Welcome to Auckland

We arrived at our Auckland hostel at around 7:30 in the morning. Luckily for us, jet lag wasn't really a problem since Edmonton is only 4 hours ahead. The trick is, it's a day behind! (Well, technically, Edmonton is 20 hours behind). It's confusing at first, but you get used to it.

The city was a bit dead, but that wasn't surprising considering how early it was on a Sunday morning. We had left Edmonton in the midst of the first blizzard of the year, and so coming to Auckland was especially nice since we could walk around in sandals and light sweaters. We spent the morning enjoying wandering around the city and getting a sim card for my cell phone. Around noon, we headed up to the top of the Sky Tower that offered an amazing view of the city. The tower stands 328 metres tall, and you can ride an elevator up to the Sky Deck, which is 220 metres from the ground. The pictures from the top were spectacular. You could see over all of the sky scrapers to the surrounding volcanoes – apparently you can see up to 80 km in each direction. The Sky Tower actually ended up being my favourite part of the city. The employees also took pictures of Chantal and I in front of a green screen, and when we went down to the ground again, they had printed really tacky pictures of us, which turned into one of the best (horrible) pictures of us.

Our day in Auckland was randomly on the same day of the ITU Triathlon World Cup that was going in the city, and so the entire downtown core was shut down to vehicles to make way for the athletes. While the morning race had a few spectators, the afternoon hosted the elite leagues of the race, and you could not find a spot to stand and watch along the track it was so popular. We watched for a while, and being the avid sports fan that I am, I was mostly entertained by the motorbikes that carried camera men zooming along behind the athletes. In the end we headed to the harbour area for happy hour to admire our sun burns (oops, we forgot about sun screen) and have a toast to the start of our new adventure.

True to its reputation, Auckland lacked the vibe of an amazing city that I've gotten from so many others. I don't think I'd stay there, but for a metropolitan area it was pretty cool - the harbour spectacular, and you can't beat the culture that comes from an area with over a million people.