Auckland

   So for the last 10 days or so we have been in Auckland, New Zealand.  Quite a change from Raratonga, but I'm still loving in!  Everyday I usually wake up around 6 (I know, crazy huh??)  and go draw with a friend, whether at the harbor, at the beautiful parks that cover this city, or the skyscrapers. 

Then I usually head back for dorm food breakfast, which isn't too bad, and then at 9 am walk to the studio about 10 minutes from the door, up and down the hilly streets of Auckland ( I get a good work out just going to and from the studio!) We have a BEAUTIFUL printmaking studio all to ourselves at the University of Auckland on the 7th floor of a building overlooking skyscrapers and a park.  We usually have a movie or discussion at lunch.  Then, usually stay until 5.30, head to dinner at the dorm, and sometimes return to the studio for a late night or just relax for the rest of the night - sometimes playing pick-up soccer or watching a movie, or walking around!

 I played pick-up soccer in this BEAUTIFUL park called the domain where maybe 500 people were playing all different organized and pick-up games, it was so great!!! I played with about 10 guys from Kuwait - it was super cool!

Anyways - for the studio, I am doing wood relief printing, so carving out of wood, inking it, then putting it on top of paper on a table with basically a huge rolling pin and rolling it through! It's so fun and I love it! I will try and put up pictures of the stuff I'm doing when I'm done!

We do, however, take many breaks and have fun :).  One day we went to Bethel Beach, about a half hour drive from our dorm.  We hiked up black sanddunes, reaching a suspended lake - where we went swimming amidst the lime green hills and sanddunes, we caked ourselves in the blacksand, and, my favorite, rolled down the sand dunes and kerplunked into the water!!!

Once we were done drawing, we walked on our on to Bethel's Beach, a beautiful beach with rough waves that stopped us from swimming but were so beautiful

to draw and watch and admire! So we got to the beach, thinking it was the best place, and 15 minutes before we left Fred (the art professor) found us, and said - but you haven't even seen the beach yet! We walked past a cliff, up a sanddune, and this is the sight we saw:

 Pretty amazing if you ask me!

I also went to the Henieken Open, a tennis tournament I think practice for Australian Open in a few weeks.  We were right close to the action, and never being to a professional tennis match before, it was so cool! Kinda hard to stay quiet - at a key point I was about ready to stand up and cheer, like people stand up on the almost-3rd strike in the bottom of the ninth.  BUT it was a really close match, going all the way to the end, and by that time, people were shouting out and cheering - it was really fun! And watching the robotic ball boys and girls was always entertaining.

We have visited the Auckland Museum, a beautiful builing in the largest park - and the Auckland art gallery.  This city is really beautiful and so accessible and so friendly - the only hard thing is running in to people on the sidewalk, because I'm used to moving out of the way to the right, well they are used to moving to the left.  AH!