New Zealand--Getting here is a trip in itself!

Oh, my gosh!  We're in New Zealand!  Of course, I'm not actually surprised about that, but when a trip has been thought about and planned for as long as this one has been, it's kind of amazing when it actually begins to happen.  On Friday, March 7, John and I flew from Lansing to Chicago to LA, and then switched to Air New Zealand for the 12-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean to Auckland.  Just before getting to NZ, we crossed the International Date Line.  So, we left LA on Friday night and arrived in NZ on Sunday morning.  Kind of weird, huh?  This country is 18 hours ahead of Michigan.

New Zealand is comprised of the North Island and the South Island, along with many, many small and tiny islands.  Auckland is at the north end of the North Island, at a point where the land is just 2-1/2 miles wide. That means that the city is bordered on the east by the Pacific Ocean and on the West by the Tasman Sea. (Nine hundred miles across the Tasman Sea is the southern end of Australia.)  Because of all that water, there are many harbors in Auckland, and thousands of boats.  That's why its nickname is The City of Sails.

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Although we hadn't slept much in the previous 24 hours, we wanted to explore.  After checking into our hotel in the city center, we decided to take a walk down to the harbor, about a mile away.  We wandered around, taking pictures like the tourists that we are.  Today is sunny, and about 70 degrees.