To the Nice-House

As a couple of avid readers, our e-book readers form an integral part of our travelling lives. So, when C's Kobo packed in - frozen eternally on a page (thankfully not too raunchy) of Royal Flash by George MacDonald Fraser - and would not respond to charging, touch or prayer, there was no alternative but to return the 7-day-old neonate. Fortunately, with excellent customer service from Whitcoulls' and 45 minutes later, C had a brand-new, hot-pink Kobo, and was eager to make up for lost reading time.

Priorities must be satisfied, and we made a beeline for the nearest cafe with Wi-Fi, which happened to be the Strand cafe in an arcade just off Queen Street. Here G enjoyed some delicious eggs Florentine with mushrooms, and C a corn dog with avocado and assorted salad and a side-order of a newly set-up e-reader. After running out of internet allowance (how time flies..) we headed back to the hostel, where C read and G applied for some jobs in the city. 

Becoming hungry (again- Auckland does wonders for the appetite), we went in search of an Indian restaurant to satiate C's curry craving. K-Road is full of south Indian and veggie curry houses, but they had all decided to be closed on a Sunday. As if people need days off?! Pah! Thankfully, our favourite (and only) Lebanese cafe was open, and we ordered our usual falafel wraps. After around 20 minutes, we became suspicious as we had seen other customers being served, (and eating what looked suspiciously like falafel wraps), but were yet to receive our orders, so G went to enquire under the guise of ordering some water. The kindly yet absent-minded owner smiled and nodded, and we assumed all to be well. 

Ten minutes later and our wraps arrived. We decided not to mention the lack of hummus (an integral component of the falafel wrap, I'm sure you'd agree) and started munching away. The falafel was freshly prepared and crisp, and rather enjoyable. Ten minutes later, the owner came out with a bowl of hot hummus (which tasted of not much other than hot chickpea) and a plate of pita, apologising for the omission. Our annoyance about the wait turned into feeling a bit sorry for the man, as his memory was clearly not the best, and he didn't seem to have anyone else helping him. 

Tummies filled for the time being, we headed to Rainbow Youth for their weekly I.D. meeting. There we played some team-building games and met some new folk, and chatted with folk we'd met the previous week. A few of us (including Linda, who wanted a mention here!) decided to go and watch a film at Ting-Ting's house. We decided on "Milk", and took our first kiwi bus-ride to T's house in Parnell. 

We both feel at this point the need to emphasise how wonderful T's house is. It's a huge, sprawling 21-bedroomed, vegetarian house, with enormous kitchen and dining area (six gas cookers,we noted), one ballroom-sized living room including table tennis table and three pianos (which G promptly tried out), and another cinema-esque TV room. The garden was beautiful, and had an area devoted to home-grown vegetables. Sadly, there were no rooms available (yes, we asked). We watched one-third of "Milk", and participated in cider, beers and discussion. Then, at our 10 o'clock curfew, headed back to the hostel to get some rest before resuming flat-hunting on Monday.