Auckland
5.30pm Get out of bed. Feel crappy, must get up for Priority number 1.
The thing I've thought about doing most since I changed the date on my flights. Book my tickets for The Matrix Reloaded!
Mission Accomplished, I have a ticket booked for the midnight MEGA Screen showing at the Hoyt cinema down the road on Thursday Night/Friday Morning at 0001.
Anyway, where am I? Oh yeah. New Zealand has a lot to live up to after Oz. Sitting in the shuttle from the airport, dropping people off in the various suburbs, it struck me how much this place looks like England. The clouds are the same, as are the roads and the buildings and the omnipresent drizzle. STOP WHINGING. I had a great time in Oz. I followed the summer, did some fantastic things and now im in a new place. And its almost winter...
I arrived at the ACB (Auckland Central Backpackers) in the centre of town at about 8am. I had to hang around 'till 1100 before they could start allocating dorms. Not good as I had very little sleep on the plane and the time difference means I had longer to wait until night came round again. Just off Queen St, (Auckland's equivalent of Oxford St) the place seemed bigger and not as relaxed as the Underground at Northbridge (STOP IT!) it suddenly struck me I had no one talk too. I slept in the foyer for a bit, then waited for ages for my sheets for my bed. I finally got a few hours kip at about 2.30pm.
After booking The Matrix I wandered around town for a bit, got some dinner and went back to the hostel. I was in bed again by midnight.
Day 2
I managed to get woken up by one of the blokes in the room i'd been chatting to the night before saying "I don't beleive it! He's still asleep!" It was 2pm and I'd just had 14hrs sleep... Stupid Jetlag.
I figured I'd do something constructive with what was left of my day so I visited the Sky West Tower.
The 'Walk of Faith' slightly higher than the one at Blackpool...
While I was up there I found a cool thing you can do...
(Just for a reference, that point at which he's at here is the height at the top of the BT Tower.)
It's not quite a bungee, rather a variation on the system Hollywood uses to make it look like people have just fallen off a building. As my feet were tingling with vertigo being that high up anyway, guess what I'm gonna be spending the next couple of days persuading myself I can do??
But you can't tell my dad yet if you see him. He hates heights and doesn't want to know if I do anything like that until I've done it. And Survived.
Which raises an interesting point.. If I don't survive, would someone mind ghost writing the site for a bit? Just until Mum finds a nice way to tell him...
You get good perks with the job;
You get to travel (I wouldn't be using my ticket)
People who you don't know would send you emails saying they like what you're doing
You'd meet lots of interesting people
Jump off tall buildings...
I ended up in the bar downstairs that night with the blokes from the dorm. I only spent my free beer (wine or cider) vouchers (which I got for being a good boy and waiting patiently for the sheets yesterday, and for going to the 'Kiwi Experience' talk). This is good, as I've promised myself I'm going to stop drinking in favour of doing lots of tours and scaring myself silly by jumping off lots of tall things (which NZ seems to be very much geared up for.)
When I get over my jetlag and start meeting some new people. I reckon I'll like it here.