Auckland!

Before I start this post, here's a quick info for all future exchange students: check the labels "organization" "housing" and "transportation" for specific exchange info! The rest is filled with travel accounts as I'm still travelling :) Oh, and also: 1000 clicks as of today! *yay* ;)

Ok, so, Auckland *yay* Staying with Carmel has been great, she has so many fascinating stories to tell and we were having a lot of fun. She also happens to be good friends with my next hosts (because, naturally, the two CS hosts I find in all of the North Island are good friends...) and they've been in touch to plan my next week. Everybody's so helpful - I'm having the best time! We went to a couchsurfing meeting in the harbor on wednesday where we met some other surfers but mainly enjoyed our dinner and then took a beautiful walk through the harbor. What can I say? "Ich liebe die Schiffe, das Meer und den Hafen!"

Enjoying the view :)

The weirdest thing about being here is that it's summer down here, so the days are very long and my time is totally off :) No jetlack so far though *yay* I've been feeling pretty good, actually... I'm telling you, traveling westward is much easier than going east! I also found another Hamburg Süd container in the harbor :) Apparently, they are my new "breadcrumbs", since NZ doesn't have pennies.... (they just round everything and give you 10 or 20 cents instead...) The area around the harbor is really beautiful. Apparently, they've been developing it in the past couple of years and it all looks very modern and is very green - for a harbor anyways. 

Kinda reminded me of the Hafen City :) I really need to get back to Hamburg this year... On thursday, I booked a ferry trip to Waiheke. Technically, the island requires its own blog entry altogether, but I'll just keep it short: it was gorgeous! ;) I especially enjoyed the ride over there *I love ferry boats*

I LOVE the Pacific!

That's the coast of the island

I spent about four hours on the island, first taking a bus tour and then wandering through a little village called Oneroa and checked out all the cute little craftsshops. I was very tempted to buy all sorts of things, but I'm running out of money :( Luckily, the view was free ;)

Somehow, something is wrong with my camera, so if you see twoo grey spots on the pictures, just try to ignore them... I went down to the beach, where there was supposed to be a hiking trail... well.... I couldn't really find it at first and then I saw these posts with markings, so I thought "Oh, that's the trail!" and started walking. Um, well, let's just say it was an adventure :)

Bushwalk anyone?!?

As it turned out, it was also not the right track... I ended up walking in a circle, right back to the beach *lol* So, I gave in and walked up the road where I finally found one of the many many hiking trails and made my way back to the ferry.

That was a little easier to walk on...

On my way back, I saw a little sailing competition. And yep, that's how strong the wind was yesterday :)

Now I'm off to the Coromandel, where I'll spend two days in a hostel and them I'm meeting my next hosts in Tauranga! Time to relax on the beach for a bit ;)