Land of Kiwis

So here we are in Auckland New Zealand. To be honest, so far I am not super impressed. Yes, they have bungie jumping down town, it is right on the water, and we do have and advantage with the currency. (0.70 US = 1.00 NZ) However the city looks exactly like Seattle, the weather is just like Seattle, and with prices jacked way up, it costs just like Seattle. So, with two days of rain and struggling to eat cheap, we've decided that after leaving the North West coast of the US, we've landed right back in the North West coast of the US!

It's a pretty modern city, with lots of fun shops. I'm excited to go see some of the Vinyl shops and pick up some cool records. Today, Russell talked me into walking to the Museum. Which really didn't look to far away on the map, but add a tropical rain storm on top of that, and it makes any walk pretty miserable. By the time we got there, I was completely soaked and pretty cold too. I'm very suprised to see how cold it is here, even in the summer. I was expecting a much warmer season. The locals say that summer is just late this year, that it will warm up soon, but until it does, I will be cold and wet. After I got passed the shivering, the museum was pretty cool. Lots of old Maori (New Zealand tribes) weapons and history. It also had some interesting displays viewing New Zealand interaction with WWI and WWII.

In comparison to FIJI our hostel is very nice. It is a down town mid sized building, with 7 floors. We are on floor 3 in an 8 bed dorm. It's fairly pricey but considering how nice the bathrooms and storage is, it's alright with me. I am a little bit concerned with the ammount of money I am needing to spend here. Even though it is 0.70 to 1.00 dollars, everything is jacked up in price. I'm trying to live cheap, and I have to spend 27 a night on a bed, then 8-10 for a meal out (that's cheap too) and then 1-5 dollars on buses if I want to go anywhere. It starts adding up pretty quick. It seems like it's impossible to spend less then 50 dollars a day. I'm debating weather or not I wan't to take 3 hours a day and volunteer to help the hostel (cook, clean, scrub dishes, what ever they ask me to do) for a free night of accomodation. I guess i'll go a few days and see how I make out.

I'm excited for my parents to arrive, it should be pretty cool to go fishing all over the islands. Right now aside from better weather it's all I'm looking forward to in the short term. Long term I can't wait for Amy and Kala to come out and join up with us. It's going to be very exciting.

That's enough for now. I'll have some city pictures for you next post.

Mike