Blogs from Parnell, Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 3

Well, at long last, we have arrived in our new home-away-from-home for the next year! We're currently in Auckland, getting our permits and paperwork underway, before heading down to the south island tomorrow night. Our final day in Sydney was spent being aggravated at our accommodation and sulking over the ridiculous price tags on everything. We wanted so much to explore some of the city, but it was prohibitively expensive. Lovely city, we just unfortunately hit at the wrong time! Hopefully our dollar will strengthen over the next year and we can see some of the country on the way home. On the brighter side, most of you will be thrilled to hear that Jeremy FINALLY got a haircut (from an old Italian barber)...so he now looks like a 15-year old again. (What can I say? ... read more

Oi, Uusi-Seelanti!... read more

You may expect this blog to be a reflective end of year wrap up, containing some of my inner most ponderings on my first Christmas away from home, well if you want those deep and meaningful sentimentalities your in the wrong place! This blog contains the best of New Zealand's geo-thermal wonders: underground caves! glaciers! geysers! and gambling! Lets rock..... After we last talked I was leaving Queenstown on a bus to Franz Josef, which wouldn't even be a town if it didn't have a massive glacier nearby! You can't just take a walk up a glacier so the guide company organises it all for you, all the gortex trimmings and spikes for your feet (officially called crampons), unfortunately the morning I was to hike the weather was to be 'heavy rain'. For some miraculous reason ... read more

Am 19. August war es so weit: Aufbruch zum anderen Ende der Welt. Zuerst ging's mit einem ziemlich vollen Zug nach Wien (hätten fast keinen Sitzplatz mehr ergattert), wo wir uns am Flughafen noch mit Stefan & Marlene getroffen haben - DANKE für's Kommen! :-) - und dann zu unserem 3-Tagesaufenthalt nach Dubai eincheckten, wo uns gleich eine ganz "andere, spannende Welt" erwartete. Stopover in Dubai Dubai ist wirklich eine islamisch geprägte Stadt - das bekamen wir gleich mal ganz enorm zu spüren, als wir aus dem Flughafen zum Taxi gingen, denn in der Ankunftshalle standen NUR Männer!!! Das Hotel war der Überhammer - Luxus pur (für uns halt). Wir sind ja noch nie in einer Herberge abgestiegen, wo gleich nach der Ankunft einer mit unserem Gepäck verschwand - stellte sich aber dann als Kofferträger heraus. ... read more

Our sleepy and tired eyes would open wide with energy when we saw the word FREE. Well, this is the best way to save money. We were excited to find out that the City Library provides free internet access!! Just registered in the library counter and we got the accounts to access the internet maximum 1 hour once with previous booking. We could see more and more people Q-up for the booking after some times. It’s the same faces of people everyday in the library waiting for the free internet access. Secondly, the FREE bus, City Circuit. Although it doesn’t go far, just the loop in the city, it’s enough for us sometimes to save our energy to work or back. Sometimes to see the city, I can just sit in the bus for a few ... read more