From Oakland to Auckland

Where to start... A week in Sausalito and a marathon journey to New Zealand. Sausalito is a very posh vacation town directly across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco. After spending 2 months in the funky, hippie, grungy NW this was a dramatic change of atmosphere. Fancy cars, boutiques, and designer dog collars. Different.

Alcatraz

My fellow help-xer Chris, who oddly enough is from Leesburg, VA and I spent our work hours around the house working in the garden, painting, fixing leaky sinks, etc. On our day off Elizabeth, our host, dropped us off at the foot of the Golden Gate bridge and we took off! The walk across the bridge was beautiful, with views of the city skyline, Alcatraz, and Angel Island. It was a bit crowded though, with aggressive cyclists whizzing past every minute or so and tourists snapping pics everywhere along the way. Once we got across the bridge we hopped on a bus to check out Haight-Ashbury. Jerry Garcia plastered everywhere, tie-dye shirts for sale in every window, head shops, and a few very trendy stores sprinkled in between. The air was indeed thick with pachouli. A kid who was obviously indulging in the spirit of the district (drugs) asked me for the coffee I was drinking, "No", I said. He then asked for my Nalgene bottle, he was again denied. Persistent little fellow. We crossed over into Golden Gate Park where the substances were plentiful. We couldn't walk 50 feet without being offered "cush diesel nugs, beasters, or shrooms". It was quite the scene, several people completely strung out, a woman speaking in tongues, dogs running wild, hula hoops! We didn't need to hang around and quickly made our way through the park over to the de Young museum for a view from the observation tower there. After the park we meandered by bus and on foot down town to Union Square. To end out the day we found a great little dive bar/ music venue called the Hotel Utah where we drank a couple local Speakeasy IPAs, delicious!

Hotel Utah

A couple more work days and a nice day trip to Muir Woods to see the redwoods and my time in California was coming to a close. 6am Sunday morning my epic journey began. Chris was kind enough to get up early and drop me off at the amtrak station. My train brought me to Bakersfield, CA where I transferred to a bus that brought me to Union Station in LA. *Travel tip* Amtrak refers to their Union Station in Los Angeles as "LAX". This is not LAX airport! It is in fact about a 45 min drive from the airport, which I found out the night before heading down there. Luckily there is a shuttle that leaves every 30 mins for $7. So the shuttle brings me to LAX airport where I find out when checking in that New Zealand requires proof of an exit ticket from the country before they allow you to enter (no squatters). So I run over to the airport lounge, buy my fully refundable ticket to Sydney, print out the confirmation and bring it back to the check-in desk. Phew! After an intense few moments scrambling to make sure I can get on my plane, I actually breeze through security and get to my gate with way too much time to kill. The flight ends up getting delayed 3 hrs, which unfortunately cut the layover in Fiji down to just a scrabble from gate to gate. So my experience in Fiji was just a muggy rainy schlep from one side of the airport to the other, with plenty of waiting in line. Delightful! Back on another plane and in 4 hrs, as we break through the clouds, I see the literally breath taking view (I actually gasped) of New Zealand's northern islands and shoreline!  
This was the hard part. After seeing such a beautiful sight, you just want to jump off the plane and run into the ocean, but no. Its time for customs! Two more hours of waiting in line! Yay! So finally I get out of the airport and jump on yet another bus to get to Albany, which is on the far Northeast side of Auckland. Oh wait, one more bus transfer at the Ferry building in downtown Auckland. Ahhh finally, I get to my stop. As soon as I walk off the bus I hear my name yelled from across the parking lot. Its my host Liesbeth and her two adorable daughters, Isabelle and Sophie. I threw my bags in the boot, and almost jumped in the drivers seat. I'm still getting used to the opposite side of the road thing.
The house here is on about 5 acres with a couple other cottages that are occupied by renters. The views are great. The birds are beautiful! I cannot wait to get a NZ bird guide book and completely geek out. I'm about 2 days in and still a bit jet-lagged. Cheers!