Auckland Sucks!

12/11/07: Flew into Cancun from Cuba and made my way to the hotel Girasol in old Cancun. Much better than paying $175 per night at one of the 300 huge resort on the strip. Really, it's like Vegas on the Gulf of Mexico, with no gambling. After my waiter tried to charge me double for my G + T and the two guys next to me got into a brawl I decided to move on. I went to a club called "Coco Bongo." I'm not really sure why this is in Mexico. It was a very entertaining theater/music video montage of American pop culture from the last 50 years. It was actually really well done, but of course tremendously touristy and......who goes to Mexico for American pop culture? (http://www.cocobongo.com.mx/home.php?Lenguaje=en)

12/12/07: Back at my apartment in SF for the evening as I have a 24 hour lay over. I catch up with the flat mates.

12/13/07: Spent the day with the Sis, my flight is at 7 p.m.

12/14/07: Lost day as I crossed the dateline today

12/15/07: I got in at 5:30 a.m., found a hostel and the walked the city. Somehow ended up at the casino until 3:30 that morning. Down $50.


Auckland

12/16/07: Walked the city, watched a movie, and started to make a plan for NZ. The huge difference between (real) places like Africa, Mexico and Cuba vs. NZ, when you arrive in NZ it's easy to be overwhelmed by all the tourist options, while in those other places it's up to you to make a plan.

12/17/07: Jet lag day. Didn't do much, need to make a plan.

12/18/07: Went to a cool little nieghborhood called Parnell. Switched hostels and moved to Xbase. Clean and modern with unfriendly backpackers. No one that I was meeting here is friendly, not the backpackers, not the locals, nada. As this has a huge influence on how you percieve a place, I am not liking Auckland at all. First off, mullets are big business here. Lots of them, everywhere. No one seems to take notice but me. I was tempted to walk up to some of the people and ask them if they new they had mullets - but thought better of it. Second, there are Celtics jerseys everywhere! It should be a good thing for me, right? Wrong. Tried to compliment several people on them - but they have no idea who the Celtics are, who the players are, or where the team is from. They have no idea what I am talking about when I say "nice Pierce jersey!" This means they wear them for style. Enough said.

12/19/07: I explored Ponsonby and K-road.

12/20/07: Still trying to figure out what I'm going to do next.

12/21/07: Went to a town across the bay called Devenport, did some hiking and went to the beach.


Devenport

12/22/07: Booked Stray bus - but I can't leave until after Christmass

12/23/07: Why am I still here?

12/24/07: Everything is closed today

12/25/07: Went to the bar and got pissed with a local for Christmass. Awesome!

12/26/07: Finally getting the fuck out of here. 11 days what a waste. Didn't meet one person that I kept in touch with.