes while they slowly gathered their things, logged onto the new computers, and fed boarding passes into the printer. Finally, I got my boarding pass. I asked the agent if they had any departure cards (I was prepared this time!), but was told simply "No."

As I was going through security, an officer grabbed my bag of liquids. "Can I see this, please?" he said, pointing to my toothpaste. I opened the bag. He stared at it like he had no clue what it was. "What IS this?" he asked. Toothpaste. "It's too big. See? 350 grams," he said, pointing to the number, "It's too big." By this point, it was 10:30 AM, and I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I didn't put up much of a fight. "Fine, just take it," I said. After the metal detector, I was again randomly selected for secondary screening. I was told to read a laminated page of incomprehensible justifications for the screening process, an agent rubbed my bag with a wand, put a strip into a machine, and gave me a pat-down. Whatever keeps up safe...

In all honesty, once I got past security and the check-in lines, I had a pleasant experience on LAN. The flight attendants, whose name tags contained a mini-flag of their country of origin (most Chile, one US and one Ecuador), were cordial and efficient. I celebrated my birthday over the Tasman with a glass of orange juice and some sort of Kiwi-made prepackaged apricot fruit cake, as there was no vegetarian meal available. The A340 is a nice plane and gave us a smooth ride to Auckland. LAN certainly wasn't Emirates, but it also wasn't trying to be. We landed in Auckland 1.5 hours later than originally scheduled, and I got a new passport stamp for the occasion.

So that's it! The Sydney travelogue completed. I'll get back to doing a few posts about non-travel-related matters in the coming days/weeks. As I may have mentioned before, I have a full week during my finals period that I'm trying to decide what to do with...maybe another trip somewhere? Stay tuned...

Sydney--Day 3: Rugby

By chance, I had found out before I left that the National Rugby League playoffs were in full swing in Australia, and one of the Preliminary Finals (i.e. the semifinal) was taking place at ANZ Stadium in Sydney on Saturday the weekend that I was going to be there. Even though I knew close to nothing about rugby (my only experience is from watching "Invictus"), I wasn't going to pass up the chance to see a big-time rugby match in the country that's famous for it. I bought up a cheap ticket for the Saturday night match between the St. George Illawarra Dragons and the Wests Tigers. The winner would advance to the NRL Finals

The NRL is of the same stature in Sydney that the NFL is in America--it's absolutely huge. Sydney itself has something like nine NRL teams, so each area of the city has its own club. A lot of people have been cheering for the same team for decades based on where they had grown up or had moved to--it's really part of the lifeblood of Sydney, just like how the Sox are inseparable from Boston. The Sydney Roosters had won the previous day's Preliminary Final, so an all-Sydney final was guaranteed--much to the delight of the city's rugby fans.

I decided it would be more fun if I chose my own team to support. I went into Rebel Sport and made my decision: I had a good time traveling on the Illawarra line the previous day, so the Dragons it would be. I bought a red and white St. George Illawarra beanie cap as my birthday present for myself. Later, I used the hostel's molasses-slow internet connection to spend 15 minutes on Wikipedia learning as much as I could about the rules of the game.

I have to admit that I was sort of apprehensive about going to the match--the stadium promised to be packed, and thoughts of rampant football hooliganism were running through my mind. I needn't have worried, for several reasons. First, let's compare sporting events in Sydney and DC. On the way to a Nationals game in DC (maybe 20,000 total people, on a good day), WMATA might add one or two more six-car "special" trains to Anacostia, and let people crush on at L'Enfant Plaza. In Sydney, public transportation to and from the match is INCLUDED with your ticket (!!) and trains were running every seven minutes from Central Station direct to Olympic Park Station for ANZ Stadium. My train car was nearly empty. The raspy-voiced train conductor ended all of his announcements with "Go the Bunnies," in refence to another NRL team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

When I got to ANZ Stadium, the Rabbitohs were crushing the Canberra Raiders in pre-match Toyota Cup action. I started to realize that this is really Australia's unifying sport...people from all walks of life seemed to be here: families with kids dressed up with Tiger or Dragon hats, business-type people, veteran supporters with binoculars and earpieces connected to radio broadcasts of the game, all decked out in equal numbers with black and gold Tigers or red and white Dragons jerseys. The entire bottom deck of the stadium was completely full: total attendance, 71,712.

