Finally departed LA after a frustrating but fortunate overnight layover. The flight to Fiji was long and hard to sleep through. Fiji was cloudy but humid and adorned a small, rundown airport. Grabbed a coffee and waited a few hours for the next flight. Two hours later I arrived in AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. Customs was mostly a breeze, as was getting an NZ SIM card and catching the bus into downtown Auckland. I found the Nomads hostel and went up to my assigned dorm room. I learned that in old buildings the elevators may not take you to your correct floor which caused me to just take the stairs almost every time after that. I also learned that if you don't claim the last bottom bunk in the dorm room by fully making it known that it's taken, i.e. placing something that's yours on the bed, not just on the floor next to it, that someone will most surely snag it from you.
The very bottom floor of the hostel had a few nice employees who provided info about tours and transportation around NZ so I spent quite awhile there. After, I went up to the rooftop for free bbq, which was actually just some sort of meat hot dog wrapped up in a slice of white bread with the option of ketchup and butter condiments. Met a girl from Sweden as well as two boys from Germany who were traveling with a girl. All of which are on work visas before they continue on at a university. So they were between ages 18 & 21.
Walked about down Queens St, the busy retail street near the hostel. Found a small grocery store and purchased some fruit and bars for breakfast. I learned that cashiers check your signature on the credit card slip against the signature on the back of your credit card. Bad news for me is that I'm quite certain every one of my signatures are unalike. Walked a bit more and found a large electronic store so I could to find new headphones because of course I keep buying cheap ones and they quit working after the first 6 months. I found the sky tower on my walk which was lovely. Also found wifi at a local Wendy's. And back to the dorm room and back to my top bunk.
