April 4 - Brook - Today was a very early start. We presented to the Parnell Rotary club with a breakfast meeting at 7:00 am. Then Roger and Avis, our day hosts from the Parnell club treated us to an urban cultural day in Auckland. First we visited the Holy Trinity Cathedral and St. Mary's Church. The history, beauty, and delicate stain glass windows were stunning and created a lovely and peaceful setting for our tour. Then we were taken to the Auckland Art Galle...

April 3 - Brook - This morning we had a group vocational meeting. We went to the Health and Disability Advocacy Service and commissioner's office. We had a very interesting discussion about New Zealand's advocacy service and the processes. We were also very interested to discover some of the similarities and differences between the Canadian and American systems that came about in our discussion. Both the advocacy representative and the commissioner's office repre...

April 2 - Brook - Today we went to Waiheke Island to visit the Rotary Club of Waiheke. There we were met by Greg and Trevor who were our lovely hosts for the day. First we were taken to a Maori ceremonial place called the Marae of Piritahi. Here a welcome ceremony called a powhiri was performed with us. It was a very touching and wonderful experience. It is the custom of the Maori that women do not speak in the Marae. However, Brenda was given the honour of speak...

April 1 - Brook - Today was a change over day to our new Host Families from the Auckland East Rotary Club. This morning was a relaxing morning enjoying an extra hour's sleep as New Zealanders adjusted their clocks for daylight savings time. For my last morning with Peter and Sally Ross, we went to the French Market to enjoy a cappuccino. I was a little confused at first and thought that we were going to "Morgan" for the french market. But I quickly learned that I...

Vivian - I left my hosts from the first week in NZ (Roger and Debbie Gower). We had spent time together at their lovely home in Auckland, and at their lovely "bach" at Omaha beach, where we visited Matakana Farmers' market, and the Brick Bay winery and sculpture trail yesterday on our "free day". Now we are back in Auckland with new host families for the second week. We attended a trolley derby sponsored by the Auckland East Rotary club and watched the finals....