Week in Auckland

I'm now home after being gone for two weeks straight. And Yes, it does feel good to be home.

It was a long flight from SFO to Auckland... but not too bad, just a long night without too much sleep. I don't understand why the airlines think they have to turn up the heat on flights - folks can put a blanket on if they are chilly!

Upon an early morning arrival in New Zealand, I took a taxi to the Hyatt hotel on a hill in Auckland. What followed was my 'technique' for getting rid of problems of international travel - the dreaded Jet Lag.

Here is the technique I've learned for 'resetting' to the local time. (By the way, this works for travel to the Far East or to Europe - same technique either way)

As soon as possible, get to the hotel. Put everything away (that's not part of the technique, just a thing I do every time I show up in a new hotel). Then shut the curtains, get undressed, and prepare for going to bed. Set an alarm for 5-6 hours later, or 3pm local time, whichever is earlier. Then go to bed and sleep! (Don't try to stay awake - just go to sleep as comfortably as possible)

Then the hard part. Wake up... It might be hard to wake up... but just do it. Shower and get ready for the day. Don't stay in the hotel room and lounge, but go outside in the sunshine for a walk. (A perfect time for a bit of sight-seeing) - and then eat dinner at regular time, just like a 'regular' day, just now on the local time.

Try to stay up as late as possible this first night - say midnight or so.Then the next day arise as you would on a 'normal' day and you'll be 'reset' to the local time!

This works for me every single time I travel internationally - I highly recommend it.

_______________

This week I taught some custom courses for a reseller/distributor of Wireless LAN Products in New Zealand called 'Kalooma'. I've been traveling down under to teach for them for the last 5 years or so. Good guys - easy to work with.We met in the Glenn Building - The Business School building of the University of Auckland. It is a very nice new building - all glass and 'artsy' in it's design. Open areas, air bridges between the wings. A pretty slick looking building - and very expensive from what I heard nearly a quarter of a billion NZ dollars!At night I was hosted by different Kalooma employees for dinner - thanks! They were great dinners with a chance to better learn of their experiences and how they all came together at Kalooma.

Though the other dinners were more than fine... the last dinner on Thursday night with both Terrence and Geoff at the French Bistro was by far the best. The place was called St. Tropez - and though it was a bit funny to have the initial hostess try to speak with a faux-french accent - the food was amazing!Every time I head down to New Zealand, I'm impressed that for such a tiny little economy - only 4 Million folks or so... or into perspective, about the size of 1/4 Los Angeles... it is it's own little economy. I hear they do have at least 10 sheep for every person in the country - weird fact of the day.

Then Friday after class back to the airport for the ride home - only to arrive home before I even left. (wonders of the International Date Line

I had previously downloaded the entire first season of Stargate Atlantis - so I watched 14 episodes on the flight home. All on my iPhone. I don't think I would waste my time at home watching these - but they were mildly entertaining as flight fodder goes.