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Published: April 2nd 2008
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Day 175 - Thursday 13 March
Its a glorious sunny day today. Now I have to admit that i´ve not been that impressed with New Zealand infact at times i´ve thought I might as well be back home but I guess i´ll appreciate South America more. But today sitting on the balcony eating my cornflakes watching the locals scurring to work and watching the storms back in the UK on CNN, I thought i´m lucky to be here. Maybe its the thought i´m leaving in a couple of days and will be on the beach by saturday but im in a good mood.
With high spirits I set off on the 4 hour drive north to Auckñand. We happen to be staying right next door to Auckland university and all I can say is oh my god especially on a hot day like today. If i´d had known it was like this when i was choosing universities i´d have definetly come here. Walking around the city centre the sights were equally impressive. i can´t believe i´ve wasted so many days in small quiet towns, I should have come here weeks ago if only i´d have flown into here rather
than Christchurch. But then mabe i´m feeling like this because its been just over 3 weeks since I said goodbye to Ji-Won.
It might well have been been student night in town but I forced myself to stay in. I´d have only depressed myself so instead i it the books and studied some more Spanish.
Day 176 - Friday 14 March
Do you remember Nila and Tula the Kiwis we met during our first week in Bangkok. Well you probably dont but I do. Well they live in Auckland so later tonight were going to catch up and their going to show us around town. In preperation we´ve planned a brewery visit this afternoon so we can get warmed up.
As the brewery tour didn´t start until 3pm it left us a few hours for us to kill beforehand so we popped back into the city centre for a walk around. Its another hot day so once again the university was unbelievable.
We ended up running a little late and only just made it for the tour. At $12 (student price) it was ok but the best bit was the end, there was a free
bar for about half an hour. I managed to get 5 in before time was called. There was some Japanese in our group and I tell you they could drink as well.
Even though I´d only been drinking for 30 mins I could already feel it a bit so we staggered a few doors down to a pub where we´ve agreed to meet Nila and Tulu. It was only just 5 so we didn´t expect them to be there but most companies in New Zealand close on Friday lunchtime and the boss takes everyone down the pub, so not only where they there but like us they´d already had a few (Maybe New Zealand wouldn´t be such a bad place to work after all). They´d also brought Nilas neice along as well. Being from the Pacifics she had a natural tan and all I can say is wow. So we had several drinks and reminiced about Thailand.
With St Patricks day being on a Monday the Kiwis have decided to celebrate it the whole weekend and theres free buses between Irish pubs, so we ended up doing a bit of a tour of the Irish pubs before Nila and Tulu had to catch the last the last train home. Nilas neice had already left a few hours earlier to get ready for some club she was going to and had invited us along. Unfortunately we´d forgotten the name of the place so we spent about an our walking around the city in the small hope we´d walk past it and remember it. Regretably we didn´t and had to give up on our search. We should have written the place down.
As we were passing sky city casino Russ wanted to go in for a bit and as they´ve got a bar I thought I´d might as well pop in as well. Whilst he was gambling I went along to the club they´ve got. It was actually really good and totally free to get in. I did feel a little underdressed as everybody else was dressed to the nines but an english accent abroad goes a long way, I even managed to get a load of free drinks from this middle aged woman in there. Her husband was downstairs gambling and she told me shed been married to him for 25 years but cant stand him. She only stays because hes rich and she tries to spend as much of his money as she can. As long as she had his gold card I wasn´t complaining. Finally at 6am when I knew i´d drunk far too much I said my goodbyes to her and managed to persuade Russ that as we had to check out in 4 hours we´d probably best be going.
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