After my morning routine of getting up as quietly as possible as not to wake my dormmates, pressing the shower button every 20 seconds until I'm clean and waiting 10 minutes for two bits of bread to toast under the grill, I recieved a phone call from my uncle Alberto asking if I was going to be free for the day so we could catch up. He was already heading into Auckland as he had two friends over visiting him, Alex and Suhaimi.
It was strange seeing another family member here in New Zealand but nice to see a familiar face. After being picked up we headed over to Ponsonby, a suburb outside of the center of Auckland. It was a pretty busy as there was some show/festival type thing on and the cafes that lined the streets looked pretty packed. Luckily Berend and his son were already at the cafe saving us some seats!
After some of the nicest lasagne I've ever tasted followed by some pretty damn tastey banana cake (not as good as Jims), we all headed over to Aucklands oldest park; domain. We looked round the winter garden, where there were some pretty insane aubergines, then the hot house, where there were some pretty insane venus fly traps, then the fern bit, where there were some pretty insane.. ferns.
Auckland Muesuem happens to be just across from the park so after our wander round we decided we would head over there. I'm not normaly one for museums but some of the Maori stuff in there was cool. There were some bad ass spears. Our visit was cut short as it was museum closing time so Alberto dropped me back off at the hostel.
It was a nice day and good to catch up with Alberto. If I'm still in Auckland on Monday night then he and his friends are heading to the revolving resturaunt in the Sky Tower and I've been invited along. I also said that I would make sure I took a trip up to his place while I'm in New Zealand.
Unfortunatley for me, the IEP center is shut for the weekend otherwise I would have been leaving Auckland for Paihia tomorrow morning. I really want to get up there and start working asap so that I'm not sitting around bored and so that I can earn some money! I'll head over first thing on Monday and book my bus then I should be able to travel up on Tuesday morning. Sweet as bro.
