Hola Everyone,

Friday night I was able to go to the Christmas classic, “It’s a wonderful life,” at this outdoor Silo Park. There were tons of market stalls selling any food you could imagine, clothes, trinkets, and all manner of other goods. As night fell they projected the film onto the side of a silo and our group of 8 girls had a blast laughing, talking, and watching the iconic Christmas film there in the outdoor park. Our group ended up being very diverse which is always fun. There were 2 girls from Germany, 2 from America, 1 Netherlands, 1 England, 1 Spain, and 1 France. I love when we get groups together from everywhere because everyone seems to have a great time and we are all able to learn more about each other and our individual cultures. Everyone left a bit early from the film 2 by 2 until it was just me and Maria (England) left. We learned that contrary to our originally belief the last bus out of the city stops at 11:15 not 11:45… needless to say we tried everything we could to find an alternative to a taxi, luckily we were together and not in this situation all by ourselves. Eventually we were able to find the night bus which I realized doesn’t leave until 1:30 am! But we found the bus stop and just decided to wait there until the bus came. Unfortunately we have accents so we attract a certain amount of attention… usually that can work to our advantage but tonight it seemed we were destined to have bad luck so. An old charter fisherman who was also waiting at the bus stop came up and started talking to us. In the beginning I was not too worried because it is fairly normal to have random people come and start talking to you here. I started to get a wee bit frightened when he started telling us his whole life story including that he had just been doing drugs and that he was associated with the a very dangerous Auckland Gang here. Basically for the next 30 minutes Maria and I kept making awkward glances at each other while this man chatted our ears off and told us his whole scary life story. Our luck seemed to get even worse when we realized not only was he waiting with us but he sat next to us on the same bus home… creepy! On the bus ride home I kept feeling more and more nervous. He tried selling us tickets to Scrooge by saying they were worth $40 but he would only charge us $5 but we could plainly see the text on the ticket said, “Adult-$5”; we of course politely declined. It was funny to see the effect that drugs and alcohol has on the mind of people. I was very thankful that Maria was with me and that we were both smart girls in this type of situation. He started grilling us about the popular drugs in our respective countries, to which we exclaimed we had no idea because we were not into that type of thing. We got off at the same stop and then split ways saying something to the effect of “there are all kinds of kinds”. I’m pretty sure that is the fastest I have ever walked home in Auckland though. I was thoroughly freaked out for sure!

Saturday the boys and I headed off to the Au Pair Link Christmas party but due to rainy weather it was cancelled so I took them to an indoor playground called Chipmunks and they had a blast! It’s amazing to me how when you are a child you can play and play for hours on end but when you an adult you get tired just watching them run, jump, flip, play. I spent the rest of the day mucking around and catching up on the “Home and Away” Aussie drama. I was so bummed to find out that there are no more episodes until February now because the season is over. I have become quite taken with this show so can’t wait until February comes back around to start up the next season!

Sunday I spent the morning relaxing, cleaning, reading, etc. before I went to my friend Annabel’s Birthday Lunch. We had a fabulous Champagne lunch celebration eating, laughing and conversing for her birthday out on her mum’s deck in the city. I’m so glad that I was able to meet Annabel, she is so nice and we are always having a lovely time each time we meet up. . Later that night I met up with Maria again and we went to the Carols by Candlelight performance in Ponsonby. I just love carols; they are always so festive and make the atmosphere great. We had a great time enjoying the lovely songs and singing along. Luckily our bus trip home was not quite as adventurous as the Friday night was!    

Wednesday Maria and I met and went to the Star dome down the street from our neighborhood and we were able to learn about the constellations and star formations in the Auckland Summer Night Sky. It is so amazing the vastness of the universe. We are so small when compared with all the other planets and billions of stars up in the sky. I thought it was a really cool experience to be able to remember what the sky looks like in the northern hemisphere and realize that everything is tilted a bit upside down due to our position on the earth’s surface. The constellations are the same they just appear a little skewed and at different times of the year. I also learned that full moons are the worst time to look through a telescope as well as go stargazing because the light from the moon creates a sort of screen making it harder to see the stars around us. Another reason why being in the city is a hard place to see many stars.  I admit I succumbed to the comfortable seats near the end of the presentation and drifted off a bit but none-the-less it was a great presentation and I had a fun time learning about the southern hemisphere’s view of our galaxy and night sky.

Thank you to all those who read. Have a great weekend and holiday season! I love you and miss you all!

Kelcee