Susan's Travel Sagas

Arrived early AM, Sunday, 11/8. Shared the Super Shuttle with a woman from Berlin who works for Mozilla Firefox. Dropped off the big (50lb) bag and the little one and set out to explore. In Auckland, the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line, but a line with lots of ups and downs because the city is built on about 50 dormant volcanoes. My legs and my little puppies below were ready to die at the end of the day. So what did I do - walked the mile or so from the hotel to the Viaduct, Auckland's marina with restaurants and residences, changed some money, bought a sim card for New Zealand for the cell phone, had a late brunch (salmon and caper omelette) at Cafe Melba in the central business district and then walked through the University of Auckland to Parnell, a suburb. Found Le Cigale, an outdoor/indoor gourmet food market. While sampling hummus, the vendor spotted me as being Jewish and we started talking. Turns out she knows, at least by site, Dean Shapiro (for you Kol Ami readers.) Is it a small worlk? From there on to the large outdoor park, the Auckland Domain, and a visit to the Auckland Museum with interesting exhibits about the Maori and volcanoes, an ending exhibit about orchids (and how they mimic female wasps so the males attack them and spread their pollen), and then to the Wintergarden, a small conservatory. Met Betty and Joe Weber, nice Jewish couple for NJ who retired to NZ 8 years ago. We chatted for awhile. They invited me to dinner later in the trip, but I wasn't sure that would work with my schedule. Walked back to the hotel, checked in. After a brief rest walked to Posonby, suburb to the east for a very good dinner at SPQR (chicken salad with goat cheese and pomegranate dressing.) Then the very tired legs supported by puppies with blisters got me back to the hotel for some sleep. The hotel , a step up from the backpackers, simple and basic, but met my needs except for very limited internet access.