And Xmas arrived!!!

These are not the first Xmas I spend away from home and, although I was specting heat and many Xmas decorations, there was not such a thing! The truth is that it has been raining pretty much all the time since I’ve been in New Zealand, so I honestly believe New Zealand should be the owner of the topic, instead of UK! Anyway, still a great country.

For Xmas Eve, a very international group got together for a BBQ (national sport!) at the beach… A German, a Swiss (German side), a Brazilian (originally from Japan), a Czech, a Russian and myself! We had a great time and it was sunny and warm pretty much all day, but of course by the time we were doing the BBQ it got windy and a bit cold, but in the end we managed to cope with it. We had presents for each other, an invisible friend game (don’t know how you call it in English) much fun! Afterwards we, the Europeans, went to the pub. I can now say that in Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia it’s also common to go out for drinks after having dinner at home with your family but in New Zealand not so much. There were just a few pubs opened and the streets were empty, apparently it’s not so common for kiwis to celebrate Xmas Eve and they go early to bed so they can really enjoy Xmas Day all together. Anyway, we got to the pub and they told us we only had 20 minutes left, so just time to have a beer and dance few songs… Then goodbye time arrived, everyone was starting a new trip but eventually we would all meet again!!!

We spent Xmas Day at Cris’s homestay (the Brazilian girl) it was just the 3 of us this time. She’s very lucky, cause, Marilyn, her homestay “mother” is great, she let us use her home to celebrate our Xmas. We had a sunny day so we got to enjoy a Russian picnic lunch in her backyard and for dinner I cooked roast chicken (turkey was more expensive) as we would have it at home! We had a great time! On Boxing Day we went on an excursion to One Tree Hill, a suburb and a park, but there’s no One Tree on the Hill, just an obelisk that we couldn’t see because there was a long cue of cars to get closer, so we had to leave it… Then we went to the beach, nothing to envy Ibiza’s, but you can’t expect much of them when is windy and sea’s raft, but that didn’t stop people of taking a swim…

The 27^th & 28^th we went to Waiheke, an island 40 minutes away from Auckland by ferry. There are many vineyards and the coast and the inland are incredible! It’s really worth it to spend there a couple of days, we were there only for one night and we were lucky with the weather so we managed to see a lot, although we couldn’t enjoy it in depth. It’s very easy to travel around the island. You have the Hop On & Off Bus for only 8 NZ Dollars, it’s a great way to see its beaches, little towns, the thousand beautiful houses on their hills… We spend the night at the Bio shelter Backpackers, organic WC, solar energy, rain water… With a very interesting design , integrates the external elements as earth and vegetation. We had a great night with some of the other backpackers. One of them, a German guy, plays the guitar and sings very nicely, so we spend the night listening to his songs.