J'Arrive

I arrived in Dulles DC just after midnight on the 9th of July with my friend Jamyang - picked up by our kind friend Noreen (whose house I am now incidentally minding for a month) and taken to a newer friend - Ani Dara - a lovely Nun (twice my height! - well maybe 2/3rds my height) where I'm based. Two weeks after I landed I feel I have finally arrived: gosh I got wacked out by the heat and the time zone reminiscent of when I first arrived in Virginia, America as a 16 year old at the same time of the year - not far from where I am now (in Maryland). My sleeping patterns were topsy-turvy.
Mercifully the flight over was relatively smooth - the first leg I was upgraded amazingly into business class premium. Very comfortable - only one neighbour and heaps of leg room! Otherwise it was a cricked neck from Auckland to San Francisco but again Jamyang, my travelling companion, and I were fortunate as no-one was between us on the flight so again we had more leg room - and then there was the long queue to go through customs at San Francisco but mercifully (there's that word again) not as crowded as LA - and of course I chose the wrong queue - the one where the second customs officer decided to close-up shop - leaving only a one-stop shop for fingerprinting and photographing an eyeball. I selected the queue on the basis that someone was wearing a hobbit t-shirt! Completely poor queue selection criteria.
Anyway the customs officer decided to let me into the country for 6 months. Phewwwwwww. And we also had time to catch our next flight. Which never happened for me in LA. So overall much less stressful so only the transitional zone of adjustment to summer and up-side down time to contend with.
So I'm showing you a number of photos highlighting the above themes
1) Trying unsuccessfully to make friends with the All Blacks at Auckland Airport
2) My impression of what jet-lag looks like in the redemptive field of sunflowers near our Temple
3) My new-old friend Ani Dara - in the beautiful sun-flower fields she took me too - alas the sun-flower field is to attract doves for the dove-hunting season
4) My meditation spot and and 'bed' for the next month. In this picture and others you'll see- popping up now and then my green friend - 'Hug-arita' - complements of Mandy via Oxfam and South America! She has travelled far and is very excited to be back in the Americas!