No One Died in Auckland Today...

For a moment, we were wondering if we were going to make it out of LAX. We asked for directions and ended up outside the terminal and on a a shuttle bus to the international terminal. I'm not sure if we could have gotten there without going outside, but it was a long way between terminals and ate into our 2.5 hour layover pretty quickly.

The Air New Zealand plane was a 777 and we had upgraded our seats to a "sky couch". That didn't work out as hoped, but it gave us all 3 seats in the row so that was good. The conceptual drawing showed the footrest flipping out into a bed that two can sleep on. So picture the width of a normal 3-seat airplane aisle. Now picture Shawn and me lounging in that space...yeah, that didn't happen. But, all in all, for a 12-hour flight it wasn't terrible.

Air New Zealand in Auckland

First view of New Zealand

Shawn bravely tackled driving on the left side of the road. It was even more of an adventure due to highway construction. He safely navigated us through numerous roundabouts and right-hand turns (which are very freaky as you cross over oncoming traffic). We laughed everytime he turned on the windshield wipers instead of the turn indicator. I don't think I'll be doing any big city driving. I'm not famous for knowing my left from my right.

Yup, that's the driver's side

Holy crap, there are cars coming at us on the right!

Did I mention the GPS has an NZ accent?

While waiting for our hotel room, we took a stroll downtown along the waterfront. There were lots of indoor/outdoor restaurants with seating along the water. We had lunch at Pescado. Tapas included squid rings so big they looked like giant onion rings, shrimp with garlic aioli and a beef salad with fresh feta and a mint dressing. So far, so good!

Fresh fish market - there were tanks of live eel and HUGE (as big as our cat) crayfish

Lunch at Pescado on the water front

A lovely NZ Sauvignon Blanc

The concierge at our hotel is great. He gave us lots of advice on what to see and answered our touristy questions like "do you tip?" (You can but it is not mandatory like in the U.S. There's no tip line on the credit card receipt.) Michael suggested tipping for great service particularly for young people who may be putting themselves through school.