And it has begun. After months of planning, booking and organizing we finally made it to the country just across the ditch, New Zealand. With our flights being a cakewalk compared to Europe, we were here in just three hours, barely giving us a chance to even get settled in. Arriving just before midnight, we cruised through customs making it out in record time. From there however, we took a bus into the city that seemed longer than the flight itself.

Rocking up in the middle of the city at about 1am and being absolutely starving we went and ate at the most predictable of food sources, the corner kebab shop. From there we stumbled into our room at 1:30, torches blazing, managing to wake up the entire dorm room in the process. J

The next morning we were up bright and early, eager to explore this city that we knew so little about. We started off on a fantastic note discovering that at almost all traffic lights you can cross not only in the normal directions but diagonally too. This amused us for hours. Every traffic light we got to we crossed diagonally, even if it was not at all where we needed to go.

Once we finally decided we should probably go somewhere, we made our way to the port to an area known as the Viaduct. Here we strolled around looking at the America's cup yachts and massive cruise liners. We also stumbled upon a busker, one of the many taking part in the International Buskers Festival. This is where our day got very interesting. The show entailed a woman named Daphne doing tricks with a whole bunch of hula hoops. However she was, how do I put it nicely, very special. She put on quite a show even calling up our very own Mr Glazer to take part in what turned out to be majority of the show. She gave him flowers, they went on a date and in the end they even got married by a volunteer who turned out to be a legitimate priest. It was hilarious! (don't worry we have a video)

After schmoozing around the city some more it had gotten pretty late and as good Jewish boys we realized Shabbas was upon us. Thankfully a good friend of mine Dani, who lives in Auckland, offered for us to go and crash her dinner that evening. She picked us up from our hostel (what service!) and we headed to hers for a swim and some beers before dinner. It was awesome. Not that we had been away from home cooked meals for that long, but the fact that we were sitting at a Shabbat table in a completely different country overlooking an amazing view was simply spectacular. We had the best peach chicken and amazing homemade challah. Not that I'm picking favourites here but it could even hold its own against Roykie's.

After a three course meal and a couple bottles of wine, we headed back into town, going for a bit of a bar-hop with some of Dani's friends. We went all over the city and ended up in a bar that actually joint on to our hostel. It was such a sweet way to spend out first night in Auckland and we hope we have many more like it. Danz if you are reading this, thanks again J

The next morning started with a bit of a sleep in after which we just hung around our room meeting some new peeps. By 11 we realized we should probably do something with our day and headed out, wanting to get to a popular beach known as Mission Bay. Told it was easily walkable we set off on the walk, thinking we were better than the busses. However it was only quite a way in that we realized how far the walk actually was. 7km and about an hour later we finally arrived at the beach which was packed with people. There were sport games going on, a bar hosting a high jump competition and us in the middle of it all working on our tans. We stayed there for hours, meeting some of the jumpers and actually getting quite a decent burn. Once we noticed how pink we were getting we hopped on a bus and headed straight back to town.

That evening we found out that all the buskers from the festival were coming together in a show playing at the Viaduct that night. Enjoying Daphne's show so much we knew we just had to be there and headed off at 7 wanting to check it out. Thank god we left at 7 because that place was packed by the 7:30 start time. They definitely did not disappoint. The show was incredible making us laugh our asses off whilst being blown away by the stunts. It ended up going until 10, much later than we anticipated, so the moment it finished we ran to find something to eat. We ended up at an amazing burger joint just around the corner of our hostel called Velvet Burger. We finished the night there knowing we were going to have a packed day coming up, as we were finally getting our car.