Happy last night of Hanukkah!

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Our Kiwi Adventure 2025 (week 1)

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John and I have been talking about going to New Zealand since we met. For our 10th wedding anniversary, we decided to go BIG, and go there for three weeks - I mean, when you fly halfway around the world, you need enough time to adjust so you can enjoy the trip, right? We wanted a way to see lots of things in a short time (and not have to drive it all ourselves). John came across the Sir Edmund Hillary Explorer Rail & Coach tours. So that took care of the south island, but there's so much to see on the north island, including Hobbiton ! For a small country, NZ sure has a lot of "highlights."  There's a link to my google photos at the end of each day, starting with Friday. Week 1: North Island Adventure We left Austin on March 2, and because we crossed the international date line, we missed March 3 entirely and arrived on Tuesday, March 4 . :) I booked our Auckland hotel with points, thanks to a special deal from Chase in January that offered a 70% bonus when I tr...
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Well, we did it. We rented an apartment! We were going crazy in the tiny Vrbo, so we were extra glad to get out of there a day early.  Those of you who were playing along with the "House Hunters International" game: we ended up renting the 3BR version of apartment #4 ( see previous post ). Was that your guess? Here are some photos and a quick video (sorry if you get a little motion sickness, I sped it up by 2x!)  It  took four trips to get everything moved - one by Uber black ($) another in a taxi (that we hiked a few blocks to catch) and two on the metro. We stopped and bought a wheelie grocery cart after the second trip, so I filled that with the non-fridge stuff and it was pretty easy to move - although I wish I'd looked for the metro elevators more closely - too many stairs to bounce up/down!  Once we got everything moved and enjoyed the central air for a while 🫠, we unpacked and started laundry. I washed the new sheets but they're still a little... crunchy. ....
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