We are officially on the other side of the world! It is hard to believe we made it.
We had some excellent time with all my San Diego fam on the weekend and then killed a little time cruising Venice Beach on Monday (including some kick ass tacos at Teddy’s Red Tacos, oh my god try those tacos) before heading back to LAX for our evening flight.
Thirteen hour flights can’t really ever be described as enjoyable, but it also wasn’t horrendous. I watched Bohemian Rhapsody, the entire Whitney documentary and made a good start to RBG while my knees gradually seized. Cameron slept a few hours over top of James and I, watched a lot of Mickey related shows, and spilled beverages. I don’t really know what Zachary and Quinn did for the entire flight because I didn’t really see or hear them even though they were right in front of me (ie. they probably had headphones on for thirteen hours straight).
More so than the flight, my larger concern was adjusting to the six hour time difference. That too, while it can’t be described as enjoyable was not so bad. Cameron took a three hour nap that started before “8 in the morning” or whatever time we were pretending it was after skipping the entirety of a Tuesday, and then we bickered and cried our way through til 6 pm, all crashed for 12 hours straight, and voila. We are on New Zealand time. We accidentally adjusted easily.
Auckland is a big city and we are only here for a few days so we are just trying to get a little feel for it. We had 
some local ice cream – hokey pokey & kiwi fruit (and rum raisin, but skip that one; it isn’t super good but we had to get it anyway because it’s New Zealandish), perused the local grocery store and covered three miles (again accidentally) while doing a scavenger hunt around city highlights that Janice gifted us.
I have learned that managing a group of five in a big city is interesting (which is my current code word for incredibly challenging). Several need to stop unexpectedly to pick up something that qualifies as trash, 3/5 of us need to dart sideways and jump up onto any available curb, bench or art structure and none of us have figured out the local custom for where to walk – left or right. We are always in the way, always steering children quickly using their heads, always dodging motorized scooters and skateboards. We have already been scolded by an angry cyclist. I still don’t understand exactly where we were supposed to be but certainly the main offense was Quinn’s last second darting directly in front of his bike.
I have also learned that in many ways a big city is a big city. Auckland has been here for a 
while – it is multicultural, with every different food option. It is pretty and packed and large chunks of it are being rebuilt. There are a lot of cranes and many barricades. When it is time to cross the street, the instinct to look left is strong and WRONG. The loud beeping starts blasting from the crosswalk pole and you better freaking GO, the city is coming.
But, when not in the flow of urgent pedestrian traffic, the Fishers are adjusting to a different pace. The emails are still streaming in from regular life, and I get to delete them all!
Tomorrow, we will maybe do something in the morning, and then take a little harbour cruise in the afternoon before packing up for a couple weeks on the South Island…
