Auckland

So I arrived in Auckland City yesterday morning, a little upset at leaving Gisborne. I mean, I spent the last seven weeks int his beautiful sea-side small town witht he beach a stone's throw away from my front door. On the Friday, my associates made some really great speeches on my behalf, one even writing a poem for me. They took us (Caylin and I, the student teachers) out for drinks afterwards and Steve (the English HOD and my associate) paid for all of our drinks. It was awesome, sweet, and a lot of people showed up to see us off. I felt truly welcome and at home there. Needless to say, I was a little upset at leaving after that.

When I got into Francesca's car in Auckland though, and we drove away from the airport, it felt like I was back in Toronto. You don't really know how much you miss the big city until you've been away from it for a long period of time. Even Christchurch is more suburbs than anything, with no really 'skyscrapers' to speak of, and no highway (freeway, motorway) as city dividers. It's truly a wake up call. And Auckland is a very nice city at that.

Today we went to the local historical village and then to a really cool aquarium where we saw penguins, sea turtles, school sharks, and tons of fish. There is always something to see and do in Auckland, which is making me think of teaching here for my second year. My contract in Whakatane is up after a year anyways, so why not head to the big city for a year? Whakatane is only 17000 people, so it would be a nice change to live in Auckland.

So far my holiday is going well. We're on day two and I've already got loads of pictures, and a story about a cat with no nose. He's still pretty darn cute though.

Now that my foot is feeling better from almost breaking it (or maybe I did break it) with a surfboard, I'm going to get back into my running routine when I get back to Christchurch next weekend.

Oh, and daylight savings time hit NZ today, so there's now only a seven hour minus a day difference from me to all of you guys! Woo hoo! BTW, you all must get Skype so we can actually TALK some time. Please get it because I would love to have a "phone" conversation with you all.

That's all for now!

- Sarah