We moved into our city centre apartment, started to make ourselves feel at home in the city of Auckland. We visited the Museum of Auckland to understand the history of our new home. We started to get use to the changing weather that makes Auckland famous for sailing. Learning the must knows in the city.

Day 140 (19/01/11) Day in the Auckland Library

The Auckland library is becoming one of my favourite places in the city, it is big, open until 8pm and has free internet and a lot of seating areas. I have also found some very good books, this is a bad thing at the moment as instead of looking for a job when I come to use the internet here I am reading a book. I have been good today and applied for a few jobs and updated a few things I needed to catch up on so I don’t feel too bad.

In the evening we met up with our friend Briar, and had dinner in a very nice and trendy Italian restaurant. As in Australia, it is hard to find local food in the big cities so we eat food from all over the world.

Day 141 (20/01/11) Moving into our New Home

This morning started as a few others have lately. We woke up early packed up all our stuff and left the Jucy hotel. We walked across the city for about half an hour with over 30kgs on our backs, as Auckland is not a flat city, it is very challenging. But we made it, to our new home for the newt 6 weeks. We have a apartment in the centre of the city, sharing with another guy, on the 12^th floor with great views of the city. We have a swimming pool and gym in the building so I can get fit again. It is a nice feeling to have a home again. We spent the day unpacking, doing laundry and some shopping. We finally have a fridge so we can fill it up and don’t have to go to the supermarket each day!

Day 142 (21/01/11) First day in our new home

Today we did not do much, we spent the day in our new home watching TV, looking for things on the internet and we found a really good offer of 1 months boxing at have price on a site called Gabone.com. So we are forcing ourselves to get fit, we are going to start the classes next week.

In the afternoon we went to the bank, which was not as simple as we hoped it would be. It turned out that because we are not working and not Kiwi we could not have a visa debit card, only a cash card for our account. This is not very useful for us as we need to be able to pay with our bank cards online. After a while discussing with the consultants our options, we found that we could have a visa prepaid card, that we can transfer money onto to solve our problem. We were annoyed but it was hard to be annoyed when the staff at the bank were so friendly and helpful.

Day 143 (22/01/11) Printer

Auckland has shown us a very unstable weather pattern, sunny one day, rainy the next. When it is raining and you don’t live in a van and have to go outside you don’t feel like going outside. We stayed home in the morning, and then in the early afternoon, we headed off in search of the best IELTS book, so that Fred can prepare himself for the English exam he has to sit, in order to apply for the Australian immigration visa. We found the best books were in the university library and brought one from there. We then went off to buy ourselves a printer that we will need, to print out documents, CVs, ect. We headed back home after that and set up our new toys and started playing with them.

Day 144 (23/01/11) Auckland Museum

Today we had planned to go on an adventure to the island of Rangatoto, but because the weather was not nice, rainy and very foggy, we chose to delay our adventure and go to the museum. The museum is really cool, and packed with exhibitions, information on the Maori way of life, the history of New Zealand. We spent the afternoon walking around and learning about the culture of the land we call home for the time being. The culture here is very different to that of Australia, however when you are in Europe you think they are almost the same. I guess the way people might think that France and Belgium are the same.

The last exhibition that we saw was by far the scariest, you go into a room that looks like a living room in any house and you sit down on couch and watch TV, the news is on, one of the 600 volcanic cones that make up the bay near Auckland has exploded. There is smoke on the bay and its heading towards Auckland. Then the room shakes as the aftermath of the volcanic eruption hits Auckland. The scary thing is it could happen, however it only happens once every 200 years or so, so I think we are safe.

Day 145 (24/01/11) Shoe Shopping

Part from going downtown to buy some formal shoes and makeup for my job interview, things that I did not need while we were living in the van; we did nothing out of the ordinary.

We found a good shoe shop, which had many different styles of shoes at reasonable prices and picked out a pair for each of us.

Oh yes we did do something fun today, we went shopping in an Asian supermarket, where everything that was on sale was from Asia, and only a few products were familiar to us. So we spent an hour walking around the supermarket looking for things that we wanted to eat. We ended up buying a few and they turned out to be very good.

Day 146 (25/01/11) First Kiwi Interview & Cheaper Tuesdays movies

By the way, New Zealanders are referred to as Kiwi’s even by the government, so I am not using derogative slang when I say Kiwi. A kiwi interview is much similar to an interview in other countries in the world, nothing to get very excited about. The interview was with a recruitment company, so they will be passing my CV along and letting me know what happens. I am excited about a possible position, but I am waiting to see what is going to happen.

In the evening we went to the movies, here as in Australia, the tickets are cheaper on a Tuesday. We went to see Unstoppable, an American block buster, which is great for taking you mind off things for a while.