going broke in auckland.

hello all! just wanted to let you know that we're alive and well in auckland. "well" might be a bit of an overstatement - i picked up a cold somewhere on the flight between LA and Auckland (stress? lack of sleep?) and the cool weather here is not helping matters. while the hostel works just fine for us, we're sleeping in a mixed dorm with 4 other guys (yes, all males) and we're both antsy to be alone on the trail, in our cozy tent-home.

we've done some exploring of downtown auckland - yesterday we wandered through the beautiful auckland domain (a huge public park not far from the city center), visiting the on-site auckland museum and taking a nap in the grass on the top of the hill afterwards. the museum used to be dedicated solely to NZ's involvement in the wars, but when the auckland city museum closed, their extensive displays were moved to this building as well. bryan especially enjoyed the exhibits on the weapons of pacific islanders, and i believe he's trying to find an excuse to carry a shark-tooth-tipped spear. i'm finding that it's almost comforting to do things that are purely touristy (please don't tell anyone i'm saying this!) because i can acknowledge that i'm completely out of my element. i feel very "green" among the others in our hostel, since it caters to long-termers who've already spent months exploring and working in nz.

i came very near to some tear-shedding this morning, when we realized that our chosen mapping method would only work if we had a computer to download the mapping software to. since internet cafes obviously won't let us do this, we gave in and bought a gps, spending about $500 more than we'd planned on. fantastic. everything is adding up so quickly! we've been surviving on a diet of sandwiches (pb & jelly for lunch, pb & banana for dinner) and leftover plane snacks, so trail food might even be a bit of a luxury for us :)

speaking of the plane - we are in love with qantas. as soon we boarded, we started acting like giddy little children, giggling about everything - the two free meals ("dinner" was served at the equivalent of 4 am eastern time, but you can bet i ate it anyway), the impressive variety of movies and tv shows to watch, the after-dinner hot chocolate served with a single marshmallow, the hot towel to freshen ourselves with, the snack bag...it justified the cost of the flight a bit. the 12 hours rushed by, since only the last hour of the flight was in the daytime. leaving LAX at midnight, we chased the night on its westward path, letting the sun rise just in time to watch our descent.

hopefully we'll be able to post pictures soon - we weren't planning to stop in the internet cafe this morning, so we don't have the camera cord with us.

miss you guys. really. a lot.

rachel