Missing Wednesday

I'm back for my next adventure across the earth. In case you're just tuning in, the purpose of this blog/journaling is to help me remember what I did, and also to keep myself writing most days. And maybe to keep some people a little entertained at my (sometimes odd) experiences along the way.

(I wrote most of this while traveling, but we didn't have wifi access until we got to the Barn so I couldn't post it until now. Just a heads up.)

After a relatively uneventful 13 hour flight from LAX to Auckland, New Zealand, we had a five hour layover till our final small flight into Gisborne. We took our time and had some tea and foods with leftover pocket NZ change from our last visits. On my part, I also raided my coin collection for extra coins. They do no good sitting in my closet.

But then my tea buying experience went like this:

*hands over change*

"Uh we don't take those anymore, those are old coins. We have a new 20c now."

Hm they can't be that old, that's weird. I find different coins instead and afterward I check them: 1977. Well. Okay....whoops. Coin collector nerd alert.

We also purchased phones from the 90s that will text and call people within the country. This will be especially helpful for when we have no wifi, and/or we get separated from each other. You see, Sarah and I have a wonderful codependency problem. It takes me about two minutes to compose a one sentence text. This will hopefully force me to actually get my face out of the obnoxious digital world, and do different things. With my full attention.

It's a cool 50 or so outside, cloudy once the sun rose at about 8:15. I've already forgotten twice that it's winter here. When we landed at 6am I was curious to why it was pitch black out. Yes, it was just the winter solstice the other day. A big difference from the 115 we just left.

(Backyard)

I've missed the cacophony of non American voices filling my ears while walking through airports, and it makes me smile to see all the sheep scatter as our plane touches down into this beautiful countryside.