Nov 3 - New Bank and Minus 5

Last night I couldn't get to sleep until really late, despite laying in my bed restlessly for a couple hours. Probably due to the nap earlier in the day. Woke up this morning as people were leaving the room to checkout (everyone except one girl and us left today) then slept on and off until noon and woke up feeling more tired than when I went to sleep originally. And the water was shut off this afternoon to repair a pipe or something. So we both got up and dressed and ventured out in search of food. As usual, we settled for the first Subway we came across (well, 2nd technically, as the first had much to long of a lineup) and feasted on subs that are cheaper than Australia. With fuel in the tank, we went across the street and set up an ANZ bank account, because our NAB account would incur foreign country fees whenever we used it. Tossed some money in our new accounts and walked over to the Magic bus office. Magic bus offers bus trips around New Zealand and we got a quote for an around the country pass and the lady recommended we book our day trips as we go along (rather than all at once before we go).

We'll probably book the bus pass tomorrow, but for now we walked over to the harbour, checked out the sights of the boats and bay, then went into Minus 5. Minus 5 is an ice bar, which means the bar, seats, walls, glasses, EVERYTHING is made out of ice. We got a 2 for 1 deal, which was helpful, since admission was $25 (including a drink). So we put on mitts and parkas (they made us, our hoodies would have sufficed) and headed through 2 airlock doors into the ice bar. It was pretty small, but the music was pumping and there were lots of ice sculptures. We were the only ones in there and the bartender was a guy from Fiji who actually needed the parka and mitts. We got a kiwi flavored vodka drink each (in ice glasses), enjoyed our drinks and chatted with the Fijian and then went back out into the lobby area. "Pretty cold in there, hey?" asked the European sounding front desk guy. "Not really man" I said, "it gets down to minus thirty or forty every winter in Canada." "Wow, really!? Good for snowboarding though I guess!" "No, not at all. Have you ever snowboarded at minus 40? It's awful."

After our expensive cocktails, we took a very long walk (due to bad directions from the girl at the front desk of the hostel) to a grocery store called Countdown (which is Woolworth's in NZ and even had the same logo for some reason) and got food for the next couple of days. Back at the hostel, we went to the rooftop kitchen and had to wait quite a while for there to be enough room to cook. Finally enjoyed our pasta and garlic bread (and milk from plastic containers, because there are maybe 3 cups for the whole kitchen). Then we got to enjoy the terrible acting of Tropical Thunder. Our room is full again with an entirely new mix of nationalities.