Auckland...

I was so tired yesterday, only having three hours sleep on Friday night, I went up to the room at 7:00, climbed on to my bed (I'm relegated to a top bunk), and dozed off, even with my roomies talking. About 10:00, some of them left, and the light was turned off. I climbed under the covers and slept and slept and slept, finally got up about 11:30 this morning!! Sleepyhead!

I had breakfast at a food court ($12.50!) then went walking around Auckland, along the waterfront. I don't particularly like Auckland...it's not a very inspiring city, there's nothing special about it, the downtown isn't particularly nice, and a lot of it is rundown. I would have expected more from a city of 1.2 million. The nice thing about Sydney, in the downtown area along the waterfront is BEAUTIFUL. Vast parks, walkways, Darline Harbour, Cirqular Quay, Sydney Opera House, harbours (for sailboats), residential properties, etc. The waterfront in downtown Sydney is definately made for the public and for the people to enjoy. There's really no commercial/industrial presence at all. Auckland is quite different. There's no parkspace at all, bits and pieces of people/public areas, but most of it is very commercialized and industrial. The area where the bases for the America's Cup teams were in 2000 and 2003 (when it was held in New Zealand) is nothing more than concrete platforms where buildings once stood, and parking lots. An apartment building is going up where one of the bases was. But it's surrounded by industrial properties...who'd want to live there? It's quite a disappointment, actually. The main area of the downtown around the harbour is even named after American Express. I get the impression that money talks when it comes to Aucklands waterfront, whereas Sydney is very, very much against that, keeping the downtown waterfront public, to be enjoyd by everyone. A round of applause for that!! Sydney pushes the commercial and industrial sectors away from the central business district. Even the downtown area in Auckland (away from the waterfront) is not particularly impressive. The old buildings look old and dilapitated, many of them not in use anymore, having been abandoned. Sydney, apparently, has been voted one of the best cities in the world to live, and I can see why, actually. Auckland is a disappointment. There doesn't seem that much to do, either, except apparently the aquarium is very nice. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow. They also have a volcano (Mount Eden, I think it's called), a small mountain, you can hike it and look down into the volcano. Sounds kind of neat.

After walking around for a while, went back to the room and hung out there with others in the room, talking about everything. About 7:00, four of us went to look for food...it's hard to find restaurants open in downtown Auckland in the evening. We eventually settled on a pub/restaurant, I had "bangers and mash", which is actually sausages and mash potatoes. It was very good, if a little expensive at $14.50.

AFter that, here I am at the internet.

Oh, since I'm travelling again, I'll try to actually do daily updates again, like when we were going through SE Asia. Now that I actually have a life and have things to tell you guys about.