Auckland airport update

Dec 1, 2006 by Daniel Ross-Jones

(7:38 a.m. Auckland, Dec. 2, 2006)

I’m at the Auckland airport now, waiting for my next flight. (It begins boarding in 80 minutes, according to the fancy little screens they have going on.) I love international gates at airports. There’s just so much culture to see, and it’s a great place to people watch and interact.

The architecture of the airport, while pretty utilitarian, is quite impressive. There is so much natural light, and it has an open and airy feeling – a far cry from LAX, Midway and O’Hare! But I’m having a hard time looking at Christmas trees decorated next to the natural flora. Sort of a convergence of ideas or something.

(A parade of Air New Zealand flight crew just walked through. It was really funny. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the jet lag already setting in, but I chuckled and masked it with a cough – know how that goes? – and I’m not thinking I was very successful, because the last row of them looked right at me with a puzzled look.)

I sat next to some people from Denver on my flight here. When I told them I started out the morning in Milwaukee, the people behind me informed me that they, too, were from Milwaukee. (One of the suburbs, specifically.) They flew from Mitchell to LAX, and ran into the same turbulence I did. As I predicted, I slept most of the flight. Thank goodness, because otherwise I would probably be a lot crankier right now.

So far, I love New Zealand. At what other airport do I get to look out of huge windows, and see a forest outside, pushed up right next to the runway? The American assumption in development that, in order to be successful, one must clear-cut and pave over the entire area (or seed some trite, pathetic form of grass) is disgusting. And it’s always nice to get away – anywhere – and not be bound to the pressures of time and rush.

Talk to you again in Sydney!

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