So, we went on our way to Philadelphia, where Jo's brother was getting married. It was a bit of an ordeal getter there, though. We flew Leipzig -> Frankfurt -> Philadelphia. When changing planes in Frankfurt to go to Philadelphia we had a 1 hour to changeover. That's normally no problem, but the systems of Lufthansa and US Airways were not sufficiently integrated and we weren't given a boarding pass in Leipzig for the Fra -> Phil leg. As a result we had to get the boarding pass in Frankfurt. Step 1 - find the US Airways checkin counter. No problem, but it took 15 minutes Step 2 - get boarding pass. Problem - the counter was still open, but the security staff for checkin had alreay left, since there was only a short time before boarding time. After a bit of confusion we were told to go through security to the gate to get our boarding pass there. Step 3 - go through security. Problem, they wouldn't let us through security unless we had a boarding pass! Time was ticking away. We managed to convince them to let us through finally. Security took ages, and one of the airline staff pushed in front of us with an elderly couple. "Sorry to do this, they might miss their plane", she said. When we asked which flight and found out it was the same flight as ours, we were a bit upset! The actual security check was very thorough. We had to remove shoes, belt, etc and were frisked. Even owen had to take his soft leather baby shoes off and the soles of his feet scanned! Step 4 - immigration (German). Problem. Owen didn't have a German visa. We had a bit of an argument with the immigration officer (in both German and English) about whether Owen needed a visa, since he was born in Germany. Nathan was tempted to say "OK, so why don't you force him to leave the country?", but thought better of it. In the end, he let us through when we pointed out our plane was about to leave. Step 5 go to gate and get boarding pass. Fine, except that we were interviewed by a panel of 3 regarding our travel plans, etc. Nathan had to show his business card to prove he had been working in Germany. And they wanted to know where Auckland was (maybe they were making sure we weren't visiting some dangerous terrorist state). Fortunately the plane was late to depart, otherwise we would have missed it.
Here's Owen's first experience of a porter - although surprisingly enough, the porter was Dad. Usually in the US, the porters are very quick to take your bags because they earn a tip, but not this time. We were quick enough to get past the porter unassisted. That's one thing we found very different in the US - tipping! Germany and Australia have similar tipping rules - 10% means you're pretty happy with everything. But there, 10% means you weren't happy, 15% is the norm and often the tip is automatcially included (at a rate of 18%). You even need to tip when you have a haircut!
Owen took it on himself to ease the tension of the groom by giving him a massage. Maybe we should have called him Sven.
The actual wedding was a bit much for Owen, and he slept for quite alot of the ceremony and the reception.
Here you can see his wedding outfit a bit better.
And here are the relaxed newlyweds the next day.
We did do a bit of sightseeing while we were there. Here is the Liberty Bell - a famous symbol of freedom (which we never knew about). To see it, we had to go through as much security as if we were going onto a plane. Owen slept through this one, too.
On our train trip "Down Town", we couldn't help thinking how backwards some things were. For all of the achievements and advancements of the USA, some things weren't very good at all. The trains were quite old, there wasn't a loudspeaker (the conductors shouted the next stop through the carriage) and the ticket system involved the conductor hole punching about 15 holes in your ticket to mark the date and type of ticket. The bits of paper punched out were allowed to fall onto the ground so that the cleaner had to come by later to clean them up!
We didn't do too much in Auckland - we were pretty tired by that stage. We went into the city, crossed the harbour and enjoyed some clear, sunny weather. The weather was very inconsistent, alternating between hot and cold. Here's Jo and Owen with some extinct volcanoes in the background. Almost every hill and mountain is an extinct volcanoe, since that's how much of the land was formed.
We also went to an aquarium called Kelly Tarltons (no idea of the reason for the name). It was small compared to the Sydney Aquarium, but had a really cool freezer room where King penguins were kept. We travelled through the room in a little insulated train to see them up close.
We also went to see a bird colony - we've already forgotten the type of bird. This picture shows the birds at their nests. They are evenly spread out on the rock because if they get too close to their neighbour they get pecked. We saw some of the birds doing a courting dance, which involved rubbing necks and probablly squawking. Probably because the whole colony was squawking a racket anyway.
