Spring Break - Auckland, New Zealand

Now that my New Zealand trip already ended about three weeks ago, I have FINALLY found the time to write a post about it! Things have been crazy busy with traveling and even with homework. I've been trying to avoid the "study" in study abroad for as long as possible but it's come to that point where I actually need to do work. But I have finally written it and now it's time for you to read about my journey to Auckland!

I'm proud to say that I successful survived one week in a foreign country without a tour guide! That includes booking flights, a hostel, AND all the touristy attractions that we did! Basically I can do anything now. Despite all the illnesses that I was forced to battle, it was a great week! Don't worry, I'll get in to that in a bit! 

On Sunday, April 8th we headed off to the airport for our first time since we arrived here in Sydney. It was definitely weird to be back in the international terminal again. Ohhhh memories. The feelings were very different this time around.

So lemme tell you about some of the things that we got to see and do in Auckland!

First off, Auckland is New Zealand's capitol and is located on the north island! It was so weird traveling to a new country with just a 3 hour flight considering my flight to Israel was 10+ and the flight to Sydney was over 15! Auckland is also the largest and most populous urban area in New Zealand with 1,377,200 residents, 31 percent of the country's population! Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world. The Polynesian people here are known as the Maori and their culture seems really neat - full of singing, dancing, and interesting facial tattoos!

Since we weren't landing in Auckland till 1 am, our hostel said we couldn't check in because no one would be there. Welcome to sleeping at the airport. We found some cushioned benches and sort of slept for a couple hours except the airport was freezing so we were shivering all night. We finally had a decent sleep from around 6 am till 11ish and then we hopped on a bus and headed in to the city!

Our bed for the night... awkkkkward. 

We stayed at Silverfern Backpackers which is a new hostel in Auckland. It was really nice and super clean. The kitchen was huge and our rooms and bathrooms weren't bad either! Having such a great kitchen was awesome because it saved us a lot of money on food! We cooked pasta almost every night and by the end of the week I almost hated noodles, if you can even believe that. The hostel also had free toast and cereal every morning for breakfast so we definitely took advantage of that! We had two roommates from Germany and they probably now think that Americans are freaks considering MK and I were legit passed out for bed by 7 pm our first night in the room. Oops!

Bunk bed livin'

While in Auckland we did a lot of different things so I guess it'll be easiest if I just go through what we did! 

Jersey Boys & Froyo!

After a long first day walking around the city we purchased tickets to see Jersey Boys at the Civic Theater. Before the show we decided to get froyo at a place that looked so much like Pinkberry and smelt so much like it too. Unfortunately the options weren't nearly as plentiful. However, it was still a delicious snack! Jersey Boys was awesome! The music was great and it was nice to have some America in our lives for the night. I also hadn't been to a musical in so long so it was much needed! Agh, the music was so fantastic. I just wanted to get up and dance the entire time. 

Auckland Museum

MK and I decided to go to the Auckland Museum to get a taste of the Maori culture. We learned that they say "Kia Ora" which means hello! This museum was HUGE. I'm still not sure how we managed to tackle the entire thing. Floors upon floors of amazing exhibits about anything you could imagine! There were rooms about musical instruments, volcanos, dinosaurs (my fav), bugs (ew), the water, and tens more. There was even a really small room about the Holocaust which I wasn't expecting! There were a bunch of survivor stories from people who migrated to New Zealand after the Holocaust. I have never even thought about this before so it was really neat to read about how these people ended up here and why. Learn something new everyday! We bought tickets to see the cultural performance which included a lot of singing and dancing. Unfortunately towards the end of our visit I was starting to feel super achy but I was trying to ignore it and blame it on the rain. Over the next few hours it just got worse and next thing I know I had a fever and was feeling AWFUL. Since our night time plans had to be cancelled, we decided to see Hunger Games at the cinema near our hostel which was pretty neat. I then had the worst sleep of my light. A fever + hostel = No fun! 

Art Gallery

The next day I still was feeling pretty awful but it was hard making myself stay in on our spring break. We walked around a bit and ended up at the Auckland Art Gallery. The building was so neat looking and just like the museum there was a ton of stuff to look at. There were a few pieces I really liked and I wrote their names down but can't seem to locate them on the internet right now. Our connection has been AWFUL the past few days, as a side note.

Stardome Observatory

After our day at the art gallery we took a bus a little ways out of the city to the Stardome Observatory. Here they have a lot of displays about space and planets. We saw a presentation about the Autumn night sky and learned a lot about constellations. Because NZ is located in such a different part of the world in comparison to America, the constellations they see and how they see them is different so that was neat to hear about. Normally there is also a telescope viewing but it was too cloudy. :( 

Devonport

The next day we walked down to the Ferry Building and caught a ferry to a small town called Devonport. It is a harbourside suburb of Auckland and is located on the North Shore. It was such a cute little town. We walked around a bit and then had such a delicious lunch at this small cafe followed by some delicious pear and chocolate gelato. There are also three volcanoes that originated on Devonport included Mount Victoria, North Head and Mount Cambria (which isn't really much of anything anymore). 

