Dec 24, 2009 - Auckland, New Zealand

Well today is our last full day in Auckland, NZ. We decided to head out to the Outlet Mall in Onehunga, a small suburb just outside of the City. We found they had a FREE bus so we walked up to the Sky Tower to catch it. Took about 30 min to get there. We walked around and looked in the shops, really not seeing much. Everyone was having last minute sales, but still, 30% off of their prices was still up there. More than my budget, so we passed. We did find one store that was doing 50% off the already marked down price, so I found a couple of nice long sleeve shirts for $10NZ which was a really good price. I can always use these for future travel. We grabbed a quick lunch too then took the free bus back to the city. While we were there we met a nice girl going to the University, her name was Hope. Since we were leaving we told her we would give her all of our left over clothes and stuff so she could use it or sell it what ever she wanted to do. We told her to come by on 12/25 about 10am in the morning to pick it up since we had to repack in the evening. I ended up buying a large duffle suitcase to bring everything back. We wanted to go out and have a nice dinner in a restaurant for Christmas eve, but as we walked around and checked out the prices we eventually gave up. We had potatoes in the fridge in the hotel, so I made mashed potatoes. What a great Christmas eve meal!!! and we watched TV. We kept tabs on SkyLink News for the weather to see how it was going to impact our trip back home tomorrow since we were connecting in Chicago. Hummm.... storms over the midwest... crap... Keep our fingers crossed.... Merry Christmas all.....