Day 89: Auckland, NZ (April 6, 2011)

If you read my last post, you'll know I spent the early part of my day freaking the f*ck out, but once I had my hotel mistake under control, I felt fine and I went on with my day as originally planned.  This morning's freak out wasn't as bad as the time I thought I couldn't access any cash in Tanzania.  But it almost felt worse because I'd made a dumb mistake about not knowing where the International Date Line is.

Andrew and I went to the Auckland Museum, which houses many Maori and other pacific island treasures.  It also had a floor devoted to the natural history of New Zealand, ranging from volcanic activity to wildlife.  I don't really like to take photos in museums, but I took a few to add some visual interest to today's post.  And being a museum, there is a lot of cool stuff to look at.

Pretty tropical fish.

Stained glass skylight.

Freaky dead things in bottles.

Auckland is home to (at least) 24 volcanoes.  None of them are currently active (boo!) but they dot the landscape and on many of them, you can still see the ... what's it called?  Caldera?  The hole where the liquid hot magma came out of years and years ago.

Imagine fire and ash billowing out of here.

Auckland.

So we went to the top of one of the largest of the volcanoes for a view of the city.  By that point, it was early evening and we had to leave to cook dinner.  I was pleased to make a small contribution there:  It seems neither Andrew nor Rachel had tried fresh buffalo mozzeralla before, so I made pumpkin soup and added the mozzerella for taste and texture.  The cheese was almost wasted putting it in the soup like that, because it's so good on its own!  I wasn't even sure it would be good in the pumpkin, but as I discovered at the grocery store (and Rachel later confirmed), there are no cream of <insert anything green here> soups in the country:  broccoli, spinach, asparagus, anything.  So I had to improvise, and it turns out I did OK.

Andrew cooked the main course, which was a pie stuffed with chicken, bacon and mushrooms in gravy.  Have I talked about pies yet?  Specifically meat pies?  Well, tonight's dinner was more like a pot pie -- not a "meat pie" -- and was quite tasty.  But every place in New Zealand sells these wonderful little items called meat pies (although some are vegetarian).  They're about 3-4 inches across, have a flakey pastry on the outside and meat or cheese or veggies on the inside.  They are really good, usually fresh and hot.  And one pie makes a great snack while two can be a meal.  I really hope these become more popular in the States, because they are great at any time of day and can be eaten on the go or more formally.

The cooking and eating took a couple of hours, so that was our evening, then we all tucked into bed early (by my definition of early, at least) because we've got kind of an early start tomorrow to see some of the coast.

Andrew & Rachel, my gracious hosts.