Auckland in a Day Part II

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Greetings Friends! Before we head down the road to Raglan I wanted to wrap up my Auckland, Part I series. So after my mad-capped marathon through the musuem, we had just enough time before meeting Paul and Inga for dinner, to head over to the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower is a big tourist destination in downtown Auckland. It is the highest building in the country standing at 328 meters, thats nearly 1100 feet. It has casinos and restuarants in the first few floors, hotel rooms in the middle and a restaurant near the top and the opportunity to bungee jump from approximately 2/3 of the way up. Unfortunately we didn't have the time to do it, not to mention it is a "controlled" jump that is attached to a runner that drops you slower than normal gravity would ... BOO! We actually took the 30 minutes we had allotted there to go into the information center in the lobby to look into rental cars, hostels, and various attractions around the countryside.

After collecting a lot of good info ... and brochures, we scooted back across town to meet our hosts. We invited them out to dinner for all the hospitality they had shown us. I suggested that we head to the Mt Eden district (thanks Jim) which has many good bars and restaurants. They chose a restaurant called Da Post which is a nice restaurant with much seafood, yum! We parked down the street and I ran across the side street to see what all the music abd comotion was in a church (youth dance lessons). When I caught back up with our group they were standing in the entrance of the restaurant.
A quick backstory: this past summer I worked at Camp Letts in Annapolis as the waterfront director. I met many counselors from around the globe including one from New Zealand named Talei who I took with a small group to Baltimore's National Aquarium for a weekend field trip over the summer. When I was getting ready to come over to NZ I emailed her and told her I was coming to her country. The only response I heard from her was that she would probably be out of town (Auckland) when I would be there.
So I was a little bit shocked when I heard the familiar voice of Talei telling my friend Paul they didn't have any tables available downstairs. So I walk up to her and very smugly say "Well miss you need to find us a table right now!" My friends were taken back and once Talei saw my face, screamed and we hugged! As we went to our table and ordered dinner (the local green lipped mussels, delish) I thought how surreal that had been, and the unreal chances of running in to her. She knew I was coming to NZed, but no idea where and to go half way around the world and just run into her like that ... writing this now I'm still in disbelief!

We had a great dinner and when we told Paul of our plan to rent a car to head down to Raglan, he said we could just borrow his car for a couple days and he could carpool with Inga ... DANG, thanks Paul! So the next day we packed up our bags and drove the 2 hours down the interstate in the direction of Raglan. How good were our directions? Tune in next time!

When you hear Kings of Leon, turn it up and think of me.

Wildlife sightings: the ones in the musuem don't really count.

Thank you: Paul and Inga, thanks again!

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Comments

[Nick]

Sounds like you're having a great time! I have the new Black Keys (blakroc.com) ready for you when you get back.... Be safe.