Sunday, October 23, 2005

Auckland Day 2

So the flight went smooth and I slept fine and didn't suffer any jetlag.

Qantas has a great inflight entertainment system replete with tons of movie choices, video games and music. The cutlery for the meals was one metal spoon, one metal fork and a plastic knife, but I'd much rather be stabbed by a blunt metal butter knife than a four pronged fork.

Pixagogo direct photo link

There are tons of Toyota Previas here. I saw a gas-electric hybrid bus which was pretty cool. Despite this fact, the emission standards seem to be pretty low compared to the US. The exhaust fume smells are often reminiscent of the ones in South America (very poor emission standards there.)

Pixagogo direct photo link

Tomorrow I meet up with Eva in Hobbiton and I may get a free tour of the Shire! Which I heard is like $50 otherwise. So danke bitte shonnes, Eva! Kind of exciting that I kick off the NZ adventure visiting one of the things that was high on my list when I was thinking of coming to NZ.

Pixagogo direct photo link

The city tour today was pretty cool. It's been beautiful days yesterday and today and I was told it was pretty miserable before yesterday. We visited some extinct volcanoes but there is really very little evidence that they were volcanoes. Just small green hills really. There were some tunnels that went into the side of the hill that were kinda cool. Stay tuned for pics if I ever figure out how to upload pics online.

Pixagogo direct photo link

I am a bit bummed at not having made any friends yet. No good reason for it I'm afraid. Met many young people, most of whom are travelling with someone else. Quite a few people from England at my hostel. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring was playing last night in the hostel, albeit with commercials. Was playing on a big TV in the internet room. Slept through most of it tho, but it was still fun watching.

I fell in love with this tree:

Pixagogo direct photo link

This is the still not so intrepid Dr. Root signing out.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Daniel Schmolze said...

Glad to see you arrived without incident and that you're keeping diligent with your blog updating duties. I wouldn't worry about not meeting people after one day there - you're travelling for three months, you *will* make friends whether you like it or not.

I moved in to Seekonk yesterday, and last night we all went to see Maya perform at The Dreamaway Lodge up in Becket. Now I need to go buy a wireless network card so I can write those damn secondaries. Take care man.