Wednesday, oh Wednesday, wherefore art thou.

I had forgotten how beautiful it was to fly into San Francisco International airport…flying down the coast line, seeing the rough coast of northern California become the tranquil bays north of the bridge, then the Golden Gate itself, (still one of my favorite sites) The fog rolling over the south bay hills like a runaway vapor train…turning east and then south to line up with the runways…down the pipeline that is the south bay and its Dumbarton and San Rafael bridges….was just magic to me and still stirs my blood for the city by the bay. The two hour flight on Tuesday to SFO from Portland was a piece of cake…two hour layover and then a 13 hour flight to Auckland more of the same…slept more than I ever have on a plane…7 hours sleep…unheard of…however I awakened to find I had missed Wednesday all together and it was Thursday morning in New Zealand.

Arriving at 5:30 a.m. means only one thing…..you know you are going to have to stall for hours before you can get into your room. So a walk downtown for some familiarization and our first New Zealand meal (Korean) and now to wait a while longer to crash and burn…Actually, with the time zones being 21 hours difference between the west coast of the US and New Zealand, it means that there shouldn’t be any jet lag…just tired bones after sitting in one seat for such a long time…the butt is dead, but will rise again. Time wise, we’re in Hawaii, just a day ahead. First impressions abound as my eyes and mind start to fixate of the newness and at the same time, the familiar….It was always said that Kiwis were more like the English and Aussies were more like Americans…now, however, I find it to be far more diverse ethnically than I was led to believe in 1961..Hindus, Sikhs, and Pakistani Muslims abound on the street with Asians of many origins…tons of Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese establishments. Pacific Islanders are prominently present on the street as are hajib-scarved Muslim girls on their way to school and then there are the pasty-faced English with their untanned skin glistening in the sunlight….groups of school kids are a mixed bag, literally…An Asian, a blond European and a Hajib-garbed girl all giggle their way down the street. NZ made a conscientious effort to attract Asian immigration and to associate themselves more as an Asian nation…lily white, but still Asian. As a practical matter, it was done for economic reasons, not out of some sense that the “Whiteness” of NZ was somehow inherently wrong. Australia’s “White Australia” policy also underwent some radical changes, and it feels much more like a modern city in many parts of the world with its variety of languages and facial features. At 1.5 million inhabitants out of a population of 4,5…Auckland is not some cow town perched on the ocean…it’s a thriving energetic place where multiple languages are heard on any given block. Still, 75 percent of the NZ population is European and 14 percent Maori. 6 percent Pacific Islanders, and 5 percent Asian….those numbers don’t come close to what seems to be the reality of the street, where Europeans seem in the minority. After our trip to Uzbekistan, we were surprised at the fact that there is a lot of skin shown as girls and young adults wear short shorts, short skirts , and loose clothing while guys look like they’ve just come off some camping trip…this is a very easy going, relaxed city and it is reflected in the casual dress by all levels of society…even business types seem very laid back. Quite a change from Tashkent last year where formality was the rule on the streets… No honking horns, no zipping in and out of traffic…if you stand beside a crosswalk, cars will stop. If the light is red, pedestrians wait until it turns green before walking casually across the street. The streets are clean and there is an air of polite civility here…no rushing, no pushing in line. The city is amazingly quiet for a city of this size. Nearly surrounded by water, it has what the books say is the highest boat ownership per capita of any place in the world. My Norwegian friend, Trygve might argue the point, but certainly water is a determiner of most things in NZ. Auckland is called the “City of Sails.”

Another difference is the amount of body ink…After seeing a dearth of tattoos in Uzbekistan, here ink is even more prevalent than in the US…not amongst the Asians, to be sure, but the …other groups prominently display the art…this was a little surprising until I made the enormous logical leap, for me, that this is where it all started….I’m just a little slow on these things once in a while. The city is a Victorian housing project to the max with beautiful stately houses rising above the streets and gracing the areas with their beautiful and timeless beauty. There is a specialty wood that was used to build these lovelies…the Cowrie tree, which apparently doesn’t rot…well, it hasn’t seen Washington weather, but that’s another story….because of the durability of the wood, these houses all look incredibly well kept and show no age, and their graceful lines draw the eye. It’s a hilly place…it’s up and down and up some more…Our hotel is on “Upper Queen” street and upper indeed it is…we huff and puff our way up to the hotel a couple of times a day… I was introduced to a Maori tradition upon greeting another for the first time “Hunge,” it was called. It is supposedly done to breathe in the other person’s spirit….you bring your face VERY close to the other and breathe in…..being this close has always meant a kiss would follow, but this was a guy, a Pakeha, white guy, and I’m not totally sure about the whole thing, since I can’t find anything about it online…guess I’ll discover later if he was being really cool, or just stealing my air. Some groups of university students were doing weather experiments with all kinds of contraptions and one was a small clutch of students with kites in a tree..didn’t ever learn what that was all about, but as we passed them going down from the volcano crater in the middle of the town, we asked if this was Charlie Brown’s kite-eating tree…They didn’t know CB, but when it came to Snoopy, their faces brightened and they knew that part of Charles Shultz’s society. Tomorrow we get the rental car and head out of Dodge…Auckland is truly a lovely city, but I itch for the road…the left side of the road at that. We’ve seen 1/3 of the people, now it’s time for some road time and some bucolic settings…70 million and 4.5 million…let’s get to the sheep.