Just stepped off the plane at 7:30am NZ time excited and extremely tired. It took 14 hours from LAX to Auckland. It was starting off the be a beautiful day and the sunrise on the plane was amazing.
Once I got into the city I met up with my friend from Cal Poly, Lucas and he took me to the best view in city (that you can see for free). This just happened to be on the top floor of his engineering building at the University of Auckland. The island in the background is Rangitoto, one of many volcanic cones around Auckland. This view is looking northwest.
This view is looking north from the same view point as the previous picture. The Auckland Sky Tower is the main landmark of the city and is the tallest man made structure in all of New Zealand.
After meeting some people Lucas works with, we went out for some beers. It was me, Lucas (in the next picture) and his Kiwi friend Matt (left). It was fun catching up and talking about his PhD work.
On the walk back from beers, this tree caught my eye and you can see why it is quite the crazy looking tree.
It was a beautiful day but still not really warm. It is just the tail end of their winter here and soon moving into spring. It was averaging 10 degrees C (50 F) which is very similar to the northwest weather.
This is me at the PhD and Faculty lounge playing pool on a snicker table, it was an extra large table with small balls and pockets. This place was very English!
Currently the Rugby World Cup is going on in New Zealand and most of the games are being hosted in Auckland. Since the US was playing Italy the day I got in we had to go to the Rugby center (called The Cloud) to watch the game. This tent structure behind me is full of interactive entertainment that is open only for the rugby tournament but it was closed by the time we got down there.
The building to the right is a large bar, full of projectors showing the game.
This is the inside of the Cloud and there were actually a lot of people supporting the US. People were wearing American flag capes and sporting all the colors for our team but we were no match for anyone in the tourny, except the Russians. We lost the game of course, but it was still a lot of fun.
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