I've been a busy bee, such a lot to tell! St Paddys Day evening was good fun. I met up with Izzy (from the hostel) and some Irish lads in an Irish bar (of course) in the city at about 5pm. It was good fun, they were all really nice and a good laugh, we were all telling stories about our travels and adventures. One of the lads kept telling me I had the nicest brown eyes, he said he would, if I didn't have a boyfriend, even ask me out if he was sober...how's that for a compliment!! I wasn't sure how to take that comment, hahaa!! After a drink in that bar, we went to find another Irish bar, then I had to go back to the hostel to meet Paul and William (Jason's cousins) They'd brought over some engagement presents from Jason's family, there were 3 huge presents (don't ask me how I'm going to get them back!) which was very sweet. Anyway, we walked back up to the Irish bar and had a few drinks in there, they are really sweet lads, both in the Navy, so they were telling me all their stories. We ended up going to the hostel bar for a few, they had a special promotion where if you bought 3 shots, you get a free silly Irish hat, so we had some of those.... then before we knew it it was midnight, and they had to head back to get the last ferry. I stayed for one more drink, everyone else had bailed earlier too, then I thought I'd better call it a night too and went to bed.

I didn't really get that much sleep, I kept getting rudely awoken early in the morning by girls that were checking out, and I wasn't really feeling the best either (not suprisingly!) So I didn't get that much done yesterday, by the time I dragged myself out of bed, I went to get my visa, and then went to pass a bit of time at the cinema, it was all I was good for. I saw The Weatherman with Nicholas Cage, it was ok, but I was a bit impatient to get out after a while, it didn't really hook me. I just went back to the hostel, had some dinner and then went to lie down. I met some really nice girls who'd just checked in too, one, Leah is from the States, and Mirjam was from Munich. We had a long chat about Munich and it turns out she knows a couple of people through work that I used to work with at HP....such a small world! We swapped emails and maybe we can meet up when I go back there.

Today I had a really busy day, I'd arranged to go over on the ferry to Devonport to meet up with Paul and William again, but I had a phone call this morning from Elaine (my step mum) she was in Auckland just for the day and wanted to meet up. I knew she was going to try and come up here, but wasn't sure when as I hadn't heard anything....anyway, I had to cancel with Paul, and I went to meet her, Roger (her husband) and Darren (her son). It was great to see them again, it was a bit surreal seeing them over here, and I hadn't seen Darren for over 4 years, so it was great to catch up. Darren wanted to go up the Sky Tower, as he hadn't been up there, so he took me up there (again!!) as he didn't want to go on his own. We saw another couple of jumpers...the woman hanging in front of the window this time looked petrified!! it was quite funny though!! They had to leave in the afternoon to take Darren to the airport, so we bid each other farewell. As it wasn't too late, I tried Paul again, and he said it was cool for me to still go over, so I caught the ferry there. They picked me in their car and drove me around showing me all the beaches, it was a really lovely area. The houses are amazing, I guess it's really expensive to live there. After a few hours I came back to the city and had some dinner. Leah and her German friend Dirk (who also lived in Munich) joined me and we just had a really funny chat for a couple of hours. They've invited me for dinner with them tomorrow night, so I'm looking forward to that as they are really nice.