Tuesday, March 10, 2009

day four!

  • ok, i just wrote a longish, funny post and then lost the whole thing . . . this next won't quite measure up to the first, but it will have to do.
  • this morning i actually woke up after sunrise - new and exciting! perhaps i'm returning to my pre-jet lag sleeping habits at last. i spent the morning getting to and looking around at kelly tarlton's, this aquarium in auckland. it's a bit small for the price, but what they have is pretty cool. i arrived as the penguins were being fed - fat little black and white water birds are so cute! one of the more unique features of the place is its "antarctic experience" section, which has a model of the huts used by the earliest explorers in antarctica and brief descriptions of their travels (and for some of them, their untimely deaths). fortunately for me, the experience did not involve antarctic temperatures.
  • this afternoon, i took a four-hour trip to paihia with a company called 'naked bus.' (in spite of the name, it's not a clothing-optional ride.) it was a pretty drive through green and hilly country with flocks of sheep, herds of cows, and - what do you call a bunch of deer? it seems that deer are farmed here much like sheep and cattle; they graze in the same sort of pastures all over the place. oh, and at one point, i'm pretty sure i saw a bunch of llamas, too, or maybe they were alpacas? i can't tell them apart.
  • anyway, i'm here in paihia now, and it's time for me to book some fun for tomorrow . . . i'll let you know what happens. thanks for reading!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like you're having fun! Wonderful:)
Naked bus, huh? Sounds interesting.

traveling linguist said...

hey mom - yeah, don't worry, everyone was fully clothed, though if you look up their website, the home page has a picture of a naked guy from behind . . . i think they mean naked as in 'bare bones - no frills.'