Auckland

Thur, Nov 19, 2009

Today was devoted mostly to finding a hotel for the night, returning the camper van, figuring out how much time to allow in the morning to get to the airport for our very early flight and repacking. Jeff hauled all our gear out of the van (and by that time we had stuff scattered everywhere and it was not in neat bundles) and dumped it in the room to be resorted and repacked for air travel. We also had the matter of a bottle of bubbly, a baguette and a gorgeous hunk of camembert that needed to be dealt with. Beats fish and chips for lunch!

In the early evening we got together with Jan Nohner’s cousin, Sandy, who is living in Auckland. She was kind enough to pick us up at the hotel and take us out for a really nice dinner. She’s only been in New Zealand for a few months, and is loving it. She worked for 20 (?) years as a Nurse Practitioner at the Mayo Clinic and is now teaching at the nursing school in Auckland (I hope I have those details right). She was telling us how when she was working at the Mayo, it was so interesting because of how international the patient and physician mix was, and the excellence of care and all the other great things about being part of the Mayo team, but in the end, it was a job that just happened to be at the world famous Mayo Clinic. However, when people here learn that she worked at the Mayo for all those years, the news is often greeted with a bit of a reverent oooh. I think those of us who live in MN tend to take it for granted that we have this world renowned medical facility in our backyard.

At any rate, we had a nice evening sampling the amazing seafood of the North Island and trading tales of her adventures in the North and ours in the South. A very nice way to cap off our trip to New Zealand. We are to assure her mother, upon our return, of her health and well being and to encourage her to come to New Zealand to see for herself.