Auckland to Queenstown

Last night, I walked a few blocks to find a restaurant for supper. Didn't want to go too far because you never know when that Massive Travel Exhaustion is going to hit. Besides, there didn't seem anywhere to go -- the airport hotel wasn't near anything except other airport hotels.

Stayed awake until 9:30, which seemed perfect -- normally, I'd have wanted to be up a bit later my first night, but I had to wake up at 6:00 this morning to catch my flight out, so it was good.

On the flight to Christchurch, Qantas served not peanuts, not pretzels, but ... wait for it ... little chocolate croissants. On the continued flight to Queenstown -- which was less than an hour -- they apologized for not having time for coffee and tea service and offered only a little snack. Which turned out to be a huge chocolate chip cookie. Man, Southwest could learn a lot from these people.

Checked into my Queenstown hotel (found Supershuttle from the airport! Yay me!) and was pleasantly surprised by my room-- it is huge, beautiful, and impeccably clean. Extremely helpful desk staff said they'd book any Queenstown activity I wanted (no booking charge). I said, "er... canyon swing?" She rang them up and booked me for the 4:30 today. Which is good, because I have only 3 hours or so to freak out anticipating it, rather than overnight.

Yes, Andrea, I'm doing this alone. I travel alone a lot. It can get a little lonely at restaurants, but otherwise, it's great. You get to meet lots of people, so that's fun. You can be extremely selfish in choosing what to do -- something I rather enjoy on vacation. :-) Besides which, I've got all you guys to tell about it. Seriously, I don't think I would've travelled alone nearly as much if it weren't for easily available internet access.