Days 1-4 (May 22-25)

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Day 1 (May 22)
Had a 11am flight out of CLT. My bag was overflowing so I had to leave my camping pad - hope I don't regret that. Finally got everything to fit. Elisabeth took me to the airport and I was off to Houston (2:20).

In Houston I watched Yao Ming board my flight to LAX. He was surrounded by other passengers taking his picture on their phones. As he handed his boarding pass to the gate agent and turned to go down to the plane he jacked his head on the doorframe. Kinda funny. I then saw Sheldon Williams board. I got to my exit row seat and then Paul Davis (MSU) and another big guy sat next to me. Not sure his name, but he had a Final Four 2003 bag, and the three of them were headed to workout for the Lakers for the upcoming draft. Anyway, it was a tight fit.

I landed in LAX after 3hr flight, and had a 5hr layover. I grabbed some dinner and watched a Dodgers game (boring). My flight to Auckland was 12:30, my longest ever. We left around 1am East Coast time, so I was able to sleep for about 7 hours right after we had dinner. The Quantas entertainment was nice. We each had our own TVs with 6 movies. It went by faster than anticipated. I landed at 5:30am on the 24th. I never saw the 23rd of May. I took a shuttle into town to my B&B and took it easy for a few hours.

Day 3 (May 24)
Auckland It has been overcast or raining since I got here. I walked around in the rain and got some food. Fell asleep at 5pm here (1am est).

Day 4(May 25)
Woke up at 3am and couldn't fall back asleep. I got picked up at 7am for a one-day surf tour. It was a beautiful drive and beach. We surfed all day and then climbed up to a lookout (pic). I got back to Auckland, ate and fell asleep again at 5pm... I'm now renting a spaceship camper
(http://www.spaceships.tv/). I plan to tour the North Island for a week or so.

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