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McDonald's breakfast in our stomachs we went about the business of exchanging the last of our South American money and getting hold of some New Zealand dollars, however, the currency exchange would not accept my Peruvian soles, the only currency I held any substantial amount of (and that was only because we had elected to spend more time in La Paz and travel directly to Arica instead of via Arequipa as we had planned to do). I exchanged the little amounts of other currencies I still held and got a more useful amount out from the ATM. One of the visitors guides I had picked up whilst walking through the airport told us to buy a cheap bus ticket into town from the tourist information centre conveniently located round the corner from McDonalds and we perused the many leaflets and flyers for activities and sights in Auckland and the rest of New Zealand since we had decided not to bother with a guide book on the basis that they take up space, we're cheap and the Lonely Planet is crap, best to just go on flyers and word of mouth we felt, particularly now that mouth was speaking english.
The bus dropped us off literally round the corner from ACB (Base), but having caught a flight that landed so early in the morning the room still wasn't ready so we dropped off our bags and did what any right thinking individual would do after being subjected to spanish for 6 weeks - we went to the cinema - in particular with the intention of seeing one Zac Efron in 17 Again. The movie was pretty good, funny, typical teen flick. Surprisingly the worst part of the film was Matthew Perry as the older pre-magic Zac, he just wasn't that funny , not ever having found his feet after FRIENDS really. We had a wander up and down Queen Street, Auckland's main high street, despite running parallel to a street named 'High Street' and enjoyed a tasty Dunkin Donut from an outlet conveniently located across the road from the hostel sitting snugly between a McDonalds and Burger King, Wendy's is up the road and Starbucks about 2 doors down.
When we got back we were finally able to check in and more importantly shower, felt like we hadn't showered in years and according to a calendar it was actually a couple of days since we'd crossed the international date line on the way here. We returned to Queen Street and got a couple of shopping necessities out of the way like shampoo and deodorant and the like before heading to the aforementioned Burger King for a late lunch. Since the same calendar that would suggest we had not showered in 2 days also implied I had not slept for the same amount of time we had a small (5 hour or so) nap in our room, waking just in time to head to the Base bar for free dominos pizza and beer - good times. We chatted a bit with a couple from our room, sat munching through pizza next to us, but we were still tired and not in the mood for pretending to be all sociable so after a couple of hours we headed back to bed at an age-appropriate, but rather antisocial, 10pm.
My sleep was alas pretty disturbed partly due to people coming and going whilst we were in bed, partly from noisy people in other rooms, partly because we were still adjusting to the time difference.
Having consulted the budget and the cost of hiring a car and taking the bus we determined that the bus would be a cheaper if not more inconvenient means of transport through the country and booked a return journey to Paihia in the Bay of Islands for the following day. We went and grabbed an english breakfast from a small cafe in a shopping arcade beside the hostel and hopped on the City Link bus to take us to the museum. The driver was a very friendly woman, who told us when to get off and then gave us directions from the bus stop to the museum entrance. The directions were actually rather necessary as we never would have found it ourselves or would have thought we'd walked the wrong way as it sits in the middle of Auckland Domain on top of a hill in a large park and the walk took us down a seemingly empty road between said park and a residential area.
We saw a Maori performance at the museum, which was awesome, that involved a number of dances, singing, a number of musical instruments, one woman who was able to do some amazing things with poi and of course a haka. We actually got 2 kinds of haka, as there are many types seemingly, one a more traditional version, the other the more recognisable haka popularised by the rugby team. I recommend this performance to anyone visiting Auckland. We took a number of photos of ourselves with the performers before exploring the rest of the museum. They had a number of very cool maori exhibits of cool carvings and had 2 fully constructed Maori lodgings built. Other parts of the museum related to New Zealand's history - one that looks like some strange cross of Britain and the US in the 50s/60s. A hall dedicated to prehistoric history was actually quite interesting not for its standard array of dinosaurs, but of its large flightless bird skeletons from the same period that had obviously lead to the kiwi (among others).
We grabbed a snack from the museum cafe, looking for something a bit larger, but finding that out with lunch they didn't serve much else that cake or sandwiches, so settled with a soft drink and brownie. We navigated ourselves to where the kind bus driver had told us we could get a bus back into town and headed back into town. We ducked into a pharmacy to ask if they knew when sunset was (wanting to go up the skytower just a bit before so we could see the view sunlit, whilst the sun set and at night) and they went into overdrive and got the newspaper and between 2 of them went through the whole thing to tell us that the sun would be setting at exactly 5:55pm as it was nearing 5pm we decided that now was definitely the time to head up. The good thing about tall structures is that they are very easy to find and took little more than 5 minutes to get to Skycity and purchase a ticket for the tower. The SkyTower is 328m (1076 foot) tall, making it the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere, 24m taller than the Sydney Tower, but a great deal shorter than the current tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai, which stands at 818m (2684 foot). The view from the top was awesome, from the observation deck you can see just over 80km all around, taking in all of Auckland and out to Great Barrier Island. We were briefly scared by the arrival of a SkyJumper (a lunatic who decides to leap from 192m up the tower and plummet to the ground) as they dangle them briefly in front of the observation deck before letting them fall to earth and it was a shock from the calming views afforded by the slowly setting sun, fortunately I was not the Asian girl who chose to scream at their appearance. Our photos of the views from the tower are definitely worth a look, although some annoyingly positioned clouds did block the sun as it set, but all the same the view was amazing. We chose to enjoy a hot chocolate with our twighlit view (I had intended to drink something a bit stronger, but realised I didn't have my ID on me and they're pretty strict about it in New Zealand, only accept your passport as well). We returned to the hostel just before 8 and intended to have a little nap before venturing up K Road to the bars, but as our naps always turn out it descended into full blown sleep.
Our first clue that we had fallen asleep and not gone clubbing was when the fire alarm went off at 3am, we stayed firmly rooted in bed, 5 minutes later it was still ringing, was anyone else getting out of bed? No, but that girl looks like she's looking at me in the dark. "Are you going to go?" I think ... "Don't think so." "Yeah me neither." Another 5 minutes later and I was beginning to think we should take the alarm more seriously and consulted the door for what one is, hypothetically, to do in such a situation. The very first thing it said was that an announcement would be made over the tannoy if the fire alarm went off and evacuation was necessary and with this in mind I informed the room, returned to bed and put in my iPod. Another disturbed night's sleep for the jet-lagged traveller.
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