Auckland ~New Zealand
New blogpost and new country this time! Exciting, right? That's what we thought when we were standing in line to check in our bags at Manila airport to go from the Philippines to Auckland airport in New Zealand with a stop over in Sydney, Australia. When we finally made it through all the queuing the woman at the desk told us that she couldn't let us check in because she couldn't find our visas for Australia (which wasn't very weird since we didn't have that visa.). Reaction: We're swedish!? We never have visas. Anyhow, we had to step aside, do some online visa administration things and then FINALLY get back in line, check in our bags and get on our night plane to Sydney.
Ok, so after a bit hussling and tussling (what's that?) we arrived to Auckland and found out that it's not very warm here and the prices are just a bit higher than the Eiffel tower. Not joking. Auckland is a big city and there isn't that much to do. Like always in cities you find yourself having a blast if you're able to spend a lot of money. Doing some shopping, eating nice food, going out, staying in a nice fancy hotell, yeah you know all those things a backpacking budget will never ever allow you to do. SO, here I give you a glimpse of what you can actually do in Auckland if you're on a budget. Read with me!

You can go to the international store Safka (owned by a swedish man) and drool over all the swedish candies and cookies and bread and maybe buy a julmust and actually understand that it's christmas soon even if summer is around the corner.

Go on a free walking tour! It's a good way to see the city and streets you never would find yourself. You also get to know the history of the town and where to go out, where to take someone on a date and where to eat cheap pancakes etc, all this for free!!

Just download mapsme (a great map) and walk around in the city.


Find the nice parks (Auckland has many) and pring some picknick food and a book and just lay in the sun for a while. I recommend you to bring some hummus. Veeeery good hummus in the grocery stores here.

Walk to Mount Eden and climb the mountain and volcanic crater. The climb is really not that tough but I would stay away if you're sick (like we were when we climbed it) since it can cause real needs to sleep.




If you're in Auckland over the summer, go to the harbour a friday night and have some street food if you can afford it. If not you eat noodles at the hostel and then go out and look at the market and sit down in the grass and watch an outdoor movie. Make sure you bring a blanket and warm clothes and treat yourself with a hot chocolate from the beverage truck.

Since Auckland is so expensive we spent most of our expenses on accomodation. We stayed in the cheapest hostels we could find and payed like 18 USD / night. To compensate for this money we made sure to eat very cheap and basic. It was a lot of noodles with corn, hummus sandwiches, rice crisps with avocado or peanut butter and falafel wraps from the closest kebab place (3.5 USD). We just made sure to have something crunchy or that included vitamines at least once every day. I would probably also recommend you to go out and dance but I can't really say I know anything about it since I was sick and fell asleep at 8 PM every night.
We stayed in Auckland for a week which was way too long but only beacuase we waited for Elvira, a swedish girl that we were planning on buying a car with. So we thought that Auckland could be a good place to open our bank accounts and get IRD-number to prepare for work, but actually, Auckland is so crowded that it's insane. We couldn't get an appointment at the bank in less than 10 days so I would not recommend Auckland for doing these things. Wait until you get out of the crowds.
All about this car deal I let you know in my next post. It's exciting, believe me.
Ida
Hej på er det verkar inte gå så bra i den stora staden.Men nu kan det bara bli bättre ni kommer säkert att få det roligt där.Här hemma är allt som vanligt nästan men julen närmar sig lite stress känner man.Puss 0 kram på er båda