Fort Bamber

Well, I'll hand Auckland one thing: It's going to help me get reacquainted with cold weather. Sure, it's sunny during the daytime, although the occasional oceanic wind chill isn't uncommon. At night time, it gets downright chilly - kind of like a San Francisco summer... What I didn't realize is that in the middle of the night, it gets to be freakin arctic.

Upon first arrival into my *fanfare* double private room, I noticed that the cabinets were stocked with extra bedding. I wondered why they would keep so many extra blankets and pillows in a small room - perhaps it was just storage overflow? Come 2:00am, I found out.

For the first time since childhood, I built a fort. Not out of a desire to act out my imagination and go to the land of make-believe, but because it was absolutely, positively, 100% necessary for my survival. In a matter of hours, the climate went from San Francisco cold to Tahoe-in-the-winter freezing. All those blankies saved my life.

To think, it's going to be even colder in Queenstown. Looks like I'll be buying another layer of clothes when I get there. In the meantime, New Zealand will serve well to re-acclimitize me from the oppressive Aussie heat to *fanfare again* snowboarding season at home.