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Published: February 16th 2008
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Auckland
Taken from the Harbour Bridge Hello, It's 10:30 on Sunday February 17th as I write this, and I am sitting in the computer lab of my hostel. Over the last couple days, I have seen alot of the city. On Thursday, I took a tour of the city, on Friday I went to a beach in Mission Bay, and yesterday I went to a super 14 rugby match. All of these things were pretty interesting, so I'll give you a little rundown.
On Thursday, I got picked up outside of my hostel at 10 15 by Kiwi Experience, a travel company who gives free tours of the city and then tries to get you to buy other national packages. I barely got up in time, at 9 45, because I had stayed up til 5 the night before. Long story.
But I made it, and the bus pulled out to head to the
Auckland Harbour Bridge , which is extremely interesting from a technical standpoint. It's history, and how it was developed is pretty cool as well. It was too small for all the traffic that was reaching it in the late 1980s, so Auckland pretty much sent out a help wanted to the world to see
if anyone could figure out a way to allow more traffic. A japanese firm figured out a way, and the two main architects who came up with the idea were 22 year old university students. They offered a bungee jump there, 43 meters high, but I didn't have enough money($90) to do it. Another kid in my group did, and it looked pretty fun. I'll have to make sure to do it at one of the 10 places you can do it here.
After that, we went over the bridge to Devonport, a cool town on the island which the Harbour bridge connects to Auckland. It had loads of cafes, a little park, and a beach. I got fish and chips from a small shop, and they were AMAZING. The fries were much better than anythign I could have gotten in the US. I was impressed. I ate it while sitting at a park bench looking out over the bay.
The rest of the tour, we just drove around and looked at stuff. Thursday night, I went to a movie to celebrate Valentine's day by myself: There will be blood. A very touching movie to see on a
Rangitoto Island
This island is famous because it was volcanic, exploded 700 years ago, and now the island is a nearly perfect circle, almost symetric(sp?) romantic day like that.
Friday, I sort of hung out in the morning while it rained, and then took a public bus to a beach in the afternoon. There, I ate a late lunch at a cafe, and then hung out on the beach reading and swimming. There is no ozone over NZ, so the sun is very powerful, and although i put sunscreen on, I did get some color.
Friday night was a debacle. I met up with a friend, who said he wanted to go to a Korean all-you-can-eat buffet. Thinking, oh, that will be pretty cheap, probably alot better than I'm used to, I agreed. Well, it turned out it was like a 4-star korean buffet where you grilled your own food at your table. It was DELICIOUS, but cost $40 for the meal. I got to try clams and oysters for the first time. I got Sebastian, my friend, to try oysters, but he hated them, and blamed me for being sick to his stomach the whole night. Also, up until that day, I had never had roommates in my hostel room. On friday, two german kids from Berlin showed up. They were pretty
The Gulf
Taken from the Harbour Bridge nice, but they got really mad at me that night, because I got really drunk at an Irish pub, came back passed out, and snored all night. They said they barely slept.
Saturday, I walked around the city with them, we looked at Albert Park, and went to some stores and whatnot. We walked back, got some lunch (tip: Never, EVER, but mexican food from an Indian person and expect it to be anything good. There. You've been warned.)
They told me some interesting things about Germany. First, you are allowed to walk around on the streets with an open container of alcohol in your hand there, and they could not comprehend that that was illegal here, in the US, or anywhere. Second, to get your drivers license in Germany, you have to pay a fee or $2500 US dollars plus get expensive lessons, and they couldn't believe that I had no idea whether there was a fee to get a drivers license.
Saturday night, I went to the rugby match. I took a bunch of pictures. The stadium and the atmosphere kind of reminded me of a NFL game, but it wasn't as intense. People cheered,
The Gulf
Too bad it was foggy. but they didn't reach the of energy or passion that I would see at, say, an Eagles game or a Steelers game. The game was between the Waikato Chiefs and the Auckland Blues, and the Blues won
32-14. It seemed like a pretty physical game, but in my opinion, it wasn't nearly as bad as American football. I could really tell when there were collisions that the crowd thought were very hard, and went "oooooo", but I wasn't that impressed with. On a physical level, it is sort of like interior line play, a lot of grappling, pushing, and shoving, although I will acknowledge there are alot more cheap shots. I found the game very entertaining and found it easy to follow the rules. A couple of other notes: The home team was the Auckland Blues, and instead of saying "Go blues', the fans would yell 'go the blues', which I found kind of wierd. There were also a couple times I was sure there were going to be fights between Chiefs and 'the blues' fans, but never escalated. Not sure that would happen at an NFL stadium.
I have figured out my plan for the future as well.
Under the Bridge
Gotta love the Chili Peppers reference. On friday, I accepted a job to go apple picking in Hastings, and I start Wednesday morning. As I type this, I'm reserving a bus ticket for Tuesday from Auckland to Hastings (a 7 hour bus ride).
Hastings is a city near the east coast in a region of New Zealand known as Hawke bay, and I don't really know much else about it. Hopefully, the ride through the north Island will be interesting though. A cool note about Hastings, and the whole east coast of NZ, is that when the sun rises, if you are looking from the beach at it, you are one of the first people on earth to see that day. Pretty cool, and I'm sure it will be a beautiful sunrise.
Tomorrow, I think I'm going to
Waikheke Island, a supposedly beautiful place in the Hauraki Gulf. It's a $35 ferry ride, so it better be worth it. But I guess there are some great hikes and tramps around the island, so hopefully it will be a cool all day experience.
Since I leave Auckland in two days, I just wanted to say I've met some great people while travelling here, although to save space
I will just list where the are from: 3 german guys, a japanese guy, a couple from quebec, a canadian woman, a dutch girl, a kiwi girl, a couple americans, including a guy who was in the IEP office on wednesday or thursday frantically trying to contact people because he just graduated from Northern Illinois. Hopefully, we will keep in touch.
This past week has been surreal, to say the least, and i've probably forgotten alot of stuff I did, so let me know if you have any questions or ideas of what I can write about.
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Mom
non-member comment
Christchurch
Hi Jeremy...great blog on Auckland and good pix. Just remember: you can have fun without alcohol! I wanted to tell you that I spoke to Mrs. Taylor last night at the District Wrestling (there are seven kids going from Fairview...the most ever). She said that her brother has friends in Christchurch and they own a bar/restaurant. If you are looking for a job, he will call them for you. Let me know...love...Mom.