Finding Felix, our first travel buddy

[felix]
Three days before Katie and I left Auckland to travel north we met Felix, a 19-year-old traveling artist. Katie found his profile on couchsurfing, a network of travelers who offer up a couch for other travelers or are interested in meeting travelers passing through town. Katie was searching for other travelers in Auckland who may be interested in traveling with us -- it's cheaper to rent a car with more than two people. Felix's interests – reading, writing, art, travel, outdoors – were similar to ours and our intuition told us he would all be compatible, so we invited him along. We couldn't arrange a meeting before departing the city, so we all met, bags packed, at the train station. “I'll be the German guy wearing brightly colored pants,” he said. And just in case he ended up being a weirdo Felix said, “You guys can always leave me if we don't get along.”

There on the train platform stood a blond boy, about 5'7'', wearing the bright red, orange and blue pants with a braided chin beard. We met, missed our first train and started hitchhiking north. Our plan was to hitchhike to Whangarie (pronounced Fangeri), which with 50,000 people is the biggest city in Northland, and then rent a car.