Auckland, New Zealand, Baby!

Just so everyone if fully aware- this photo totally validates my whole trip to New Zealand. But we'll talk about this more later :) Anyway, I don't even know where to begin with this post. As everyone knows I spent the last 5 days in Auckland and this is how the trip broke down: first 3 days = TERRIBLE. Last 2 days = UNBELIEVABLE! For 3 full days ALL we saw was rain. We couldn't even leave the hostel. This is a photo from the NZ airport window. It poured. I truly thought our whole trip was a bust.

K, let's back-track. I went with 2 girls I know from Newcastle and we had this huge day-by-day complicated game plan of how we were going to fit everything in. We VERY quickly realized that wasn't going to work due to the weather. Once it finally stopped raining, we all had different ideas on how to spend our last 2 days, so we split up for most of it.

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Anyway, on the flight from Sydney to Auckland I got to the airport WAAAAAY too early. Although checking in before everyone else DID give me the right to chose my seat....in the 3rd row :)

See all of these envelopes? That's how many letters home I wrote during the rainy days I spent in the hostel! My hand was numb after about the 5th letter.

One weird thing in New Zealand was that they had "dirty syringe" disposal bins everywhere! And I swear, you could get high just from walking the streets downtown. Marijuana was everywhere and openly being used all over public places. So weird.

New Zealand money!!!

So I decided to join my friends in this trip after they had already booked everything for themselves. When we got to our hostel to check in, they were assigned to one room and there wasn't room for me. Sounds bad, right? WRONG. I had a whole entire (8-bed) hostel to myself for the week...for no extra cost. The girls slept over one night, but I took turns trying out a different bed each night. It was great!

Besides the great room, the hostel was wonderful! There was a roof top hang out deck area. It had a wonderful view of the city, a hot tub, a sauna and tons of picnic tables. I loved it up there!
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One funny thing about the hostel though was their "free dinners" that they advertise. That was one of the main reasons we chose to stay there, but let me just tell you... when we saw the free "dinner" I literally laughed out loud. I thought the bar tender was joking. The first night we had, NOT EXAGGERATING, 12 grains of rice with 3 beans on top. It was served in a bowl the size of a shot glass. If you payed them 5 bucks you could "upgrade" to a regular sized meal. It was SUCH a joke, but we got a lot of good laughs out of it.
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After dinner the 1st night I entered a free pool contest! I'm proud to say that I was the only girl (...and the first one eliminated, but that's besides the point)!
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This was the view from my hostel window at night- some kind of cool blue thing....?

One day for lunch we payed $18 bucks to go to the top of the Sky Tower. Once we got up there, the rain had started up again and we couldn't see ANYTHING outside of the windows. We were literally in a cloud. Such a waste of money...

This is a picture I took of the city this morning (from the bridge), but I'm putting it here to show you how big the Sky Tower actually is!

As I'm sure most of you know, New Zealanders are often called "Kiwi's." It's their national bird and they're CRAZY about them. They have these huge 8-10 foot statues of kiwi birds all around town. Little creepy if you ask me...

The Ferry Building right off the harbour.

Alright has anyone ever been to this Minus 5 ice bar? We went and checked it out. Don't get me wrong, it was really cool but you had to pay $30 bucks just to get in AND you couldn't take any pictures. If you wanted a photo, you had to buy theirs which were about $25 dollars a shot. And it was a lot smaller than I had imagined inside. I came back this morning and snapped a picture of the outside and ran away. Ha!

Even though it was pouring rain all day, I went on a walking tour with a group from my hostel. Our guide took us through these BEAUTIFUL parks in Auckland. Seriously, they make parks in the states look terrible. Ha ha. In the first park we saw this waterfall, which was one of many.
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OH! And please let me just add in the fact that our TOUR GUIDE was pointing out plants as we walked through the parks that could get you high, and explained how to smoke them all. Weeeeeelcome to Auckland, folks.

After the parks we walked to the Auckland National History Museum. Doesn't it remind you of the White House? Maybe it's just me, I don't know. It cost us $10 bucks to get in but I thought it would be neat. Boy was I mistaking...we were in that museum for FOUR AND A HALF HOURS listening to this retired 71-year-old lady tell us every blessed detail about every single thing being displayed. My feet hated me afterwards.

The dinosaur exhibit was pretty cool though! This thing was HUGE!

After the museum we kept walking and went over to the Flower Gardens (still in the rain mind you).

And that was pretty, blah blah blah (is anyone still reading this? Probably not) But the real fun started this morning when I BUNGY JUMPED OFF THE AUCKLAND HARBOUR BRIDGE!!!!! Biggest adrenaline rush I've ever had.

This was me before I looked over the edge! That smile (literally) turned to tears when it was my turn to jump! I was planning to put the video online but I really don't want 100 people seeing me cry and panic and FREAK out. Hahah, sorry guys!

Anyway, I jumped twice after a lot of convincing. These next few pictures are in no correct order, they're just some my favorites:

I have a million more if anyone wants to see them later. But yeah- that's that! It was incredible! I know it sounds cheesy, but jumping off that bridge made me feel truly alive, for the first time in a while.

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I'm not posting pictures of it, but the night life in New Zealand was C-R-A-Z-Y!!!! But so, so, so much fun!! We had a BLAST going out each night we were there!! It was unlike anything I've ever experienced before, I miss it already!!

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New Subject: I found out this week that my best friend, Anthony is flying out to Chicago with us for my dad and Betty's wedding! We'll be in town from August 12th-August 22nd! Should be a BLAST!

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That's all I have to share for now! It's really late here. I love you guys and miss you SOOOO much. Can't wait to be back in the states in 3 weeks!
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Sending love from OZ,

LP
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P.S. Andrew Price- I saw this when I was there and it reminded me of your USCGA pictures with you on the sail boat mast (is that what it's even called)? Whatever. Thought you'd like to see it :)