The first thing we noticed about Auckland, besides the abundance of people and the lack of sheep, was the incredible diversity. There were shops and restaurants featuring cuisine from all over the world available just around the corner. While we were there, there was an Indian "Festival of Lights" celebration taking place and the party was in full swing.
The spring weather didn't cooperate fully while we were in Auckland and we experienced a lot of high winds and heavy rains. For a short time on Saturday afternoon we got lucky enough to spend some time in Auckland's Sky Tower while meeting up with some of our friends from Queenstown, Steve and Devyn.
Steve and Devyn are a Canadian couple that were part of the staff that opened the hotel in Queenstown but had decided it was time to move on and had trasferred to the hotel in Auckland. After hanging out in the Sky Tower we all headed back to their apartment for dinner and for lots of catching up. Devyn called our rendezvous the "meeting of the minds" as we shared stories about work since we all came from different departments in the hotel: housekeeping, food and beverage, front desk and concierge. There were lots of memories shared and lots of laughs at the absurdly impossible task of keeping every guest happy in the field of hospitality. We looked forward to our next visit to Auckland and to hanging out with some friends from Michigan, Ken and Sarah.