How we met a celebrity in New Zealand...

Moms here!!

My mom got in yesterday, which will cut down on approximately 75% of my blog page hits. Oh well, I'm so happy she's here for the big New Zealand adventure! Yesterday we went in search of this fantastic shopping district she had read about. Sadly, she neither remembered where she read about it or what it was called or any store featured in the article, so it wad bait of a wild goose chase. We ended up taking a bus ride, walking around a bit, and then trying to get back, except that we got on the wrong direction (my fault) and by the time we realized, we were on the exact opposite end of the city so we just looped around, so we got a really nice accidental tour of inner city Auckland. We went to a dinner on top of the Mercure Hotel and then my moms jet lag really service in and off to bed we went.

This morning the fun began!

Because of my dads obsession with fish, I grew up going to an aquarium at any city that had one. Seriously, I had pangs of guilt not going to the aquariums in Sydney (although I think I did go the last time I was there), and Melbourne. But this morning we decided to set off for the Kelly Talton's Antarctic Adventure (a draw for my mom because her flight over was full of people headed for the first flint of the season to work in the station in the Antarctic - she learned some crazy things about worming down there) and Underwater World (which was a draw for me because how often do you get to go underwater without getting wet?). The best part? The bus that transported us was shaped like a giant shark!




My mom pointing at the Antarctic.




Me in A LOT of pain, surviving the arctic challenge (keeping your hand in antarctic temperatur-ed ice water for 30 seconds (I made it and then put my FREEZING hand BACK in for this picture, my mom made it somewhere between 4 and 5 seconds...)




Shark attack! Fun fact - sharks have an AMAZING sense of smell and 2/3 of their brain is dedicated to it. They can detect 1 drop of blood per million drops of seawater!


Heinous picture of me on the conveyor belt underwater surrounded by the fish, sharks, and stingrays.

We then walked east along the water and through two or three little bayside suburbs that gave us a real feel for the draw of Auckland.



Mommy and me with Auckland in the background.

Now you may not know this bit in a little less than a month, Auckland is hosting the rugby world cup. Rugby is the national sport of New Zealand, but their team, The All Blacks, hasn't won since the very fist world cup. The city is all a buzz with excitement. A HUGE sucker for souvenirs, I decided I wanted some kind of All Blacks memorabilia, so as soon as we went back into town, we walked into the first "official rugby seller" that we saw and started looking around. The sales girl was ECSTATIC to find out we were from Los Angeles and really wanted to talk celebrities with us. (We got the typical "omg! Like, Do you see celebrities all the time?") I'm usually happy to do that, but the only celebrities she cared about were the Kardashians, Real Housewives, and Jersey Shore. Well, considering I haven't watched and make a point of not following exactly that kind of show, I was a huge disappointment to her. All we could do was say, "wow, my sister, Natalie, would really be better to have this conversation with you!". That prompted her to write this:



Now Natalie gets very upset with me that I tell "Natalie stories" to friends and thus she has many fans who don't even know her. I hardly said anything and she made a fan across the world!

But the "celebrity" theme of the day continued...

For a nice dinner, Lonely Planet suggested a restaurant on the North Shore called "eight.two". Getting there required either a semi long cab drive or a ferry followed by either a steep hike or a bus ride up a hill. To get there we opted for a ferry, which was easy, and then needed to figure out a bus. There was one right at the ferry that we RAN to and Burris,y asked the driver if this was the right bus. My mom even started it all by saying "we're tourists!!"
Immediately the bus driver and the woman in the front row told us that this was indeed the bus. The woman in the front promised to tell us when to get off and was telling us that she frequents the restaurant and that both the owner and the chef are her neighbors. Just before she let us off she pontes to the restaurant, and, as we arrived fashionably early, explained how to get inside if the front door was closed. Our bus drover then let us know that the kind woman we were talking to, who we now knew as Annabelle, was a famous New Zealand chef. And that she is! Her name is Annabelle White and she has 10 cookbooks, is on tons of tv programs, and writes for magazines. She's a bit like the Barefoot Contessa here in NZ (I think they told us she calls herself "the cuddly cook")! When we told our manager about our chance encounter and asked him to ring her up to join us, he did, and she came to chat for a few minutes. She was extremely tired and was preparing for a bit job in the morning, but she was so full of energy and fun, and gave us loads of tips on where to stop along our route. We do hope she rings us the next time she's in Los Angeles so we can prove there are SOME fun parts of downtown! We also plan to drop her name throughout New Zealand...



Annabelle and I.

Or meal was delicious and lots of fun (although ODDLY every where we have been has served Spanish cuisine, and here it was just the theme of the month).

Our evening ended with a very fun cab drive back to the hotel with a driver, AJ, who seems to have lived EVERYWHERE and had an accent that sounded like it. He also, was a total foody.


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