Beautiful people

Last weekend I have been to Auckland again.
The plan was:

• take the bus to Auckland on saturday
• attend an Animal Rights demo (no more battery eggs at Subway)
  
• take the bus back

The trip was too spontaneous to do couch surfing, and so I planned to go home on the same day.

At the end, it turned out to be different.
The beginning was according to plan though. I got up at 6, left at 7 and took the bus at 8. Slept all the way to Auckland (which was wonderful) and was there at 10. The demo was a bit outside of the city center, and I decided to walk there. It took me quite a while, but I went through a beautiful park, saw loads of children playing cricket, other guys climbing trees, and many others just watching like me.

After arriving in the right street, but going all the way up in the wrong direction - spotting a Swarovski store on the way though (TIROL, TIROL, TIROL, du bist mein ... !! *sing*) - I finally arrived at the demo and started helping right away. We were collecting addresses that we would then give away to the Subway people.
Well, Jesse (one of the demonstrators) was quite impressed that I came from Hamilton just for the demo, and so he invited me to join a dinner of the SAFE animal rights people. I didn't have a place to stay, but Alice and Billy invited me to stay at their house. That was an amazing offer, and I couldn't say no :-)

The dinner was just awesome! About 20 vegan people eating Indian food :-) Four of us were sharing, and so I could taste a lot of different dishes. Highlight: vegan mango lassi (which is soy joghurt and mango pulp).

After the dinner we went to a comedy show. Newbies telling their newest jokes. Some of them were even funny ;-)

On Sunday we had putluck at Alice's and Billy's place. What can I say, it was very fascinating. Nobody knew what the others are going to bring, and still the food was as well-balanced as it could be. Salads, main dishes, sweets, bread, everything. And it tasted soo good!
Besides that, the people were all so caring and full of spirit. I felt as if I knew them for long, and forgot about being a foreigner.

It is good to be here.