Arrived in NZ after an unmemorable flight (sleep, get woken up for unidentifiable vegetarian mush…mmmmm mush, watch 30rock, sleep again) and went through biosecurity who inspected my boots and made me throw out carrots… oh right… I did bring food into the U.S.

I then waited many an hour for Hana to arrive, eating packets of crappy peanut butter and taking advantage of friendly New Zealanders. One nice couple said I can come stay with them if I ever come to visit their town. I hope they weren’t just trying to rid themselves of me and what I thought was a lovely conversation.

Hana and I then headed into rainy Auckland and to the hostel that had enticed us with the promise of a free dinner and drink ticket. One of these days I will learn that the equation “Free = Good!” does not always compute. Upon arrival, we went to get our dinner which was literally five spaghetti noodles and a dollop of pasta sauce… and a sprig of parsley for presentation. Are you kidding me? Oh I could upgrade for another $4 dollars. So naturally I did not out of principle. I showed them.

Also, curse the Coordinated Universal Time system. It stole Tuesday, Sept. 22 from me. That could have been the day that I won the lottery! Or unlocked the secrets of time travel! Or solved the n-body problem in classical mechanics! Or ate a banana off a tree! But no, my poor travel decision making caused me to age far faster then was desired. Zut.