So we are finally getting things done to be official members of New Zealand. We have our bank accounts, visas, and now we wait for our tax numbers. This is all so boring it’s exhausting.
The most important part is that today in New Zealand is the best day in Ash-tober because it’s officially my New Zealand birthday. See right now we are a whole day ahead of America so I’m taking full advantage and having a NZ birthday and an American birthday, why? Because Ash-tober is the best. So of course I read the birthday card Ma' sneakily put in my backpack, and I will read it and be just as surprised tomorrow!
She makes rainbow confetti cake every year for her daughter!
The host that we are staying with knew it was my birthday and I was greeted to cake for breakfast! (side note it was also her daughters birthday, the real reason for the cake, but still I got wished happy birthday!!) Then we went to the most adorable café called Little & Friday where we had donuts, again another form of cake for breakfast! First off this café was so adorable instead of giving you a number to put on the table to mark your food they give you a dinosaur figurine….genius! Second, it was the most deceiving donut ever. It wasn’t large or anything but it was the most filling donut ever.
deceptive donut
I mean come on, too cute
We had to walk off the donuts though the uptown city area. Got all the boring things filed away, taxes yada yada, bank statement yada yada… Then we ate filled fried Asian pancakes; mine cinnamon, caramel, and peanuts; Maggie’s mash potatoes, sour cream, and of course no cheese. Then we made our way to the Ponsonby Central (an open air market)! Where Mags bought us a birthday lunch/dinner, she’s too good to me! We had burgers again no cheese for Mags, and a fantastic chocolate peanut butter shake for me! Clearly our priorities lie in food, as they always have.
Love us some street food! Thanks Darcey!
Do we know what this is: no. Did we take our picture with it: yes.
On a sadder note we were neglected by our car-selling friend Michael, no response, what’s up with that Michael.
Little things we have learned about New Zealand:
1/3 of all of NZ population lives in Auckland, and we have probably seen all 1/3 already.
We are literally the only people who take public transportation, and they have the nicest trains and buses we have ever seen. There aren't a whole lot of people in Auckland to begin with but even less that public transit, we get full trains to ourselves. And even though nobody rides these pristine buses they are already updating them to double decker buses. In Boston we ran our public transportation until they actually caught on fire and then extinguished the fire and kept moving (it happened twice to me on the green line).
We have been to about 10 different areas and so far I can pronounce none of them. However there is a town called Te Papapa (yep spelled like that) that we ride through on the train, which I can pronounce, and I say frequently to Maggie’s demise.
We have no clue which side of the side walk to walk on. Kiwis stay left but as we how found out there are a lot of people from all over the world in NZ. Most of which think to stay right, so essentially there is no correct side and you just have to bob and weave through people.
Apparently meeting someone at a train station getting in their car to drive to a van is completely acceptable here. We haven’t done it yet because it got too late and Michael said he could just drive the van to us to look at. On the second day we were here a man hailed a taxi and asked where we were going and said he could just drop us off there. Again we did not take him up on his offer, mostly because we needed the exercise. The funny thing is they are just being genuinely super nice!
Maggie's Lil Wayne phone is a life saver (watch this commercial for reference in the frequent rain showers! GO DROIDS