Shameless Tourism

Two Saturdays ago, I met up with Courtney Patterson (she's a friend from UNC for anyone who doesn't know her) who also happens to be traveling in New Zealand this summer. As much fun as it has been to get to know strangers, it was also fun to have a travel buddy to do all sorts touristy things with.

Waiheke

On that Wednesday we went to Waiheke, which is an island about 45 minutes out of Auckland by ferry. Luckily for us, the weather was gorgeous, so we spend most of the day in Oneroa, a little beach town near the wharf where the ferry dropped us off. We mostly just walked on the beach and took fun pictures, but we also spent some time walking around the town and eating a long lunch in the sun. One thing I've noticed about Kiwis (the people, not the birds or the fruit) is that they are much more likely to be unnecessarily nice to strangers and obvious foreigners. While Courtney and I sat at a bus stop looking at out map, this friendly guy walking by stopped to ask us if we knew where we were going (in a completely non-creepy kind of way). He was older, and wore worn pants, a long sleeved button up shirt, a vest that looked straight out of Jane Austin book, and a completely ridiculous hat. It was this tall purpleish velvet affair with a feather and some other decorations I couldn't see because we were sitting down and he was standing up, and the rim of the hat hid them from me. When we told him we were just going to wander around, he recommended a walk down Oneroa Beach, and then told us that there was a story-telling festival going on that weekend put on by a local shop owner who had just been to Japan and other places collecting fairy tails from all around the world, if we happened to be interested in coming back to Waiheke over the weekend. With that he said, "I'm a local artist and I wear funny hats. It was lovely to meet you girls," and ambled away up the hill. With that being the most memorable moment of the trip, there isn't much more for to say about Waiheke other than for me to put some of the pictures we took there, which will happen as soon as I've sorted out how to do pictures from these internet cafe computers.

Dinner with the Palmers

One of the professors Courtney interviewed, Dr. Palmer, very nicely invited her over to dinner at his house (and since she had mentioned that she was with a friend from school, I was invited as well). So After we got back from Waiheke we showered and changed and Dr. Palmer picked us up at our hostel for dinner. His wife had made us a New Zealand meal of lamb (what else?) and vegetables, with a desert called pavlova, which to be honest sounds kind of Russian. It turns out that the Palmers have traveled everywhere (well maybe not everywhere but it sure felt that way), so Courtney and I spent the evening listening to them talk about all the places they'd been and things we should do while we are young and easily able to travel about. If I wasn't filled with wanderlust, that dinner certainly would have gotten me interested.

Over the weekend Courtney and I went to Rotorua before she went off to Wellington and I head over to Australia. We finally saw all the sheep and cows we'd been promised were all over the New Zealand countryside, and we even got to spend an hour in a Kiwi hatchery! We also zorbed, which is basically rolling down a hill in giant ball filled with water, but I'll have to write about all of this later because I've got to go catch a bus to the airport and make my way to Melbourne!