Final post from USA trip

Notes from 12/1/12

Arrived home exhausted yesterday, after spending the day in Auckland with one of my daughters and her family.  (Not exhausted because of the daughter but because of the lengthy flight from San Francisco.)

One of Liz's friends, Keri (she'd come to NZ in October last year with Liz) took Jon Beck and us to a place called Barbacoa.  It’s a bit of an Arabian nights approach in décor, with chunks of art on the walls and strange seating arrangements, and dimly lit.  The food was superb, made even more enjoyable by the fact that Keri wanted to pay for the meal.  I had an Idaho trout (a half trout, I think, in fact) cooked on cedar wood – there were no bones (as specified in the menu) and the flesh just fell away and was wonderfully sweet.  It was served on a some kind of rice which the menu online doesn't identify: this had a bitter tang to it, and was a bit overpowering for the fish, we felt (Celia had a bite or two, of course).    Keri then took us on a bit of a tour around the North End of the city (Boise, in this case, which, by the way is from the French word for trees; hence the city’s name: City of Trees).  She showed us the student campus and the older houses that were being done up and the grass hill on which the house of a wealthy industrialist stands – supposedly the grass on this hill is mown once a week.  Crikey!

Afterwards Celia and I sorted out our bags and got ready for our departure the next morning.  Cindy dropped us off at the airport where we had to repack our suitcases when we went to book in.  Even though the combined total was under the proper weight, one was over and one was under.  In Dunedin they hadn’t worried about this; just put them through.  But the woman in Boise was insistent that it had to be done properly, so we fiddled around with the cases until it was.  These sorts of things really get me frazzled, as do the security places in the US airports where you have to take off shoes and belts and hold your handkerchieves above your head (as happened in LA) and generally make yourself look a prat.  The customs people in LA were very pleasant – indeed they have a charter on their booths telling us they will be pleasant – but the security people take their power rather too seriously I think.  The whole security thing is a farce anyway; it smacks of paranoia, and of course now that it’s in place can’t be got rid of without thousands of people losing their jobs.  In NZ, the security people are much more friendly – at Auckland last night we’d bought a milkshake and a long roll when we realised we probably needed to be on the other side of security.  We stuffed the rolls in one of our bags and I said to the woman, can we take these drinks through?  Yup, no problem.  They were the same at the customs side in Auckland – in LA they’d fussed about a couple of packets of seeds that they didn’t want us to take in; in Auckland we told them we had some lollies for the kids and such and they just put us through without worry.

San Francisco is a different airport altogether to LAX – as we’d been told it would be.  It has life and warmth and visual interest, and is generally much more friendly.  You have to wonder why LAX is so different. 

We got onto the plane for Auckland on time at 7 pm, but then sat for an hour while they dealt with someone who’d become sick and had to be taken off again – and until they found that person’s luggage amongst the hundreds of items.  In spite of that we got to NZ at the time we should have: 5 am.  We were booked in a three-seater; we’d asked if we could change to a two-seater but the women on the counter taking all the boarding passes from people who’d booked through a different airline (they were changing them to AirNZ boarding passes, which seemed like doubling handling) said the plane was full and they couldn’t do anything.  The plane wasn’t full, by any means, and there were spare seats scattered around – including beside us!  So we had three seats between the two of us, which was good.  

The trip from SF was very long.  It’s only an hour longer than the reverse version, but seemed interminable.  I read a lot more – even in the wee hours of the morning – but that didn’t help much.  I couldn’t get comfortable for long, whichever way I sat, so sleep was very intermittant.  I’d picked up a book from a shop in the airport – Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist – which had been on sale for under $5US.  It turned out to be a treat – a novel in which the narrator, a poet, discusses the need for rhyme, and a host of other things.  I’d never heard of the author, and might see what else he’s written.  This is his tenth novel, I think.   It may be that it suited my taste because of its subject matter, more than anything, but the writing is a delight, full of wonderful phrases, and lots of self-deprecating humour.  It was as well I had this book, as the Michael Connelly thrillers we’d bought for Kindle were all short stories, and Nathan Berma’s Bringing Heaven down to Earth proved to be rather thin.  I got through some of it, but wasn’t inspired.  I’d finished Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction a day or so before we left.

Anyway, finally into Auckland at 5 am, and after Customs and Security yet again we got out into the main area and disposed of our bags into AirNZ’s care once again.  Libby turned up around six, with Israel, and we headed out to her place.   Zonked.  It was great to be somewhere where you could put your head down if you felt like it, and I did for a while.  We spent the day out, going by train to Newmarket (which was as far as it was going while they did some repairs) getting the bus into Britomart, and then the ferry across to Devonport.  All for free on our Gold Cards. The day was beautiful, and we paddled in the water.  It started to rain on the way back but not enough to bother anyone, and then got very muggy once they rain stopped.  It was a bit of a relief to get to the airport!  And home my daughter Abby picked us up, with her son, Tom ...and with our dog, Marley, who was over the moon at seeing Celia again.  He sat on her lap the whole way, though he did manage to  give me a couple of minutes attention at one point.....