What a night!

Alright so now it's 7:30pm on Thursday night and I just re-read my last entry...things have definitely changed! I went back to the hostel to make some dinner last night and ended up meeting a couple of great people. Beate (pronounced Bee-ah-teh) is a German girl, 21, who is here on a year holiday working visa as well. She's super sweet and we have become fast friends! Chris is also German and he's here for a few months just travelling around. All 3 of us really wanted to go grab a drink or two so I was super excited to experience a little night life in Auckland (finally!!!!!)!

I spruced up my outfit a bit...maybe added some eyeshadow and cute shoes, which is a lot considering I'm an official "backpacker". We just started walking down Ponsonby Road until we came upon a bar that we all agreed on: The Crib. Well there were only a couple of other people in the Crib because it was a Wednesday night at about 8pm, but we were able to make friends with the bartender...or rather, I was able to make friends with the Brazilian bartender because the Germans are a bit too shy. I was finally able to have a vodka tonic (my fav drink) and we ended up staying about an hour or so in the bar. We were about ready to leave when I saw them setting up for something so I asked what they were up to and surprise! They were having a live Brazilian band playing later!!! The bartender said it would get good an busy at about 11pm so we told him we'd come back. I'm pretty sure all of you know this, but I absolutely LOVE live music!

Then we walked next door, but wait! I quickly have to tell you about my 2nd drink: Feijoa flavored 42Below Vodka and apple juice...amazing! Feijoa is some kind of fruit here in New Zealand and apparently this drink is very popular among Kiwi girls. Okay, next bar we had some beer and it got really busy! I was so happy to be in a roudy/loud place. We stayed there for another length of time and then decided to move on and check something else out. After walking for awhile we decided to hit up "The Whiskey"!!! Haha, oh I think my brother would have loved this place! The back wall was lined with different whiskeys and the bar boasted signs of "Best Bar 2004 and 2005!" They had excellent old classic rock like ACDC and Guns n' Roses playing in the background, but the place was fancy and the people were 40s and over and dressed up! I loved it though, and so did Chris. I'm not much of a whiskey drinker, but just for the special occaision I decided to have a whiskey sour in remembrance of Laura's new favorite drink! The bartender was asking me questions and it was so loud and her accent was so strong I just said, "Yeah" and nodded alot. The next thing I know she's cracking an egg white into the drink she's pouring me and then shaking it up. When in rome...

We left this bar at around 11pm and Chris was completely done/exhausted so Beate and I ditched him and went back to The Crib for some music! Haha, all I'm going to say about the next several hours is that we didn't have to pay for our drinks and the music was FANTASTIC!!!! We were meeting all kinds of people and I basically had to drag Beate out of there at almost 3am because I was exhausted!!!

Needless to say I was a bit tired today, so I just did some errand-ish things like laundry and filing for a tax ID number so I can work. I slept so good and thoroughly enjoyed my new friends so I extende my stay at the Ponsonby Backpackers until Monday. I was so happy to finally be able to get some of that night life I've been missing since AZ, which was probably last April! I have to remember I'm still only 22, so live it up!!!

Okay, I think it's going to be an early night for me so I hope you all have a great night like mine sometime this week!

-Lisa