End of the luxury
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2006
1
9
188
Trip End
Ongoing
Auckland,
New Zealand
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
I bought another plug adapter - the one I bought before I left which said NZ on the packaging with it's 2 round pins was completely different to the 3 weird shaped pins they have here. If I'd been back in England I'd have given them some sharp words and asked for a refund. But I'm not, so I'm moaning about it on here instead. Later on I met up with Ben in Ponsonby. It's a place about a mile out of town up a hill with a lot of bars and restaurants on it and would soon be my new home.
After a cool relaxing beer in the searing sun, inadvertently burning one half of my face (always a winning look) we grabbed a taco and met up with his flatmate who was heading to one of his mates to play some pool. Either his mate is exceptionally minted or, more likely, his parents were away
01 It's a volcano, honest
. His house was massive and above the garage was a pool room with a 9 foot table in it. We played a few normal games and tried our best to make them see sense and allow two shots after a foul but they weren't going for it. It's madness, you can blindly miss the ball, (or as it should now be known "a Ben very fine cut" as it was a specialist shot of his) and not get any punishment. There's not even an advantage of placing the white as that's got to be in the D. We introduced them to Killer and then they showed us a variety I'd not seen. Basically you pot and then choose 3 balls (as there were 5 of us) that then belong to you and you have to pot other players balls leaving yours on to win. I lost. It's clearly a flawed rubbish game.Monday 11th
Yesterday I moved out of my luxury 4 star studio apartment with en suite and kitchen facilities and Sky and nice views and why am I doing this again?
I got the bus up the hill I'd walked on Sunday and lumbered my big bag in to the hostel and nabbed a far corner lower bunk. I'm in a room with 8 so I was relying on my trusty earplugs to guarantee some quality sleep.
After dumping my stuff I thought I'd go for a wander as it was a nice day and try and burn my neck
02 City & Cows
. I'm slowly learning my lesson. I walked to Mt Eden a grassy volcano and enjoyed the views that would soon seem a bit rubbish (don't read ahead). It was a fair old hike out there, but the hip hop beats of De La Soul kept me in step. I got a little bit of a surprise when I set off back down the hill as I was strangely met by a load of cows! Not exactly what I was expecting on a hill in surburbia. I walked back to town and by this time my feet were starting to suffer and I could feel blisters as I didn't have any socks on. Next mission - find some cheap socks to ease the pain. I found a $2/$3/$4 shop (not the same ring to it as a pound shop) but no luck. I then had a look in a couple of tourist places and bought a rather snazzy pair - check the photos! They cost a couple of quid so I thought that was alright, chucked away the packaging and started back up the street. I'm not kidding, the first thing I saw when I looked up was a chinese food place bizarrely with a stall inside the door called KING OF SOCKS!!! As many types as you could imagine, nice and sensible and cheap. Oh well, mine looked gooooood.
I decided as it was a nice clear day I'd best take advantage of it and head up the Sky Tower, the highest tower in the Southern Hemisphere no less
03 Give way to the cows
. It just pips the Eiffel Tower, tall building fact fans. I made a schoolboy error of getting a bit carried away with snaps in the main observation deck forgetting that I'd paid to go further up. I just had enough juice left in my camera to get a full 360 taken. Lots of excellent views trumping the earlier ones.I then wandered back to the hostel and had an early night as I was knackered from all the walking.
Tuesday 12th
Just doing some boring indoor stuff today, I've just opened a bank account and next on the list is sending off for a tax number. I'm now quite scared of going outside in case I gain another patch of lobster red skin...
