The 10th of September and Punxsutawney Phil

The following events take place on Saturday the 10th of September, 2011

10am, Auckland, New Zealand

Getting up has been somewhat of a distressing activity. There's no Earthly reason for us to be jetlagged at this stage, but Adam receives death threats after having the alarm go off at regular intervals about 5 or 6 times in a row. The hotel has one of those terrific novelty buffet breakfasts, and we pile our plates with a little bit of everything yummy.

Adam has a good system in place for

preserving energy. Eat first, wake up

later.

Also, I'm pretty sure this should be illegal.

We check out from our Manukau hotel and take the bus into Manukau City, heading for that glittery explosion of childlike wonder and queasy stomachs - Rainbow's End ("New Zealand's premier theme park"). Adam is full of apprehension and vomit anticipation. I'm full of beans of jellyness.

10am, Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean

Trying to sleep. So much not comfort. So much.

12pm, Rainbow's End, New Zealand

Rainbow's End is bigger than I expected and full of everything awesome. After discussing carefully a strategy to ease Adam into the scarier rides by first tackling the likes of the Pirate Ship and Go Karts, we end up on the wrong side of the park and Adam decides he may as well just get his imminent death over with as fast as possible.

The Scary Death Ride is in fact New

Zealand's only corkscrew roller coaster.

I feel that at this moment Adam may

have regretted agreeing to date me.

Waiting for the rollercoaster.

The Spinny Doom Ride which actually was sort

of like being stuck in a really gentle washing machine

rolling down a mountain, in a good way.

Adam dealt with the larger thrill rides better than expected and I think I'm well on the way to getting him as addicted as I am.

1pm, Land A-Hoy, U.S.A

We wake to find the sun has risen outside the curtains and the crazy aeroplane staff are serving us breakfast. As we start to descend from our altitude of 33,000 feet, I suddenly get a horrific tooth ache, the likes of which I'm sure no human has ever felt before. I'm certain the back of my molar has exploded off and blood will be pouring out of my mouth any moment. A passing air hostess notices immediately and explains it can be a side effect of the change in pressure, and she's seen grown business men crying with the pain.

It's a relief that my tooth has not fractured into tiny pieces, but the pain doesn't disappear on diagnosis and I'm told that I have to move my jaw constantly and extensively for the next hour of the flight. She brings me a cup of Eucalyptus oil to sniff, which helps with my slight cold but I'm not sure would actually attend to the problem - not that I care at this time. The man next to Adam and I forces me to eat his chewing gum. My molar unexplodes and all is well.

1pm, Rainbow's End, Auckland

We stop to watch super talented members of a circus troupe alternately take the stage. One routine that seems quite original is a girl taking a large amount of hoops and making shapes with them around her body. She ends up with impressive three-dimensional baskets.

An example of some of the hoop shapes this

incredibly skilled young performer was making.

All the performers were quite young and made

us feel old and zombielike.

We take advantage of the gold mining themed "Hungry Miner" cafe's vege burger option for lunch, and I beg the gatekeeper of the money (Adam loves to wear the money bib) to let me pay with the cool new money.

I get a little too excited over cultural differences.

This is the face I wear most of the time.

For dessert, we head over to the Candy Stall where I flip out and am unable to order the Fairy Floss for several minutes because it's called Candy Floss. In my head, they'll immediately know I'm an imposter if I call it that, and they'll call the police and I'll get arrested and hauled away to jail under Candy Fraud. Their toffee apples are called Candy Apples and are covered in sprinkles ... eurgh.

The fairy floss is honestly bigger than my head.

Candy Floss: Every hungry forehead should have

some. Also, if anyone finds my mouth, let me know;

I've lost it.

3pm, Los Angeles, U.S.A

By this time, the plane has landed and we have cleared customs and headed to the hotel. Everything is funny. The ads are funny, the people are funny, the accents are funny, the fire hydrants are funny.

The immigration officer asks Adam and I if we're related and gets really confused when we try to explain that we're partners.

On the shuttle bus, the driver lets Adam board and then gives a guttural cry when I try to get on, lunging at my luggage and snatching it off me in a chivalrous attempt to scare the living hell out of me.

This actually makes the hotel look kind of scummy,

but it's really quite stupidly fancy. The Americans keep

correcting us when we say the "Ren-AI-ssance Hotel" to

the "REN-ai-ssance Hotel". It's a slight and humorous

difference.

