Miscellaneous May

A Smorgasbord of Activities

Exploring  Auckland
May was a fun month to explore the city I've been living in for so long. Normally on the weekends we're traveling, however, with all the essays/assignemts in May a lot of us stayed close to the city. Some days we went to K-Road to browse around thrift shops. One day I ran into the Royal Family (just kidding it was only Claire, Anna and Tommy)! I also explored more towards the harbor where it's really nice to grab brunch. I also discovered a little piece of heaven when I went to the milk and cookie bar with Hannah and Caroline. The bar is called Moustache and you can order any freshly-baked warm cookie with a glass of milk. I will definitely be going back because they didn't even ID me! Also, there is a museum in walking distance from my apartment building. Me and Ryan decided to go check it out and we got in for free because it was after 4pm. We checked out the Wildlife Photography Exhibit which was amazing and had such mind-blowing pictures of animals. Some of the boys had gone golfing one day and when they came back I ran into them and I got to join the in New Zealand's first indoor trampoline park! The floors were covered in trampolines and could do flips into foam pits of play dodgeball.

Beer Olympics
On a random Saturday, Kat and Sarah put together Beer Olympics for the 20 of us. We were randomly assigned to our teammate and there were ten teams. Throughout the day we played various games. It ended up being such a fun afternoon because everyone got really into their costumes. Tommy and I were Djibouti (an African country pronounced jA-booty) we decided to be pirates "argh gimme yer booty". The countries involved were the Bermuda Triangle, Germany, USA, Cuba, New Zealand, Japan, Panem (hunger games), India and  Ireland. Cuba (Mickey and Jenna) captured the gold but don't worry, as a third world country, Djibouti was pumped to get the silver. 

Waiheke Vineyard
One random day Mickey, Ryan, Pat, Pat's brother and I ventured off to Waiheke to explore. We ended up renting a car which worked out nicely because we were able to explore parts of the island that we hadn't seen in previous visits. I was in charge of the map and direction and surprisingly we didn't get lost once! We went to Enclosure Bay where we climbed on the rocks and explored the beach. A lot of the vineyards were closed but we ended up going to Stonyridge Vineyard to do a wine tasting. We were able to select our wines and we chose: Bubbly, Sauvigon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pino Noir. Afterwards, we drove towards the isolated areas of the island. In Omaru Bay we stopped off at a pier and met a man who was fishing with his golden retriever. The man spotted out a Mano-Ray which was huge! We then drove around the rest of the perimeter before catching the sunset at Onetangi Bay and catching the ferry.