Um, hi New Zealand

Just landed in a city where people say my name funny.

AND DON’T LET THIS PHOTO MISLEAD YOU…as it does NOT look like this right now. I am fresh out of Texas and unsure of my plans. 

This by far takes the cake on longest flight endured.  At one point I really thought I lost all feeling in everything below my knees. I needed to move, so naturally, I joined the mile high club. I can tell you it is overrated.

Auckland, you are a strange, strange place.  You took my DIY fishing pole and inspected it for explosive materials (I realize it DOES look like a pipe bomb, but if it could pass US inspection, why not yours?) and THEN you made me remove my shoes to be washed of all US soil.  Is this a metaphor for something deeper to come? Whatever floats your boat.

I am sitting now in a hostel, grateful this place is one of the few things I researched prior to buying this one-way ticket to the middle of nowhere.  This cold, rainy weather is NOT what I expected for June…somehow I overlooking the idea of changing seasons in different hemispheres and I am really out-of-place with all my tropical clothing.

WHY DIDN’T I JUST PICK UP A TRAVEL BOOK?

So ya, it is raining outside. The streets are full of people walking everywhere.  Yet I choose to confine myself in this windowless room where I can gather my chaotic emotions.

WHAT IS NEXT?

I have messaged and written down four numbers and addresses of possible WWOOF hosts, however nobody has picked up their phone.

DAY 3: Feeling scared, hopeless and unsure of what I came here to prove.  At least I have been able to pass some time doing tourist things like base jumping off the Sky Tower near Queen Street and exploring the active volcanic area of One Tree Hill.  I haven’t had much of an appetite, and while I have a nest egg of roughly $6K, I can’t bring myself to spend it.