Verona, the city of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet and also the name of an essential Kiwi song. I won't get into which is better, because Mercutio and his plague would rain on all of our houses, but you can't possibly be a kiwi and not sing Verona every chance you get while there.  The train ride wasn't that long but due to large quantities of prosecco and strawberries I slept most of the way. Emma, charming soul that she is, documented the trip for me in a series of snaps. Mostly of me sleeping. But she's creative, and made sure to use snapchat filters. She's good like that.  To View More >>

Patience is a Virtue or something Our second day in Firenze we spent exploring the city by wandering somewhat aimlessly which has beceome my favourite method of touristing.  Whilst wandering the streets, we came across the  Santi Michele e Gaetano, where I made poor Emma wait so I could get the photo of the priest standing alone outside the church in just the right spot. He paced back and forth for nearly 10 mins before he stopped there.  We also came across the Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Vecchio and the markets near Piazza del Duomo where we stopped for lunch.  New Obsessions To View More >>

After our short stop in Pisa and the Italian McDonalds we took the train to Firenze. The Firenze train station was a short walk to our accomodation, Chez Aline (located on Via Ventisette Aprile)  which is a sweet and inexpensive hotel with the world's tiniest elevators. As it turns out, elevators are exceptionally small in a lot of Europe. We just managed to fit both our suitcases in then ran up the stairs to collect them two floors up.  Aline is a good location, nearby to museums and a two minute walk to a laundrette (Lavanderia Il Delfino) . There's also a pharmacy and some great To View More >>

Pisa, Italy The best way to wait for a train anywhere involves sitting in a bar in the sun/shade with a glass of rosé.  After getting out of the Pisa airport we headed straight to the tower to get the most touristy part of our trip out of the way. It's a tower. It leans. That's about all I can say about it. My OCD doesnt like things wonky so I can't say it was a highlight. I took the token photo of it (with Snapchat no less, dont even think I got my actual camera out) and then we went off to find a place to lunch. Our train to Firenze wasn't for a couple for hours so we found this quiet To View More >>

Spinning up some sunrise We were booked to stay in Guesthouse Gerði in between Jökulsárlón  and the village of Höfn. After being blown away by the Glacier Lagoon, the bar was set pretty high. As the sun set over Höfn, the sky lit up. Not with the Northern Lights, but with the last rays of the day.  The Þórbergur Center is a cultural centre with an exhibition dedicated to the Iceland writer Þórbergur Þórðarson (1888 – 1974) who grew up in the area. The centre is home to a restaurant as well with the To View More >>

A Ghostly Procession After departing the national park, soaking wet and hallucinating moving mountains, we set off to the next accomodation. The one downside to travelling Iceland in the winter is how dark it gets so quickly. We chose winter for a chance of seeing the Northern Lights but this did mean that the days were short. Because of this we had planned to view the Glacier Lagoon the next morning but as we passed by it to get to the Guesthouse the sight of colossal chunks of glacial ice floating in a lagoon as the sun was starting to set was too much to pass up.  Jökulsárlón To View More >>

The road to Vatnajökull National Park is strange and varied. From vast expanses of volcanic rock to some unusal moss, every few kilometers it was almost as if we were changing countries as we drove.  The moss is somewhat well-known since that the Biebs got in trouble for frolicking in it. It was cordoned off at the viewing point we stopped at and the fields extend as far as we could see. It was pretty impressive. The moss is exceptionally fragile - it's soft and very spongey. The green is vibrant and bright, especially so with a rainy grey sky behind it.  The other To View More >>

Visited Iceland in November and it was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately it rained (and POURED) most of the time we were there so I did not get as many photos as I would have liked but the experience itself was incredible.  After landing in Keflavik International Airport the lovely Odin from Ace Rental Cars collected us from the airport and took us to their office to pick up our rental car. This meant no waiting in queues at the airport and Odin was friendly and helped us start off in the right direction. Ace is a family owned business and they were lovely to deal with. I had planned To View More >>

TBT: Christchurch 2008 Back in 2008 I finally got to visit Christchurch. My cousin and I went down to celebrate my birthday and while the cold temperature was a bit of a shock to my JAFA disposition, it was rather beautiful.  Being that it was 2008, it was before the earthquake took Christ Church Cathedral away from the city. My cousin and I walked the stairs to the top of the cathedral and with hindsight as wonderful as it is, I'm glad we did it. Though, this is the second time I have made the decision to climb an architectural landmark at the last minute, only to have it come To View More >>

Living in Auckland often earns you the derision of the rest of the country, but it's home and I love it. I don't doubt the beauty of the rest of the country, NZ is beautiful, but Auckland has it's little gems too. One of those places for me has always been Bomb Point. Up until recently Bomb Point has been open to the public. Thanks to urban sprawl and the current construction going on over there, it's been closed off, so I was pretty lucky one of my previous flatmates showed it to me before that happened. It's 11 hectares of land, at what used to be a munitions dump for the Royal New Zealand To View More >>