Landfall

I have arrived in Wellington, New Zealand after a long journey involving a thirteen-hour flight and a 12-hour bus ride. Every time I leave for a new place, I have last-minute doubts and wonder why I'm leaving behind everything I know. This time, any such worries were quickly dispelled when I watched the Air New Zealand safety video. I was nearly laughing out loud in my seat, and only realized afterwards that I had just enjoyed an airline safety video.

I was further bolstered by the flight attendant who asked me to "give 'er a nudge" when the woman next to me was too preoccupied with her meal to give him a drink order.

There will be more detail to come, but for now, I'm just happy to have arrived somewhere I can put down my bags and sleep in a bed.

That Wasn't So Bad (Getting to New Zealand, parts 1 and 2)

As I sit at my gate in San Francisco International Airport, looking at a 747 that will soon take me to Auckland, I feel a bit rushed to review the past 9 days of travel before I get caught up in a new city, country, and hemisphere. But let's see how I do.


My previous post may have given you some idea about the train ride that my Dad and I took from Chicago to Richmond, CA. It was unlike any train ride I had ever taken. Although I had been on sleepers before, this was more like making the train my home for almost three days. Dad and I knew we were in for the long haul, so we settled in pretty quickly, beginning a best-of-3 series of rummy 500, making significant advances in our respective books, and learning the ropes of life on the train.


There were numerous delays in the schedule throughout the ride. This being Amtrak, we had expected the ones that affected our arrival time. What we had not expected were the struggles with mealtimes. Our meals were included in the ticket price, and the food was pretty high-quality for the circumstance. But it did get a bit frustrating to wait until 9.30 PM for your 8 PM dinner reservation to start. Fortunately, the food was worth waiting for and mealtime delays merely made the ride go by quicker by giving us something else to think about.


Not that we needed much else to think about once we reached the Rockies. Crossing the Midwest took a little less than 24 hours, and it was exactly as I expected - more corn and soybeans than you can imagine. We reached Denver just before noon on the second day, and from there, I entered a part of the United States that I had previously only seen in movies (Westerns, primarily). The Rockies were incredible, particularly the Colorado River. It seemed to be unable to decide what type of waterway it would be - a wide floodplain or a violent whitewater. About every 20 minutes, the train would enter a new gorge and the river would go the color of paper as it narrowed and the rocky bottom resisted its advance. At times, the waves appeared to move backwards. Soon, though, we would enter a wider valley in which the river became more like a lake with a current. Apparently the river is high this year, which made this whole process even more fun to watch. To top it all off, the train was mooned twice along this part of the route - once by a man balancing on a whitewater raft. A nice addition to the scenery, particularly during dinner time.


Utah passed mostly in the dark, but Nevada's desert was another sight unlike anything I've seen before. Although our route was flat, the scenery was far from boring. The mountains in the distance seemed to randomly change color and shape, and the scrub and sagebrush slowly degraded into salt flats, a phenomenon I would not have identified on my own (thanks, Dad). It was on this part of the ride that I saw a wild rabbit, the only wild mammal I would see in three days (mooners excluded).

Our final climb happened as we entered California near Lake Tahoe, and then we descended on a miniature version of our entire trip - scrubby desert, then farmland, and finally the industrial surroundings of San Francisco. 

Our time in the Bay area was fairly scattered - between the Napa Valley, San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good feel for the entire region. As scenic as it all is, I was overwhelmed by the amount of traffic, in which I was fortunately only a passenger. The sprawl also soured my introduction to California. For those of you already saying "Don't go to LA," don't worry, I'm not planning to. I did enjoy San Francisco, although I hadn't given it too much thought before my arrival. The hills were a bit trying at times, but the public transit is not only good, the operators are entertaining. I heard bus riders asked to "be like Moses and part so these people can get on," and operators yelling, "this is Ghirardelli square - if you want chocolate and ice cream, get off here." It's not worthy of live stand-up, but it was nice to have a little personality behind the wheel. San Francisco also includes historic trolley cars as part of their transit network, which is cool in so many ways. They've even been brought in from other cities that no longer use them, so you could ride a trolley car from Washington, St. Louis, Chicago, or Milan. Yes, that Milan, in Italy.


