End of my first full day in Auckland - around 10 p.m. Sunday night (5 a.m. Houston). Today was a more relaxed day, walking around central Auckland and hanging out with Bo Bo from NZ study abroad circa 2004 for a few hours. (Thanks for the coffee!) Was able to figure out my way walking around Auckland within a few hours. As far as picturesque harbour cities go, Auckland definitely is no Sydney, but it feels a lot more comfortable to walk around. I got all giddy when I remembered where something was based on the couple of days I stayed here 5 years ago.
So everything in my hotel uses the $2 coin here - which is basically as important as the quarter is in the U.S. for vending machines and whatever. But there are no change machines here to turn bills into $2 coins (which is monetarily equivalent to a little more than $1 USD). So I started out my day managing my bills to get as many $2 coins as possible, but then I figured out an easier way was to gamble. There's a huge casino in town near the Sky Tower - the highest building in the Southern Hemisphere. So I sat down at a slot machine, put in $5 or $10, and cashed out once I hit an even number since the machine paid out in $2. Not a bad way to do things!
Then at night I went to go see Star Trek in IMAX. I'm not a geek. It's just that it was 6:30 p.m., and naturally everything else was closed (since it is New Zealand after all); also it was raining and this was going to be my last taste of big-city life. And I figured I'd embed myself within the kiwis. (Also I'm a geek).
Tomorrow I'm doing a day trip (via Grayline bus) from here to the Waitomo Caves for some blackwater cave rafting - the Black Abyss trip. And yes, it is EXACTLY what it sounds like (http://www.waitomo.com/caving-adventure.aspx). I was debating staying in Auckland another day because I wanted to book a seat on a real sailing yacht (it is the "City of Sails" after all), but it looks like nothing but rain for the next few days, and I'm on a tight schedule so I had to give that up. Now it seems like even 2 weeks in New Zealand isn't enough! And of course Bo Bo had to go tell me he gets 4-5 weeks of vacation a year! If I ever run my own company, I'm giving my employees at least 3 weeks off a year.