The players came out, and people went crazy and started waving giant flags. Flames shot out of canisters placed on the field. First the Tigers players came out, and the south-side of the stadium erupted in cheers and song. Then, the Dragons elicited a similar response from the north side of the stadium. It's been a long time since I've been to a sporting even with that sort of excitement in the air.

Rugby is the ideal spectator sport. It's fast-paced, and there's always something happening with few breaks in the action. There was a good mix of scoring and defensive portions of the game. And there's tackling. Bone-crushing tackling, with no pads. My Wikipedia research had given me some idea of what was going on (it's much more like American football than I thought, and not at all like Australian rules football, which is something else entirely). At first, I put on my Dragons hat and clapped whenever those supporters did, but after about fifteen minutes I was starting to be able to react to the action on my own.

It ended up being a close and exciting game. Wests and St. George traded four-point scores (called "tries") and two-point conversions, and it was 12-12 heading into the final 10 minutes. With seven minutes left, Dragons five-eighth Jamie Soward kicked a one-point goal, making it 13-12. Despite a last second Tigers run, the Dragons won it by that one point. The crowd erupted into a fever pitch with red flags waving and people singing "As the Saints Go Marching In." The guy in front of me, a Dragons supporter who had been talking to me out of nerves for the last ten minutes of the game (I covered up my lack of knowledge about rugby by basically just agreeing with whatever he said), gave a yell, jumped up out of his seat and gave me a hearty handshake. He seemed close to tears. He had been following the Dragons for 31 years, and they had made it to the Finals.

Now, after a Natonals game, WMATA might set up some random yellow barriers at Navy Yard station. give one or two employees reflective vests and flashlights, and tell them to keep repeating "keep on movin' down!" At Olympic Park Stadium, there were not only frequent trains directly back to Central Station and clear, audible announcements, but dozens of CityRail employees and police officers working real crowd control systems to make sure things moved smoothly. I had a seat all the way to Central--in DC, I'd be crammed in a Green Line train like a sardine, with my face shoved into the sweaty armpit of a large man wearing a Vinny Castilla jersey.

The Dragons ended up winning the Finals the next weekend. I thought about the guy sitting in front of me, and how happy he must have been. Go the Dragons!

Sydney--Day 2: The City

The next day, I left the hostel and started to explore downtown. Sydney has a large and skinny CBD populated with equally large and skinny buildings, leading down to the Harbour. I ended up walking all the way down to Circular Quay, where the famous Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge reside.

Nearby, this guy was playing the digeridoo, which is a freakin' cool instrument:

I have to say, it's one thing to see these structures in photographs, but when you're actually there, it's a totally different experience. The Opera House is a truly magical building. You could look at it for hours if you wanted to, from different angles, admiring the triangles, the shadows cast by the building, the whiteness of the roof.

I had read about a ferry to the nearby community of Manly that was supposed to give great views of the CBD and the Opera House. I bought a pass that entitled me to unlimited use of Sydney's extensive bus, train, and ferry network and hopped on. Sure enough, we pulled out of the Harbour to incredible views of Sydney. It was a perfect clear day (the weather was incredible and warm compared to the weather in Auckland, which was simultaneously sunny and pelting me with cold windy rain as I left for the airport the previous day) and I got some great pictures.

A bunch of boats were in the Harbour...

Including this warship...

flying Chinese flags. You don't see this in Cape Cod...

Central Sydney from the Harbour

I wandered around the beachside community of Manly for a little bit and caught a ferry back to the CBD. I got lunch and consulted my piece of notebook paper--most of which contained instructions on the roundabout route from the airport to Banksia Station. There was another destination, though: "Cronulla Beach." I decided to head there, not knowing much about it other than a recommendation from Wikitravel. It would be a good distance away via CityRail, and I'd have to make a connection at one point. My all-day pass came in handy again.

Unlike Auckland, Sydney has a functioning and useful (albeit expensive) public transit system. CityRail's Illawarra Line took me south of the city through a bunch of quiet, leafy suburbs. I opened the window next to my seat on the upper level of the double-deck train car, a pleasant breeze blew in. "I could live here," I thought again. After 50 minutes, I had made it to Sutherland station, where I waited for my connection and a 20 minute ride to Cronulla.

