Our updates

After 4 weeks of living out of suitcases, and lugging them from hotel to hotel until our reference checks were approved, we have finally moved into our new place. Who would have thought we would have been sick of eating out and would be dying for a home cooked meal!

It’s a 3 year old modern place in an up and coming area which is being highly developed – a lot like the viaduct in Auckland. However the ‘sea views’ you get in Auckland are ‘cannel’ views here and of course that’s on the nice expensive side of the building. We however are on the other side of the building which has stunning views of an old building site with a couple of piles of rumble remaining, as well as the Teatley Brewery. It’s about a 15min walk to the centre of town, so nice and handy that’s for sure. This is the first time we have both lived in an apartment with no street level entry and for the first few nights it seems quite weird that you can’t just go outside!

The place is fully furnished, but we went out in the weekend and bought a few essential things like nice pillows, a working can opener and a knife that can actually cut through a tomato. Only bugger is it doesn’t have a dishwasher as of course the washing machine is where you would have a dishwasher. So it’s back to the old hand washing and drying, you forget just how much you take a dishwasher for granted until you no longer have one. It’s a bit like the TV, you realise how much time you waste in front of it when you no longer have one. We are going to hire one if we can, as we don’t really want to buy one given it won’t work at home due to the voltage difference. Steve and I have been passing the time by watching DVD’s on the latop and playing games on the PSP. I came to work today with play station sore thumb – but alas no play station tan!

We will add some pics to the blog once we get email at home to access them. We need to get a phone line connected so we can get broadband. Nothing is done fast over here and a simple phone connection takes up to 10 days – and at a cost of £124.00!

Bank holiday this coming Monday so we are planning on maybe hiring a car and heading north for a few days as the really cheap flights don’t kick in until September. Will just jump in the car and see where how far we get.