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We woke up today to news of Saddam's hanging. Not quite what we expected the headlines to be but even more strange was an article in an Auckland newspaper that after doing a spread on Saddam and the execution it followed with a spread that likened Saddam to James Brown. Apparently with the timing of Brown's death and Saddam's an obvious connection seemed to link them together since they were both sex machines! All we can say is that it was not an article or a coupling that we could ever imagine but to the Kiwis the connection was obvious! Anyways, sorry for the side note but just had to share this absurd article.
So today is New Years Eve and we wern't quite sure what we wanted to do. We spent most of they day just walking around the downtown area and the harbor just enjoying the sights. One surprise was how incredibly cold it is here. They claim it is summer but if feels like the first days of winter. We've been looking around all day for a sweater or hoodie and can't find anything and when we do a hoodie costs around 100 US dollars! So were making due with our limited warm cloths and the locals keep saying the weather is acting strange and it will warm up.
Auckland is a large city that has a small city feel. It's very hilly not unlike San Francisco but probably less severe like Seatle. The downtown area is nice but its hard to get a real feel for the city since it is somewhat spreadout and you would need a car to navigate its extents. There are a bunch of highways that stretch out to outer islands that also comprise the city. You can get there by ferry but we didn't have it all together today and due to the holiday everything was starting to close early so we spent the afternoon scoping out where we would like to spend the New Year.
We ended up hanging out in the Viaduct Harbor area which has a bunch of restaurants and bars and a good view of the sky city tower (Auckland's own Space Needle) which would have a fireworks display. Diner was excellent, we ate at a little italian restaurant that was quite affordable considering all that we ordered since we thought we deserved to celebrate. After dinner we checked out a nearby bar called the Loaded Hog. It was fun, a little less crowded then all the others but they had music and served drinks and so thats all we needed. Although we we tried to order some shots, yes Brandon's favorite they had no idea what anything we asked for was so we had only the basics. It's funny none of the soda is on tap and so they pour all their mixed drinks with 2 litre bottles of soda or you can buy a Jack and Coke or similar in premixed bottles. After getting Brandon to dance for a moment to what he considered horrific American Pop music we strolled in to the harbor square to catch the fireworks. Not a great display but at least something to watch as the clock turned. Although the bar was about two minutes early in their countdown and so after the countdown nothing happend and we had to do it all over again.
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