I knew there was a beach somewhere around here, so I walked in the direction of some water in the background. I came upon a nice little sandy area with access to an inlet...a nice area,but had Wikitravel really recommended this? Still in a good mood from my train ride, I walked around the mouth of the inlet, near a playing field where some kids rugby team was practicing. I passed by a couple of schoolkids, still wearing their Cronulla Public Schools uniform.

Kid 1: Hey.

Me: Hey.

Kid 2: Hey.

Me: Hey.

Kid 1: Hey, what's your name?

Me: Mike

Kid 1: What school do you go to?

Shoot--I was outed as a non-native!

Me: Uh, I'm not actually from here.

Kid 2: Where are you from?

Me: America.

Kid 2: Oh. [Apparantly, this wasn't much of a surprise.] I thought you were someone I knew.

Me: Oh.

Kid 1: What are you doing in Cronulla?

Me: I dunno, just traveling around. I'm staying in Sydney.

Kid 1: Do you like it here?

Yes, I did. Very much.

Me: Yep.

Kid 2: Have you been to the beach yet?

Me: Uhh. [You mean this wasn't the beach!?]

The kids gave me really good directions to the real Cronulla Beach (the opposite direction, as it turned out). We chatted a little bit more, I told them more about where I was from. Then,

Me: I guess I'm going to go this way then [gesturing in the direction of the beach]. Thanks for the directions.

Kid 1: No worries. See you later.

[Maybe.]

The kids' directions were spot on, and in no time I was at the real Cronulla Beach. This couldn't have been anywhere but Australia. The surf was up, the water was perfect blue. A bunch of surfers in wetsuits were riding the waves, and doing a pretty good job of it at times. I watched them for a while.

Everyone in Cronulla seemed to be outside doing some sort of activity. Later, on my way back to the station, two policemen in horseback were inexplicably standing in a public park, with a bunch of little kids gathered around them admiring the horses.

As the sun set through the train window as we zipped through Illawarra on the way back to the CBD, I started to think about why Sydney was having such a positive effect on me. In three months in Auckland, I had never really thought that New Zealand was a place that I could settle permanently. Why was Sydney so different? Was it the weather? The people? The familiar feeling of the place? (I think, after just a few days in Australia, that Australians probably live the most Americanized lives outside of the States itself, and maybe Canada) The satay sauce in that Thai restaurant? Maybe a combination of these things, I don't really know. I'm still trying to figure it out.

After dinner, I went back to Circular Quay to see the Opera House at night. Good decision. The Opera House was magnificent again, but the real star was the Sydney Harbour Bridge, lit up in a variety of colors at night, crystal clear in the night sky. This was a really challenging environment for my little point and shoot camera. I was pushing it to and beyond its technological limits. I fiddled around with the settings, balanced it on a handrail to allow for a longer shutter speed, and took some of my favorite photographs of the trip.

I'm really happy with the way this one came out.

I convinced some people to take my picture with the Harbour Bridge in the background. The photos weren't coming out right--I fiddled around with the settings until I found the right combination (the secret is Hi-ISO mode, no flash, and vivid colors) and handed over the camera to someone else to get a relatively clear, somewhat grainy due to the high ISO, version of the "money shot."

Sydney--Day 1: Outbound

My trip to Australia certainly seemed to sneak up on me. In the two weeks between my South Island trip and my birthday weekend, I was barraged with a bunch of work to do and turn in for all of my classes, as well as stressful back-to-back Maths and Mathematical Econ. tests. I spent the night before the trip toiling over a Maths assignment, and I had class until 2 PM the next day. Needless to say, my mind wasn't in my typical travel mentality, so as I was walking up Symonds Street to my room after class on Thursday I found myself thinking: "Whoops, I'm flying to another country tonight! How did that end up happening?"

As such, I did very minimal preparation. On my South Island trip, I carried around a hefty 30+ page stack of binder-clipped A4 paper that included all of my bus and hostel confirmations, printed Google Maps of all the places I was staying, and an Excel spreadsheet that summarised everything (with an extra copy in my wallet, just for backup). For Sydney, I had my plane and hostel confirmations I had printed out the night before and a piece of notebook paper on which I had scribbled a few places I found on Wikitravel and the train lines I needed to take to get to them, as well as my ticket to the NRL Preliminary Final (more on that later).

