I was going to wait until after Sam finished his series before starting my own, but what the hey, if I wait too long I'll forget everything anyway so I might as well start now. Also this way, I can do what I do best and just crib off Sam as he posts his day-by-day account and that'll help jog my pathetic memory.

First thing--the parts Sam and Leen didn't get to experience, the parts that are well and truly mine--my journey to Auckland.

In a word, it SUCKED. Thankfully Denver got exactly 0 inches of snow during the big east-coast storm, so I got out of DIA without delay--since Sam and Leen were delayed a day in Boston, that meant, much to Leen's consternation, that I would be the first (and only one of us, as it turned out) to meet Mousie and the first to arrive in New Zealand and meet Brunnen-G.

So I was both excited and terrified when I got on my delayed plane in Denver and flew to LA to meet Mousie. The flight from Denver to LA was PACKED, and even though I was in an aisle seat I was crammed in tight with all the other stinky smelly sweaty people. For those of you who have read other "Adventures with Dave" posts, you may remember how much I hate flying. I have not gotten any better at it since then.

The plane touched down in LA already about 15 minutes late. We proceeded to taxi to our gate, only to find some other plane rudely parked there. Our pilot came over the intercom and said that since someone was parked at our gate he was going to fly us to Seattle instead and see if they had a gate free. No wait, that's not what he said, that's just what it *felt* like, as we proceeded to spend another 15 minutes taxiing up and down the tarmac waiting for those rude people to get the heck out of our gate.

Finally, after our 1 hour 40 minute flight had turned into a 2 hour 10 minute flight, we were at a gate (I'm not even sure if it was our original gate or one we just happened upon while taxiing around.)

FINALLY, I was off the plane. I was expecting to meet Mousie at my departure gate to Auckland. Unfortunately, I had no idea where that might be. I got off the plane and started to take a right to wander aimlessly down the terminal looking for one of those TV monitors with flight info on it. I noticed a woman standing near our gate with a clipboard that seemed to have connecting flight info on it, so I doubled back quickly and went to look at what she had on there.

"Come on, you're going to miss your flight."

I heard the voice, but continued to squint at the woman's clipboard, trying to see if my Auckland flight was there or not. Whoever was speaking surely couldn't be talking to me.

"Dave, come on, you're going to miss your flight."

I spun around. I looked around briefly and didn't see anybody I recognized. I was just about to turn around and look back at the clipboard again, which I still hadn't managed to decipher, when this short, petite, gorgeous blonde woman grabbed my arm and started pulling me away from the gate. My first thought was "Yeah, all right! LA ROCKS! Hot chicks snagging you at the airport as you step off the plane! Even Monkeyman could get lucky here!" Then I realized that my escort was none other than that International Woman of Mystery, The Fabulous Miss Mousie.

Mousie told me her entire life story in the three minutes it took us to walk to my gate; she started from the beginning of time, worked her way up through ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, said a few words about the Mongol hordes, glossed over the middle ages and the Rennaisance, worked her way up through the American Revolution and the westward migration, touched on the gold rush of 1849, said a few words in memory of JFK, then finally made it to the part where she got to the airport that night. Then I had to leave.

Ok, so that's not how it went. Here's what really happened:

Mousie: (Says something interesting)

Me: " ... "

Mousie: (Says something about forgetting her camera.)

Me: " ... "

Mousie: (Says something designed to get an actual response from me.)

Me: " ... "

Mousie: "Come on, say something!"

Me: "Hi, how's it going?"

Mousie: (Continues to make conversation.)

Me: " ... "

Mousie: (Hugs me goodbye at my departure gate.)

Me: "Hi." (exit stage left; realize that's the wrong way; exit stage right.)

Then I had 12.5 hours to wonder just what the HELL had just happened. I had that whole "deer in the headlights" thing going on the entire three minutes I was in Mousie's presence. It was, I believe, a combination of three things: (1) I'm a moron. (2) I was hot, tired, and groggy from the stupid delayed flight from Denver. (3) My brain was too busy repeating "Whoa! Hot chick talking to me!" over and over again to do anything more constructive. Oh well. C'est la vie, as those smelly Frenhmen say.

There were three movies on my flight to Auckland instead of the five Sam and Leen got: "Space Cowboys", which I thought was ok but silly. "Red Planet" which would have been better if Carrie-anne Moss had gotten naked (which is pretty much exactly how I feel about The Matrix). And some movie with Judy Dench that I slept through. Then there was about half an episode of Frasier and then they cut to some really bad crappy shows that you only see on airplanes. I decided not to watch and slept through most of that too.

I managed to get a row of three seats all to myself, so I was actually able to get about four hours of sleep on the way down. I arrived in Auckland at about 8:15 AM, which I'm sure equates to some other time in Denver, but since I don't wear a watch I never have any idea what time it is *anywhere*. I think this actually helps me adjust better, because I just ask someone what time it is, they tell me, and that instantly becomes what time it is to me. So the whole time Sam and Leen were looking at their watches thinking "It's 3 AM back in New Hampshire, no wonder I'm tired." I was thinking "Whoa, look at that hot chiX0r over there." Or something like that.

Much as Sam and Leen where, I was told to exit the plane, collect my bags, and go through customs. However, before you ever go through customs you have to go through immigration, which nobody told me about. So I was looking for a way *around* the immigation lines because I was sure I was supposed to get my bags FIRST, because that's what they told me. Finally I realized that there *was* no way around, and that I was required to go through this checkpoint to get anywhere. Gah. Stupid airlines.

The guy at the immigration desk moved me through the line quickly, not even asking any questions, just pausing long enough to glance at my form and stamp my passport. THEN I was allowed to go collect my suitcase and head through customs.

