Living Things

Ever had one of those nights or days when you just can't believe that whatever you're doing is actually happening to you? You can't comprehend that it's actually working out, it just seems so surreal?! Well, mine happened Thursday night :)

On Tuesday night, after a ladies night out, we all met up with some other house keeping friends and went to a little Irish bar called The Fiddler. Cute little place and my friend is really good friends with the bartender there so he let us stay late and enjoy our evening out with great music and great company. There were about 10 of us from work there and 6 other people in the bar that we didn't know. I started talking to a group of 3 people and struck up a conversation about music since one of the guys had an Incubus t-shirt on and it was pretty nice. We got to talking about bands we like and concerts we've been to, which I thought were the best and which I was a little disappointed about. These guys and one girl knew everything and had seen everything it was incredible to talk to them. I told them that one of the concerts I was the most pleasantly surprised about was Linkin Park, back in February of 2011. I was not their number 1 fan by far, in fact I didn't buy the tickets for me, but the concert blew my mind, it was amazing and so insanely entertaining! Even after seeing my favourite bands in concerts I will always remember that one. I had started listening to them more and more after it and was even looking forward to the release of their new album that came out. So the good part is, I was talking to the exact right people about all of this. Turns out these three people actually work for Linkin Park and are on tour with them at the moment, their show in Auckland happening Thursday night. Could you say perfection? On tour for their new album, "Living Things". There was Warren, the DJ tech for Joe Hahn; Megumi, the production assistant; and Ethan, stage crew. After some more beers and hearing all their stories about where they've been what they do and everything in between, they innocently asked me if I wanted to go to the concert. Without hesitation I pretty much screamed the word "YES" to them and we had a round of celebration drinks. At about 6am we decided to call it a night and get some rest for my 9am shift.

The whole next day I thought about the concert and kept thinking it wasn't actually going to happen. Too good to be true, you know? I was scheduled to work Thursday night, who knows if they were just joking with me, how do I go about asking for tickets at the counter when I have no other information except for their first names. But nevertheless I texted her and tried to get some clarification on what was happening. She told me to show up at will call around 8pm the night of the concert and give them my name, and to bring my friend Sam.

Thursday night rolls around, and nervously I head over to the arena, not knowing what to expect. I get to the ticket counter and find one booth that says "Guest List Only." Walking up I hope I don't make a fool of myself. I give the lady my passport and say I'm here to pick up tickets, she checks my name and hands me an envelope with my name and a "+1" beside it. It happened

Needless to say we were feeling quite good about ourselves at this point, figured we saved money on the tickets so let's splurge on t-shirts!

Our seats? No seats..... we got tickets for the floor!! paid $0 for that baby

Some snapshots during the concert:

great night, wish it lasted longer!!

Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium

First things first, for those of you who don't know who Kelly Tarlton is, then shame on you! He is this incredible man who sadly passed away at only 47 years of age. I don't even know how to describe him, he has so many titles. Marine archaeologist, treasure hunter, marine photographer, inventor, and many more. I could go on and tell you much about him but who knows if you're actually interested! So I suggest some light reading on your own time if you feel like it, he's a pretty awesome guy and left the world with some pretty amazing inventions and discoveries.

Here's the ol' chap himself:

 



The day started off with helping my roommate move out of this hostel and into a new one not too far from here. She got a new work for accommodation job at a different hostel with more benefits so she took it. Definitely going to miss her like crazy but she's not far at all and we're all so close! So we decided as a fun thing to do on our "last" day together, we'd go to the aquarium and admire everything it had to offer. In Auckland there is Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium. With amazing reviews and one of the "to-do" items on many lists for visiting Auckland how could one not do it? Especially when I love marine life so so much. So we hopped on the free shuttle, which immediately made you smile and found ourselves just 10 minutes later making our way into the aquarium.

That awesome shuttle bus:

 

 

 

Now, the really neat thing about the aquarium is that it was built underground! Even more interesting is that the iconic tunnel shark tank (that first appeared here in Auckland and now distinguishable around the world) was created in unused sewage storage tanks from the 1960s. Needless to say they are spick and span now.

 

The aquarium has a variety of exhibits for you to enjoy. From seeing penguins, sharks, marine fish, sea horses, sting rays, and even mock hut rooms from research done in Antarctica. It was a real interesting place to visit, although I did expect more from it with all the hype you hear about it and how incredible you would imagine an aquarium would be situated in New Zealand. I mean, come on, everyone knows how amazing the marine life is in this part of the world, dazzle me!

 

The penguins were pretty amazing though, just because how can you not smile at them? I did secretly hope to have one dance for me. If you know me at all, you'd know I love Happy Feet so much. Combination of penguins and tap dancing and just adorable-ness really gets me. They were so funny, one penguin kept looking at this one baby while I was there, and when the mother walked away the penguin followed! No kidding, it was like in a movie. And then a whole bunch of penguins were standing together facing a rocky wall, just looking at it, not even curious about anything else.

 

Look at them cuties, I want some just like Mr. Popper. Is that too much to ask?

 

Poor little fella was missing a foot :(

 

 

Next we moved onto the NIWA Southern Oceans Discovery. Got to see some jellyfish, which I love, and a giant squid! As well as some facts on conservation and marine & Antarctica life.

 





 

 

Stingray Bay came next, which had a really neat area where you could grab some food if you were hungry in the middle of the visit. Remember how I said that the aquarium was built underground? Well they have windows in the eating area, where you can actually see part of Auckland CBD (central business district) as well as part of the underneath of the harbour. Real cool area to take a break for sure, and such a clever idea!

 

Found a rocking hat at Stingray Bay as well:



As well as decided to be a penguin for a split second, everyone meet Laura! She's from France!



The stingray themselves were huge! I've been to stingray exhibits before, the one that stood out to me was at the Toronto Zoo and you can pet the stingray and whatnot. It was amazing don't get me wrong but they were so much smaller!! These were stingrays with a 2 metre wingspan. Crazyness

We hit up the Pacific Shark Zone next, where the tunnel is found! The tunnel is broken up into two sections. The first has the sharks in it, called the predator tank and the second tank has mainly schooling fish. Both real neat tanks and if you're super lazy you can just stand on the moving side walk and enjoy a leisure ride through the whole lot of it!

My camera thought the railing was more interesting than us!

 

 

 

 

We made our way to the last exhibits, the Fish Gallery and Seahorse Kingdom. They were the cutest exhibits by far! Had a whole tank that was pretty much a mock of the tank in Finding Nemo. They had Dory, Nemo, Bubbles, Gill anddd the OCD fish I cannot remember the name of lol. In another tank they had a blowfish as well! I wish I was good at taking pictures haha, my friend is really into photography and her pictures of the fish were incredible! So bear with me for my photos.

 

The gang's all here!

 

My camera died before I could take pictures of the sea horses, but they were adorable :) you'll have to trust me! The gift shop was a little lack luster, so I decided to splurge on some typical tourist photos, enjoy lovelies!

 

my favourite, hahah:

 

 

fun fun fun, more to come I hope!