M&J

Wow, again another week is over. Therefore it is time for an update to our page.

On our first night we could experience how a storm feels. Because we are living directly at the waterfront on 16th floor it was quite loud and did sound unpleasant. But thank god we couldn’t really feel it :). Hence I was sleeping rather uneasy the first night but which hasn’t happened since.

Getting up in the morning with a view onto the harbour when the sun is setting or is already up is stunning and still feels more like a holiday. Probably also because we both are not working yet… but we are working on that ;).

Juergen had an appointment with a recruiter (you can’t really do without them in IT here) and he is taking care of introducing Juergen to one/some of his clients. Otherwise we also sent lots of applications, been busy on the phone and all in all did our best. We as well tried to refresh old contacts and went to lunch with Matt (Juergen’s former Siemens colleague), Tom (my former colleague of MGL) and Joachim (a friend of the “Neuseelandforum”, a fellow German). It was very interesting getting different opinions on job hunting in NZ and we also got a tip of Joachim or rather Peter (another friend of the forum) for a job position with one of New Zealand’s banks. They have been in touch with Juergen immediately after he applied on Friday for a little afternoon chat on the phone. We hope to be able to give a positive feedback on this issue within the next two weeks.

There are positive news to report from our car as well. We already received it on Wednesday. Spotlessly clean, looks almost new :). As it turned out it is a 2006 model (in the contract it said 2005) but that’s even better for us as the price stayed the same :). Thus we now also have wheels, a white Mazda Axela (photos will follow seperately). Because our bank account has a transfer limit of 1000 NZD a day at the moment we honestly pay 1000 NZD per day to the car dealer until the complete sum is reached. But as we paid half the amount cash that doesn’t seem to be a problem. We seem to be trustworthy.

We used our new wheels to do some shopping out of the city center. Besides a few little things that were missing in the apartment we also purchased a sofabed for visitors. Delivery on Tuesday. Hence we are prepared for guests after that. I am excited who will be our first guests.

On Saturday we were meeting with Nancy and Nick. We know them from our first visit to NZ. We could get used to how it might be when we have our first kid as they brought their little son and he kept them both quite good on their toes. Thankfully we don’t have kids just yet ;). In the afternoon we went to the beach to have a little walk. The weather was nice and sunny and we are almost starting to get a little tan… slowly but maybe we get a little colour before winter starts. A few pictures…

Today we have been to a french farmers market. There one can get european style bread so we had to buy one. So far we didn’t really miss German bread and sausages but we might come to that point. Luckily we know at least one bakery and butchery in Auckland though they are about 30 minutes drive away from our flat.

This evening we plan on going to a pub enjoying some harty english food certainly including some beer. We are looking forward to that.

Love, Martina

P.S.: Who would like to skype with us some time either take our Skype IDs off Facebook or drop us a short email. We are mostly online on the weekends between 9-11am german time. We can also arrange personalised appointments on request :).