Auckland is pretty hilly, kind of like San Francisco.  It is known as the city of sails because it has more boats per capita than any other place in the world; 70,000 to be exact.  One boat for every four households.  One third of the people in New Zealand live in Auckland, 1.4 million.  These people are fitness nuts down here.  People running and cycling EVERY where.  The city was also very clean.  We also saw the sailboat that won the American Cup.  They had it suspended over the street.  And apparently the World Cup Soccer tournament is coming to Auckland in 2011. They're already selling merchandise for it.

We went to visit one of my favorite birds, the penguin, at Kelley Tarlton's Underwater World.  Sharks, stingrays, turtles, and eels too!  We rode around in this Arctic snow-cat through the penguins habitat and we got some really good photos.  They had Gentoo and King Penguins.  Some of them were feisty with each other but they still looked lovable.  They produce 3 tons of snow a day for these guys and mimic the sun up/sun down conditions to keep them in sync.  They also had a moving sidewalk running throughout the observation tanks.  Fish, sharks and turtles all around you except under your feet.  

We didn't immediately see the 'shark bus' out by the ferry station so we started walking up the street.  According to the map it was right up the road indicated by a picture on the far edge of the map but they should have put an arrow pointing outward showing it off the map and on the other side of the harbor.  Our walk was long, 3-4 miles, but beautiful all along the waterfront.  We did made a good call to take the bus back to the Sky City Center, their other pick up/drop off point, where the observation tower is located.  Good call because It was all up hill from the downtown area.  

Lots of shopping to be done and all too familiar American sights; Dunkin' Donuts (but no muffins), pizza hut, KFC, Burger King, Denny's, Wendy's, and as always, Mc D's.  We felt like we were right at home until we slipped into a grocery store to see what they had on the shelves.  Too weird!  All funky labels with foreign names to us.  We spotted a Heinz product, Oreo's, and Coke.  Needless to say, if you don't recognize the name, nothing looks or sounds appetizing.  Speaking of Heinz the other day we decided to have a hamburger on the boat for lunch.  It took us four stabs to get the kind of mustard we like, French's yellow.  First we got some French dressing-like mustard.  Then we spotted yellow mustard and it was HOT.  Next Grey Poupon came out of the kitchen.  At last, Heinz yellow mustard - ta-dah!

I tried the casino at the Sky City Tower and I won back 9X the amount I put in.  Yeah, it was only a $2 coin that I dropped in but I cashed out with $18.  Everything is upside down down here.  The top row of numbers were for the credits you wanted to play while the bottom row was the amount of lines you wanted to play.  Just the opposite of the US machines.  So, until I caught on I was only playing one line for 10 credits.  I can at least blame it on the fact that I didn't have my glasses on and the lighting was very low.   

Every time we get back on the ship and the time to depart has come and gone, they start calling names over the P/A system for missing passengers.  Tonight it was just one but back on Samoa they kept calling for this lady even after we set sail and we don't know if she made it back on board or was just in the shower, hard of hearing or something else. 

We went up top and took pictures of the nighttime harbor as we set sail from Auckland and Candice ordered a pizza.  The cooks asked if we were sisters.  Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket.  We get that quite often but sometimes they ask if we are friends. 

We went to our first Captain's Full World Voyage cocktail party the other night and were there a lot of people there or what?  Filled the whole Queen's room ballroom.  We did notice a young couple attending and went over and told them they were committing a crime by lowering the age limit of the room.  They laughed and said they saw us and said, "Hey young people."  They invited us to sit at their table in the late seating after we told them we will be moving to the late seating after Sydney.  We did take on about 80 new people in Auckland and the crowd seems to be getting younger.    

Sandy