I made it to New Zealand, obviously! After 3 flights I finally made it to Auckland at 4:45 am on Saturday morning. The LA to Auckland flight wasn't as bad as I thought because I ended up sleeping for 6 hours and there was lots of movies and food :) I had a little heart attack at the LA airport because the airline desk told me I wouldn't be allowed into New Zealand without having a visa for Australia, which still doesn't make any sense to me! But it ended up taking like 2 min to apply online but still!!!! AH! Anyways, I arrived really early and had to wait for Charlotte to arrive at 7am! Amanda came and got us at the airport which was awesome of her since it was so early!! It was good to see Charlotte and Amanda since it had been like a year and half since seeing them in Whistler!
Day 1
Amanada lives with her boyfriends sister Rebecca and her boyfriend Michael, both of which lived in Whistler too so after the airport we headed to their house. Rebecca's mom is a teacher and her school was having "Ag[riculture] Day" so my first introduction to New Zealand was a public school fair with sheep and calf compeititions haha. After that we came home and had nap to get ready for drinks. We woke up and some people had already showed up to have drinks before going down to Party Central at the FanZone to watch the All Blacks rugby game. Party Central is down by the water and has big screens and bars to watch all the rugby games. All Blacks fans are crazy fun!!!! Good first day in NEW ZEALAND!!
Day 2
We woke up and it was raining! boooooo! Amanda took us to a mall called Sylvia Park and we shopped around. All the stores are different so we scoped out whats good. Later on Sunday, Charlotte, Amanda and I drank a few bottles of wine and headed to a bar called The Chapel! Things got silly that night!!!
Day 3
Typical spring weather today-sunny and about 17degrees. Amanda takes us walking around the city which doesn't take long to get to since we can see the Sky Tower from the house. We walked around Queen St, which is the main street in Auckland and we got sushi for lunch! This place had lots of fun rolls like bacon and egg YUMMMM! Then we walked around the harbour and saw lots of big boats and super yachts that we later looked up and were in the top 100 in the world! SO BIG!! Amanda and a group of friends have dinner parties every Monday and sometimes they have themes. This time it was make food that started with the first letter of your name so she made American hotdogs for an app, Apricot Chicken for a main, and Afgans for dessert. I think this is a really cool idea and def want to start doing dinner parties when I come home :)
Day 4
Another good, sunny spring day! Everyone had work today so it was the first day Charlotte and I were left to ourselves to explore the city! We shouldn't have left the house though because we ended up setting off the house alarm which was hilarous. Good thing we remembered the wrong alarm code haha! Once we figured that out we borrowed a couple bikes and headed off to Mission Bay which was a beach about an hour bike ride along the water. Charlotte and I then headed to a fish and chips place called Fish Pot Cafe. It was delicious and definitely worth the recommendation! CHECK! The bike ride home was a lot more painful than the ride there! My butt still hurts hahaha! On the way back we stopped in a few places like back to the FanZone to go into the giant rugby ball that showed a NZ tourist video and got our picture with a few of the All Blacks at the Backing Black building.
The area that we are staying is called Ponsonby and on the Lonely Planet checklist of things to do in Auckland it says to walk down Ponsonby Rd. So that's what we did! The road is just filled with unique stores and lots of little bars and restaurants! There was also a few hostels along this road that we stopped in at to look at the message boards for vans! Once we got back Charlotte, Amanda and I drove to visit Jojo in Waiuku, which is a small town about an hour away. A lot has changed in Jo's life since seeing her 2 years ago...she has a 3 month old baby boy named Mason! We had a good visit with her and her baby. She took us out to the local pub (The Kentish) for lunch and to our first black sand beach. Pretty cool! I hope to see Jo again before we leave NZ! This busy day continues on once we got home and Rebecca and Michael took us to a few mountains/volcanos (Mt.North Head and Mt. Victoria) over the harbour bridge to the North Shore. North Head has tunnels that were created during WWI and II so we wandered through those for a while and just took pictures at the top. Good views of the city! We then headed for a drink at Takapuna which is just another fun area of the city on the North Shore! Busy day but lots checked off the list! CHECK CHECK CHECK!
Day 6
Today we decided to go on the Lonely Planet walking tour of Auckland so we saw things like town hall, Albert Park, Auckland University and Aotea Square. Just more things checked off the list! We then headed to get sushi at the same place again...we just couldn't resist! So cheap and delicious! Next, Charlotte and I headed up the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere and Auckland's signature building so we figured we had to go up! We had a glass of wine at the top and watched people bungy jump off. The whole time we had no idea until after but we were sitting beside the Scotland rugby team. We thought they looked too big and good looking to be normal people but we didn't realize until watching the news with them on it later that night!! Rebecca took Charlotte and I out on Pontsoby Rd for dinner at a place called SPQR, a really nice Italian restaurant! More wine, more eating! Yumyum!
Ok thats my reallllllllllllly long but summarized update! Bet you were thinking it would never end!!
It still hasn't really sunk it that I'm so far away from home. New Zealand is like Canada but with accents!!
We are going to a car fair tomorrow morning to look for a cheap van and if not we have been looking to go on the Kiwi Experience bus! Decisions to be made in the next couple days! I've been really enjoying Auckland but I'm hoping to be off expoloring the rest of the country SOON!!
Love and Sunshine xxoo
