Auckland

November 7
Mom and I were up before the crack of dawn waiting for our shuttle to take us to the airport. The flight was short but pretty.
Crazy Mountains
Last view of the south island
First view of the North Island, it was cloudy but you could see that mountain poking out.
After landing, we took a shuttle to our hotel. Turns out the nice hotel we found online was actually in the ghetto suburb of Auckland and not all that great of a hotel. Or maybe we were spoiled after staying at the Windsor, either way, not my favorite. I'm pretty sure we napped for awhile, the whole 4:00 am thing caught up with us. Afterwards, we decided to try out the bus system and go to the inner city Auckland. First we hiked a ways to the bus station, even more in the ghetto. Now I don't mind looking like an idiot, it doesn't bother me but we stuck out real bad. I felt a little nervous because it was like we were wearing signs that said we are tourists, come rob us. We didn't know what bus to ride and jumped on the first one that looked good. Thankfully we ended up in Auckland. Now I like Christchurch, it was easy to get around and felt nice. Auckland was not, it was huge, full of people, I felt exposed and out of place.

We stopped for some lunch at a little cafe and wandered over to the sky tower. It was a huge tourist spot but I was not feeling any of this that day. We decided to wander to the docks and walk around for awhile. Somewhere in there, we found the major bus station and finally got ourselves some maps. Now I could sort of figure out how to get places by bus. Here are a couple pictures of what we saw by the docks and such.
Ferry building
Ferry and the huge Hilton on the pier
The local wildlife
The Hilton pier, I walked all the way to the end and was amazed at all the expensive resturants along the way.
The sky tower thing from far away
kick ass boat
The restaurant I found in between all the super expensive one where we ate. We had the best seafood fettuccine I have ever eaten. yum!
The entire meal, I was listening to these two people next to us. It was the weirdest thing... all I know was that she was from another country and he was telling her things to do and stuff... but it wasn't like friends talking, it was like she was a mail-order bride and they just met. Weird.

We decided to head back to the hotel and somehow made to the bus stop. The bus ride back to the hotel, like the way to Auckland was about 20 minutes. It felt like forever. There are interesting people on the bus though and it makes for good people watching. Back in the hotel, we had a TV in our room so we crashed and were lazy the rest of the night. We did decide that we were going to the botanic gardens the next day and I mapped us out a bus route to get there. I thought about the beach but to be honest, I was not liking the bus and the less I had to be on it the better so we ended up just doing the gardens. Yeah I know, more flowers but it was way better than fighting people in a dirty city. Besides, Mom and I like flowers/gardens.

November 8 - Last full day in NZ
We took our time the next morning getting ready, hiked to the bus stop again and got on the right bus. We missed our connecting bus and had to wait around an hour for the next bus to the gardens. Finally we made it and it was a joyous moment. We were starving by this time and hit the cafe right away. De-lish!

Then it was time for the gardens and they were huge. I'm assuming you are tired of looking at flower pictures so I'll capture the highlights.
Bird sculpture
More art
Me and the big fern, ask mom, I was obsessed with these for some reason
Artichokes! I had never seen them growing before, it was neat
We walked all the way to the back of the gardens and then the best thing ever... we saw wild parrots!! I was so excited and it was so cool!
I tried to get more pictures but they didn't want to stay in one spot too long. They were flying around us in the trees. I totally didn't want to leave but we moved on to the rose gardens. Though I did see the birds some more. It was so fun to see them flying and hear them calling to each other :)

Rose gardens- these gardens were in full bloom, I have never seen so many roses at once. They were beautiful.
I caught Mom smelling some
me and some orange ones, my favorite :)
After that we wandered through more gardens.
Luckily for all of you, my camera died after this and I didn't have any spare batteries. I was mad at myself for not having extras. Oh well, we saw more flowers, trees and spent another couple hours there.

Then it was back to the bus and hotel. This time we had better timing on the buses and didn't have to wait forever anywhere. We ate at the hotel resturant that night and had a lively conversation with our waiter. I was going to swim in the pool but it was right on the porch outside the resturant... I didn't want an audience and it was cold water. We relaxed the rest of the evening and packed for our trip home the next day.

November 9 - Heading home
I was excited to be finally heading home. The vacation was great and I had a blast but I was ready to go home. We had great weather the entire trip so it was fitting that it was raining on our last day, sort of like NZ was sad we were leaving.
Looking out the window
Woo I'm going home!
My flight was in the afternoon so Mom and I went to breakfast and watched TV all morning until our shuttle came to take us to the airport. Our shuttle driver smelled so bad... and then we were trapped in the van with him... it was terrible. I couldn't breath... trust me, it was bad.

Mom and I killed some time in the airport, people watching and book shopping. Then I had to leave her for my flight, we were not on the same flight home which kind of sucked. The trip to LAX was long, I watched 4 movies and tried to sleep. It didn't really happen.

November 9 again
After we landed I had to pick up my luggage, drop it off somewhere else, then wait in line for security. I was so tired after that, I found a corner of gate and sleep on the floor. After a 5 hour layover, I was on my way to Denver. I was supposed to have a 4 hour layover in Denver but by the luck of the gods, the flight to Laramie in the afternoon was delayed and I was able to get on that flight. Woo home 2 hours before I was supposed to be! and there was Damian!! The best part about getting home. :) I mean who wouldn't want to come home to this...
Sorry Damian, I had to put this picture up... too funny!

So my adventure was over. I had been to the end of the world and back... and now I was home!