Well my exams went off okay, and after spending several weeks waiting for my Spanish exam to come and go I headed up to Auckland to stay with two of my friends. They're a lot more casual about flights here than in the States. I was waaay early for my flight to Auckland. I arrived at the airport about an hour before my flight was to depart, but most of the other passengers didn't start filtering in until about 10 minutes before departure. I knew I was going to be comparatively early but I didn't expect to be the only one in the gate area and to be asked what I was doing there! The flight to Auckland takes about 45 minutes, and my friends Jess and Danielle picked me up at the airport. That day, Thursday, we walked around the suburb of Auckland where they live, Devonport. Auckland is a massive sprawling city of about 1 million people. The group of suburbs (including Devonport) referred to as the north shore is part of a peninsula across the bay from the CBD. Anyway, Devonport is quite a pretty place with lots of old houses, small beaches, and several large dormant volcanic cones that allow you to look out on the cityscape and the ocean.
That night we took the ferry across to the city, wandered through Auckland a bit, and ate dinner in the rotating restaurant at the top of the Sky Tower (at 328 meters or 1076 feet it's about twice the height of Seattle's Space Needle and half of Toronto's CN Tower and is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere) in celebration of Jess' birthday. The view was very impressive.
I actually spent most of my time in Devonport hanging out with my friends and their friends and families. It was, overall, a lovely relaxed kind of trip. I'm back in Wellington now and I have a few days before classes start again on Monday. Next semester I'll be taking another psyc class, an English one, the philosophy of Art, and Spanish once again. I also need to look for a job . . .
Some fun kiwi words for you:
gutted -"I was so gutted when we lost the Americas Cup." =disappointed, laid low
and my personal favorite:
the wop wops -"They went out to the wop wops a few days ago and haven't been seen since." =the middle of nowhere, the countryside
until next time
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