I packed my little soft-sided duffel bag with a few days worth of clothes and necessities (no backpack this time), grabbed my passport, and headed off to the airport. I was basing my nonchalance on the ease of flying from Dunedin to Auckland a few weeks earlier--I assumed that flying to Sydney would be just the same. Wrong. It turns out that international flying is an entirely different animal. After checking in at the Emirates counter, I was confronted with an American-sized line at security--and the surprise that liquids couldn't just be sent through the machine like in Dunedin. And I had my shampoo and soap bottles just sitting in my bag.

Now, I like to pride myself on being an efficient traveler. I usually am able to fly through the security line in such exotic airports as Boston and Baltimore, and I grumble internally at those who don't know how the system operates and slow down the line. That said, I looked like a complete travel novice at Auckland Airport. Now, coming from a country where the "3-1-1" rules are strongly enforced by the TSA, the liquid requirement shouldn't have been a surprise. Nevertheless, maybe due to my distracted mental state the previous days, it really through me for a loop. I bought a little plastic bag for my liquids for $0.20 at a airport bookstore (thankfully my soap and shampoo bottles were travel-sized) and hurredly crammed my toiletries inside. Next came the departure card--information about me and my destination that needed to be filled out and handed to the customs agent before passing through security, and another unfamiliar item. Finally, confident that my preparations were complete, I got in the security line and waited for a half-hour, assuming I was all set.

Wrong again. I heard an announcement over the PA: "all liquids, blah blah, including shampoo, nail polish, blah blah, toothpaste..." Toothpaste?? Crap, my toothpaste was in a separate pouch in my bag--and not in the plastic ziploc bag. By this point, I was almost to the metal detector, and I started to panic. Here I was, holding up the pre-security line digging around for in my bag for my toothpaste (it seemed take hours before I found it), fumbling around with my boarding pass and passport while I put the toothpaste in the bag, nearly forgetting to take my watch off for the metal detector, and (the biggest tragedy of them all) leaving my perfectly packed bag in ruins. Complete failure. Considering how frazzled I must have looked on the other side of the security line, it's no surprise that I was "randomly" selected for a secondary screening pat-down for the first time in my life.

After the security debacle, I composed myself and walked to the gate and regained my enthusiasm for traveling. I had been excited for this trip for a while--not just because I was going to Australia, but because how I was getting there. As part of my birthday present, I had booked myself on two interesting flights: Auckland to Sydney on Emirates flying on their flagship Airbus A380 service, and back from Sydney to Auckland on my birthday flying LAN Airlines (the flag carrier of Chile) on a Airbus A340: both new planes and airlines for me. I'm going to spend the rest of this post talking about these two flights.

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, or as you may already know, the Airbus A380 is the largest passenger plane in the world. It's the only passenger plane with two full decks, and it's powered by four massive Rolls Royce engines. It seats from 500 to 800, depending on the class configuration, and one of them will set you back a cool US$333 million: a third of a billion US dollars. It's so big that the FAA needed to invent a new class of airplane for Air Traffic Control purposes. Usually, large jets are referred to as "Heavy jets" to inform ATC that they need additional spacing due to the extra wake turbulence they produce--pilots are required to say "Heavy" at the end of their call sign on any transmission (i.e., the flight I took from LA to Auckland would have been "Qantas 26 Heavy"). For the A380, "Heavy," just doesn't cut it--it produces so much wake turbulence and is so large that it's the only jet in the world that's in the "Super-heavy" class (my flight's call sign would have been "Emirates 413 Super" on ATC).

One of the first delivered A380s, c/o Airliners.net

There are only 52 Airbus A380 in the world right now, and Emirates itself has 13 of them. Emirates, if you haven't heard of them, is the flag carrier of Dubai. Like everything else in Dubai, Emirates is coated in opulence. Basically, their business model is to buy lots of big, shiny new widebody aircraft (A380s and Boeing 777s, mostly), attract the best pilots from around the world to come fly them ("Hey look! Shiny new toys! Want to move to Dubai?"), and pride themselves on world-class service, especially in their premium cabins. Every year, Emirates competes with another airline you've probably never heard of, Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi, for the Skytrax top in-flight service award. Needless to say, I was excited to fly the A380 for the first time and see if Emirates service was all it was cracked up to be. When Emirates showed up as one of the cheapest options to get from Auckland to Sydney, I snapped up the ticket in a hurry.

