Kia ora from New Zealand!

We made it! Of course we had some travel problems; I don't believe you can fly out of or through O'Hare without them. Our first flight kept getting delayed such that we would miss our connection in LAX, so we ended up re-routing through San Francisco and landing here in Auckland only a couple of hours later than we otherwise would've. It was a long travel day but hey, what's a round-the-world adventure without some re-routed flights?! The 12 hour flight from San Fran to Auckland was brutal, but we both got a couple of hours of sleep and watched lots of movies. I started watching the Netflix original "Stranger Things" and now I'm hooked on that.

We made it through customs quite easily, so once we finally got our rental car the next adventure was driving on the left side of the road for the first time.  Matt did great, but I think I lost a couple of years of my life being an over-anxious passenger driver. Not only do you drive on the other side, but everything in the car is the exact opposite, too. Luckily it was raining which helped to mask turning on/off our windshield wipers every time instead of our turn signals. Lol

Oh, and the rain. It's been raining constantly since we got here and we heard on the radio that today is Auckland's rainiest day in five years. 5 Years!! How does that happen?! And then every local we talk to also comments how strange it is to be this rainy this time of year. Normally it's the most predictable time for beautiful weather, they say. We just have to laugh.

We got settled into our airbnb and our hosts are very friendly and they have a beautiful house. They have a pool and a hot tub, too! She is a glass sculptor and she has her workshop here in the house. She showed us around and her work is really beautiful! She also teaches at the university. The other interesting thing we noticed was that they generally have all of their doors/windows open during the day, without even a screen! It's the middle of summer over here so I can just imagine the amount of bugs we'd get in the house if we tried to do that back home during the summer.

After settling in we ran to the grocery store to pick up some food staples for the next few days so we don't have to eat out for every meal. We were very tired so trying to rush through and not lollygag, but we noticed some interesting things. First we tried to get shaved ham at the deli by the pound only to be met with a blank stare. Matt had to convert that and order properly by the kilogram. We got half a kilogram, then realized they probably expected us to say 500 grams, but oh well- we got there. Also, they have lime-flavored milk.

Then we took a lovely little nap listening to the rain (after all - this is vacation, am I right?). And now I'm lying here writing this to say hi to everyone back home from the future! It's Feb 16th here and we're a whole day ahead of you guys. I don't want to brag, but the future is pretty great. I won't spoil it for you because with great power comes great responsibility, and we all saw "Back to the Future" and know how it worked out when they tried to meddle with time. But all I can say is- expect rain (because that's how weather works). And to my K-State people, don't bet on the Cats to win against the cyclones. Sigh.

But that's all for now! We get to test our driving skills in the rush hour traffic here in a few minutes to go pick up our friend Jack from the airport. Wish us luck!