The longest day ever

So on Saturday morning, at 7:45 am I officially left VT. 28 hours later, I touched down in Auckland, New Zealand. Everything went very smoothly, and I sat next to a really nice Kiwi girl on the plane who was coming home for 3 weeks for her sister's wedding. She hadn't been home in three years! Rachel gave me her number and contact info in case I need anything while she's here. She now lives in London with her Kiwi boyfriend, as a teacher.

For anyone curious, New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of VT and that has made calling home a little tricky.

The shuttle from the airport dropped me off about 2 blocks from my hostel, but of course I went the wrong way and it was about 12 blocks before I finally found it (partially because I was scared to walk down the steepest street I have ever seen with my heavy pack on and me being so sleep deprived). I'm staying at the Auckland International YHA and it's pretty nice. It's much bigger than the hostels I'm used to (170 beds or so) and so it's a little more impersonal than I'm used to (the one in Tam where I basically lived was about 30 beds). Last night the room was full and this morning they all checked out! There's another girl in there already though, Abby from D.C. She's here for a month, doing a tour.

Tomorrow I take the train to Wellington (12 hours) and then I'm going to try and stay there for the rest of the week. There's this Rugby thing there this weekend, called Sevens, which sounds really cool except the whole town is just about booked up! I have a hostel booked for Wed/Thurs night but after that I'm out!

I have also arranged to start wwoofing at a farm in Nelson next Monday. This is of course assuming I can get accomodation for Sevens.

Yesterday I walked around Auckland, just trying to get my bearings. I went to Sky Tower, all the way up to the 60th floor, which is 220 m high and the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Mom, I took some lovely pictures of the glass floor just for you! Then I walked up to K Rd and ate at a Little Turkish Cafe, it was really good (or I was really hungry). Then I walked around this really cute little park across the street from my hostel, and ate lunch/walked around the New Zealand New Art Gallery.

Ok I realize this post is totally out of order, which I will fix later (Diana I will teach you how to edit posts) and add pictures too. The computers at the hostel weren't letting me add them and I'm now too tired to fight it anymore.