Our trip to New Zealand and Australia started with a long flight to Auckland...  I was one of the lucky ones that happens to live in Los Angeles.   Most international flights to Down Unda start with a long flight out of Los Angeles International Airport.   Ann and Nancy had made the flight the day before the rest of us, in order to get used to the time and climate change.

I spent my last few hours at home with some friends watching an MMA bout at a local Hollywood pub, all the while getting text messages from my crew members that had spent the day traveling to LAX (the airport) and were stuck there waiting for Quantas flight to depart (Jealous that I was still hanging with friends instead of an airport lounge).   I made my way to the airport and was greeted by Debbie, Craig, Kristian and various crew members from both the Heart and Def Leppard crew.  We all took over the business class lounge, snacking on cookies and crackers and catching up.

The flight departs at 11:40pm, and is about 13 hours long.    The idea is to sleep as much as possible on the flight...which is something i found difficult to do.... but eventually we arrived in Auckland.  The view from the airplane window was the best that I got of the country.   Beautiful green hills that roll, dotted with sheep and trees.   Hello Frodo, i think we've made our way to the shire.

Alas, Frodo and the Shire have nothing in common with downtown Auckland and Rugby fever.  The entire city of Auckland is home to the World Rugby Championships, and people from every country are everywhere.   Auckland's team is the All Blacks - and they do a ceremonial dance prior to each match called the haka (not sure if i spelled that correctly).   The Haka is a Maori dance - where they basically tell their challengers that they are going to kill them and eat them.   All of the team gesture angrily, hitting thier forearms, gesturing to the sky, that the spirit above is helping them, gesturing to the ground, stomping their feet... and lastly putting out their tongues like Maori warriors, signifying "we are going to eat you".   Gotta tell ya, its cool as can be, and super impressive.  Nancy wants to do it, but was told that women are allowed to call the Haka, but not perform it.  Yeah... that didn't go over well.  She still hasn't tried to do it though :)

More soon....