Auckland Airport had to do a little expansion of its own to accommodate the A380, building a new terminal extension that was a healthy 10 minute walk down some travelators to a seating area that still smelled of new construction. Rounding the corner, I got my first glimpse of my aircraft for the evening: Emirates A380 registration #A6-EDC, which was Emirates third A380 and the twelveth made overall.

A6-EDC, with an Air New Zealand jet behind it

I have to say, it was a little bit of a letdown. From its exterior, the A380 is not a very sexy plane. The second deck bulges uncomfortably from the main deck, and it just looks too tall for its own good. While impressive in scale, it didn't blow me away like a Boeing 777: a plane that impresses me whenever I see one, although I've never actually flown in one.

A380 Interior. It's fuzzy, I know. Blame the "mood lighting"

A member of the flight crew greeted me inside the doors, read my boarding pass, and directed me (verbally) to my seat, calling me "Mr. Wittman" (why thank you!). I settled in to seat 55K (which is somehow near the front?) on the lower deck, and listened to the flight announcements, made first in Arabic and then in English, as this flight would continue onto Dubai from Sydney. Emirates has crew members from over 150 different countries, and today's crew spoke 13 different languages between them. The Australian pilot came on to tell us the flight details, and we ambled off to the far end of Auckland's only runway for a powerful takeoff.

One of the benefits of the A380 is supposed to be the in-flight experience. Its a very quiet plane--I was close to the engines, but I still notices a significant distance. They say that far in the back, you barely hear the jet noise at all. The cabin is pressurized to 5,000 feet instead of 8,000 feet like a 747, and that was noticeable too. The aircraft is so large, you really don't feel it's moving at all--you might as well be in the middle of a movie theatre. I've read that Emirates runs these planes on autopilot from just after takeoff until AFTER landing, so it was a smooth ride. The plane is basically just controlled by two Honeywell computers--supposedly the systems are so redundant that they don't even keep extra paper copies of manuals, checklists, and approach plates in the cockpit, which doesn't strike me as the wisest decision.

City names in Arabic on the IFE system

As for the cabin crew, they didn't necessarily impress me--I thought the Qantas crew on the way to Auckland was more personable. Crew member Walid walked around with a tray of hot towels that he deftly dispensed to passengers with a pair of tongs, which was actually very refreshing after the meltdown in security. My provided vegetarian meal was basically just some veg, a roll, and four small raviolis of unknown contents. For the second time, I didn't get a dessert (what gives?? Vegetarians like dessert too!). Emirates gives you a nice big personal entertainment system, with heaps of movies and video on demand. I watched a few episodes of 30 Rock I hadn't seen before, and watched the sun perpetually set outside my window as I traveled back in time.

The crew came around to clear dishes and present us with arrival cards on a silver tray. After we landed, I breezed through immigration and got a new stamp in my passport (I feel my collector's impulse kicking in...gotta collect all 203!). I then had to go through the same sort of biosecurity checkpoint as I did when I arrived in NZ.

The line was massive thanks to a just-arrived Singapore Airlines flight, with many people pushing multiple carts full of massive, oversized luggage (Why do people feel the need to take all of their possessions with them when they travel?). Thankfully, a security officer singled me out in line:

Him: "G'day. Got any food in your bag?"

Me: "No."

Him: "Any contraband?"

Me: "No."

Him [stamping my arrival card with a magical green mark]: "Express lane down the end. G'day!"

I went down to the express lane, where my bag was never inspected. I guess my word was good enough?

So here I was, standing in Australia, with no Australian currency! Fortunately, thanks to the magic of the internet, I had researched exactly where a compatable ATM to my Bank of America debit card was located in the airport. In went my card, out came genuine Australian dollars (made of plastic, just like New Zealand dollars). Now, there's a train from the Airport directly to Central Station, which is right near my hostel. Did I use it after a long day of travel? Ha! Of course not! I read on Wikitravel that you can take a local bus to a small suburban train station called Banksia, from which you can take a train anywhere you want--saving the $12 surcharge the Airport station charges. This sort of route is the epitome of how and why I travel. After some searching, I found the bus stop, made the correct payment (Me: "How much to Banksia[Bank-see-uh] Station?" Bus driver: "Where?" Me: "Banksia[Bankshuh]" Bus Driver: "Oh, Banksia[Banksheh].") and got off at the deserted "Banksheh" station. I took Sydney's CityRail to Redfern Station, got lost again, and eventually found my hostel without looking at my map (yay for photo-memory!)

