Final thoughts

The last two days of my trip gave me time to reflect on this trip and traveling in general. On the Day 9, I left Taupo and went back to Auckland. Didn’t do much when I got back to the hostel – just relaxed and thought about how exciting it will be to take a shower without flip flops again.

The next day I went on a free day tour of Auckland with Kiwi Experience. Free is always attractive, especially at the end of a trip! It was really nice though. We went out and took a walk across the harbour bridge, watched a couple of people bungy jump off the bridge – it was brilliant. The rest of the day we headed out of the city center and went to a couple of areas called Devonport and North Head. Really lovely areas and definitely nicer than hanging out in downtown of Auckland, in my opinion. After the tour, I got ready to go to the airport. My flight was (supposedly) leaving at 6 am, on Friday. Well, that means I would have to be at the airport at like 3 am or so. So I thought, why not just sleep at the airport instead of spending money on a place to sleep? Plus, transport out to the airport would have been tricky at that time in the morning as well unless I felt like forking over $50 for a taxi out to the airport. No thanks. So I went to the airport and found a set of chairs that I would call my bed for the night. You might think that I didn’t sleep very well but I must say, I slept fairly well considering I was using my backpack and luggage as a pillow. The airport is interesting in the middle of the night. I don’t know what it is – just strange noises, the lack of noise that you usually associate with airports, people coming around and mopping around the area where you are sleeping.

A few hours later I woke up and thought I should check in. Right – I was not pleased to learn that the flight was delayed for 3 hours. This airline is not getting any sort of kudos from me! So I proceeded to check in anyway. In the middle of checking in, the man helping me picks up the phone and says “Oh you’re kidding.” Hangs up and announces to his crew that somebody had in fact made a “boo-boo” and the flight was really leaving at 7:30 am, instead of 9 am. Well, yay good news for us! So I head toward the customs and security. Fast forward to about 7:30 am. The plane had just started to board. So much for that promise. In the end the plane finally took off at about 9 am. I had never witness such a disorganized affair. But I made it back to Sydney safely so in the end, that is all that matters, right?

All in all, this has been a lovely trip. At first I was bit nervous being by myself and afraid that I would not meet new people. But I did! I met loads of fantastic people from all over the world. It is really interesting to be sitting at the pub one night and realize that you are enjoying a beer with people from England, Ireland and Holland. Or one night I was on a pub trivia team with three Danish people, a guy from Wales and some Germans dropped in later. Side note: that is the key to a successful pub trivia team – make sure you have people from different countries and then you have all your bases covered! Meeting people from these places not only opened my eyes to what their culture is like but also made me think more about American culture ergo learn more about myself and my roots. It is quite interesting to hear how people perceive the United States (I cannot tell you how many times I had to tell people that American high schools really aren’t like they show in the movies… of course I didn’t go to school in Suburbia). Very interesting conversations always.

And as for New Zealand… beautiful! A really brilliant place with friendly people who show great pride in their country. Being there for ten days really gave me enough time to just scratch the surface but I am so glad I went. I would highly recommend going. It would take some saving up but I promise it would be well, well worth it!