sky jump

Just wanted to let eveyone know that I got to jump 192 meters of the sky tower on Tuesday. I was pretty cool. It is a controlled 90 km/hr fall from the observation deck. I will tell more in our next post, but wanted to let you know that I have already started to jump off of things. It should be a fun 6 months! Sweet as...

P.S. You know that song "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. It is the song that we danced for our first dance at our wedding. Well, it is super popular here right now. Andrea loves it...and so do I (really!).

days 1-3

We are just 2 of the 1 million people here in Auckland. There are only about 4 million people in the entire country, so Auckland is a busy place. It is Monday here and there is a lot of hustle and bustle around the town as work and university start back up again today.

Saturday, after we arrived, we took a bit of a rest before heading out for a walk down to the harbor. It was a beautiful evening and we had some dinner by the water. John had a beer for his friends at Wenck and a one for his friends at Target, cheers mates!

After dinner we headed to the Auckland Domain for a free symphony concert. It was a nice evening and the concert was fantastic, at least the first half. Yes, we only made it for 1/2 of a symphony concert as we were too tired to last the entire thing. The locals say there are usually about 150,000 people there, but it seemed like even more than that.

Sunday we slept in some before starting the day. We headed out to grab a bite to eat. John had some NZ native green mussels, they were yummy.

Later in the evening we headed to the Sky Tower, which is the highest building in the southern hemisphere. It is 328 meters high and provided beautiful views of the city and harbor. This is a view down through 38 mm glass in the floor of the view deck which was 220 meters above the street.

There was a cafe there where we had a drink to enjoy the sunset before heading out to dinner. So it was a nice enjoyable day.

Today it was down to business! We had our orientation at the IEP office (International Exchange Program) and got a lot of information about what to do in New Zealand and how to navigate the country, so we are excited to get "off the beaten path" a bit more. Then we opened a bank account and got our IRD/Tax number so that we can work while we are here. There are a lot of job openings coming up soon to pick Kiwi Fruit, so we may look at doing that. Down here you have to say kiwifruit, you cannot just say kiwi because the kiwi's/locals may think you are eating their national birds.

We will be in Auckland for a few more days before heading off somewhere, we are still not quite sure where we will go next.

Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world, interesting fact for you!

John has taken a few showers now, no worries.

Tipping is not common here in New Zealand, so the first few waiters/waitresses we had must have been pleased with the added cash they made from us.

day one post

So, I was in the middle of a nice blog about our first day in NZ and the fire alarm in the building went off. We had to escape down the stairs and I didn't get to post my blog. We are not sure what happened, but the building is still there and is okay.

In the arrival picture below it is hard to tell, but I was a little dirty. I think you could have squeezed a pint of grease out of my hair. Anyway, I will post this now and do a more thorough post later this afternoon. We are off to orientation now.

we've arrived

We have made it to New Zealand! The trip, as to be expected, had a few periods of excitement along the way. We got through security at MSP airport and were very anxious to get our trip underway. The anticipation quickly turned into a bit of frustration after our plane was delayed 2 hours and we were unsure if we would make our Air New Zealand flight. Well, we did make it and even had 10 minutes to spare! Then we were off on our 13 hour flight and after a couple of movies and some sleep we arrived in Auckland, New Zealand around 7:30am on February 21st.

So here we are, quite tired, groggy and we certainly could use a shower. But we are very excited to be here and look forward to many adventures. There is a Symphony playing tonight just down the street in a park for free, so we will likely attend that this evening and just relax and enjoy!

It is about 68 degrees and a bit overcast here. Hope you all are doing well.

Just before departure in Minneapolis, MN.

In Auckland, just after our arrival.

one more day

We will be on a jet plane tomorrow at this time. Our flight to LA leaves at 5:00 pm, then a few hours in LAX before our 13 hour flight to Auckland. I hope I can get some sleep on the flight. Andrea is great at sleeping on planes, but I am not so good. I like to sleep on a nice comfortable bed. Andrea thinks I'm a little bit of a princess, but I just think I have high standards. I guess I better get used to sleeping in odd places. I know we have a bed in a hostel the first two nights, but after that we may be sleeping in a van down by the river or some other "unique" location. It should be an awesome adventure. We are getting super excited and a little nervous. Off to take care of a few last minute details. Thank you to everyone for all of your support so we could make this little trip a reality.

Do you like Alice?

departure in one week

Time seems to be escaping us faster than we could have anticipated.

We are officially one week away from leaving for New Zealand on a jet plane and we couldn't be more excited. At times it is hard to say whether the excitment is coming from the destination or the fact that we will be done packing and moving! We are leaning more towards the destination...

Picture

I thought I would add a picture. This is from our wedding on August 31, 2008