A couple more days, but its felt like a week. I've walked miles... er kilometers upon kilometers, met dozens of people, and spent hours conversing with them. It's amazing how open everyone is when they hear your accent. I'm so glad I've chose to come by myself, I think it really makes you more approachable and at the same time forces you to speak up and be proactive.

Some random stuff I've picked up on:

Everything is really clean, the pavement and city streets (no gum stains, or trash), the air (there's always a coastal breeze with bays on both sides of the city), even the hostel is as clean as most hotels I've been to.

Nobody talks on cell phones as they walk the street or are in their cars. After talking with people over email they usually ask you to text them rather than call. It could be somewhat due to their cell phone plans. Vodafone is really big over here, they're as common as starbucks. Their prepay phones are really popular, in fact I picked one up myself. The plans they have are different than what we have. Instead of getting say 600 minutes free for $40, you only get 40 minutes free. But, instead of being fined like crazy for going over, you're charge a set rate, 50 cents per minute. Then on top of that, incoming calls don't consume your minutes or cost you anything. If I receive a call, I can sit on the phone for the next 8 hours without spending a penny.

Very few places offer the customer service we're used to. Rather than glazing everything over with fake smiles and forced sincerity, they're really honest. I think it may go hand in hand with the fact that tips aren't expected and are instead something given for extremely great service. I went to this burger place last night and they asked if I wanted their chili sauce on the burger. I said, "Umm, no, but can I have it on the side?", and she simply responded "No". I just started laughing, "ok, no problem". Surely, in America you can have it anyway you want. Hell, I could ask them to spread the sauce on my ass and they'd stop and consider it. But don't get me wrong, by no means are they jerks. It's nice to know that you're talking to real people and getting strait answers rather than fluff.

I still can't get used to drivers on the left side of the road. I'm in a group of people going across the street and I turn to my left looking for traffic. I turn back to see I'm the only idiot facing that way and the other 15 people are all looking to the right, hehe. At least once a day I've also found myself looking into a car driving down the street thinking "OMG, who's driving?!" when I see the empty passenger seat where we have our driver seats.

Already, I've got a whole new outlook on our affect on the environment. You open the newspapers here and you don't read about murders, rapes and fires but instead an honest concern for our impact on the earth. When you go to fast food places they don't give you disposable plates and cups or a sandwich wrapped in a bag, in a bag, in a bag, but instead real dishes that you return when you're done. It's out of concern for creating more waste and at the same time they trust that people won't run off with dishware that's worth 10x the cost of the food on it.

In the hostel they have a game room with arcade games, big tv room with couches and bean bags all over, and a chill room with a huge library of books. But, the most popular area is the kitchen and dining area. I made friends with a bunch of people as we prepared meals in the industrial style kitchen. It's not uncommon to cook food and end up sitting around in the dining area talking until its time for the next meal. I met a surfer from Japan, Hiroo, ( pronounced Hero) that was really jealous of my California accent and thought it was awesome that I could use chopsticks. A guy from Austria that tried hitting on this girl at the market with his bad english. He confused the poor girl asking her "How can I get you?", rather than "How can I reach you?" when asking for her number. Over some beers last night a guy from Mexico told us stories of October Fest in Germany, a Canadian explained the beer purity law, and we laughed about the various age of concent laws around the world. Apparently it's 16 here, and as low as 14 in some providences of Canada.

I've contacted a bunch of people through couch-surfing and help exchange, the two websites I mentioned earlier. In fact, I'm getting a ride to Kumeu in a couple hours to help Neil and John on their ranch. You can read more about them and others experiences here . I'm not sure how long I'll stay, it could be a week or perhaps a month. I also got a reply from a family just a bit north of Auckland. They've invited me to sand dune surfing and their 40th annual hog hunt this saturday so I'll see if I can make that, it sounds too exciting to pass up!

Of course there's some stuff I've missed, but I'm almost out of time here at this internet cafe. Will post again soon, later!

Oh yea, I'm going to get a CF card reader RIGHT NOW... seriously