Thursday was D-Day for Adam and I, having had our trip floating around in the ether for over two months. Naturally, this meant that we packed on Wednesday night and were in a flurry of panic on Thursday morning. Adam had to go into work to sort some things out before the trip, and I had class. Then we dragged our tired butts to the airport to find out that our flight had been delayed by two hours (which moved our arrival in Auckland from 12am to 2am), but they did provide us with free food vouchers.
While we waited, we changed some money to NZD, which was bizarre and scared me. We've been playing “discover the currency” where we slowly find all the notes and coins associated. We're yet to find the ever elusive dollar coin and twenty dollar note (assuming they have one).
The flight was much more fun than I expected – I'd forgotten to factor in that we weren't flying on Tiger and that Air New Zealand actually provides movies to watch and games to play. Though they did freak us out a bit in the gate lounge when they announced it was the final boarding call for our flight (before boarding had even started). We felt like we were travelling first class, as they brought our our vegetarian meals long before anyone else and served our drinks first.
Arriving at Auckland Airport was less mind-blowing than I expected; it basically looks exactly like Australia but everyone says their vowels funny. Actually, that's not true. I'm pretty sure we've only met four people from New Zealand since we've been here. We got to our hotel room at about 3:30am to find this amusing item:
However, Auckland Airport certainly lets you know you're in New Zealand. To get out, you have to pass through a carved wooden funny mask face gate that sings at you (which is kinda funky), and all their ads, even those about quarantine and deodorant, are about Rugby. We were initially a little confused by this, until ...
Auckland, 2pm, Friday the 9th of September, 2011. The streets are so packed we can hardly move. Strangely painted faces twist into warped shapes as they emit ethereal battle cries. Brightly coloured rectangles of material fly loose in the wind. 100,000 Rugby World Cup fans have descended on Auckland, and we're right in the middle of it.
We'd originally planned to spend the day at the museum and other such cheap tourist attractions. However, after witnessing the carnage on Queen St (one of Auckland's main drags), we jumped off the bus early and decided to follow the steady tumult of people all heading in the same direction. We ended up at Queens Wharf at 2:57 sandwiched between a trabillion and a half people (at least) looking at a sign claiming something was going to open at 3pm.
Rugby fans go OFF.
Nothing I can say will impress upon you the sheer loudness of the whole of Auckland. Car horns, vevuzellas, roaring, whistling and cries like “ALL BLACKS!” and “BRAZIL!” punctured the air like a truck punctures a balloon. If you think you've seen crazy sports crowds, unless you've seen a world cup crowd, you really haven't. On an unrelated note, my pants just ripped down the back for no reason and it serves me right for bringing pants older than your mother. In fact, the crowd got so crazy that at one point when we were struggling to move, a skALL BLACKS!inny white noodle of a guy got up on an ad board, threw off his shirt and did the haka. Everyone around us went nuts with approval. It kinda makes me wish we had some sort of culture here.
We were going to stiALL BLACKS!ck around for the opening ceremony fireworks, but it started to get so squishy and insane that we bailed for the hotel. Tomorrow we'll be going to Rainbow's End, the local theme park, and who knows – we might actually meet someone from New Zealand.
Today's Cultural Highlights:
The green man on the pedestrian lights actually walks (a bit like Michael Jackson)
L&P, the local soft drink. It tastes like sadness.
The local on the airport shuttle saying “You know, I heard in Perth they don't even follow Union” as though it was some whacky, out-there concept.
Very good reading! And by the way, about our blog. I thought you might like to know that you don't need to expect any more siblings!! Funny girl!
ReplyDeleteYes it might be a revelation to you Henderson's that there is other sport in the World other than AFL - and yes there is more Rugby Fans in the world than AFL fans. It may also interest you to know that NZ is also know as the land of the ‘large black rugby player’
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