Auckland

~!@#$%^&*()~!@#$%^&*()~!@#$%^&*()

......So that was a time machine (obviously.not a string of cursing!!!!) and we are now back to February 1st when I landed in Auckland!!!!

I had three days in Auckland. And as it was my first stop I was crazy excited and took a gazillion photographs. But for your sake I will try and narrow it down to the ones that are only passably bad:)

That first day I wasn't too jet lagged on arrival. I had managed probably about 6 hours sleep on the plane. So I got to my hostel, dropped of my bags, and started wandering. It is your typical big city. With museums, shops, art galleries, and harbors for a newly arrived American girl to wander in. And I am going to cram all three days into one post. Prepare for Auckland overload:

For all the Swanson's in my life...Look your famous!!! A street and a building named after you:) 

Random gathering of Asian elderly praying in the town center. literally.center.of.town.

Everywhere in NZ the town centers have clock towers....although 99% useless because of these crazy new things called watches and cell phones, still pretty to look at.

Say hello to my breakfast, lunch, and dinner:)

Auckland Museum...humungo building set on a hill over-looking the city. very cool. inside and out!

A view of the city from the museum.

Another one....and yes this was like the best weather I had while in Auckland.

A view that includes the Sky Tower. You can bungy, walk outside, or view the city from safely inside. I did none of the above as it was usually cloudy and I figured the views wouldn't be worth the money.

So the museum is in the Domain, a huge park in the center of Auckland and they have these beautiful greenhouses full of the coolest flowers ever. This awkward picture of my hand was to show you that the flowers were huge....but as you can tell it just turned into a weird picture of my hand with a flower in the background. fail.

More of the gardens.

Check out this FABulous lily pad. I wanted to have a party on it.

Coolest.coffee.shop.ever. On a major street corner in downtown Auckland. Just a little hut, then seating out on couches/benches under the tree. The building next door (covered in white/painted looking tent thing) was a condemned house/commune/unidentified building where totally chill people would wander out off and order coffee. Super cool peeps, super cool vibes, highly recommended.

Pretty/creepster cemetery also in the middle of Auckland. Literally there is like a freeway running over parts of it.

If you want you can lease parts of the cemetery......(:

Don't you want to live in a RAINBOW building??? "Ya, I live on the yellow floor."

View from my hostel window.

My wandering along a harbor checking out the boats.

So I started this thing where I wanted to show you exactly where my poor feet have wandered....so get excited for pictures of my feet practically everywhere!!!!!

epic staring off into space shot.

I picked out a boat for myself. (hint.hint.nudge.nudge.wink.wink. to anyone looking to buy me a boat!)

Pretty spectacular view of downtown Auckland if I do say so myself.

I thought the sky tower was really fun to take pictures of. I have like 50 more pictures if you think so too:)

This random lonely piano out on a wharf made me wish I had kept up with lessons all those years ago!!!!

Chilling at the Chinese New Year festival. And two feet away behind the danger tape is the man setting up the ridiculously long string of firecrackers (yep, the blurry reddish line that goes all the way across the grass). I felt uber safe.

oooooo.

aaahhhh.

I really wanted to take a ferry out one day to an island north of the city....but I missed my chance the first day and the weather never got nice enough again. But other than that I felt like I did the touristy aspects of Auckland justice. Little did I know it would be the last time I ever felt that way about a city in NZ:)