Great to be in Aoteroa: land of the long white cloud. We are ready to settle here and soak up the city. Having never lived in a city centre it was time to enjoy the novelty and convenience (although we didn't consider the noise pollution!). NZ has a great affiliation to the UK and it's so easy to feel at home. We heard more northern England accents here than anywhere and took comfort from this, being so far from home and all!
The city of sails: Auckland. Our home for 4 months. An easily navigable and layed-back place. ACB hostel...grubbier than anywhere in the back of Asia! Moved promptly to Formule 1 where we had a very mini kithen and a view of the sea. But still not cheap enough so we hunted 'Trade Me' (NZ Ebay) and quickly found a flat (one room aggghhh) in the centre: The Silo building on Emily Place. Yeah!
Carl found a job first at Degree Bar on the lovely Viaduct harbour area. I found a juice bar job...then a supermarket job (ha ha ha) then finally settled at Lush, the lovely UK soap and bath bomb shop. Strange to be on minimum wages but we earned enough together to sustain ourselves and save for our trip around the country at the end.
We really felt happy to be settling somewhere and not be constantly on the move. We were ready for a degree of 'normality'...just the little things you take for granted...and wanted more of a routine...we could rent dvds, cook what we wanted at supermarket cost, read a book all day, sit on the balcony and take in the city scape, have long showers (some campsite showers were on timer!)...even a day's work was refreshing...well, for a bit anyway!
We met Carl's mum's cousin Ian Powers (no relation to Austin unfortunately)and his family out in Mission Bay in the suburbs and were offered a rent-free car from time to time.
Our first trip out was out to the rugged west coast: Piha Beach, Hammells Beach. Black volcanic sand and raging ocean...gorgeous.
So Aucklanders seem like the kind of people who work to live and we frequently gaped in awe at business meetings taking place in cafes...breakfasts and laughter; even wine-drinking at lunch. How dare they?! They are so laid back and the UK really needs to take a leaf out of their book on this: work-life-balance is screaming out to be tipped the other way...towards Auckland. And what a relief: there is a distinct lack of trendies! In fact, there are hardly any great clothes shops or ponsy places on the main Queen St. There is Ponsonby (geddit?)just out of the centre where things are apparently a little posher, but we relished the down-to-earthiness and genuine friendliness of our new home.
The Maori folks were possibly the friendliest of the friendly Aucklanders. Big warm smiles and love for life. In our humble opinions, there was also much better integration with the 'white' folks than in Oz where Aboriginal people seemed down and out and drunk on the streets. Maori culture is celebrated here in NZ and they are proud and spiritual people who uphold their customs and folklore. This was great to see.
We eventually made it over to Devonport, a 15-minute ferry ride over from the harbour, where there were bookshops and cafes and a fantastic view back to the city and over to rangitoto vocano. Many people lived over in Devonport and commuted by ferry into the city.
Kiwis love their live music and bands. We were able to see 'Iron and Wine' at the Powerstation in Mount Eden...Matt Costa at the King's Arms and LTJ Bukem at Zen nightclub.
There is a huge Asian population in NZ which is good for Asian food lovers! Cheap sushi bars everywhere like Oz (UK needs to get on to that); Korean; Chinese; Thai...3 pounds 20 for a great plate of pad thai in the downstairs food court on Queen St. 4pound bowl of teriyaki chicken rice at Renkon up an alley way off the main street. The boutique street, High Street, offered gorgeous salad bars and our old pal, Wagamama.
Gorgeous weather in Auckland...blue skies every day and plenty of sunshine although the ozone layer is thinner here and it's easy to get burned.Even when it started to get into the autumn season, it was still mild t-shirt weather for the most part. North of Auckland is known as the 'winterless north.'
So Kiwis are known for saying 'eh' as in 'ayyy' at the end of their sentences with rising intonation which is quite a catching way to speak. Also 'sweet as' which means things are sweet as!'Thongs' are not worn on your ass; they're flipflops. There is a kiwi fruit and a kiwi bird.Kia ora is not the sugary UK drink; it's 'hello'
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