First day. Got off plane at 6:30AM local time. Went to hotel to leave off bags. The entire group hopped onto city tour buses. I hooked up with my roommate for a bit and then he left for the aquarium. I spent the rest of the day with Brendon.

We went to the New Zealand museum for a short while but we barely scratched the surface. You could spend a few days here easily. We only had a short time because we wanted to catch the satellite bus to see more of Auckland. It's quite a big bustling city.

We got off the bus in Parnel for lunch. The waitress put our seats in front of the kitchen exit and the chef really let her have. Afterward she went into the kitchen and gave the chef a piece of her mind. It was pretty funny. The girl was all of 5 feet tall and the chef was w burly Italian guy! I got to know some of my fellow travellers better during lunch. It was a very nice afternoon.

After lunch the bus company picked us up to take us back to the hotel. The rooms still weren't ready. We hung out in the bar and had a few drinks. I was pretty tired from the long, long flight so I didn't drink too much.

After we got into our rooms, it took the hotel quite a long time to get all our baggage sorted out. I then met Brendon in the lobby and we went for a walk. We walked down to the beach and took a few pictures.

I don't remember now what we did for dinner. I went to bed pretty early too.