To the beach

We had a little more excitement today with a trip down to Mission Bay. It started off simple enough but we ran into a little issue with our bus after about 10 minutes. The bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and informed us that we'd have to sit there and wait for another bus to come because ours had just broken down. And we'd have to wait for 15 to 20 minutes before the next one would be there. Since we're pretty impatient people, we got off the bus and made a hike for the rest of the bus route. But first we had to take some pictures with downtown Auckland in the background. We're quite the tourists...

 That's the broken down bus and its refugees

 Our view of downtown Auckland and the sailboats. Wish I had one.

 I didn't actually walk to the end of this but we thought it was scenic

 This is the Summer Stunner- a junior whopper, fries, frozen coke and sundae. In Mary's words-- "All of this for $5.50!" She found a little slice of heaven.

 This was the park in front of the beach with a big fountain that little kids splashed around in. You can only imagine the amount of urine in that thing.

 Our view from the beach. Sure beats snow.

 Me standing awkwardly in front of the big fountain.

After the beach, we got some chips and guacamole at a Mexican restaurant on the main street off the beach.

So that was today's adventure. This whole week has been fun and I've learned a lot about New Zealand. It's honestly not that different from the U.S. I can't really figure out a way to define their culture but it's a crazy mix of American, European, and Asian cultures. The biggest differences I've noticed so far are the accents, they drive on the left side of the road, they call elevators lifts, their beer is way overpriced, you don't have to tip at restaurants and you can walk diagonally at crosswalks. I actually really like that last part because you only have to cross a street once to get to the opposite corner. They should start doing this in the U.S. I'll try to take some pictures of it when I think of it. Can't think of anything else now. We're going to Coromandel this weekend. I'll update this after.