Hello! After settling in and just getting used to the city my flat mates and I decided to do a bit more exploring and getting out of the city. First, Hitomi and I went to a suburb of Auckland (still Auckland but feels like a little island) called Devonport. We took just a short ferry ride over and when we arrived we were almost shocked at how much quieter it was than the main city. It was filled with little cafes and shops, a kind woman in an art shop got to talking with us and told us where to go, what places to eat and everything. We followed her suggestions and had a great day with chocolate, hiking, and a navy museum. In the picture above I am standing at the top of Mt Victoria, basically it is just a giant hill and on top you can see all of Auckland.
As we waited for the ferry back to the city we watched a beautiful sunset!
I had orientation for a couple days and got to meet some cool study abroad people and some people in my major. Each day there was free Subway sandwiches and cookies, as you can imagine I had a lot of free lunches and dinners but am now pretty sick of subs. Above is a picture of me falling into Mt Eden ahhhh! Elli (the last flat mate from Germany- she finally arrived!), Hitomi, and I decided to go to Mt Eden, an Auckland famous old volcano. When we got to the top it was crazy how huge and deep the crater was, looked like a great place to go sledding!
Left-Elli, middle-Hitomi, right-me! The three of us in front of the top of Mt Eden, you can see the Sky Tower in the background and some of the city.
The next day it was raining but was our last day before classes started so we knew we had to go out to enjoy our last hours of freedom from school work. As you can see Hitomi and I gotten eaten by a shark, no big deal. We went to the aquarium! When we arrived it was just a tiny building and we thought...how can there be $27 worth of fish sights in there? But it ended up the whole thing was underground, pretty nifty because then there was a window that looked out into the ocean.
We got to see a few string rays and a man feeding them. They would come up onto his arms so you could see half of them out of the water, it was really cool!
Of course, we had to look at the penguins!
And don't worry, we hung out with bubbles obsessed fish and Dory!
After our fishy day we made a family dinner to celebrate an exciting semester ahead of us! (By the way, Katherine is on the front and Elli behind her.)
I also made a Dad famous ice cream cake! It was a little difficult to find all the right stuff (I stood in the cookie aisle for probably 20 min and ended up asking an elderly lady which was her favorite biscuit) but in the end I got it pretty close. My flat mates were very, very happy with it and I'm pretty proud! I already have requests to make one for birthdays and to come to Japan and Germany to make them, Dad you might go out of business soon!
I'm very glad to get out of the city a bit and now can't wait to travel on the weekends. I luckily don't have class on Mondays, but soon enough they will start! I thought I came here just to hang out not go to class! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer and not working too hard!
-Michele
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