44 Hours En Route

Denver to LA, LA to Brisbane, Australia, and Brisbane to Dunedin, New Zealand. Whew! My first sketch of the trip, of Denver International, as viewed from our gate in Terminal A:

We had nearly a full day in Brisbane, so we took an Uber (yes, the same) into the city and met up with former Denver legislator Jennifer Veiga. There was a cyclone going on somewhere that meant the day was wetter than usual (I don't know how that works), but not so wet as to prevent us from exploring an awesome playground, sharing a random meal of smoothie, corn dog and "chips" (is it time for breakfast, lunch or dinner? Who knows?), a tropical forest walk with a Buddhist Temple,

and shopping on the Queen Street Mall. The architecture of "Brisbane City" is all mirrored glass and curves, and there is plenty of public modern art. Jeremy said it reminded him of Cincinnati (!?) but I think that's just because it is on a river. When it was time to go back, we took a "City Cat" (catamaran motorboat ferry) on a lazy 20 min ride as far as it would take us toward the airport. This commuter transport had a looping video with various news and advertisements, including horoscopes.  Appropriately, Jeremy's was about an "uncharacteristic travel bug" (he is a self-admitted homebody), Fran's was about avoiding anxiety, and mine was about slowing down so I don't hurt myself. Hmm.

Jeremy was so tired he was in physical pain, not to mention the fact that his stitches from his mouth surgery on Monday were bothering him. But he was a trooper and successfully fought back tears when he saw the passport control line and nearly lost it.

As an island, New Zealand is extremely prone to species invasions; as such customs is particularly tough. We got in trouble for not declaring my hiking boots (soil on them could harbor dangerous critters), on top of sleep-deprived Fran checking the box that said that she didn't know what was in her luggage, and insulting the customs official by bringing cheese to the "dairy capital of the world" (we had been warned that we would miss American cheddar and so I took no chances and had packed a hefty block). And yet somehow they let us through!

(This is a picture I took in customs of forbidden objects to bring in the country as a candidate for the next edition of our Conservation Biology textbook. I was nearly arrested for doing so, as this is a federal 'no photos' zone)

In line to board our NZ flight, we had met up with our landlord's mother and sister (plus a friend), who coincidentally were coming in to visit at the same time. This meant that our landlord was going to be at the airport anyway and so he brought his car for us to drive (on the left side of the road, at 1:30am, in the dark on 2 hrs sleep) to their house. Let's just say that adrenaline wakes up a person, and I was glad for the lack of other cars on the road!

We are now (somewhat) rested, there is a fire roaring in the wood burning stove we use for heat, and food in the pantry. A successful first day. I am marveling at our gorgeous view. More about our beautiful new house in the next post...