In the city...the city of Auckland

Yesterday was my day to make the journey to downtown Auckland to scope out the city. Getting there was a bit of an ordeal, since I picked the wrong bus stop to wait at, and the actual trip into the city is about an hour and a half long. But once I finally got there, I was impressed with the city. Definitely more laid back than, say, Chicago, or even Minneapolis in some respects. I spent most of my time around Queen St., which is the prototypical tourist-packed main thoroughfare that every major city seems to have.

At one point, I ran into two young people, a guy and a girl, sporting big-ass backpacks with Canadian flag patches prominently displayed on the back. As a joke, I asked them if they were actually Canadians or just Americans pretending to be Canadians so as to avoid political arguments from other travelers. I'm not sure if they got the joke. Does this make me an ugly American?

I also saw a crazy guy having a rap battle with his reflection in a window. For those of you who went to Wash U, he reminded me a lot of Gabe. He may have been crazy, but he was actually pretty good. I'm not sure which of his personalities won the battle...it was too close to call!

Just for kicks, I stopped into the local Base Backpackers and asked if anyone knew a good place to pick up a cheap car. They pointed me to the local "backpacker's car market," which is basically a big garage where travelers go to unload the vehicles they've been driving around NZ. There seemed to be a lot of camper vans in stock that day...big old Toyota Hi-Aces with improvised paint jobs featuring everything from flowers to crescent wrenches. I was looking at a beat-up old station wagon, and the guy who was selling it came over to pitch it to me. "It's in great shape," I was told. Upon further questioning, though, I discovered that one of the wheels needed replacing and that it leaked so much oil that you had to top it off every couple weeks. But otherwise, it was in great shape!

Once I got back to Orewa, Joanne and I went over to Pam and Bruno's (parents of Joanne's son-in-law) for dinner. All I can say is...wow. We had lamb prepared two ways, potatoes, carrots, Italian-style peas, pasta salad, lettuce salad and, to top it all off, Pavlova. Pavlova seems to be the official dessert of New Zealand, and it's one of those things where I can't understand why it hasn't made its way to the States yet. It's basically a crusty, dome-shaped merengue topped with fresh whipped cream and strawberries and kiwi fruit...damn tasty. I will leave it at that.

Tomorrow I plan to take the ferry to Rangitoto Island to do a little exploring. Updates to follow.