Sailing & Drinks

I woke up yesterday and rushed to get my clothes in the laundry. I finally finished using the washers and dryer at about 1 in the afternoon!!! Argh! I finally left, took the link bus to the "Britomart" station (which is right next to the harbour), and walked all the way out to the marina. I asked one of the girls that worked at the marina about putting my name on a list for learning how to sail/to be on one of the crews. She was really great and gave me a ton of information! She said I could go to any or all of the different yacht clubs and ask them, she gave me a list of websites to go to and then she told me to talk to a specific guy--Tony Smith--who is a yacht broker, because he takes a lot of people on his boat and knows a lot of people. Basically he's just well connected! Luckily, I found him and gave him my name and number and he said that they usually go out on Thursdays and Fridays but he knows other people so if they need some help, he'll give them my name!!! YAY! I just decided that I would give him my info for now and see how that goes before I through my name out there on some of the other lists. Apparently it's in between racing seasons right now so it's a little bit slower but I guess the next season will get going at the end of September or first part of October. I am soooooo stoked!



Then I walked back and decided to check out the Maritime museum that's right down on the warf. They had a bunch of little boats that they used to sail and a whole wall of motors/props! It was fun to walk through and check out all of the the old pictures and models of ships. I've been hearing alot about "America's Cup" which I guess is the big sailing race that's held maybe every two year or so. The last one was in San Diego I think, but they had it here in Auckland back in 2000! You should see the pictures of all the thousands or maybe millions of people right next to the harbour! CRAZY! Oh, also, the Rugby world cup begins today apparently in France or something but one of the final matches is further North in New Zealand (at the end of the month or something)! I guess New Zealand is one of the best teams...it comes down to NZ, France and the UK.



After the museum I was hungry and decided I wanted a drink (since it's Friday of course) so I looked at all the fun cafes and restaurants on the water where I could have an appetizer and beverage. My final choice was: "The Loaded Hog". I had one of their own beers (some golden ale that was okay) and some interesting nachos. The chips were seasoned like doritos, there was just a hunk of chicken breast on top and the guacamole was sweet! But I still ate it!!! It was really fun to sit and look at the harbour and the sun even came out for a little bit.

I finally left and decided to go back to the hostel and mabye just man up and ask someone if they wanted to get a drink (or more) at some pub with me since I was desperate for some conversation and a chance to sample the night life in Auckland. I grabbed a bottle of wine on the way back just in case I didn't make it out and for the next couple of nights.

When I got back I saw the new guy roommate that arrived the day before and talked to him for about the bottle of wine I brought back. A little while later he came back with our other new roommate and a bottle of wine in hand. He poured a glass and started to go outside to smoke so I just followed him out with my glass and bottle. His name is Johnny and he's from Northern England and he looks like that excellent young soccer player on the Manchester United team that played for England in the world cup last year...red hair...I think his last name is Rooney or something. Anyway, he's really funny and smiley and he wears an Indiana Jones-looking hat and a fanny pack!!!! Yes, it's classic. So I was only talking to him for awhile before this other girl that I had exchanged a few words with earlier, came outside to smoke and joined us. She ended up walking up the street and buying a bottle of wine and coming back to talk with us! Her name is Sam, and she's from Calgary (Canada). The other new roommate--Karina from Germany--joined us with a cup of tea since she doesn't like wine. Anyway, we all sat outside for quite some time and just drank wine and laughed about the cultural differences between us and New Zealand. I had a blast!

This morning I woke up and had originally planned to go to Waiheke Island (known for vineyards and great beaches) but decided I didn't really want to do that today. I decided I would just wander around the Ponsonby Road area again and maybe look at the help wanted signs in the cafes as well as find a fun cafe to watch some of the rugby matches. While I did find some places that were looking for help, I didn't find a cafe to watch rugby and instead found a little cafe that wasn't completely full of people and had a "flat white" coffee and a sausage and capiscum (peppers) roll. It was pretty good! The weather was a little bit warmer today without as much wind, so that was nice. I ran into Sam on Ponsonby Rd. and we decided to meet up later at one of the pubs in Parnell. Well, we ended up running into each other again like an hour later and decided to just wander around together. We looked at some of the vintage clothing shops because she was looking for a sweater and then we decided to find a pub and have a beer. We found one off of Queen Street that of course was Irish, and ordered a local NZ beer: Monthein's (I think that's it) Radler. Okay, so the guy told us this beer is made with lemon and lime and is REALLY good. It was AWESOME!!! I can't even tell you how good it was! So much better than the crap golden ale I had yesterday! If you ever get a chance to have a "Radler," do it! We also had some sweet potato fries and they had another name for sweet potatoes....something like "Kamara".

We left that place and started walking toward the warf area where I was yesterday and ended up at another Irish pub where we sat inside next to a fire!!! We had Monthein's Gold ale which was also incredible. This Monthein's or Manthein's brand is really good (FYI). We sat there for a long time enjoying the warmth and relaxing. We finally left and caught the link bus back to Parnell. Sam was craving something sweet so we went to this Chocolate Boutique and had a cup of coffee and dessert. My stomach feels really disgusting now since I haven't had anything healthy since breakfast...but the Chocolate Mud Cake was amazing!!! So now we're back at the hostel regrouping and just making it a low key night since Sam is leaving in the morning.

-Lisa