New Zealand

Downtown Auckland, from the waterfront with the historic Ferry Building in the center.

I am convince that New Zealand is one of my most favorite countries in the world. I grew up in Northern California and loved having experienced the nineteen sixties and seventies there. New Zealand looks very much like Northern Cal. in so many ways, but on steroids . I was taken back in time to my childhood. Even the music we heard over there was from that time period, I'm not kidding. Not at just one place or two, but everywhere we went we heard sixties and seventies music.

The next and most curious thing is that I got to see in New Zealand was my High School Girlfriend. OK, the reason we went to NZ was to see her. I had found out that she was living there when I was researching my thirtieth HS reunion. I found her name on the list of graduates and contacted her via email. She was unable to attend the reunion at the time so I decided that I would go and visit her. I have always wanted to go to NZ so it was a perfect excuse. The thirtieth HS reunion was in 2008 (I just gave you my age) and I planned to go to NZ in 2010 with another friend from HS, Pat, but he was not forthcoming about his expenses and kept stalling on giving the OK on his decision. I asked him one final time and he told me that he would rather go to Europe for his first travels out of the country. In other words, he doesn't have the money. So I convince my hubby to go with me and he starts the travel plans as he does so well. He suggests that we go in 2011 and we could go for a month, otherwise he could not get much time off. OK, I email my HS girlfriend Dori and tell her when we are now coming. She is disappointed that it will be another year but is still happy that I am coming at all. She tells me that the best time to come would be our winter months since it is their summer. I tell her that I would like to come for Cupcake Day, hers and mine. Cupcake day is your six month Birthday. So we would be coming in February since both our B'days are in August. She likes the idea and tells me also that she has not had many visitors from the states come to visit her besides her mother and sister. We both are thrilled about the reunion that we alone will celebrate.
Here we are in her home in Hastings New Zealand. I think, we both aged nicely! We look great!
I have so much more to say about NZ, there will be more to come.
The posts below are some of my art that I posted to my blog to show Dori while over there.