9/19/16 - 9/20/16
Anybody that has known my for over a year, can likely attest to my affinity toward looting and pillaging . . . No? Hmm, oh yeah, that’s not it. My affinity is not in looting and pillaging; it is talking like that is what I like to do! Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, or at least it was until that International Date Line so rudely changed it on me!
When I found out that they day I was going to lose on this trip because of the date line I was crushed, to say the least. Oh the irony! The day I enjoy the most is the one day they decide to skip this year . . . at least for me. Well technically that is not true. Technically I did get to experience about 8 hours of ITLAP before they so rudely changed the date on me! But I slept through at least half of those 8 hours.
And me without my Pirate ensemble.
Turns out the non-stop flight from LAX to Auckland that I thought I had decided
it was never a non-stop flight and landed briefly at the Tahiti airport. So I
got to spend some quality time at the airport. Yes, I would have preferred to
have gone straight through to Auckland, but it proved not to be too horrendous an
endeavor. There was a nice open area (I’m assuming for smokers) so you could
sit out and enjoy the cool morning air; the wall prevented us from seeing the
beach but we could tell it was close by the smell in the air.
We got to meet a few of the other couples that used the groupon deal there. I use the term ‘couple’ here only to describe that there were two of them, as was required for the groupon deal; although both couples we met that morning did appear to be in a romantic relationship . . . and then there was Tyler and myself – not awkward at all.
As we were talking with one of the other couples, something caught the corner of my eye. I almost didn’t even give it a second look except it looked like a chicken . . . then I remembered we were in an airport. So I did a double take, and sure enough, there was a chicken walking from outside and hoping up inside the main waiting area; searching, in earnest for any small piece of food that may have been discarded on the ground.
The flight leaving the island was late by about 40 minutes, but we decided that
it was not delayed, but rather running on Island Time. The remaining flight
ended up being rather uneventful as well. Played some sudoko, read a bit, slept
another couple hours – nothing really worth writing home to mom about.
The plane landed in Auckland almost 20 minutes early – kind of funny how they can make up so much time in the air. Clearly they build in a lot of room for error in the actual flying times. After a quick shuttle ride we arrive to the Auckland City Hotel and step into the front door to see a line of the remaining ‘couples’. In all, there appeared to be about 10 of us and, after glancing around the room at them all, every single one of them looked like they were in a romantic relationship except Tyler and myself – Again, not awkward at all.
A side note: I was starting to get a little concerned that we would end up running into these people the entire trip at restaurants and the different sites and not get to meet many new people because of it. But so far we have not run into any of them since check-in.
There was not a whole lot of time left in the day to do anything with any real substance so we decided to check out Sky City. Sky City is a series of restaurants, bars, shops a theater, and a casino at the base of the Sky Tower; which, at 328 meters (1,076 feet), is the tallest man-made structure in the southern hemisphere and 25th tallest in the world. An impressive site for sure!
It is a sense of pride for Tyler and his siblings to be able to tell their dad that they gambled in a new location; but none of them really gamble so it usually consists of them going to the first slot machine or video poker machine and putting in $20 and then pressing the required buttons until one of two things happens. Either they lose all the money or five minutes has gone by and they still have not lost all the money so they cash out and go about the rest of their day. So I obliged Tyler and we set out to the casino at the base of the Sky Tower.
Tyler prefers the video poker to the slot machines as it involves a bit more than mindlessly pressing a button and watching three wheels spin randomly until they stop and then repeating the process. Unfortunately for Tyler, this casino only had slot machines and video roulette. We searched the entire casino for video poker and none were to be found. After checking with an employee to verify that this was, indeed, a true fact he found the closest slot and put in the money. Turns out that this go around ended up being the first option for Tyler and he was down $20 within 3 minutes – But he could now brag to his dad that he had gambled in New Zealand!
While Tyler was losing miserably at the slots, I decided to try my luck at video roulette. I’ve never played the game but I seemed to recall hearing some advice at some time that one should always bet on black, so I did. It landed on red – if I could remember where I had heard that advice I suppose I would have given them a stern talking to, but I still had money in the machine so I tried my luck on black again. It landed on black! Okay, maybe this advice was solid so I tried again – Black again! By this time Tyler had lost all his money and was observing my luck. So since he was waiting on me I said that I would try one more time and be done. Black again!
Look at me on a roll!
