North Island, Auckland

Here in Auckland, awesome city, much like Seattle. Same kinda people, same scene, etc. Last night I went out on my own to get a picture of the sky tower, I forgot my memory card, but I met a German guy who bought me some beer. about 4 beers later the bartender gets up and says , "awhhh letsgetouthere, findus a real party, youin?" why not i says. so he closed up the bar and about 5 of us went to a night club, 70's disco kinda thing. I get up to the bouncer and he says, "Na mate, cant go in there like tha, you need trousers." "trousers?" "Yeah long pants" (I only have one pair of pants and I just roll them up to make them into shorts), so I rolled them down and said, "this alright?" "ya sure mate". I also go a free shot from the bartender at the club, I walked up to him and said, "Give me your biggest, cheapest, strongest drink." he had to think about it, so he just gave me a beer and then poured me a shot and said it was on the house. HA!
We did a lot of climbing in a little place about 200k south of Auckland, mostly farm land. there were goats and sheep walking around us while we climbed, kinda funny. we really didnt have much of a plan to get back to Auckland, and we were miles away from civilization. well the day we left we packed up everything and walked out on the road and within 1 minute with our thumbs out a truck (mind you there wasnt much traffic around) came out of nowhere and offered us a ride. he dropped us off pretty close to a place called Hamilton about 100k south of Auck, again within about 2 minutes with our thumbs out someone picked us up and drove us into hamilton and to the bus stop where (now this was just perfect timeing) there was a bus for about $20 heading into Auck that was leaving in 5 minutes. jumped on the bus and we were off, no worries. it was amazing how quick that went, we had actually planed to stay in hamilton that night but everything just worked out so well.
Right now we are staying with a host family, Sue and Bruce. They have an awesome place right near the bay, beautiful view.