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Published: December 7th 2009
Well, at long last, we have arrived in our new home-away-from-home for the next year! We're currently in Auckland, getting our permits and paperwork underway, before heading down to the south island tomorrow night.
Our final day in Sydney was spent being aggravated at our accommodation and sulking over the ridiculous price tags on everything. We wanted so much to explore some of the city, but it was prohibitively expensive. Lovely city, we just unfortunately hit at the wrong time! Hopefully our dollar will strengthen over the next year and we can see some of the country on the way home. On the brighter side, most of you will be thrilled to hear that Jeremy FINALLY got a haircut (from an old Italian barber)...so he now looks like a 15-year old again. (What can I say? I like his hair long.) I too was in search of a haircut and the cheapest place I could find was $75 (shampoo and cut only, not even a blow-dry). Needless to say, I did not get a haircut in Sydney. But, I did get one today in Auckland for a fraction of the price, by a Korean woman in an Asian mall! Too
funny. Good haircut, though. My hair hasn't been this short since high school. She took one look at my fried ends and went, "What happened?" I laughed and said, "Backpacking Asia for two months, that's what!"
Exiting Australia was nearly as strenuous as getting in. We have determined that Oz has the strictest security of any country in the world we've been to yet...I swear we'd have an easier time getting in and out of Iraq! More questions upon checking in for our flight (again, friendly, but LOTS of questions)...had to show proof of our working visas for New Zealand (though no visa is actually required to enter the country for Americans - THAT we are sure of!), details of where we'd stayed and what we'd done in Sydney...it was exhausting. We were very happy to board our 3-hour flight for Auckland.
As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were instantly more relaxed. It was the same sensation we got exiting China and crossing into Vietnam - the air just seemed more laid-back, more chill, more breathable. (Not that we didn't like China or Australia - both were great - but compared with their neighboring countries,
very high-strung). The Auckland airport is beautiful, decorated with paintings of sea creatures and huge wood carvings and artifacts from the native Maori people. Clearing customs here in New Zealand went something like this:
Me: "Hi, we're here on working holiday. Here are our visas and passport."
Awesome customs officer: "Great." Inspects passports.
Me: "So where exactly do we go and what do we have to do to obtain our work permit?" Smile nervously.
Awesome customs officer: "Right here, love." Lifts rubber stamp and stamps passport with our work permit. Fills in "Valid thru December 5, 2010." Hands us our passports and visas back. "Enjoy your stay here."
That was it. We were all geared up for Oz-like inquisition, showing bank statements, detailing our work history, proving we were competent English-speaking people...nothing. Nada. Zip. One stamp in our passport, and we're allowed to stay for a year. No questions asked. We loved this place already, and we hadn't even left the airport yet.
Breezed through security, effortlessly changed our Aussie dollars for New Zealand dollars (and chatted with the terrifyingly-nice Maori money-exchange guy), effortlessly found the shuttle to our guesthouse (and chatted with the
terrifyingly-nice 70-year old Ukrainian woman driving it), and effortlessly (at 2am) found the keys that had been left for us in the mailbox so we could let ourselves inside. We're at a lovely little six-room guesthouse (almost like a B&B, except you make your own breakfast) in Parnell, a hilltop suburb of Auckland. Auckland almost has a San Francisco feel to it - huge rolling hills (all volcanic mounds), great breeze off the bay, lots of Asian influence (in fact, it's the city with the highest population of Polynesians in the world!), very chill atmosphere. And chilly! It's the beginning of summer and nights are down in the 50's...high gets up to about 65 or 70 degrees. Gorgeous, but much chillier than we're used to!
The people here are ridiculously nice. Even the clerks at the convenience stores will stop and talk to you for fifteen minutes...Where are you from? How long are you here? What's America like? One guy even pulled out a map and showed us all his favorite spots on the south island. The owner of a camper-rental store invited us out on his boat with his buddies. The Korean woman who cut my hair today
wanted to know all about Florida and the "exotic" Miami she's heard so much about (ha!). Even taxi drivers are nice, for God's sake...where else in the world is THAT true?
Food so far has been awesome. Jeremy is in gluten-free heaven - convenience stores have gluten-free cookies, a burger joint offers gluten-free buns, and their supermarket has literally hundreds of gluten-free selections of goodies! We ate tonight at Orbit Restaurant, 600 feet up the Sky Tower (which happens to be the largest building in the southern hemisphere...almost 1000 feet to the top!)...and even they had a huge gluten-free selection on their menu! Dinner rocked...we had lamb with tomato au jus, seared tuna with ginger sauce, beautiful rare filet with mushroom cream sauce, a small cheese clatter of blue cheese and plum paste, and even...oh it was so good...mint creme brulee. Yum!!! It was our first REAL actual meal in a nice restaurant since we left the states...and it was fabulous. Our little splurge and treat-to-selves for surviving two months of southeast Asia!
So tomorrow night we fly down to the south island, to Christchurch, to begin the hunt for a car. We have acquaintances in the tiny
town of Wanaka who are holding several boxes of our clothes (we shipped over before we left), and we have some new friends way down at the bottom of the island in Balclutha who have offered us a place to stay until we get on our feet! So once we get our car we'll be circling the south island for a few days to get everything situated...but very very soon (within a few weeks we hope!) we should have our own car, own apartment, and hopefully a few part-time jobs!! The blogs may start coming a little less frequently, until we get set up with our own wireless for our laptop, but fear not...we will keep you updated!!
😊
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anonymous
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You guys looks BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!:>