Sunday night in Queenstown we started out as losers. Unsure of where to go for dinner and a bit beaten down by the prices everywhere, we ended up eating an early bird special in a semi empty restaurant. Dinner was done at 6:45 and we had no plans for the evening, then things turned around. We walked down to a pub on the wharf aptly called "pub on wharf" where we decided to brave the cold and sit outside overlooking the water at a very nice fireplace. We had a few drinks (me and my cider - god it's so good) but wound up chatting for quite a while with a couple from Australia. We were feeling slightly less loser-ish afterwards and continued onto the ice cream and chocolate shop we had both noticed and read about in my book. Our reasons for wanting ice cream were twofold: first, we had beard fabulous things about New Zealand Ice Cream (every ice cream I'd seen in Asia was labeled as new Zealand so I had some interest), and second, because they were one of the ONLY places I've seen in New Zealand that boasts free wifi (I know, this was a remarkable thing - it's everywhere in Cambodia but in New Zealand, good luck), so it just seemed right to patronize it. Apparently everyone else in town thought the same and the place was packed. We lucked out with a booth and within minutes a nice Asian couple came over and asked if they could sit at the table. Their accents sounded American so my mom immediately asked where in the states they came from. They laughed and responded with, "the Filipines". They were completely born and bred there but could easily have passed as Americans, which really blew us away and started a long and fun chat. We even planned to have dinner together the next not except they sadly ended up wine tasting and so that didn't work out. Still we were feeling very fun and social. So then we decided to go to another bar we had liked for a little night cap. We walked in and found two New Zealand women sitting on one side of the room chatting away with a group of girls from Australia on the other side. My mom immediately said, as they all looked up at us, "how fun is this? You don't even know each other and you are all talking!" and then within minutes we joined the fun. Donna and Cheryl were exactly the sort of fabulously and wildly fashionable Auckland women that my mom had walked around the city at the start of our trip here looking for. When they found out that I was staying in a hostel my last night in the city, and that we were on the same flight, Donna immediately offered to put me up for the night. She happened to live in the one part of town, Mission Bay, that we walked through after going to the aquarium and that helped us "get" the appeal of Auckland. A little while later in the night a group of three guys walked into the bar that was at this point filled with just us girls. My mom shouted out, "BOYS!" and we all had a good laugh. It was just a very fun night, and considering we had walked around New Zealand meeting almost no one, and now I had a new friend to stay with!
So yesterday, rather than spend my last night at a hostel, I had a lovely evening with Donna and her husband, Clive, in a very new (like less than a month old) groovy area of Auckland, eating fresh fish and chips and hearing tons of insider info about different local personalities and city history.what a way to end my trip.
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