I left DC at 5 PM on Saturday November 13th, and arrived in Christchurch around 2 PM on Monday the 15th. All together that was only 28 hours of travel with lots of time changes and crossing the international date line. (I would have had a tough time figuring out the time in my exhausted state were it not for my laptop retaining DC time.)
I took two bags- a backpack and a small duffel. I know that I will acquire more gear and more bags in Christchurch on Tuesday so I tried to keep the total mass down. Solar oven parts, a penguin costume, and appropriate clothes for coming back through New Zealand in December took up a lot of room. Otherwise I brought: -long underwear (thermals) tops and pants x2 each -thin sock liners x 2 -thick socks x2 -other shirts x2 -a sweater -toiletries including new biodegradable soap sheets! -under clothes -glove liners Then I wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a fleece jacket.
My backpack and duffel are waiting patiently by my side in the main terminal.
I flew from DC to Chicago then to LA, then over the Pacific Ocean to Auckland, NZ, and finally down to Christchurch, NZ. The planes were fine but Qantas Airline (from Australia) really stood out. There were two wonderful hot meals, on-demand entertainment, and comfy blankets.
Impressive selection of food choices on Qantas Airlines. It was wonderful!
I enjoyed flying into the big cities, especially LA at night. Grids of dense yellow lights stretched on and on filling my windowpane for almost half an hour. Flying into Christchurch was so different than LA! The sprawl of Christchurch is just fields in geometric patterns: squares, parallelograms, and rings for horse racing?
New Zealand has very diverse climates and regions. In this photo you can see the snow-capped mountains not far from the fertile agriculture fields in the foreground.
Finally we saw the city. My immediate impressions was that the trees are airy and loose. Driving through Christchurch from the airport to the cathedral square it really seemed a lot like LA: 5 ft plus fences around yards, a mellow feel dotted with graffiti, houses standing apart off of the road, nice but not fancy. It feels very comfortable. I'll be sure to have more pictures tomorrow.
My hotel is right on Cathedral square. The bells of the cathedral rang for about five minutes on my arrival. I started to think, "maybe I've made a poor hotel choice!" But when they stopped and i settled in I find it to be very cozy. I slept through tentative plans with some drillers for dinner. Now I'll just have to try to sleep some more until brekky (Kiwi breakfast.)
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