Mission Bay Beach BBQ

Zerb to all you blog frogs! I waited an entire day to post this blog so I will find myself straining to remember the gritty details.

Every Thursday at noon a hostel, called Nomads Fusion, organizes a bbq at Mission Bay Beach. Around the time I heard of the function, I met two girls, Sarah and Kristen (who goes by Teddy) who where going and invited me to come along. They seemed to be the first genuinely nice backpackers I met so far, so I decided to put my job searching on hold for a fun social function. We left at 11:30 so that we could be at the hostel in time. It took about 15 minutes to walk there. At noon, they took roll call and we separated into two groups for two separate buses. Teddy, who is super outgoing, had signed up for the event early and so she ended up on the first bus. Sarah and I were on the second and, for some reason, that bus didn't show up until 30 minutes after the first. As we waited for the bus to arrive, we met a German guy, named Chrstian, who enjoyed the opportunity to practice his English. Teddy and Sarah said that they were planning on walking back to the city instead of taking the bus back and I thought it sounded like a good opportunity for exercise and also see some of the city we hadn't seen yet. I should note that pretty much our entire experience in Auckland thus far had been walking up and down either Queen Street or Victoria Street, the intersection at which the ACB and IEP are located. I didn't want to lug my heavy backpack with me so I decided to try to run back and leave it at the ACB before our bus arrived. This ended up being a stressful endeavor and I found myself running both directions to make sure I didn't get left behind.
Once we arrived at the beach, we got off the bus and paid our NZ$2 to a guy in a yellow Spaceship shirt. The first group was wondering where the hell we were (I also was wondering why it took the second bus so long), and the organizers of the first group had already started grilling burgers, veggieburgers, sausages, and onions (the onions smelled particularly good). They also invited people to play a game of touch rugby while the food was cooking. I wasn't in the mood do play a game of which I had no idea what the rules are, so I passed. Teddy, Sarah, Christian, and I just chatted instead.


We did get a chance to take this picture. The food was really good, but there were some interesting things to note. First of all, instead of serving the hamburgers on a bun, they were served on two slices of white bread. Due to rationing purposes (and to my dismay), everyone was served a teaspoon of onions. I was, on the other hand delighted to find that the burgers at least partly consisted of lamb. Sarah was saddened by this because she doesn't like it, but she was so hungry by that time that she ended up eating almost all of it anyway. Once we were done eating, we swiftly began our walk back to the city. I later found out that the reason we left so quickly was because Teddy was meeting someone in an hour and a half.

I think she set the walking pace too, which was just shy of a all-out sprint. Sarah was able to keep up just fine, but Christian and I were lagging behind. This picture shows how far ahead the girls would get every time I would stop to take a picture of something. You can see Teddy turning around and mocking us for being so slow.

I think I recall Teddy telling me that the walk would take about 45 minutes. I think it ended up taking twice that. It was great exercise though and I got some great pictures of the city skyline.


Here is a picture of a sign I thought was funny. Apparently "Getting on with upgrading this wharf" is the New Zealand way of saying "Under Construction." How adorable is that?














And this is what it looks like when a bus is mostly eaten by a shark.