Unlike Leen, I did not pack every item in my household, so I had nothing to declare and got to go through the aptly named "Nothing To Declare Line." The customs official looked at my form and asked me what my occupation was. I thought it was a strange question to ask, but answered him promptly. He then handed me my form back and I looked at it. I had neglected to fill out the blank that said "Occupation." Duh.

Finally, one checkpoint later where they re X-rayed my bags, and I was free to roam New Zealand as I wished.

Much as Sam described, I was a little worried about how I might recognize Brunnen-G. It turned out not to be a problem--she was the redhead who came up and hugged me even before I had managed to put my bags down. I had to just drop my bags beside her and put my arms around her as she already had me around the neck before I was even clear of the arrivals area. My first thought was "Yeah, all right! New Zealand ROCKS! Hot chicks snagging you at the airport as you step off the plane! Even Monkeyman could get lucky here!"

Brunnen-G told me later (on the way back to the airport the next day to pick up Sam and Leen) that she had been nearly in a panic waiting for me, because she was so scared and excited about meeting us all and wondering if we'd like her and if she'd like *us* and how everything would work out. Thankfully, by the time we were having this conversation, we'd already spent a day together and were completely at ease around each other so that the fear was gone and there was only excitement left for Sam and Leen's arrival.

I was on my best behavior as I exited the airport, and I think, looking back on it, that I managed to go the whole two weeks without hitting on her ONCE. That is quite an accomplishment for me, although it *was* made easier by the fact that her significant other was RIGHT THERE most of the time. I mean, I could probably take him, but who knows, maybe he knows Karate or something? I figured it was better to just not chance it. ;-)

I'm not sure I've ever been so completely at ease with another person I've never actually met so quickly as I was with Brunnen-G. It helps that we'd been talking for about a year and a half prior to finally meeting IRL, but I was still expecting more awkward moments and a longer period of adjustment. I believe the period of ajdustment was about fourteen seconds. We hugged, started walking to the exit, and that was pretty much the whole adjustment period. It was like, "Ok, here's BG, she's pretty much exactly the same as I know her online, except she's got this AWESOME accent and she's RIGHT HERE!"

A little about the accent: I agree with Sam's basic assesment. Start with an Aussie nasal twang, soften it with some proper British, and throw in a pinch of Canadian and you've got the New Zealand accent. In fact, the very first time I heard Brunnen-G's voice (briefly, over an AIM voice chat connection) I thought she sounded like a Brit who had spent too much time in Canada, eh? I was able to instantly recognize that it was *not* an Australian accent (at least as we in the States know the Australian accent, through our extensive exposure from things like Crocodile Dundee and the Crocodile Hunter) but it would take much longer than two weeks exposure to be able to even remotely imitate it even to the extent that I can do a bad Australian accent.

We got to the car, where I presented Brunnen-G with the first of *my* special gifts--a pair of beautiful blue United Airlines socks. She laughed and threw them in the boot (known to we Americans as "the trunk") and that was pretty much the last I saw of those socks.

"Wow, this is pretty," I said as we drove away from the airport. And to me, coming from Colorado, it *was*. Everything in the Boulder area is brown. There's very little green, even in spring. The outskirts of Auckland were GREEN GREEN GREEN. Green trees, green grass, just green everywhere. Brunnen-G politely informed me that this was probably the *worst* of the scenery I was going to see in my two weeks, which shocked and amazed me at the time, but as it turned out, she was pretty much right.

We drove over Portage road, so named because the Maori people used to carry their canoes between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea at that point. It's the narrowest part of the country, and the east and west coast is separated by only a few miles (give or take a kilometer). She told me that one tribe of Maori used to inhabit the hillside and would roll rocks down on the path to crush anyone who tried to portage their canoes without paying the toll. Such a RULING country!

We arrived at her house, and it was much like Sam described it, only it was the day before. I immediately took a shower and crashed on my inflatable mattress bed for a rest while BG finished up her work for the day. I presented her with the rest of my gracious gifts, a delightfully tacky (and tiny) Colorado license plate keychain with her name on it, and a rubber ball that had lights and stuff in it. She was amused, and put the gifts somewhere, and that was pretty much the last I saw of *those*. Then we were off to North Head, which could be one word, but I'm not sure.

Sam will get around to describing this eventually, as we went back on our last day so that Sam and Leen could see the area too. Basically, it's a hillside that had some natural caves that were expanded into a network of tunnels for coastal fortification. There are guns and stuff up there still waiting for the Russians to show up (turns out the New Zealanders hated the Russians long before the US did. I figure it's because they all live in the future anyway.)

It was here, however, that Brunnen-G silently paid me the greatest compliment any woman ever has. She showed her immense trust in me by walking into a pitch black cave alone with me without hesitation and seemingly without worry. I repaid that great trust by only grabbing her butt once. Ok, so that was when we were on the hillside in broad daylight. And it wasn't a grab, I just sort of ran into her by mistake. But still.

After the tunnels and guns of Northhead (there, I'm sure to have gotten it right at least once now) we found some lunch at a bakery (New Zealand for "store that sells bread and sandwiches") and sat on the beach and ate, where I proceeded to get sunburnt. Stupid Ozone hole.

We talked a lot, then talked some more, then did some more talking, then went home, where we continued to talk until Puck got home. Turns out he *does* have eyes afterall, and not just empty sockets. We had some dinner a little later on (which consisted of rice and chicken in what I think was a cream of mushroom base--anyway, it was good!) and then I realized I was asleep. And so ends the REAL day one.

-- Dave