What a Day Day

The sun never rose on January 16th.  The day came and went somewhere over the middle of the Pacific ocean, the crossing of which took either 11 or 34 hours, depending on how much stock you put in time zones.  

I was riding in an Air New Zealand 747-400, which is an enormous double-decker of a plane.  Incidentally, if you ever get the chance to ride with Air New Zealand, jump on it.  Coach is coach, whomever you fly with, but there is a myriad of details that they just do right.  Complimentary wine in coach; friendly flight attendants with funny accents; normal hot and cold controls on the toilet faucet.  After a long, long day being underwhelmed by United, things stand out.

The plane landed at 4 AM, and we all shuffled tiredly through customs and Biosecurity (so much more sensible than Homeland Security.  More charming, too-- "12 Monkeys" comes to mind, rather than Orwell).  I got an hour or two of real sleep at Auckland Central Backpackers, and set out to explore the city.  

Auckland is awesome.  It's a bit like a smaller, more asian New York, without all the scaffolding and ideas about its toughness.  It's amazingly clean.  I was pretty knackered, so I didn't do much, but I did visit the Sky Tower.  At 328m, it's the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and it's shaped just like a rocketship (thus the url.  The title, of course, is the time difference between NZ and US Eastern times).  You can also, for too much money, jump off of a platform 192m up.  My sources tell me that's 630 feet.  You get a stylish blue and yellow jumpsuit and you get hooked up to a wire rig.  There are two wires going up to the platform, with a crosswire that moves up and down.  A short bungee cord descends from this crosswire to your harness.  You stand at the very edge and before you have any chance to justify yourself to your terrified body, you jump.  I did feel a bit cheated when they stopped me 15 feet down for a photo op, but the following 600 were awfully adrenal.  Hell of a view, too-- Auckland sits at a narrow part of the island, surrounded by islands, sea and ocean, and dotted with undeveloped knolls and developed hills.  The landing is a red mat with a bullseye.  I missed.

The upper windows on McDonalds across the street are the best Golden Arches (am I reading too much into a bit of gilt? Psh.):