Dave's last night in Auckland

Yesterday was a lot of fun! Flora and Dave and I walked to Parnell Village, but we walked through the Auckland Domain. The Domain is a huge park with tons of awesome New Zealand-only trees and flowers, incredible statues, and duck ponds and things. It’s only about a ten minute walk from where I’m living, and it’s SO fun. There’s wonderful trees to climb and the Auckland Museum is right in the middle of acres and acres of grass and woods, so that’s also pretty cool. We spent a lot of time on one tree called a pohutukawa tree, because it literally grows sideways and is super easy to climb. They have beautiful red flowers in the winter, and they also cover islands such as the poor knights, where they look like the island has just turned red once all the flowers bloom. It was so nice to get out of the concrete and asphalt and into the grass and sunshine.

Then, we all went shopping in Parnell. Dave got some things to take back home with him (because he’s leaving today), and Flora and I were seeking out gifts for other people. With some Easter money from my parents I ended up getting myself a New Zealand Pandora charm- which is really cool because I didn’t think they even make those. They also had commemorative Christchurch Earthquake charms, which look like a house with a big crack through it. I’m not sure if I want one that looks like that or not. Flora and I got gelato (Italian ice cream. I got benaffo or something like that, which is banana flavored ice cream with caramel and shortbread in it. Parnell is a really nice village to do some shopping and we found the greatest souvenir shop ever!

Dave bought some greenstone, which is called pounamu, which is a beautiful rock like jade that they shape into pendants and things. There’s a lot of legends about it, like if it breaks when you wear it then somehow it deflected a whole bunch of negative energy meant for the person wearing it. They’re carved into meaningful shapes and are kind of pricey. Not sure if I’ll get one or not, I’m trying to be thrifty!

Then we came back and relaxed, had a quick (free!) dinner with my friends, and Dave and I went out to a comedy show. Danny McChrystal is a British comedian that came here as part of the international comedy festival. It was a really small event (maybe about 40 people), but it was actually really funny. Then, we did a bungy ride right next to the sky tower, where we got strapped into this egg-shaped thing that bungies you straight up into the air, you sort of bounce mid-air, and then come back down. It was pretty cool! I guess you go from 0 to 200 kph (kilometers per hour) in about 2 seconds. Then, we met up with my friend Njeri, and ended up really enjoying Dave’s last night in Auckland city. Now he’s packing and I’m trying to get a head start on my homework!