~ How do you say "Whangarei"?

Some quirky things about this country: the toilets (the flush is weird, and you often choose which kind of flush you wish to flush based on the... well, never mind), the outlets (most have switches that let you turn them on or off - we haven't quite figured out what for), the dryers (there are many fewer than washers - we think people hang their laundry a lot more than we do), the electric teapots (nearly every room - hostel to B&B - has one, along with instant coffee packets & tea), milkshakes (New Zealand food is marvelous, but they simply don't get milkshakes. They whip up some kind of flavored syrupy something that just doesn't compare. Ice cream is good and milk is mostly whole, though, so we're not holding that one against the country), road signs (very pictorially descriptive even though they're just using silhouettes and stick figures!), and, of course, they drive on the "proper" side of the road. Given that the roads are generally small, and only four-lane in the biggest of cities, this made for a neat bit of acclimatizing, even to the end of our trip. The nice thing about all these quirky things is that they're different enough to make us sit up and take notice, but they're not SO different that it's stressful to be here in any way. The natives are friendly - with the exception of Bad Santa ('nother story) - and we had nothing but positive encounters with any of them. The accent is heaps of fun. We got no end of mileage out of saying "speecial eeria" ("special area" - used by multiple tour guides to describe the place we were visiting), and I sent one of the kids at Simon & Shantini's off into peals of laughter by saying "I don't know" (instead of "I deeon't kneeah")! I think everyone else probably laughs too, they were just a bit more discreet about it. Oh, and "Whangerei" is a town that we stayed 2 nights in near the Bay of Islands, and it's pronounced "Fang-er-ay"! Who knew?! It's been fun that we came at the very beginning of the tourist season; people aren't weary of foreigners asking dumb questions. We really haven't run into tons of Americans here, either. Mostly other travelers have been from Europe, Asia and Australia.

Saturdays are lovely, yes? Although ours started with a 6:30AM knock on our door (from our overly friendly B&B host who wanted to say "goodbye" before they took off for the day), we managed to hold off till 11 or so before finally rolling ourselves out of Whangerei. The B&B had a washing machine in the bathroom, so we were actually able to leave with clean, if somewhat damp, clothes!

We arrived in Auckland and decided to crash the museum. We spent several hours looking at war memorial stuff, volcano stuff, and stuffed animals. I think one of the reasons that Tom, Ben and I make good travel buddies is that we all like museum-y type places (and actually read a good percentage of those little informational cards! I know...), and that we all like figuring out the flora and fauna (particularly birds on this trip) around us. I really think we would drive most people nuts. But we amuse ourselves and are relatively harmless, so we don't worry about it overly much.

Ben's cousin Frank lives in Auckland (going for his master's in genetic marine biology at the university here), so he met up with us at the museum as it was closing up. He gave us a mini tour of the university, and of the city, and we ended up in a Mexican restaurant comparing notes on the country. We also got to hear about his upcoming month-long trip around the South Island collecting rock crab species. Sounds like it will be really neat - he has only been on the North Island so far so we gave him what little perspective we could on various places there.
We're jealous! We would have loved even a bit more time there - I don't think any of us regrets spending two weeks there and one on the North Island. Though we would gladly take more time in either place if it were possible! (Photo is of Tom, Frank and Ben, inspired by some art we walked by at the university.)