As usual, I made a point of trying the local culinary specialties. I particularly enjoyed the clam chowder in a bread bowl, which was as good as it is on the East coast. Our tour of Chinatown took us to a market with live seafood on sale (including frogs), but neither of us was brave enough to try any. It was entertaining enough to watch the delivery guy use a net to unload fish into the store's tanks. But the food could not top one of my favorite parts of San Francisco: the pier 39 sea lions.

San Francisco has been fun, but New Zealand has been at the back of my mind the entire time. As much as it's a great monkey to have on my back, I'll be happy when I finally arrive in Auckland.

Woke up at 3 AM to get a photo of the 4th of 6th new states that I visited.

The Pier 39 sea lions.

How do you know you're in the gay district? A Grease sing-along, that's how.

The plane I'll be boarding soon.

That Wasn't So Bad! (Getting to New Zealand, parts 1 and 2, introduction)

The first two parts of my journey to New Zealand are now complete. My Dad and I departed North Bay, ON on Sunday and spent the night in Goderich, ON, with my aunt and uncle. Monday was a long day of driving, all the way from Goderich to Chicago, with a quick stop in Valparaiso, IN for a visit with two other relatives who I was meeting for the first time as an adult. We spent that night in Chicago with my aunt. After a day of sightseeing in Chicago, we left the Windy City at 2 PM on Wednesday afternoon and began a 54.5-hour train journey to the Bay Area, which we completed only 3 hours ago. You can imagine how tiring this whole thing has been, so please forgive me if I save the verbal description for later. Here are some photos to whet your appetites.

The Mt. Pleasant, IA train station. Pretty much as I expected it would be.

The Colorado River, probably my favorite part of the ride.

The sight I woke up to on the last day of the ride. Somewhere in Nevada.

Leaving, Arriving, and Leaving Again

My last week in Logroño passed in an odd haze of goodbyes. It was my first week in Logroño without a schedule, which allowed me to focus my energies on saying the multitude of goodbyes that needed to be said. I think somebody said once that "parting is such sweet sorrow" or something like that...which is absolutely true. On the one hand, saying goodbye forces you to appreciate what you've had with the people you're leaving; on the other, it reminds you of what you're leaving behind. I've discovered that the best way to prevent this draining sensation is to have something exciting planned for the future, such as my upcoming trip to New Zealand.

Regular readers of this blog will remember this post about my plan for reaching New Zealand without flying and spending a year on a working holiday there. Because of difficulties with scheduling and obvious better alternatives, I will not be completing my journey to New Zealand by ship. The plan remains relatively similar to the one I posted previously, however: my dad and I are leaving for Chicago this Sunday, with a one-night stopover in Goderich, ON, before catching the train to San Francisco. After a weekend in the Bay area, I will fly from San Francisco to Auckland, where my year-long visa will begin ticking away. Dad and I will be making a variety of family visits on the way, as well as visiting Nebraska, the only of the fifty American states he has yet to see.

I'm planning to spend the first few months of my time in New Zealand in Wellington (the capital). My preliminary research indicates that Wellington has a pretty lively job and rental market, and I will be arriving in the middle of winter, which is when agricultural jobs are least available. Furthermore, being in Wellington will allow me to soak up the energy of the Rugby World Cup more than being in a smaller town would. After the tournament finishes, I only have ideas, but I know I want to spend a fair amount of time on the South Island, particularly in Otago and Southland.

But what have I been doing since I got back from Logroño? I've been at my parents' house in North Bay, ON. I don't have the best relationship with this place, but this has been a particularly nice visit. With the excitement of preparing for New Zealand, I have been particularly able to appreciate the good things North Bay has to offer. As usual, I have raided the public library's massive collection of music and movies, and fully enjoyed the proximity of Lake Nipissing - at one point I had showered only twice in seven days, bathing in the lake instead. I was also here for shad fly season, one of North Bay's most unique occurrences. It's also pretty gross. I didn't take any pictures, but this guy did a couple years ago.

My preparations are nearly finished, with a new Netbook on my lap right now, a new backpack waiting to be filled up, and a new iPod on its way. I've also been contacting potential flatmates in Wellington and doing some long-distance job-hunting, while reading any historical text I can find about New Zealand, one area in which the public library is sadly deficient. I'll find out how well-prepared I actually am in less than a week, when my eleven-day trip begins.