My morning cake! It tasted a little bit waxy but hey, it was all in the spirit of things.
We arrive in Auckland yesterday. I had heard from so many people that Auckland is nothing special and the crappy weather seemed to signal that I would feel the same way. Upon arriving in Auckland we wandered around the city a bit to see what it had to offer. We finally find a nice spot that had live music and spent some time there. That night I ran into a guy I had met on the first bus who was staying in our hostel. I invited him to come out to dinner with us the next day. The next day was my birthday and I honestly had no expectation. Being around a few people who don't really know you all that well I was not going to expect the typical 48 hour bday which we give each other back at BC. I was pleasently surprised though! In the morning I went down to the kitchen for breakfast and Christian had gone out to the 24 hour grocery store and searched for a cake with no milk.
At the hostel bar.
He settled upon a Pavlova (a typical NZ desert made out of sugar and eggs) he then cut up fruit and put it all over the cake and stuck in 21 candles. So when I came down in the morning we had cake for breakfast. Starting the day off right with a complete sugar rush. I then got to open the card I was carrying around that Debbie had given me two months before. :) Next, we decided to go to the aquarium since it was pouring. There we saw sharks and sting ray feedings. There was this one part that had a moving sidewalk and brought you through a tunnel where fish swam all over you (thought you would like that Dad, at least the moving sidwalk part!). That night John met up with us for a nice dinner down by the waterfront and later the two of us went to a few bars (though Monday night is awfully slow in Auckland). We went to this great Irish Bar with live music and then after our desperate (unsuccesful) search for a kareoke bar we ended up finishing the night at the hostel bar where this crazy old Turkish man hit on me by asking me if I had any children. Interesting approach? Overall it was a really good day and I am really a fan of Aukland. It is clean and right on the water. It is very overpriced, however, most of New Zealand seems to be.
