On June 15th, en route from Sydney to Santiago, Chile, I had a layover in Auckland, NZ.  It was supposed to be a 3-hour layover, but upon arriving in Auckland, I found out that the flight was delayed by four hours.  What do you do when you have a 7-hour layover in Auckland?  Get another stamp on your passport and take the airport shuttle bus ($26 roundtrip!) into the city, of course!

Unfortunately, it was already getting dark as I hopped on the bus and it was fully dark by the time I arrived in downtown Auckland.  It was also very cold and no one seemed to be about.  So, I just wandered around the waterfront, Viaduct Harbour, and Queen Street (downtown).  My first and only impressions of Auckland at night in the wintertime are:

• it’s cold
• it’s very modern
• it’s clean
• it’s expensive

Hmm, it’s pretty similar to Australia, actually.

Now, I KNOW that New Zealand has amazing things to offer (I’ve seen pictures), and I will definitely plan on a real visit there some time.  But I confirmed via Facebook poll that I can count NZ as a country I have visited because I got out of the airport for a few hours.  Personally, I feel like I’m cheating, because I really didn’t get to see much, and there is so much more to NZ than Auckland, but if people on Facebook say it counts, then it counts.  *wink