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Published: September 9th 2007
(That means "Welcome" in Maori)
Yay! Rachel's first blog post!
So we're finally here. After a fun (but financially stressful) few days in Tahiti, the backpacking has begun. Our 6 hour flight to Auckland felt like nothing after our previous 13 hour flight and long travel days. At the airport, Tanner was very excited to find a ham and cheese sandwich for only $4.20. And that's in New Zealand dollars! I was pleasantly surprised by our hostel, which was right in the center of the city and very easy to get to from the airport. I had psyched myself out for our 8-10 bed dorm (at Tanner's insistence, you can hear him saying, "It's cheaper! And we'll meet people! C'mon!"), but to my amazement, we had been "upgraded" to a double room by accident. The Base Backpackers (formerly known as ACB Hostel) was like a shopping mall for young, budget travelers and we found ourselves right in our element.
Before leaving the States, we had bought a job help package through STA in addition to our Working Holiday Scheme. I was little skeptical whether or not it would be worth the money, but now that we're here, it
totally was. Justine, the woman at Base, helped us set up our bank accounts (we had to go to the Migrant Banking branch of the ASB bank...oh, how the tables have turned), gave us Sim cards for our cell phones, filed our government paper work for us (we got IRD numbers, basically a NZ social security number), and generally answered all of my inane questions. Once we're in Wellington and looking for work, we're going to call back and apparently they have some contacts for temporary work down there. Tanner and I still have these delusions of grandeur that we're going to find fabulous, well-paying jobs that actually use our degrees, when in reality, I'm sure we'll be making some stellar coffee. Still though, it felt really good to get here and finally be sorting all of the practical stuff out.
After our first day of checking things off the ole to-do list, we took a break from it all on the second day and took a day trip to Waiheke Island. It was only a 35 minute ferry from Auckland, but it felt more like a Cape Cod/Italy fusion than the city we'd just departed from. We walked
around the beach, climbed the rocks, went to the "Fruit and Veg" (so cute), and then walked kilometer after kilometer to the Mudbrick Vineyard for a wine tasting (we went a little camera crazy, especially with the sheep).
Yesterday, we left the hustle and bustle of central Auckland and came to stay in Ponsonby, the bohemian/artsy district closeby. We've been drinking coffee and reading at cafes, walking around parks, and generally getting anxious for our North Island tour to begin. Our legs are very tired from walking all around Auckland, and I for one am looking forward to spending the next 4 months in smaller cities than this one. Our new hostel in Ponsonby is called the Brown Kiwi (after the national bird), and it's a far cry from the mini-mall of ACB. It's a converted Victorian house with a cute little common area where everyone hangs out at night. Last night, Tanner and I struck up conversations with a British expat, a transplanted Wellingtonian, a travelling Chicagoan, and an Irish couple. Of course, at one point, the conversation turned to American politics, and we had to insist that we didn't personally put Bush in the White House.
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