Auckland!

I arrived in Auckland after 3 long flights and 30 odd hours of travel at 6am to find out that check-in would not start until 1. After so much hurry-up and wait, punctuated by turbulance, I was just happy to be sitting somewhere. I stowed my luggage and set out to explore Queen Street, the main drag of Auckland city.

Here is a picture of the harbor at the bottom of Queen Street where the ferries leave for the Hauraki Gulf Islands. There are four islands outside of Auckland. I'm going to try to visit them in the next few weekends.

I had been so excited to to get out of Christmasland (any given square-inch of the USA) where green and red deck halls and more. Ironically, the Sunday that I arrived the streets of Auckland were closed down for the annual Santa parade, which wouldn't be complete without hoky Christmas jingles and a three story papier-mache Santa posted up on the side of a building accross the street from my hostel. Santa had a motorized finger that wagged backa and forth, and a motorized eye that used to wink. But since the wink motor was broken, Santa's eye was stuck mid-wink, making the other bug out by comparison. So this weird giant Santa was staring down over thousands of people giving the stink eye. It was pretty hilarious and I didn't even care about the fact that I was expecting a nicely toned down Christmas display and got that instead.

There were a lot of non-Christmas parts of the parade. It started almost like a cultural parade with different international clubs from Auckland walking down the street in costumes and playing instruments. Then the second half was school clubs and cartoon floats. There were a lot of little kids who had a lot of fun, and it was great to see a lot more people out and about than normal, so I got to get more of a sense of "who" Auckland is this way.

The next day I went to the IEP (International Exchange Programs, BUNAC's affiliate organization in New Zealand) office for orientation. There were only 4 other people there, from Canada, the Netherlands, USA, and England. Most of the people that I have been meeting are European. Lots of people from the UK, lots of Dutch, Germans, and lots of Asians. Most of the Asians though are either just on holiday, or just working, but not both, unlike most of the Europeans (and me). It is a realling interesting and diverse crowd of people.

Initial impressions:

*Crossing the street in Auckland is a delicate art. People do NOT j-walk (if they value their lives). I swear that I have seen drivers speed up and try to hit people trying to take their right of way away. At least they honk when they try to hit you, as if to warn you. When you want to cross the street you have to wait a long time while people accumulate at the corner and then all the traffic stops and you cross to the corner you want, so you can cross diagonally.

*It is perfectly acceptable to walk down the street, even Queen Street, in your bare feet. Some people that I've seen haven't even been holding shoes in their hands.

*Food is served extra hot here (temperature-wise). I had blisters on the roof of my mouth the first day!

*As far as I can tell, the water does not swirl backwards when you flush.

*The combination of planes and elevators gave me some pretty bad vertigo the first couple days.

*There is every kind of Asian cuisine that your heart could ever desire in Auckland. And it's pretty tasty, so far.

Sarah