Exploring the Hotel and the City
Trip Start
Jun 07, 2008
1
2
13
Trip End
Jun 28, 2008
Auckland,
New Zealand
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The art in the cool cafe.
. She wasn't and I was getting sleepy, so I got back into bed and read and napped for about 15 minutes, and then Amy woke up. We chatted for a while - so good to have Amy back - and then we got ready for the gym. So, we went to the gym here which has about 15 machines, 6 of which were doubles. We used the treadmills, the elliptical machines, the rowing machines, and the weights machines and then headed over to the sauna where we tried to figure out the appeal. As we were lying in this room that was getting ever hotter (we kept pouring water on the rocks because we liked the hissing noise), we decided that saunas are like tanning without the sun. It's hot and boring but there's no real reward. I don't know about Amy, but I didn't feel more limber afterwards either. So, then we jumped in the pool which was HUGE. It's super long, like a lap pool, and only 4 ft 7 deep all around. We did the Amy and Katie version of water aerobics, like running laps underwater and leg lifts and kicking. Amy taught me the sidestroke which I found is way easier on one side than the other. Then, we headed out to the sun deck to relax and dry off a bit. We were there for about 10 minutes and then the sun had passed us by and we were cold in the shade.
After that, we came back up to the room and we all decided that we were going to go explore this street we had driven down earlier called Karangahape Road. What we found was the following: the buildings here are either very old or very new. There's a lot of Asian and Indian influence. They love their thrift stores. Their thrift stores contain TONS of American imports - and they're not even exciting. Like Georgia Tech shirts and Delta, Colorado shirts. They did have lots of very cool purses though - old tooled leather ones - Amy fell in love with those
My cafe picture.
. We bought scarves in some very cool stores - raw silk and linen and Thai silk and embroidered cotton, they were beautiful. We bought colorful jewelry. I almost bought Jon an overpriced shirt, but luckily Amy talked me out of it. Amy bought dried cuttlefish and then proceeded to just start munching away on it. Mom got a savory scone, Rissa got a sandwich, and I tried a dish called Strata. It's like lasagna with bread on top and bottom instead of pasta. Inside was ham, onions, cheese and peppers. It was delicious and it was at that cafe that we found our first cute young people in NZ. The guy who served us was all red hair and freckles, he was so cute (but not as cute as our boys). This cafe also had great art and Amy took some pictures of that.
After we were all shopped out and it was starting to get cold, we headed back to the hotel and I got to Skype with Adam, though the internet was lousy. Then, Amy and I watched TV and got totally engrossed in Neighbours - an Australian soap, but it's less soapy and more like 90210, like primetime soap. When it ended, we went to the lounge and had appetizers. Amy got a whiskey sour that was way too strong and I had hot chocolate. We had sushi and fruit and cheese and crackers. Who needs dinner?
Then, we came back to the room and Amy used the lappy and I tried to read, but I was actually falling asleep, so then we went to beddy-bye.
Today, we go to Rotorua. It's about a 3 hour drive from Auckland and it's described as a geothermal wonderland. The whole town smells like sulfur apparently and there are beautiful waterfalls and geysers and multicolored pools of toxic water as well as hot springs everywhere. I have a feeling we'll be taking lots of pictures.
Until next time!
