Sometimes things just work

Within seconds of switching on the new cellphone in Auckland airport, two text messages arrived, one telling how to dial local numbers, and one telling how to dial the USA.

Here's the phone showing local time—5:35am on Tuesday—and L.A. time.

Marian, seeing that it was 10:35am back home said, "Oh good, let's call Jean and Bill and try it out." So we did, and it worked perfectly. Their phone began ringing within a second of pressing Send, no perceptible satellite delays or computer hand-offs or anything.

Sometimes things just work.

Now we have to bide our time until 8am when the van from Britz will arrive. We are eager to see what our mobile home for the next 49 days is really like!