city life...

... so, we're back in Auckland... and as far as city living goes, its actually really nice! We are staying in an area called Mount Eden, which those 'die-hard' blog fans will remember, has a volcano that we visited earlier in the year?!? In fact, from where I am sitting now I can actually see the peak of the thing! We're close enough to the city so that you can walk in, but far enough out so that you don't get the city noise and hassle. Perfick!

We are currently managing a backpackers hostel called 'Bamber House' (www.hostelbackpacker.com), and it is really nice. We are working pretty hard- we both do 12 hours a day for 7 days a week- but split this up between ourselves. In return we are getting a small apartment (which is absolute heaven after living in the van for 6 weeks!!!!!), and we are getting paid too! The job is nice and we are getting to meet some really friendly and nice people... also a few nasty ones.... but there's the good, the bad and the ugly from every country...

But overall, things are pretty darn tops!

The weather is starting to pick up just in time for Chrimbo (hehehe, thought I'd mention that... are you all wearing your winter woolies yet?), but it doesn't really feel that merry. Its all quite surreal in fact.... December.... sun.... BBQ's???? Hmmmm..... don't get us wrong, its nice and all, but it just isn't Christmas.... sorry NZ, but when it comes to seasonal tidings the Brits do it better :) Where's the trees? The Carols? The ace stuff on TV? The biggest Christmas song in NZ is called 'Snoopy'!!!! and, its not even about Charlie Brown's dog??? I mean, what's all that about!!!!! Its actually about a cowboy.... what???!!?!?!?

Anyhoo, we've ventured out into the city a few times- we went to the big Auckland 'Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park' celebration, which had bands and famous NZ celebrity type people on (who we'd never heard of... lol), we've done the normal tour of Queen Street... but, the best place we have found so far is this really old Graveyard where the trees are opening all the graves up.... a bit macabre we know, but its ace!

*click here for more pics*

Also, as its Christmas and we haven't seen him for a while... we let Max join us again!! In typical Max stylee though- we met up to find out he had a date in court and had written his car off! So him and me (m@), headed to Auckland Court to find out his punishment... for driving on the wrong side of the road and having a head-on crash! He was fined $430... hehe... oh how we chuckled... until we arrived at court... at which point we were actually VERY scared... bad people everywhere!! Still, got a few good pics of the event :)