I landed in Auckland at 12:20 AM. I went to get my rental car, but they didn't have my reservation. Fortunately, there was a guy there to rent me a car, who was very friendly and gave me the rate and car I would have had if my reservation hadn't failed to be entered into their system. Something about the fact that I tried to do it online from Australia. Oh well. It all worked out fine. And so then, with hardly a plan to my name, I began to drive south on the expressway out of Auckland.
Light drizzle, 2 AM. I stopped at a service plaza. There's a McDonalds, open 24 hours. Now… as some of you may know, I have a certain strange tradition. I'm very proud of having completely kicked my junk-food habits, years ago, but I still have this tradition of ordering a Big Mac each time I visit a new country. And although it's 2 AM, this McDonalds has free wifi, too. So… I ordered a Big Mac. That's country number… um, around 25, I think. There's a few countries where I never got a Big Mac: Cuba, Morocco and Belize spring to mind. But all the rest, yes. I'm loyal to that weird tradition.
And I logged onto the free wifi and here's my first blog post from New Zealand. I have no plan. This is Jared-style free-form road-tripping at it's absolute best. I guess I'll find a hotel or motel or pub somewhere to crash, or maybe just drive south - I don't feel that tired. It's only 7 hours to Wellington, if that's where I intend to go. Holy crap: we think of New Zealand as a small country, but the North Island is bigger than South Korea! So… more later.
First impressions: New Zealand at the international airport at 2 AM isn't that different from Long Beach, CA. That sounds funny – but I'm just going with what I know. The fact is, Long Beach has one of the highest concentrations of Pacific Islander people in the continental US – and obviously, being on a Pacific Island, Auckland is … similar. Ha. And the freeways and industrial architecture and the vegetation, too. But then, it's really dark outside. So hard to judge, really.
Highway service plazas are the same everywhere. More or less.
More later.