Week 5

2/6/12 Today is a public holiday and it is also the day the Super Bowl is being played. Terry and I stopped in for a while. Terry ended up staying for the whole game but it was just a bit too noisy for me and they weren't showing any of the US commercials so I left after an hour. It was fun to meet up with a few people from the states.

2/7/12 I woke up today and the sun was shining brightly and not a hint of rain for the day. I decided it was a perfect day to take the ferry to the nearby village of Devonport. When I arrived I headed toward the other side of the town to experience the beaches. Lots of sand, very few people and crystal clear water. I spent lots of time watching the little crabs chase each other in the water. The nicest part of the day was that I met several very nice people throughout the day. One lady from Germany, a teacher from Nova Scotia, a 22 year old nurse from France and a recently retired woman from Australia. It was also good to take time to watch the birds and be reminded how God cares for each of them and how much more he cares and provides for us.

2/8/12 I love full moons and we got a beautiful view of tonight's full moon right from our apartment balcony. Thinking of my sistern! Almost every night Terry tells me he'll never grow tired of the views. So many evenings we are treated to beautiful sunsets.

2/10/12 I spent the afternoon at the Auckland Domain - a huge nearby park. I picked a bench near a pond that is frequented by ducks, pigeons and & kiddos with bread. No ducks today but I had fun watching those pigeons. First there was a grandma with 3 year old twins. Each little girl had about 1/2 bag of bread. Those pigeons crowded around the girls and feasted on all the bread and the little girls weren't afraid at all. They left and a dad with his little boy came with their bread. You would have thought those pigeons hadn't eaten all day - they had another feast. They left and a mom and daughter came. This mom let the birds sit on their arms and eat out of their hands. Didn't seem to be afraid of getting bitten or germed. And those birds ate and ate. They left and then another lady and little girl came with bread. They invited the pigeons up on the bench with them and had fed them lots. These pigeons are a great act. They are always ready to eat anything offered to them and never hurt anyone. Just another reminder to me of how God is taking care of each of us.

I’ve discovered Groupon – New Zealand. Once I figured out I have to use paypal and can’t use a US credit card I was good to go. We had a delightful, reasonable Japanese dinner on Friday night thanks to GrouponNZ.

2/11/12 Today we took the bus to see a different of Auckland. They have a great bus system in the metro area. Every single bus stop in the whole city is numbered and many have electric signs which tell you what bus is coming and in how many minutes it will arrive. You can go to a website and enter the destination. It gives you complete directions including “walk 5 minutes to bus stop #.” We wanted to walk along the shore but quickly realized it was a long way down to the shoreline (and then we had to go back up) and there was no place to walk. Still, we got good exercise and saw a new part of town.
We watched Bucket List (finally) - what a great movie. I'm making my list.

2/12/12 We went to the nearby Baptist church today and were very encouraged by the people we met today. We went out to lunch with a number of young people and had good conversation – most enjoyable. Rainy day but we did get to the grocery store and stopped at Wendy’s for a frosty.