…sed mutato nomine te fabula narratur…

Flying, if you ask me, is a weird – if not unsettling – experience. Especially when traveling long distances, I always get the feeling that my mind and/or body are telling me that I’m moving too fast for my own good, that being stuffed into a big metal tube and whisked across the planet is not the way man is supposed to travel. Usually, when I fly, the effect is too small to properly appreciate (Berlin to Amsterdam is, for example, a relatively short distance), but when I had the pleasure of journeying halfway across the globe to New Zealand, what I think iamounts to the longest possible distance on a commercial flight, this effect hit me once again, like an old friend playfully punching you in the gut (albeit slightly too hard).

Of course, the fact that I had been cooped up in several airplanes for about 40 hours, touched down on three different continents, and was served the worst coffee in the world and beyond (more on that later) did help somewhat in amplifying the alienating effect intercontinental flights have on me, so it might be that my esoteric theory about faster-than-walk-travel has to be tweaked ever so slightly to take into account variables like airline food, screaming children, and nights that last 24 hours or more.

Thankfully, as it turned out, my flight only had well-behaved children, the food was moderately tolerable, I had plenty of legroom thanks to SeatGuru and its interactive maps of planes, and was given the choice of about a gazillion movies to get me through the night – the long, long night that really only ended in Sydney, during the transfer to the final leg of my journey (during which I was served that fateful cup of coffee, but more on that later).

And watch movies I did!! In no particular order: Michael Jackson’s This is It! – proof positive that the old king of pop still had the moves;  Fame 2009 – a disjointed and unbalanced remake of an otherwise equally predictable original; I Am Legend – turned it off after 15 minutes; It Might Get Loud – but it didn’t: as much as I like to hear guitarists talk about their craft, the idea behind putting The Edge, Jack White and that dude from Led Zeppelin together still eludes me; Law Abiding Citizen – reminded me somewhat of Collateral, did its job but will ultimately be forgettable fare; The Invention of Lying – a good idea with some major flaws that ruined the experience for me; The Good German – a good movie? still not sure; and maybe one or two more that I have already forgotten about. Also, I listened to Nirvana’s Live at Reading, The Velvet Underground and Nico (for some reason I had never gotten around to listen to that one, and it will be some time before I go there again), and John Fogerty’s new album of country classics (surpisingly good!), while reading Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There (not his best work) and A.A. Byatt’s The Children’s Book (definitely shows promise!). Clearly, BA takes care of its customers! All in all, I had a decent flying experience – no large Albanian women with excruciatingly severy body odor, and no Pauly Shore movies – and was only moderately unsettled when I had finally conquered the last hurdle (NZ customs officials curious about the Gummibärchen I had brought) and stepped out into the real world once more.

Of course, being reunited with my sister was great! We’re still very much in the process of catching up and that will be an ongoing process, but I was glad to see she was doing okay even without my continuing presence. Also, I finally got to meet the famous Tobi in the flesh and that was quite a success as well as far as I can see now.  He had even arranged for a barbecue party on someone else’s porch! (Well OK that was not really how the barbecue came about)

My first, and only, encounter with Wellington was quite OK as well. For as long as we were there, I can say that the weather was excellent, the Te Papa museum is awesome (both museum- and collectionwise), and the city looks like a fun place to hang out. I’m almost ashamed to be so unabashedly positive about this whole New Zealand experience, but up until now the islands have treated me well so … there you have it! Anne has assured me that there is a wealth of problems hidden beneath the surface, but she has lived here for four years after all, and I haven’t even been here for 24 hours. Who am I to judge? I’m just glad to be out of the ice-and-snow-fest that is Berlin at the moment.

So anyway, we strolled around Wellington for a bit, went to a barbecue get-together, had to run to catch the last train home, and then went to sleep in order to catch the bus that would bring us to Ohakune and the Tongariro Crossing the next day!

Thus condludeth my first day in New Zealand. Thanks to the movie selection aboard the plane, I have largely been able to avoid the jetlag, but boy was I tired from sheer exhaustion! More interesting stories and insights will undoubtedly follow shortly, but for now this should do the trick I guess.

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Oh, and that coffee you ask? Well, on the Qantas flight from Sydney to Wellington, I honestly thought the stewardess had confused „coffee“ with „tea“: I could see the bottom of the cup! It smelt of nothing instead of coffee! But no, the lady assured me I had been served to correct beverage –  ’twas a sad day for coffee everywhere…