With the housing situation taken care of, I had a LOT of free time on my hands. Turns out there’s not really a whole lot of super New-Zealand-y stuff to do in the city. Everything that’s remotely interesting is *just* beyond where the buses and trains go. I had to step up my meetup game and actually meet some quality people. I was going to at least one meetup a day, sometimes two, in the hopes that the numbers game would eventually pay off. I haven’t yet mentioned how *lovely* the August weather is in Auckland–there’s a reason for that.
But I still made the effort to go to something every day, arriving soaked to the bone and wearing at least 2 more layers than anyone else there. Needless to say, I didn’t handle going from 100 degrees to 40 very well. I hiked, I watched rugby, I went shopping, I sat through endless coffee and cafe afternoons, I went to the zoo, I drank. I was getting a bit bored and considered not trudging through the rain and wind to go to the wine festival downtown with a giant gaggle of girls. I think something like 35 girls showed up to this meetup, and in true meetup/girl style, everyone was at least 30 minutes late. We all waited politely by the entrance for any stragglers, but dang it I had been without wine in a social setting for 30 minutes! A small group of us broke off to hit the bottle early, and that was the beginning of the end!
We sampled wine from all over NZ, getting tipsy and being “those” girls at a semi classy festival. I do feel bad for the poor chap running the cheese sampling station. All six of us just about barreled him over wanting him to feed us free cheese so we didn’t have to stop drinking long enough to go to a restaurant. But thankfully we had enough sense to keep the party going and not let this night die out as another meetup failure. We made an equally loud spectacle of ourselves at a restaurant, where a poor old chap bought us all a couple of shots. I ended the night dancing my heart out to Katy Perry in the gay bar across town, and what a good night it was!
It definitely made me miss my friends back home even more, but finding some cool chicks to hang out with here has been the best thing to happen to me yet. We’ve added some to the group, brought some around who didn’t make the cut, and we’ve made the most of Auckland so far! All day brunches on the waterfront, all night parties at each others’ houses, trying new foods and bars, and making fun of guys who try to impress us. I’m definitely starting to like Auckland more…now if we could just get some warm sunshine!
