Nomads Kitchen, for 300 guests!!
The acquisition of a car brought to my attention two important facts: Parking in Auckland is more fun than bashing your little toe on the corner of the skirting board; and Auckland drivers are simply diabolical! Seriously, I absolutely hated driving around the CBD of Auckland, and I learnt to drive in Italy! As for parking, well it’s a matter of how much you are prepared to spend. The cheapest solution I found, having moved hostels from the YHA to Nomads Fusion on Fort Street, bang in the middle of the CBD, was to leave the car in a car park on Beach Road, cost $7 per 24h. It’s a 15 minutes walk from my hostel and I had to get up every morning at 5:45 to renew the ticket by 6am, but the alternative would have been much more expensive.
Booze-crew
Thursday night I decided to celebrate the purchase of Betsy and joined a few Brazilian lads from my dorm on a pub crawl. There are many Brazilians here in Auckland, several others came out with us. The night was good fun but I sure regretted it the next morning, when I had to get up early to renew the parking ticket. As I walked out of the hostel the lads were just coming back! After several drinks in the familiar Irish pub, we ended up at in a club below the Base Backpackers. It’s not a pretty club to say the least, so I left at around three (which is pretty good going for and old boy like me… I think). I couldn’t find the rest of the booze-crew so I got back alone. I slept most of Friday only to get up and discover that the lads had organised another big booze-up for Guglielmo’s leaving party, and I had no choice but to join them…this is why I hate staying in big city hostels, you just can’t hide! I woke up Saturday morning almost as if Friday never existed. I had lots of photos on my camera, including a video of a very impressive street performer, dribbling a football. I’ll see if I can upload it.