Kelly Tarlton's

So we got picked up to go to Kelly Tarlton's in this super sweet shuttle. Once we were there we saw a TON of penguins. There was this car ride thing that took you through where all the penguins stay. The entire place is located underground. When you left there was a great view of the city by the water and it was so windy. It made me miss Chicago and totally reminded me of the area of the museum campus where you can see the skyline. Man, I miss that city! But the penguins were cute and there was even a sale on shot glasses here sooooo....*cough*Jen*cough*. 

Wine Tour

Best day of the trip for sure!! We did a "Wine & Waterfalls" tour and it was sooo fantastic. Our day started bright and early when we were picked up by John, our tour guide. He was fantastic and a great photographer. We have him to thank for all the photos of the two of us, haah! We drove a bit out of the city to a really great lookout point. There was also a rainforest at this stop so we got to walk through that! After this we headed to a black sand beach which was on the Tasman sea. This place was crazy and looked like a set from a movie. The water was warm and the sand was so soft. It was seriously so neat. The sand is also magnetic. Yep, my mind was blown too. So neat. Sooo go find yourself a black sand beach. After the black sand beach we went to look at a waterfall! I'm not sure if i've ever seen a real waterfall so this was pretty neat as well. I guess some people get married in front of this waterfall. Such a good idea. Next we headed to our first wine tasting which was at Soljans Estate Winery. I think we tried 10 different types of wine at each wine tasting. A LOT of wine. This was also our location for our included lunch which was also one of the most delicious meals ever. I had such a delicious order of fish and chips which accompanied another glass of wine. Look below at a picture of our table. It looked so legit. After lunch the 'wine' part of the tour picked up. The tour is only supposed to include 4 wineries but since we told John how much we love Rose, he decided to add a 5th winery and take us to a guy who only makes Rose wine. The next winery was called Nobilo Winery which was pretty cute but probably my least favorite visually. Next was Matua Valley which was SO CUTE. It was this cute little white house which hard wood floors instead and the lighting was just perfect. I loved the atmosphere of this place. Next we went to the vineyard that only had Rose wine. It was a fairly old man and all his grapes and the tiniest place but again, very cute. Off to our last winery and probably the most beautiful one... maybe. The lady who conducted our tasting was so fantastically nice. This place was called Westbrook. By this point I was slightly "wined" out but I didn't let it stop me from tasting some of the best wine of the entire day. My favorite discovery was the Late Harvest wine which is pretty sweet... like a dessert wine. It reminded me of the ice wine I tried on my Israel wine tasting. By the end of this long day we were ready to hop in the van and nap off our tipsy-ness on our drive back to Auckland. 

Lookout point!

Rainforest!

Black sand beach!

Waterfall! 

The best lunch ever

Ice Bar

After a long few days of not feeling good at all, I was finally up to going out. We went out for a bit and then decided to go to an Ice Bar which was THE COOLEST THING. Basically you're in this bar made entirely of ice... seats, walls, the cups you drink out of... SO COOL. Literally. We were in there for a pretty long time. Luckily they supply you with coats and gloves! If you ever have the chance to go to one you definitely should. Inside there was a darts board, air hockey and other stuff to keep you occupied and distracted from the fact that you are getting hypothermia. It's not a large place so it was only us and then a small group of guys and the workers and we actually all had a lot of fun together. 

Mt. Eden

On our last day in Auckland we decided to climb up to the top of Mt. Eden. It was a beautiful view from up here. We were literally up here for hours moving from bench to bench for different views. Honestly, this happened so long ago that I can't even remember what else happened up here... hahaha. There was a HUGE crater though and the picture does not even begin to capture how large it is. 

I'm sure this post would have been a lot better if I wrote it right after the trip ended but things are literally so busy here. It's hard to make myself sit down and write when I can be out exploring. However, I do really want to remember this entire experience and writing the blog will be helpful in that. There was already so much that I forgot happened in New Zealand. A few other things I'll add about our trip is that there was a Dunkin Donuts in Auckland. I died. However, there was no ICE COFFEE. WHAT!?!! So I had a frozen ice coffee and munchkins. So perfect. There was also a Wendy's that different have Frosties... not okay. And if you can believe it, by the end of this trip I never wanted to eat pasta again. We made noodles almost every night in the hostel which was great for our wallets but very annoying for our taste buds after a while. However, now I'm back to normal and lovin' pasta like I always have!

I think this wraps up my NZ post. We were in Auckland from the 9th-16th of April and it's already May 9th. This means I have a few more posts to write about stuff that has happened since then!

Expect a post about our weekend trip to Melbourne soon as well as my visit to the concert hall at the Sydney Opera House for a symphony, my very first ANZAC day and rugby game and some other exciting stuff that's been happening in Sydney!

Love and miss you all!