Small world...truly!

First blog in another new country: New Zealand. I arrived on Saturday, I took the bus to town and I had the nicest bus driver ever. He showed me around the city when all the rest of the people got off.

The next day I walked to town (I am staying at a very cosy, wee little hostel outside town) and I 'sniffed' the city to get a feel of the place. Although everyone is telling me to go to the South Island straight away because it is much nicer, my conclusion of that day was (and I am sticking to it!): New Zealand has a great VIBE, even Auckland. I don't know why, but I had the same feeling when I got to Ireland 5 years ago. So that is very promissing!

No pictures yet, because well, taking pictures of the town is not really appealing. But I have 2 stories though:

story one:
I went to the Auckland Museum yesterday to learn more about the Maori people. Great museum, good exhibition. They had a display on all the Melanesian and Polynesian art, language, customes and cultures: they were saying people from Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea and all the tiny Islands in the Pacific have huge similarities within several areas of their culture. People travelling from as West as Papua New Guinea to as far East as Tahiti should be able to see the similarities. But they were saying, not many people are actually going to all those places.... As if I knew this when I was planning my world trip: I was in Papua New Guinea, I am here now (=NZ) and I'm heading to Tahiti in three months...So my planning turns out to be 'culturally correct'!

'weird' story two:
Several months ago an Irish friend of mine, Mark, who I know from the diving club in Dublin, tracked me down via my friend Patrick in Christchurh who I know from the climbing club. Mark turns out to be travelling around the world as well and next month he is going to be in NZ too, so great to meet up. That for one is bizar. To make it more bizar; he knew I know Carole, another friend of mine from Dublin with whom I lost contact. Turns out that Carole is leaving NZ today to go home (!) and that she is leaving from Auckland. So I just spend the day with her in Auckland and it was great talking to her again! Small world, really. And she gave me her SIM card, so as of today I have a number in NZ. First I have to figure out how it works though....I hate mobiles...