Auckland, New Zealand

January 17-20th
So we've been hanging out in Auckland the past few days--pre-Contiki tour. The weather is still warm but definitely not as warm as Fiji. It's been about 20-22 degrees. Auckland reminds me of a smaller, less busy version of Toronto. It has about a million people (a third of the country) and some small skyscrapers. It even has a tower that is like a little mini-CN tower!
The main street is Queen St. and we've just been walking the street and wondering all the shops and stores.
Things that are a bit different here:
1. The first night we ended up going to see the movie "Up in the air" and when you go to buy your ticket your seats are assigned to you!
2. When you are waiting to cross the street and you get your green light to "GO" you can cross the street diagonally. Now, I don't know if we have this in TO, as I'm a suburb girl, but it's fabulous! Everyone is crossing every which way, and no one seems to bump into anyone else!

Our second day in Auckland we hopped on a ferry to go to one of the little islands Waikaie across called the way. It was a half and hour walk from the ferry drop off to the small quaint town and to their famous beach. The beach again, reminded me of one of our downtown beaches, seagulls and all!

Third day in Auckland, we checked out of our hotel because our itinerary said that we started our tour in Paihia. So we thought, as it's a 4 hour ride away, we better get ourselves up there a day early. Bought tickets for the bus to get us there. About 20 min. before the bus arrived, I have no clue what possessed me to look at the itinerary again, as we were waiting at the bus station. So, there it was, in finer print, "Your tour starts in Auckland, at the Mercure Hotel." We went into "are you serious?" mode, and called right away to see if we could get our money back for the bus tickets, which we didn't. The Mercure Hotel was the hotel we had been staying in for the past 2 nights, so it was really crappy that we lost money, and we couldn't get that hotel back for our last night. We ended up finding another place, which was actually a studio! We had our own little kitchenette and a separate living space, it was great!