Auckland

Here I am in Auckland.

This is an installation in the Auckland Art Museum.

In Auckland I had a big new experience. I founda free place to stay through Couchsurfing.org for the first time. (Thanks to Lauren Smith and Brian Osper for the inspiration for this <3 ) This is my profile. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about doing this at first. Safety was my first concern, but the website makes it easy to see people's past experience and verification with the people they have hosted already, so I went for it. My first hosts (and only so far) were Tanya and Peter in Auckland. These Canadians were lovely hosts. They made me feel so welcome and showed me all around town, hung out to talk, and were just all around friendly. They hosted me for 5 nights in a row! Their place is literally right down the street from the Skytower, which is the tallest building on the southern hemisphere.

The Skytower!

On my first day Tanya showed their other guest Anne (from France) and I around Auckland, including Queen Street (the main drag), the bay where you can see many of the America's cup sailing boats and luxury yachts, the i-Site (where you can find information about travelling all over NZ), and she even helped me to find a super cheap phone and service which has come in very handy while I'm here. Thanks Tanya!!!!

I love a good street performer. This one is famous on Queen Street.

 Sculptures at WETA Studio's gift shop at the i-Site in Auckland.

.Life-Sized Avatar Sculpture.

Sculpture in the Auckland Art Museum.

 This is the incredible view from Tanya and Peter's apartment, 9 stories up and looking right out over the city and the water. They get amazing sunsets from this vantage point every evening. I'm so glad I could see this!

Sunset over Tanya and Peter's place.

I missed getting any pictures of Tanya...

HOW COULD I LET THIS HAPPEN?!

I'm coming back for you Tanya!

Tanya is a school teacher, and so she knows all of the latest NZ trends, pop-culture, and slang. It was hilarious to learn about some of the things that are special to this place. I'll share some of them with you:

This is a NZ favorite.
They are basically pineapple taffy covered in chocolate.

Tasty!

Nek Minute.

This is huuuuuuuuuuge here. There are Nek Minute buttons, shirts, whatever.

And people say it all the time and everyone laughs.

Legend.

The most popular commercial in NZ.

This is how they talk here too!

Cheap As!

...as what you ask?
As!
 

(pre-video note: "Sweet As!" is a huge saying here. It means awesome, or sweet, or the best. Basically if you want to say something is extreme, you say "_____ As". Like the above example... it's super cheap= it's cheap as!)

Beached As.
Quintessential Kiwi humor.