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I woke up ridiculously early this morning- 6am !!! Which is (of course),unheard of for me!!!!(Partly due to the absoulutely, ridiculously heavy torrential rainfal, and partly due to the whole missed-a-day-jet-lag thing!)
After breakfast (where Mum pointed out the wierd naked flasher guy, who was looking rather sheepish, and fully clothed after being repremanded by the owner following a complaint by Mum!!!) we went to the Travel Clinic in the Town Centre, where I had to have my third installment of my Hep. B vaccine, and Mum went to have a wierd rash that she has accumilated on her legs checked out by the nurse.( I would have never of neede the vaccine here if it wasnt for the damned travel nurse that somehow managed to overlook my Hep B vaccines until it was too late to have a full course before I went away!!!!tsskkkk)
Anyway, I had to have it done now, as it has been 4 months since my last installment, and at leat it covers me for life.Luckily, it wasnt that expensive to have- it cost me about 12 pounds, including a "consultation fee" that you have to pay on top of the vaccine price.(Although, the only "consultation" I recieved from the nurse was "right, here goes" before stabbing me in the arm.....oh, well) Mum wasnt best pleased, though, because her "consultation" was fruitless. The nurse basically said that she had never seen it before, and didnt know what it was....sorry!! Which wasnt very useful, as you can imagine!!!!!
Anyhow, after that, we went down to the harbour, which is really pretty, and had a walk along the front, which was surprisingly hard work, due to the powerful winds that were pushing against us all the way!!
Its no surprise that Auckland is called "The City of Sails"-there are so many boats here, there must be thousands and thousands!!! They look really good all docked up in the harbour, though!! And some of them are really lovely!!
We ended up at a place called the "Minus 5 Degrees"Bar, which we read about in the Lonely Planet. Its basically a bar that is made completely of Ice, and to go in there you have to wear special clothing and gloves to keep you warm, because as the name suggests..its minus 5 degrees in there!!!
It was quite expensive to get in, about 9 pounds, but that included the stuff you had to wear, and 1 cocktail, so it wasnt that bad, really! They gave us all a big thermal jacket to wear, and 2 pairs of gloves, which kept us nice and warm, but made Mum look even smaller than she already is, drowned underneath the big jacket!!!!!hehe.
On the inside, its smaller than I expected, but its really cool!(No pun intended!) The Bar, the glasses, the walls...all made of Ice!! The guy that worked there was telling us that you arent ever allowed in there for more than 25 minutes because its simply too cold to stay in there, even in the special gear they give you!!
There were also some really amazing Ice Sculptures in there, made out of Canadian Ice (apparently, the best quality) that had been carved by a master carver. They were so detailed and beautiful!! But, as usual, Mum lowered the tone by posing for pictures with a sculpture of some Greek God kinda guy, who was obviously in the buff, and holding her glass underneath his thingy...it was just inevitable....but it was quite funny, I must admit!!!
We only stayed in there for about 15 minutes-nevermind 25!! Our fingers were already going numb, even through the gloves!!! The barman told us that they get girls going in there in mini skirts and all sorts!!! Im sorry, but that is just ridiculous!! That must be painful!!!
I had a non alcoholic cocktail, but Mum and Paul had "proper ones" which they felt the effect of as soon as they went back into the normal temperature again. (which actually felt really hot!)
The bar guy, who happened to be very informative, in case you didnt notice...told us that the maximum amount of drinks that you are allowed to have in there at once is 3, because as when you get into normal temperature again, your blood rushes to the surface of your skin, effectively draining your liver, it makes the alcohol 3 times more potent to your system!! So you feel 3 times more drunk than you actually are!!! (Sounds like a good idea for a cheap night out to me!!!lol)
So, after that, we headed to the Skytower, which dominates the Auckland Skyline, and went up there. Its the tallest tower in the hemisphere, and there were people jumping off the thing on ropes!! (Mum did of course consider it, but deemed it too expensive for what it is-70 pounds- when there were more adventure sports that she wanted to do more desperately). Of course, I didnt even entertain the idea of jumping off the bloody thing!! It took just about all my composure to walk over the glass floor that was in there, looking down on the city without totally having a nervous breakdown!!!! But I did it! I faced my fear, and nearly had a heart attack in the process. But, I did it!! Mum was stood behind me taking the piss, that probably didnt help, either!!!
There was a great view from up there, though. You can see the whole city, and all the volcanoes in the distance! And after a while, the height stopped botherring me as much and I was quite happy to stand against the window for a photo. (Although, not for too long!!)
And apart from that, all we have done is go to eat.Not that interesting, because I am still struggling with the jet lag, Im gonna go to bed and get a good nights rest to (hopefully) beat it once and for all!!!!
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