December 31st, Happy New Years from Auckland

We celebrated the New Year by spending our evening walking the streets of Auckland and finishing with the fireworks show from the top of the Sky Tower. The Sky Tower looks a lot like the Space Needle, but is approximately twice as tall. You know you are in New Zealand when you are walking down central Auckland and you suddenly see somebody jump from the Sky Tower! We have posted a picture and if you look closely, or simply click on the picture, it should blow it up so you can see the person in the bottom right of the picture that has just jumped from the observation deck. Auckland and Seattle have many similarities; even the city sky line looks similar. We spent the better part of 6 hours in Auckland on New Years night and didn’t meet any Americans. Matter of fact most of Auckland is a melting pot of many nationalities… it was really nice to meet so many neat and fascinating people. Wish we could have sent more pictures on the show and party but the camera ran out of juice. Happy New Years from Auckland! Oh, and tee hee, we got to celebrate a day before you guys!