Auckland and TGIM, like the good auld days

After few hours I arrived in New Zealand a couple of notions struck me: how skinny my good friend (and ex-colleague, and TGIM co-founder) Finbarr had become, and how similar NZ is to Ireland. While the first notion will be explained by pics, the second one needs some more elaboration. So here it is: 4 million people in each country, 1.5 live in the main city. Both islands, both living next to a big powerful country they hate (UK/Australia). Lots of green landscapes, cliffs, sheep, rain (although they have a summer in NZ, and in whatever season the sun comes out is always scorching). As a consequence same t-shirts with jokes about rain and sheep available is same touristic shops. Drinking is the national sport in both countries, followed by rugby. They both have a language which they're trying to keep alive. Drunken boys driving despite the booze and drunken girls in miniskirt despite the weather populates the roads of both countries, especially at weekends.

And so here I am, following the rule that says that if you travel too far you might end up at the starting point. Or maybe I was getting too used to tropical jungles, tropical cultures and tropical weathers (back to usual 20 to 15 C here, an Irish summer if you want). Still it's being a great experience. First of all is fantastic to catch up with old friends, exchange travel tips and have proper old-fashioned TGIMs. In fact not only i'm a guest in Finbarr's and Sharon's, I also had the chance to meet Libor and Jenny, and hear their travel adventures too. Inevitably we ended up talking about gossips at work and Google's products, with great boredom of Sharon, the only non googler.

And as we're in a country similar to Ireland we ended up having many Dublin-style nights out, characterized by a lot of drinking and days spent sleeping until late afternoon instead of sightseeing or visiting museums. Pics for your eyes only available. We managed however to squeeze in some cultural highlight: the Villa Maria Winery tour. Learnt about few differences between the way wine is produced here and in Europe, between cork, plastic cork and screws, and how to use fish bladder to filter wine.
While I'm here i might as well make the most of it, so next stop is the South Island. Like in Ireland with Dublin, they say the real NZ is the one outside Auckland, so let's go and have a look. Incredible scenic train routes, glaciers and landscapes (and more sav blanc now that I'm an expert after the “cultural tour”) are apparently waiting to be discovered there, so let's not keep them waiting too long. Laters...