I got up at 5:00 New Zealand time, checked mail, showered, packed, and almost missed my shuttle for being late.\u00c2\u00a0 The driver blamed the hotel because they wouldn’t call me and drove the van with its trailer like a little Schumacher to the airport.\u00c2\u00a0 I checked in and even checked the poster this time, as fragile, so I only carried on two bags on to what turned out to be a half-empty 767.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, I paid my departure fee.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The check-in lady insisted that one paid a departure fee everywhere, that the departure fee in Australia was over 70 dollars, only it was hidden in the airfare.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe so.\u00c2\u00a0 I still don’t understand why I need to pay 25 dollars to leave the country.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
In duty-free, I finally found a map of New Zealand and bought it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d read a cartoon on Waitangi Day that bemoaned that New Zealand takes its name from the Dutch and its flag from the Aussies who ripped it off from the British, so I\u00c2\u00a0offer here in gratitude for a pleasant stay a bold new name for this beleaguered country to express its identity: Ovinia.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
As usual, departure card in New Zealand, then the useless Australian entry card where the fields are white rectangles on a pale yellow background and near illegible in a plane.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently it doesn’t matter if one writes off center – they let me in anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 Their main concern was my food (chocolates) and soil (dust from Rangitoto) that they then completely ignored when the Asian guy in front of me had to have his baggage searched for noodles and rice.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beat picked me up and drove me to Cremorne, where I met his wife Muoi for the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 Their daughter Elena soon woke up and made a silent appearance, shy and sleep-weary.\u00c2\u00a0 We went to Balmoral beach, where I took a quick dip in the water and a lot of pictures of Elena.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t staying out long after Saturday’s sunburn.\u00c2\u00a0 Elena was sad to leave.\u00c2\u00a0 She likes the water and the seashells and kept playing with the ones she’d collected, now suddenly transformed into a garrulous but cryptic one-and-a-half-year-old.\u00c2\u00a0 (That looks odd with five hyphens.)\u00c2\u00a0 We had excellent Asian ravioli and noodles courtesy of Muoi’s culinary arts and I was stuffed when Allie Beckett drove up to pick me up for the evening service at Beecroft Presbyterian<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n