Day Jumping / Auckland, New Zealand

This posting is about November, 15th, 2008 - day 69 of my Round-the-World trip.
The special thing about this day is that it didn't exist for me at all.

It cost me some brain work to figure out the consequences of crossing the international date line backwards. Hawaii is in the time zone GMT -11, New Zealand is GMT +12 - meaning maximal time difference.
When checking my flight details I realized that I board on Friday and deboard the plane on Sunday after a 9 hour flight. I was never good at math but it was obvious that something was missing - in this case the complete Saturday. The plane skipped my complete Saturday. This day never happened in my life. Unbelievable.
I even almost booked a hostel for Saturday in advance - for a day that didnt exist. Funny, isn't it?

During the flight I had a lot of weird thoughts about this day-jumping-thing because it seemed so unreal to skip a complete day in my life.
What would have been happened on that November 15th?
I veered between two oppositional ideas for that day:
What if I missed wonderful moments? What if that day would have been filled up with inspiring people, the most colorful flowers on earth and the scent of fresh chocolate muffins?
Would have been a pity, wouldn't it?

On the other hand it could be that I omitted a dark day with tooth ache, a missed flight and screwed up conversations with important people. In this case it would have been perfectly OK because the crap simply never happened.

In the end I decided to go with the idea that the day is simply postponed. I now have a day in reserve and I can do with it whatever I want.

Oh boy, I can imagine the Grim Reaper looking like a complete idiot when coming for me. I will simply hand over the boarding pass of the long gone November day in 2008 with a big grin and saying 'could you please visit again tomorrow same time? I still have one day left'.

I have no idea what to do with that very last day. In ideal case I will be very satisfied with my life having no need to rush around doing all the things I never did and saying all the sentences I never said. I like the idea of being invisible on that last day and visiting the human beings that gave me intense moments, hours or even years. I could whisper 'thank you' in their ear, reassure them a bit and then slowly stroll away towards my favorite place - no matter if this will be a meadow on a river or a rocky valley in a country far away.

Oh yes, this is what I will do with that November day from 2008.

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The photos are from my first walk through Auckland. I found a bunch of young guys practicing Parcour. They jumped between stairs and walls and looked quite cool. Funny coincidence that even the day after my big day jump was about jumping, isn't it?