But I am not much of a gambler either, so I cashed out $4 ahead and we found a place to eat dinner. We sat down at Andy’s, a burger joint in the casino and as I was looking through the menu, my eyes stopped at the lamb burger. I mean I am in New Zealand, right? Known for their abundance in sheep. Seemed I would be remiss if I ordered anything but the lamb burger. Tyler agreed and we enjoyed a couple tasty burgers before we made our way back to rest up for our first full day in New Zealand.
Anybody that has known my for over a year, can likely attest to my affinity toward looting and pillaging . . . No? Hmm, oh yeah, that’s not it. My affinity is not in looting and pillaging; it is talking like that is what I like to do! Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, or at least it was until that International Date Line so rudely changed it on me!
When I found out that they day I was going to lose on this trip because of the date line I was crushed, to say the least. Oh the irony! The day I enjoy the most is the one day they decide to skip this year . . . at least for me. Well technically that is not true. Technically I did get to experience about 8 hours of ITLAP before they so rudely changed the date on me! But I slept through at least half of those 8 hours.
And me without my Pirate ensemble.
 |
| Hope everyone else enjoyed the day! |
We got to meet a few of the other couples that used the groupon deal there. I use the term ‘couple’ here only to describe that there were two of them, as was required for the groupon deal; although both couples we met that morning did appear to be in a romantic relationship . . . and then there was Tyler and myself – not awkward at all.
As we were talking with one of the other couples, something caught the corner of my eye. I almost didn’t even give it a second look except it looked like a chicken . . . then I remembered we were in an airport. So I did a double take, and sure enough, there was a chicken walking from outside and hoping up inside the main waiting area; searching, in earnest for any small piece of food that may have been discarded on the ground.
 |
| I feel like every airport needs a pet chicken. |
The plane landed in Auckland almost 20 minutes early – kind of funny how they can make up so much time in the air. Clearly they build in a lot of room for error in the actual flying times. After a quick shuttle ride we arrive to the Auckland City Hotel and step into the front door to see a line of the remaining ‘couples’. In all, there appeared to be about 10 of us and, after glancing around the room at them all, every single one of them looked like they were in a romantic relationship except Tyler and myself – Again, not awkward at all.
A side note: I was starting to get a little concerned that we would end up running into these people the entire trip at restaurants and the different sites and not get to meet many new people because of it. But so far we have not run into any of them since check-in.
There was not a whole lot of time left in the day to do anything with any real substance so we decided to check out Sky City. Sky City is a series of restaurants, bars, shops a theater, and a casino at the base of the Sky Tower; which, at 328 meters (1,076 feet), is the tallest man-made structure in the southern hemisphere and 25th tallest in the world. An impressive site for sure!
It is a sense of pride for Tyler and his siblings to be able to tell their dad that they gambled in a new location; but none of them really gamble so it usually consists of them going to the first slot machine or video poker machine and putting in $20 and then pressing the required buttons until one of two things happens. Either they lose all the money or five minutes has gone by and they still have not lost all the money so they cash out and go about the rest of their day. So I obliged Tyler and we set out to the casino at the base of the Sky Tower.
Tyler prefers the video poker to the slot machines as it involves a bit more than mindlessly pressing a button and watching three wheels spin randomly until they stop and then repeating the process. Unfortunately for Tyler, this casino only had slot machines and video roulette. We searched the entire casino for video poker and none were to be found. After checking with an employee to verify that this was, indeed, a true fact he found the closest slot and put in the money. Turns out that this go around ended up being the first option for Tyler and he was down $20 within 3 minutes – But he could now brag to his dad that he had gambled in New Zealand!
While Tyler was losing miserably at the slots, I decided to try my luck at video roulette. I’ve never played the game but I seemed to recall hearing some advice at some time that one should always bet on black, so I did. It landed on red – if I could remember where I had heard that advice I suppose I would have given them a stern talking to, but I still had money in the machine so I tried my luck on black again. It landed on black! Okay, maybe this advice was solid so I tried again – Black again! By this time Tyler had lost all his money and was observing my luck. So since he was waiting on me I said that I would try one more time and be done. Black again!
Look at me on a roll!
But I am not much of a gambler either, so I cashed out $4 ahead and we found a place to eat dinner. We sat down at Andy’s, a burger joint in the casino and as I was looking through the menu, my eyes stopped at the lamb burger. I mean I am in New Zealand, right? Known for their abundance in sheep. Seemed I would be remiss if I ordered anything but the lamb burger. Tyler agreed and we enjoyed a couple tasty burgers before we made our way back to rest up for our first full day in New Zealand.
I think a $4 windfall plus a lamb burger would be a good combination. Weeeee. . .
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