Autumn in Auckland

I wrote this post on Sunday, but had no internet so here it is now.

We're getting really good at this whole waiting thing. On Saturday, we left the hostel in Sydney just after 9 and took the train, which was luckily right across the street, to the airport. After waiting in lines to check in, we learnt that our flight was delayed due to maintenance and instead of leaving at 12:15 we would be leaving at 4. However, they gave us vouchers for food, we had a bottle of baileys, there were comfy chairs and free wifi so we couldn't have been happier! We passed the hours eating sundaes with baileys, people watching, wandering the stores, trying to identify where everyone is from based on their accents and of course me freaking out about my visa and come up with countless reasons as to way they would not let me into their country. But more on that later. We took off shortly after 4:30 and by 11 NZ time we had collected our baggage, cleared customs and immigration and taken a taxi to our hostel. Sunday morning got off to a slow start but we finally ventured downtown and decided to embrace NZ culture by going to Dennys! We weren't feeling like the most adventurous tourists out there. We wandered around downtown and explored a grocery store and then took a ferry (We LOVE ferries!) to the little town of Devenport, which we really liked! Its so cute and quant and there was a beautiful yarn store that gave me so many ideas for different toques! We walked up "Mt." Victoria  (We aren't too sure why its called a mountain as we've seen bigger ant hills) and enjoyed the view of the city sprawled out below. We thought that we could be a little more adventurous and walk down the wet grass instead of the road like everyone else. After a couple falls/rolls we made it to the road with a group of people watching and laughing at us. At least we provided entertainment for someone! After that we took the ferry back to the city center and bought some laundry detergent for our newly muddied clothes. This evening we made friends with the people in our dorm and went down to the lounge to play cards and make more friends. 

Tomorrow we are off to Waitomo to the Glow Caves. We're loving life so much these days.