Mission Bay

After a long week of studying Chinese all day every day, we were determined to get out of Laidlaw at least once this weekend. So a few of us decided to check out a new beach we had gotten ice cream by a couple weeks ago. Did we pick this beach because the ice cream was so good we wanted to get more? You'll never know.

We hopped on the bus and rode for an hour or so to Auckland and then found another bus to Mission Bay. I wasn't in the mood to try to figure out the impossible puzzle known as the Auckland bus system, so we left that up to Kuo and Luke. Riding the bus was actually not that bad, except for the fact it stopped every 10 ft. I liked watching all the people get on, yes I'm a creeper. Everyone else could read while riding, but I would have gotten sick, so I had no choice but to stare. Most people were Chinese, which I thought was interesting. 

The day at Mission Bay was absolutely wonderful! You guys, I'm going to school in New Zealand and on the weekends I go to beaches that look like this.

 We all just laid in the sand for the first hour, then some people played beach volleyball, but I just laid :) because I'm a beach bum. Then Blake came back from his walk and we just got to talk for a while. It's fun cause our group is finally at the place where we can be real with each other, and get to know one another better so the conversations are a little deeper. Like for example, Blake bowled for four years in high school instead of playing basketball because the coach was bad. Which if you knew Blake is hilarious because he is probably the most athletic person I've ever met, and to me, bowling doesn't require too much. He has his own bowling bag and two bowling balls and his highest score ever was a 289. Now, I bet you didn't know that. When the other four got back they kind of joined in and we started asking each other "deep" questions and everyone had to answer, like "what's something nobody knows about you", "what's your biggest regret?", and "what's the coolest thing you've ever done with your family?". It was really fun. We had packed a lunch at Laidlaw so we got to eat that together on the beach FOR FREE. We also read a lot cause we're swamped with work.

I finally managed to force myself to get in the water even though it was freezing, and then we walked over to the most amazing ice cream place in the world, Movenpick, and I got my newest love, vanilla brownie ice cream.

The fun really started when we tried figuring out how to get back...we may or may not have missed our  bus a couple times. We were all sun drained and hungry so we were not super pumped about how long it took us, but it was definitely an adventure. The rest of the group was mad at us when we got back because we apparently left without telling them we were going, and we took all the bread, chips AND cookies for lunch :)

But we made more delicious cookies that night and had a couple dance parties and watched The Dark Knight Rises together, so it was a great ending to a great day. Except for the fact that I have the weirdest tan lines in the world thanks to Christina Welch.