We have well needed showers and brush our teeth. I've never been so glad that my teeth are all in one piece and not exploded. Then the concierge gives us some spastically stupid directions to the bus stop which send us in the complete wrong direction. We realise and turn around, but get lost again following her directions and a shuttle bus driver spots us walking down some deserted car park road and gives us a lift to the station. We miss the bus by a few seconds.

3pm, Rainbow's End, New Zealand

It's more fun into the late hours of the afternoon at the theme park, but Adam manages to finally get sick on the Pirate Ship.

You're getting sick, Adam? You made us

sit in the middle with the kids. I refuse to

associate with you beyond this point.

The park closes at 5 so we stick around playing minigolf until then. Even though Adam used to get up at 5am on Sundays to go play golf with his Dad, he only beats me by two, so I'm pretty sure it's all talk.

Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger,

badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger ...

I'm also starting to go a little bit Tiddlick and can't seem to shake a bout of dehydration. I've drank 4 powerades by this time, which are larger than the normal size due to either being in New Zealand or Rugby sized. Why am I mentioning this? It becomes important later ...

After a brilliant day at Rainbow's End. I

made camera happen.

Evening, Santa Monica, U.S.A

Adam and I take the bus out to Santa Monica at the now questionable advice of the concierge, who recommended we didn't follow our original plan to go to Venice Beach. I have no idea how it would have gone down if we'd followed our original plan, but Santa Monica is both hilarious and beautiful. The massive outdoor pedestrian mall is filled with lights and street performers. There's a guy playing jazz on a saxophone, some hot-shot dance choreographer doing flips for a large crowd and a drummer going nuts enough to make Adam's jaw drop.

Yes. It's a freakin' triceratops

fountain.

Gorgeous Santa Monica ... mall or whatever

you call it. We were worried about being out

at night, but I can't imagine a better time

to have seen it now.

Since American food consists mainly of fried offal and plastic with a variety of flashy names, we end up ordering a vegetarian pizza. Using Australian standards, we order a large (since the price seems about enough to feed us both) and what comes out is bigger than a car tyre. Almost. American food is really cheap. Remember that.

We also try the local coke, which is a lot

sweeter and less fizzy. It comes in glass

bottles that you have to open with a

bottle opener, provided in store on the

wall.

Our evening walk takes us further afield and towards the beach (which leads to the Pacific Ocean - a point they seem very proud of). I get to see some local wildlife on the way to the Santa Monica pier. An orb weaver is out weaving her web or just doing donuts - it's hard to tell. People keep looking up to see what I'm looking at. It's amusing.

We also come across a cache of rats living

in a log that seems to be decorative. It's

a little bit exciting, I'll admit.

Our walk ends on the Santa Monica pier, where we come across Pacific Park, the local theme park. This seems to be happening to us a lot. Adam treats me to a ride on the roller coaster and Ferris Wheel like a proper 1960's date. It's a beautiful end to the night and we take a "cab" home, exhausted.

It's not something you expect to be sitting at the

end of a pier.

Evening, Auckland Airport, New Zealand

Checked out of the hotel, we're forced to return to the airport much too early for our 9:30 flight. We kill time sitting around and having dinner before check-in opens. We finally offload our bags when it does and shoot through security to more sitting around.

I'm still struggling madly to hydrate, and a few more bottles of powerade later we go into an airport shop and buy a 1.25L bottle of water, which I consume immediately outside the shop. Boarding is in half an hour, so we make our way to the screen to check the gate number when we see our flight lit up with "BOARDING: FINAL CALL". We flip out. We're ages from the gate.

A mad dash proves hard for me because not only am I suffering from my newly acquired Gilbert's Syndrome problems, I'm now desperate to go to the toilet (am I sounding like a Hyperchondriac yet?) We think we're finally there but we run straight into a line - it's a passport checkpoint you have to pass to get to the gate. I'm freaking out but Adam's more worried I'll Tiddlick on the plane and he's determined to go fill up the water bottle.

Thinking he saw somewhere nearby, I say ok, only to realise moments later that he's got the passports and I can't get through to the gate to tell them he's on his way. I stalk around in front of the table, panicking, but he doesn't come back. The last trickle of people are passing the checkpoint when I finally see him walking leisurely in the distance and I make some hand gestures that say "Hurry up, the plane is leaving!" but probably look like "I'm going to kill you, Rebel scum!" from a distance.

Puffing, we pass the checkpoint and make it to our lounge ... to find that boarding hasn't even begun yet.

Well played, New Zealand. Well played.