First night out in Auckland

Zerb to you, my blog readers. That's my fancy way of saying hello. I know all of you are wondering what my hostel room looks like here at the Auckland Central Backpackers (ACB) Hostel so I attached a helpful photo. My bed is the one on the top right. The bed on the bottom right is the bed where some strange girl laid last night clicking her cell phone buttons while texting at 2:00 am this morning as I was trying to sleep. She also, for no reason I could understand, kicked the bottom of my bed waking me up. She then asked me if I was awake to which I replied, "yes" in a tone that also said, "what do you think?!? You're the one kicking my bed!" She then asked me something about bass of some music that I think she was hallucinating. I just replied, "I'm still trying to figure out why you are kicking the bottom of my bed." Her boyfriend then returned from a night out at the bars and they proceeded to chat as if two people weren't in the room with them trying to sleep. Needless to say, I'm changing my room today.

Last night after the International Exchange Program (IEP) office closed, one of the nice people working there took a group of us to a bar where they had quiz night. It was really fun! Our group split into two teams and there were probably another eight teams made of local Aucklanders. There were ten rounds of questions, each with a category and we got to choose two rounds where we got double the points. Each team got to converse about each question and then write down their answer on their own answer sheet. Points were tallied after each round and the winner got a prize that I don't know because we came in third to last place. Here is a picture of the group. Starting from the left Amelie (not pictured) and Laure are from France. They named our team 'Frienz Team' because they are staying in Frienz Hostel. Mike and his girlfriend are from Canada, and Grace is from Seattle. I don't know who the guy in the green shirt is; I never met him. The girl whose arm is in the lower right is Manuela. She and her friend are from Germany. What a great group, huh? Could you tell there were some names I either never got or couldn't remember? Good. It is interesting meeting people and then they leave the next day and you probably will never see them again. The Canadians bought a car and are going to go camping all around the country. Grace is leaving tomorrow and taking a bus tour all around the country through a company called Stray. I think the French girls are just planning on staying in Auckland for another couple weeks. They are nice, but are a little shy because their English is a little limited.

What? You want to see what the Sky Tower looks like at night? Your wish is my command:

As my Great Uncle P.K. says, it looks like flying saucer suspended over the city. It really does look like that. And now I am starting to wonder about that vividly realistic dream I had last night about being abducted by aliens... hmmmm.