Quiet Banksia station on a Thursday night

I immediately got a good vibe from Sydney. Even at 9 PM on a Thursday, it pulsed with a quiet sense of activity. I strolled down a street looking for something to eat. People keyed into their houses and apartments, someone hailed a taxi, patrons at a Lebanese restaurant talked in Arabic. Some guy was walking his dog. I picked a Thai restaurant at random (almost no takeaway places would have been open at 9:30 in Auckland) and was treated to a simple and delicious tofu and vege satay. Even so late, the tiny place had other patrons. Three friends had met for a late dinner, a woman with an American accent asked for a takeout box for her food, the laugh track from How I Met Your Mother rang out on a TV in the background. I've said his before, but Sydney seemed like a real place, with real people going about their lives. It made me want to join them.

South Island Bus Adventure Day 10: Invercargill - Dunedin - Auckland

I woke up in Invercargill ready to go...after 10 days and thousands of kilometres, my great journey across New Zealand was fixing to come to an end.

I joined eight other passengers in the parking lot of the Southland museum as we waited for our bus to Dunedin, where I'd be flying back to Auckland. Today's coach was a rickety old minibus whose plush red seats had seen better days. The driver had "Classic Hits Southland" radio on in the background, and the combination of the dated music, the coach's upholstrey, and Invercargill's one-story, quarter-acre suburban housing made me feel as if we had transported in time to the 1950s.

It was a pleasant ride through what is a very agrarian part of the country, with rolling green hills and heaps of sheep. The blue sky and direct sunlight, for the first time in several days, helped as well. We drove past the big and controversial Fonterra dairy plant in Edendale, through some other small townships, and arrived in Dunedin 45 minutes early.

Dunedin (pronounced "Dunn-eden") is a cool university city, centred around a small, Harvard Square type area called the Octagon. I chose one of the eight streets around the Octagon at random, and was rewarded with a vegetarian cafe for lunch. Sweet as! After lunch, I spent the next hour or so in the Octagon, watching the birds, and taking some pictures of the plaza and of Dunedin's history railway station.

Dunedin's Railway Station, one of the most photographed buildings in NZ

I showed up at the railway station 30 minutes early for my shuttle to the airport, which I had prearranged through Nakedbus. Dunedin's airport is 30+ km away from the city centre, and there's no direct public transit link to get there. 25 minutes before my shuttle was due to arrive, I heard my name called out by a taxi driver who turned out to be Nakedbus' contractor for the area. We picked up one other guy later, but it was an otherwise semi-private taxi ride to the airport. A sign in the taxi said that the prebooked fare should have been $20 per person...I paid $9. I have no idea how these companies make any money.

Now I had 2.5 hours to kill in Dunedin International Airport--most certainly the smallest airport I've ever been to. Pacific Blue had one the one flight to Auckland operating, so the check-in counters weren't even open. What else was there to do but wait? I finished my fourth and final readthrough of "A Wild Sheep Chase" in the airport lobby.

Five of Dunedin International's 12 total check-in counters

Dunedin Airport was very, shall we say, relaxed. There were so few flights that they made an announcement over the intercom when each one arrived ("Air New Zealand is proud to announce the arrival of..."). I was never asked for any ID when I checked into my flight...I had carried around and worried about my passport for 10 days for nothing! There was no security theatre to instill a sense of fear like the US. Passing through security took 20 seconds--I left my shoes on and a bottle of Coke in my carry on bag as it went through the X-ray. The private security officer ran my backpack through again ("It's just yer padlock, mate," he said in his Cantabrian/Otago accent) and I was off--ready to cover the ground it took me 10 days to cross by land in the span of 90 minutes.

This flight was one of Pacific Blue's last domestic flights--they were pulling out of the NZ-only market to focus on trans-Tasman flights and let Air New Zealand and JetStar fight over domestic pasengers. I was treated to a beautiful sunset off the left side of the Boeing 737-800, and the South Island's mountains poked their way through the clouds. The NZ highways are mostly unlit, so there was no pattern of lights below me like flying through the US at night. We made an early landing in Auckland, and then it was off to catch the AirBus on the way back to IH.

So that's it! Finally, the end of my 10 day bus tour of New Zealand. From here, I can (finally) move on to a few Australia posts, and then some things that aren't about travel. Thanks for reading!