[Nz2003] Auckland report

[Edmund A. Hintz]

Hi all,

    Our stay in Auckland is coming to a close, we expect to head for the
Lake Taupo region tomorrow, and continue on to South Island within a day
or two more-we'll come back to North Island as our flight out is from
Auckland. We've mostly just gone futzing about in the car, getting used
to driving on the left side of the road, wandering about into unknown
neighborhoods just to see what they're like, and generally trying to get
a feel for the city. At this point we've come to the conclusion that
Auckland is sort of a cross between San Francisco (hustle, bustle, big
city, messed up streets homegrown from horse trials) Austin (green
everywhere, parks all over the place), and Venice (lots of waterfront
properties and little interconnecting waterways). Along the way, we found
a grocery store and stocked up on food-one of the photos is from a box of
cereal whose brand name I found amusing: Sanitarium. Yes, Sanitarium
brand cereal. Yum! That would never fly in the states. Folks would be to
paranoid about the label implying mental instability to buy it... ;-)

We stumbed onto the Motat museum of Aviation, Rail, and Technology while
 meandering about the roads-I saw a Spitfire up on a pedestal so we had
to stop and go look. Haven't made it back to see the rest of the
collection yet, but I'm figuring on catching it during our return to
Auckland. We hooked up with the Auckland Unitarian congregation, caught
the Sunday AM service, 'twas a good thing. Met some good folks, got a
wealth of information about NZ, and also found out about the local anti-
war Candlelight Vigil, which we went to. At the vigil itself we met up
again with Dick Weston-Jones, the interim minister for the Auckland
congregation, and his wife Mary (photo below with Hunter and myself). Had
a rather enjoyable evening just chatting with them amidst the candles and
the glorious moonrise over the Tamaki Strait. Hunter also managed to make
friends with some folks there, photo included. Finished the night off
with a steak dinner at the Angus steak house-every night so far we've
been eating steak. We've been avoiding beef in the US due to BSE/MadCow
concerns, but the beef in NZ is about as safe as it gets so we're making
hay while the sun shines...

Photos
Misc:
https://www.hintz.org/photos/private/3-16/3-16.html
Vigil:
http://www.hintz.org/photos/public/vigil/vigil.html


Links, in order of appearance:

http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/whatson/places/motat/default.asp
http://www.unitariansofauckland.org.nz/
http://www.globalvigil.org

Regards,

Ed Hintz
ed@hintz.org