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Published: June 12th 2008
Hello fellow Canadians!!!!!!!!!!
We finally made it. After nearly 24 hours of traveling from Edmonton, we finally made it. Los Angeles was fun, driving on the freeway there, not so much! But Dennis did extremely well! Universal Studios was a blast, although due to our... ahem.. bumpy? Swervy? Icky? HORRIBLE plane ride, Kim was feeling not so great. After riding the Simpsons theme ride (which was AWESOME)... she had to make a trip to the bathroom... then the First Aid tent for some serious headache relief because she was not going to make it through the day. After some relief, water, and rest, we set out again to take over the park! We made it to the Jurassic park ride, the theme park tour, the Backdraft show, Shrek 4D, and House of Horrors, plus a couple others, we headed back to the airport to await our flight. Security was suprisingly fast, so we found ourselves with lots of time to spare! We caught our flight at 9:30, had an extra seat next to us, cozied up, watched a movie and ate a great dinner (chicken parmesan) and then Dennis promptly fell asleep for 8 hours! Haha, I probably got about 6 hours, if I was lucky, but it was on and off. But we had our own TV screens with like 30 movies to choose from, so we watched "Enchanted", "The Truman Show", "Vantage Point" and "The Other Boleyn Girl". Finally, after 13 hours in the air (crossing the Equator which I woke up for, and the International date line) we arrived in Auckland at... 5:00 am Thursday. Which presented the problem when we arrived at our hostel and it was closed until 8:30 am. But the harrowing drive (remember they drive on the wrong side!) kept us giggling. We hit up a supermarket for some fresh food and then finally got our room and ate.
Once Dennis convinced me that we shouldn't really sleep at 8:30am because jet lag would suck, he then proceeded to try and convince me to wear something called... a ... shoe? On vacatioN????? A shoe-ez I ask?? We then proceeded to hike up Mount.... side track here, this is Dennis, lets say for the record that Kim was complaining she was cold and since feet are a primary source of heat loss, I suggested wearing something us french people call, shoe-ez, what was I thinking 😉... back to the story.....
AHEM! We hiked up Mount Eden, which is a volcano. It was beautiful. The sun was rising, the grass and trees are so incredibly green, and it was so quiet. The view from the top is panoramic. Gorgeous! Did you know (this is for Dean), that 150 000 years ago New Zealand was completely flat? But then all these volcanoes started popping up and that is why it is all hilly today! So after that wonderful start to our day, we walked to the Auckland Museum, which is a war memorial, natural history, and Maori exhibit. It was soooo cool! We bought tickets to see a Maori cultural experience and got to watch their dancing, singing, and different weapons. But truly, their "welcome" song was actually quite frightening. What with the eyes popping and the tongues sticking out... but yes.. I'll dock my canoe too. We also saw a really neat volcano exhibit and went into a simulator of what it would be like if a volcano erupted right now! They also had a really cool War exhibit with real war planes from WWII from the Japanese and the Commonwealth air forces.
Next, we caught the bus to the harbor and meandered around finding a place to eat before we settled on a fun Irish restaurent where we had our first taste of Kiwi lamb! Mmmmmm good! Then we went to a fish market to look at all the types of fish you can buy before heading to their Sky Needle.... thing. It's 328m high and the tallest structure in the Southern hemisphere. It was kind of cool. They have all these ultimate things like bungee jumping and climbing it from the outside, we got a picture of one guy jumping. Now, we are just typing to you and then heading off to find something else to do! Tomorrow we are going to the Antartic Encounter and Auckland Zoo. Should be a great time!
Sorry no photos today, we brought our camera and cord but the computer does not allow USB ports... Hopefully later! Our hostel has internet too, so maybe tomorrow. Hope everyone is well. We miss you all lots, Diane give Boo some good rub downs from us! Hope everything is great and we really hope that Chad didn't crack his knee cap!
Love you!
Yours in Christ,
Kim and Dennis
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Terri
non-member comment
You made it!
Glad to hear you survived the flight. Did you miss not having Wednesday? For some strange reason, that really bothered me as if my life would be a day shorter. Did you hear Danielle was in a disagreement with a skateboard and has broken her ankle? She has an aircast - may try to send you a picture after the Anniversary party on Sunday. Love you, Terri