the arrival

greetings from the future!
(i promise that will be the last time zone humor)

i have arrived in the southern hemisphere in good order, with all my stuff, and with very little jet lag. first stop was the city of sails, auckland, which sits three quarters of the way up on the north island. there are about 1.6 million people in greater auckland; there are more people in auckland than allllll of the southern island.

auckland:
auckland is a city with tall buildings a beautiful harbor and lots of cars. the proper downtown portion of it is similar to any other city you may have been to: shops and hotels and souvenir shops and restaurants and buses and cars, etc. i checked into the auckland city yha (hostel) early on wednesday morning and walked around with a girl, kim from canada (canadian kim; not to be confused with new kim, old kim, kimberley or paige's kim), who followed me to the hostel from the airport. we walked down queen street (main street of downtown) to the harbor and around high street and lorne street (poshy downtown shops and restaurants and such). around 2 we parted ways with plans to meet on thursday morning for the harbor cruise/ferry to rangitoto and i set off for the market for the backpacker's staples: bread, pasta, eggs, milk, tea, jam, honey, peanut butter, tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and tofu - all in single person quantities, of course. the hostel suggested the asian market up on k street (also known as pub row), which was a block up and over from the hostel. i found it easy enough - right where the desk attendant said it would be - through the asian food court off the street and through the back door of the fruit stand at the back of the foodcourt - like walking through the food court of a mall to get to the trader joe's... i stocked up on the list and i was set for the week in breakfast/lunch/snacks/etc.

on thursday morning the harbor cruise left at 10:15am so i picked canadian kim up at her hostel, we grabbed coffees, and made our way to the harbor. the harbor cruise was well worth the price of the ticket (NZ$35) as it took us from the downtown city harbor, out to the island of rangitoto, around devonport, under the auckland bridge, through the ship building docks and back to the harbor plus a second round trip to devonport at any other time. the captain called out points of interest and harbor facts and america's cup facts and other oddities to note. the weather held out well, and despite always looking like it is going to rain (so far) it actually didn't rain my whole stint in auckland.

on thursday night i headed over to the auckland museum for "late at the museum" - a monthly event that combines live music, a symposium on a various topic, a bar, and entry into the museum. the museum is a combo of a natural history museum and a maritime war museum, and during "late" only the natural history exhibits are open - but they were lovely and i was not disappointed at all. the live music was a guy by the name of steve able, who played with niko case on her austrailian/new zealand tour last, and he put on a great, acoustic show in the lobby. the symposium was sort of a debate over standardized testing and national standards in education in new zealand - which was interesting but not very different from any of the issues surrounding the u.s. education system. the museum has a volcano simulator that gave me nightmares (you enter a mock-up of a standard living room in auckland, overlooking the harbor, and the currently dormant volcano on rangitoto blows it's lid shaking the house, spewing lava into the harbor and covering the city in several feet of ash - the humorous bit of the simulation is at the end they run through "things you can do to be prepared before and after a volcano eruption: 1. account for all family members, 2. account for all pets, 3. wrap all electronics in plastic...).

friday and saturday involved a lot of walking around the neighboring auckland districts of parnell (artsy-creative district on a hill to the east of downtown auckland), ponsonby (high end shops, boutiques, cafes and art galleries) and mt. eden (one of the many, many volcanos in the greater auckland area. saturday night my new roommate/friend ann (from southampton, u.k.) and i went out to drink a great bottle of wine at a b.y.o. japanese food place a few blocks from the hostel. we opened the place up and shut it down, it was great.



sunday was a misty boat ride across the harbor to devonport, a sleepy-ish seaside town with an old military base (built on top of a volcano, of course) that you can hike up and around for 360 degrees views of the bays.

all-in-all, i probably didn't need 5 full days in auckland right out the shoot but i did get a good lay of the land and until i fly out i really shouldn't need to go back for a while. i still cannot wait to start in on the farmstay - 6 days of holiday to go.

things learned so far:

• kiwi's are very proud of the lord of the rings
  
• possums are running rampant, and causing a lot of distruction in new zealand to the native plant life: possum pie or "headlight delight" is a very popular menu item


• 4.3 million people in new zealand, 40 million sheep


• there were no 4-legged mammals in new zealand until the european plunderers arrived
  
• there are wild turkeys everywhere
  
• pipis are little sand crabs
  

to view all the photos so far: click the image of the bridge...