First week in New Zealand

Well I've already been here in NZ for a week now, and time has been flying by! It's been a pretty busy week. My first day in Auckland I met up with my buddy Patrick who I worked with when I was in Australia back in March '07. He's been here in Auckland pretty much since then and it was nice to go to a new city and know someone who lives here. He picked me up from downtown about an hour after I checked into my hostel and grabbed a few beers then went back to his place. From there the night got a bit out of hand... What was supposed to be a few catch up beers on a Monday night turned into drinking games doing shots of whiskey with his roommates haha. Patrick made an effort to go to work the next morning, but ended up coming right back home... and promptly made the rest of us do another shot of whiskey. I feel sick thinking about that.

The next day I didn't (read: couldn't) do too much of anything. Partly because it was raining and I had no idea where I was in the city. Eventually I found a map and walked back downtown to the hostel and did a little bit of exploring. That's pretty much all I did for the next few days, got my cell working, then just explored the city and checked out the hundreds of activities you can do all over NZ.

On Friday at 6 in the morning Terra flew into Auckland from Canada! She was planning on coming to NZ a few months down the road, but I guess somehow she knew that it was going to get insanely cold in Sask and came a bit earlier (-40 in Dec?? are you kidding me!). She thought the weather was great at +22 and cloudy. I am still getting used to it... I came from +35 and humid everyday in Thailand and it still feels cool to me. Terra's flight took 16hours from Vancouver and obviously a bit tiring, but she couldn't check into the hostel until 1pm. We ended up wandering around the harbour for a few hours snapping a bunch of pictures. We even came across Patrick's work and met up with him on one of his coffee breaks. After that Terra was able to check in and took a 4hour nap. The rest of the night we took it easy and just caught a movie at the Imax down the road.

Saturday afternoon we met up with Patrick and a few of his friends - Mike from South Africa, and Aaron (aka Moose) from NZ at a pool hall. After playing pool for a bit we headed off to Cornwall Park for a BBQ. It was a few of their Brazilian friends birthday party and they were throwing a huge bbq in this beautiful park. Now this was how you barbeque! We got there just after 2pm and they didn't stop cooking meat until 8pm when the sun went down! There was good music, dancing and some really nice people. There were a few guys manning the grill, and when a steak or sausage was done they tossed it up on the cutting board, chopped it all up and everyone would help themselves to the meat. It was great! They had all the meats of the rainbow, lamb, steak, pork, and I even ate a chicken heart! Try it once, but I wouldn't make it a weekly dish.

We had food and a few beers until just after 5pm. Me and Terra had lined up a few flats to go check out so we didn't have to stay in a hostel over xmas and new years. Aaron (Moose that is) offered to drive us back to the city and find these places. He was from Auckland and had a GPS system that took us right to these places in no time... also because he drives like a race car driver haha. These places we looked at were fairly sketchy, more than we had anticipated. The first one had basically a mattress on the floor and smelled a bit off. The second one was worse, the toilet was so tiny I'm not sure how you would shut the door if a person was in there! Plus to get to the shower you had to go out to the backyard then go under the house to this room with a tree in it... um ya. So as we were looking at these places Aaron was with us and was just as disgusted as us. He said that he had a spare bed at his place and we were welcome to stay there if we wanted. So he took us by his place to show us. I was in heaven, he has my dream pad haha! Its a really nice place with all the toys a geek like me dreams of. Big plasma TV, a huge surround sound system, dvd, playstation 3, a media center PC and some big comfy chairs and couches. All the goodies you could ever want. So it was either Aaron's pad, or the dungeon shower to choose from. hmmmmmm. Aaron just had to clear it with his room mate Jason before we could get the OK for everything.

After the flat decision was sorted out Aaron gave us a quick tour of the area and a few other places around Auckland. He was really helpful and had tons of great info for things to see and do all over NZ. We really lucked out meeting him! We went back to the BBQ in the park and had some more food and drinks for a few more hours.

Later that night Patrick, Mike, Aaron, Terra and me went down for drinks at a few pubs in Viaduct Harbour - basically downtown Auckland. It was so different at night, and very pretty and lively! We went to an Irish pub that had a live band playing all the classics. It was a good night, and as usual got a bit out of hand again. Patrick jumped in this circle of girls dressed up for an 80's party popped his collar and busted a few moves. It was another great night out, and a good welcome for Terra I think.

Sunday afternoon me and Terra met up with Aaron again so we could meet his roommate Jason. They took us down along the water front to a cool coffee shop in Mission Bay. We all got along great! Jason is a snowboarder too, so we chatted about that for a while and might even head for the slopes one of these weekends! Monday morning we checked out of the hostel and grabbed the train to our new pad at Aaron and Jason's! The next thing on the agenda is going to be getting the CV (resume) out there and find a job!

I'll let you know how that goes on the next update! I just added a bunch of pics of new zealand to the photo album too, if anyone wants to see more. I'll try and add some video's soon too!

I hope everyone back home is having a good Xmas season, I am a bit jealous of the snow I admit. It doesn't feel quite like Christmas without the white stuff around. Plus I really wanted to go to the Shaw staff xmas party, they never disappoint. So someone let me know how that goes! Oh and I am accepting any Christmas baking anyone wants to send this way! please?!?! ; )

Bye bye for now!

Nate.