Back home

Flight from New York to Papeete = 13 hours
Time in Papeete transit lounge = 1.5 hours
Flight from Papeete to Auckland = 6 hours
Going through every MAF checkpoint possible = Priceless

Tip - don't carry a packed lunch in your backpack while on holiday, the sniffer dogs love the smell that's left behind.

What more can i say

Pharmacy's are just like supermarkets, shelves are stocked with various brands of the same item. Most of it is also infront of the counter, things like cold and flu medicine isn't restricted, and i think home enema's are quite popular as well. I think this sign summed things up well







All i have to say is "I wonder what they teach here?"

Pumpkin Carving

This was something i had to do while i was here since it was coming into Halloween.

Peabody Museum

It's coming up to Halloween over here and the Peabody Museum where Shae (my sister in law) works had a special event on Saturday, with displays and activites. Shaes display was focused around Frankenstein, with collections of old equipment for electricity and an old disection kit. You can see the green face in the second picture which scared a lot of the children.





He didn't have the glasses on when he was on the table, but you can see his eyes looked pretty realistic. They were actually eyes used in dolls. I think this was what made it look a little too freaky.




One other display was done by a couple of people that save snakes, reptiles and turtles that are found in the town. This was quite popular with the kids when they arrived.

Among this there was a performance by a band with music from their Day of the dead celebration and also an Owl Handler, but i only got to hear some of the music and didn't get back in time for the owls.

New York and New Haven

Well, i guess it had to be photographed. The statue of liberty actually looked smaller than what I was expecting. If you look closely at the back of the Coast guard boat in the foreground you may see something interesting.

The next day was looking further uptown and going through Central park. As you can see in the photo they had ice skating there which they produced themselves and also in town at the Rockefeller Centre. I guess it's cold enough to effectively freeze the water.


It's hard to tell you're in the middle of a major metropolitan area with sky scrapers surrounding you while you're walking in the park, and the park is huge. 2 hours walking halfway up the park and back, if you take all the side paths then it could easily turn into a whole days walk.




Went to a Yale ice hockey game which is held about a 20 second walk down the road from my brothers apartment. $3 for a ticket so was worth going to check out. Was well worth the money too, very awesome game. Lots of supporters turned up, from Yale and also from the community, even got a small cheerleading squad (I think alcohol was kepping them warm)

More Holland

Well i mentioned, old buildings in holland as you can see from this church. But there are also modern buildings (mainly in Rotterdam) and some very strange modern buildings as you can see below.




My final weekend in Holland was another day trip starting at Rotterdam with Martien and Mirjin and then off to an area full of windmills. That night turned into a night at the pub with a couple of Martiens friends, it started at his parents house having a drink, then to the pub for a Belgium beer then a dutch beer and finishing off (from the suggestion of his friend) with a Westmalle triple (9.2% alcohol) which was enough for the night i think. Sunday was my first sleep in since being in Holland and after breakfast Martiens dad took me and Mirjin on a 2 hour cycle tour around Zoetemeer while Martien was at work. The afternoon came quickly and we went to visit Martien once he finished work and got to see some tulip farming.


For those of you in palmy, i even found a piece of palmy in Amsterdam

Holland

The plane into Holland was running about 30 mins late. Customs and immigration very simple here. Firstly, yes i have seen windmills.

First city to be visited was Leiden, an old city with a large University. Plenty of history, old buildings and people. Also plenty of beer to try and i've tasted some pretty nice ones.

The way Holland has reclaimed land is very interesting, they have also created what was once the sea into a very large lake.

It's now oct 15 and i still haven't made it to a gym, but have done plenty of walking. The closest to a gym i've been to was looking at the one at venice beach.

LA

4 hours and i arrived in Papeete at 8:15pm local time and it was 27 degrees Celcius and humid (photo of Papeete departure area). Plane was running about 45 min late. On the trip to Papeete i was seated next to a guy from Palmy who was working with Polyestyrene panelling and working on the new hopkirk building at massey. The trip from Papeete to LA was more full but i was seated by myself. Immigration in LA was interesting, they take your photo and also your fingerprints from both index fingers, so i'm now on their records. First piece of advice, carry some smaller notes with you, the smallest i had was a $50 and the machine for my train ticket only took $20's and smaller, so i bought my first hot dog. The only way to purchase tickets for trains within town is by machine. The trip to downtown LA gave my a view of several different neighbourhoods, and i got to see someone cleaning a playground using a metal detector over the sand. The interesting building you can see is the disney music hall, i guess i can't complain about the hopkirk building being ugly.

Took a day and went down to Santa Monica beach and walked down to Venice beach. Saw the lifeguard trucks but no sign of the Hoff or Pamela anywhere.

Well, so much for a 10am departure from Palmerston. 1.5 hours later i finally left town. As you can see i made a stop for some photos and stretch my legs at the Chateau. Notice the complete lack of clouds, felt like the start of summer there even with the mountains covered in snow. 5 hours later, i'm here at Te Awamutu filling in my first blog.