The cold and rainy bit was unexpected, as it is the middle of summer down here. Fortunately, nothing gets quite up a kiwi's nose like the phrase "typical English summer", so there was still some fun to had.
Auckland was almost completely empty while I was there, and frankly it's hard to imagine it getting too crowded even during a normal work week. The entire region including Auckland and the surrounding suburbs only has 1.3 million people -- imagine the population of the Santa Clara Valley with four times the available space, and you'll get the idea.
The kiwis I've met so far are friendly, neighborly folks. There is some polite conversation made, but for the most part they seem happy to keep to themselves. If this sounds like the description that the neighbors give to the police after the fact, well, there's some of that energy about it. The New Zealand national psyche is intimately tied to both rugby and bungee jumping, which ought to be telling us all something.
Either that, or they're for reference by bungee jumpers... of course, then they would have to be upside down.
I asked the person next to me what the second 100 years would be; He said "Rugby, Bungee, and Sheep".
