Julian the German Jaunts about Auckland

It has been a while since I last wrote, sharing my life with all those on the interweb. I find it amusing how many people still ask if I will ever blog again... so dramatic! The thing is, you see, that I don't ever feel like I have anything interesting enough worth blogging about... until now, that is.

On Tuesday night, my friend Melissa and I went for dinner. We decided on Tanuki's on Queen Street, so parked her red machine in the carpark behind the restaurant and walked up the back stairs and through the kitchen (that's different!) in our heels. Heels were an outstanding idea for dinner in the city. It was when we decided that we would walk all the way to the Telecom Tree down at the Viaduct that we decided heels were no longer such a great idea. Thankfully, there was a free (yes, you heard correctly, a FREE!) City-Link bus which would take us pretty much all the way to the tree, so we waited at the bus stop. We met an Auckland homeless man/bum (and NO we didn't ask to buy his shoes this time) and at long last our bus arrived. You can't really complain that a bus is late if it is free, can you. We ran for the bus (heels and all) and left the bum for dead... we flew aboard and told the bus driver that someone was still coming (the bum) but the bus driver turned, looked at the homeless man, closed the doors, put his foot down and said "He's not getting on here." It was then I looked out of the window, to see the man with his hand in the air still waving for the bus to stop. I felt terrible!

There was only one other on the bus, a guy of about 19/20 years of age, he looked like a tourist. Melissa, the guy on the bus and I were all commenting how mean it was to drive off and leave the bum for dead. We talked briefly about that before losing interest and then the guy asked Melissa and I why we were dressed up. Dressed up? We were wearing our ponchos from Steve's 40th Mexican Birthday Bonanza a few weekends before because we thought they'd be cosy whilst snuggling under the Telecom tree, perched upon bean bags. I inherited the ponchos from an awesome student in my class, Zoe. She had them at school to make a video for Spanish - and her mother said she didn't want them to come home again. Can't think why??! Zoe wanted a thank you letter for donating the ponchos. I never got organised enough to do this... so hope that Zoe can view this blog as a thank-you. At least she will know that her ponchos are going to an exceptional cause. Anyway, Melissa tried to convince the guy on the bus that we were Mexican, but I don't think he bought it. He asked where we were going - so we told him. After about five minutes of explaining where we were going and what the Telecom Tree was, it was our stop and time to get off. We could see the Telecom tree aglow in the distance and casually walked towards it, ponchos, heels and new German friend in tow. We found out that his name was Julian. Julian the German. Perfect.

After snuggling up together on the bean bags and taking silly photos (epic fail for the most part) we decided to leave, being a school night for Melissa. Not for me, mind you. Or Julian the German. But for Melissa we thought it was fair to let her get to bed at a reasonable hour. As we were walking back to the bus stop, Julian the German asked what he should see in Auckland. Me? I had ideas a-brewing! ALL the ideas! I asked Melissa if she could get time off work and we suggested to Julian the German that Melissa and I could take him on a whirlwind tour of Auckland, if Melissa could get time off work. I then had the bright-spark idea that we could not only take him on a tour, but have a list of 26 things we had to do or see over the course of the day. One for each letter of the alphabet. (Thank you, Tony Ryan's Thinkers Keys...) It was here, that our EPIC adventure for Julian the German was born. The following day, Melissa and I emailed backwards and forwards (as I baked Christmas cookies and Melissa slaved away at work) for the day, adding more and more ideas to our Amazing Alphabetical Auckland Adventure. The rest, they say... is history.

Thursday morning was finally here. I woke with excitement brewing about the days events which were about to unfold. The time ticked by slowly and it was finally time to go and pick up Melissa from work in Ponsonby. I arrived at the DRAFTFCB carpark and was bubbling over with excitement. Melissa finally came out and we went on our merry (and ridiculously excited) way to collect Julian the German. Once we picked him up, we admired his new haircut and started on our list. And here it is, Julian the Germans Amazing Alphabetical Auckland Adventure.





A: Visit an ADVERTISING AGENCY. This was easy - being Melissa works in advertising. But it is only fair to have some easy tasks on our list, A-Z.

Welcome to DRAFTFCB

This is on the wall at Melissa's work... I think it's coooool.

B: BEFRIEND a BRIDE at BASTION Point. As luck would have it, there were a couple of Brides to choose from. We chose the one who fell over a fence making her way down a hill towards some trees. We figured she had a sense of humour. As Julian and I were monkeying around behind her and her new husband, she turned to him and said "That would make a great photo!!". They were really friendly. We think it was the ponchos. 

Spot the Mexicans in the tree....

She was so friendly! When we asked for a photo she said "I'd love to!"

C: CHOMP some CHRISTMAS COOKIES in  a CLASSROOM. Once again, rather easy. I had baked and decorated some cookies the day before and given them to Julian the German as a gift. That, and I have a classroom... 

You *must* read the captions on the whiteboard!

D: DO the Birdie DANCE in the DOMAIN. We had the bright idea that this one would be best filmed. You have been warned - the footage will shock, stun and surprise you. It excited an old man so much that he requested a repeat so that he could photograph it. Really. 

The random old man who asked to take a photo of us and our 'lovely' dancing.

E: Drive along EAST COAST ROAD and have a photo taken with the road sign. Being that we drove quite some distance on East Coast Road and is one of the longest roads in Auckland, it just seemed fitting. 

F: Eat some FISH AND CHIPS for lunch (with Watties Sauce and L&P to drink of course)

G: Jump off the GRAND STAND at the Auckland Domain. I'll let you in on a little secret. We didn't do this alphabetical list in order... we did it logically :) 

G is for GRANDSTAND... G G G (note the man trying to eat his lunch in peace, top left of the photo...)

H: Play a game of HOPSCOTCH. Melissa came pre-prepared with a box of chalk, ready to draw a game of hopscotch anywhere we felt like. On our visit to the Auckland Museum, in the child's play section - we could not believe our eyes... but there was a hopscotch game already there for us to use. Amazing. 

I: Climb INSIDE something and have your photo taken. We seriously couldn't think of anything more appropriate than a German INSIDE a German... and being I call my car 'The German' it was incredibly appropriate. He was worried about sitting on the wrong side of the car. I kept insisting he was sitting on the RIGHT side... (well...he wasn't sitting on the left...)

J: Take a photo of us hanging like monkeys from a JUNGLE GYM. Thankfully there was a group of kids playing on the jungle gym when we arrived. They were more than happy to take a photo of us, especially because we looked like a bunch of Mexicans. 

K: Play Instant KIWI and hopefully win a dollar or two. SUCCESS! We encouraged Julian the German to gamble AND won $2. Life is good. 

L: LAY on a pedestrian crossing. I suppose this one could have ended badly... luckily there was an ex MBIS student walking by who was happy to take our photo - and warn us of on-coming traffic. 

M: Eat a MARMITE sandwich. Now... what trip to NZ would be complete without sampling a Marmite sandwich? Julian the German had not tried it before... and was quite polite when it came to the big taste test. 

N: Buy Julian the German something NICE from NEW ZEALAND. It's Christmas. So it seemed appropriate to buy Julian the German a Christmas Decoration with a NZ flavour - and a Buzzy Bee one happened to catch our eye. Now every Christmas, Julian the German can carefully unpack his Buzzy Bee decoration and remember the two CRAZY Kiwi's who took him on an AMAZING ALPHABETICAL AUCKLAND ADVENTURE. We signed it and everything. 

O: Try on something at an OP-SHOP. And didn't Julian the German look smashing in his new jacket?

P: PLANK somewhere. It seemed appropriate to do this at school. 

Q: QUICKLY see an exhibit at Auckland Museum. Auckland in 1866? How perfect!

R: ROMP in the ROSE GARDENS in Parnell. We suddenly realised that we were not quite sure *how* to ROMP. We do hope that this suffices. 

Seriously random signage. Julian the German was pretending to be dead. Of course. 

S: Busy our feet in the SAND at a beach. We chose Okahu Bay on Tamaki Drive. 

T: Have a photo taken with the MOTAT sign (Museum of TRANSPORT and TECHNOLOGY)

U: Climb UNDER something and have your photo taken. The funniest part was the shop owner who was standing only metres away - and all the passers by who were curious as to what the three Mexicans were up to. 

V: Play Silent Night on an invisible VIOLIN. When Melissa asked Julian the German if he brought his invisible violin with him, he said 'No'. What confused us, is *how* one could possibly forget to bring their invisible violin. Melissa then responded with 'Don't worry - I brought a spare for you just in case... it's in the boot of the car" and then proceeded to collect the invisible violin from the boot of the car. Hilarious. It gets better. We thought we were in a quiet area where nobody would disrupt our video. WRONG. Take a look. Hysterical. 

W: WEAR a poncho all day. Mission: Accomplished. A lady outside a dairy came up to us and said she had a wee giggle when she saw one person emerge from a car in a poncho. When the second person emerged she thought it was even funnier. When a *third* person emerged it was just a treat!!!

X: Have a XMAS photo taken with Santa. Slight problem. We left this a bit late in the day - and Santa was gone. No problem, Julian the German and Melissa jumped the fence in Milford Mall. Problem averted.

Y: Pretend you own a YACHT and climb aboard. Thanks Milford Cruising Club. You're ace.

Z: All good things come to an end. Like this blog. Last, but certainly not least...have a photo taken at the ZOO. This was hysterical. It wasn't easy to climb up that sign - especially not with only ten seconds on the auto-shot setting on the camera. It resulted in an injury and everything! (poor Melissa's shoulder, can anyone say 'Tetanus???'). Totally worth it for the shot, though. 

Whoops. Didn't quite make it up onto the sign...

Dammit. So close, yet so far (this is where the injury took place...)

Julian the German basically *flew* into position. At last. Success.

The said injury. Awww.

And so, the day came to an end. We achieved the entire alphabetical list, A-Z. No other German tourist, or *any* other tourist, ever, for that matter, would have been so lucky to have an entire 7 hour tour of Auckland - and seen/done all of the amazing things we did. It was a tour of epic proportions. It was AMAZING. Melissa and I have not laughed so much on one day, possibly ever. We have made a new German friend - and we have seen and done some pretty hilarious things. Wearing ponchos. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our most interesting day - occasionally I suppose that I *do* have interesting things to blog about, post London travels. If nothing else - I hope that the birdie dance and the invisible violin playing made you smile. 

Cheery bye :)