M&J

We still owe you a summary of the first few days. A lot has happened.

Wednesday: We have viewed the first apartment unfortunately it was looking a lot better on the photos than in reality. But we should have expected that. But to no avail so we had to arrange more viewings. Otherwise we already toured Queen Street a bit so that we know where to spend our money in the future. Well, there are a lot of possibilities… There was nothing much our hotel room had to offer but at least affordable internet connection. Therefore Juergen was busy applying for newly published jobs. On one application he received a quick answer by email but deflating it was a denial. But still they were asking for further details like years of job experience, preferred working area, expected salary level, etc. Hence another foot in the door of one of NZ’s bigger IT recruiters with a feedback on another application still pending. As Wednesday is as well our wedding anniversary we have had dinner in the Skytower. The Skytower is the highest building of the southern hemisphere and a special place for us as we celebrated our engagement there. At “Orbit” you can not only enjoy a fine meal but also a spectacular view on the city.

Thursday: We did wake up quite early. No not because of the jetlag but because in the club beside our hotel has been a affray which was also seen on the TV news the next day ;). But that’s not all our hotel has to offer: a super small room with a lot of humidity especially when you’re waking up in the morning because we can’t open our windows at night. Well no worrying we have to get out and be busy searching for flats. We had the whole day planned out. At 9 we fetched our rental car. At 9.30 we had our first viewing. The apartment was quite nice but was rented out during the day. Well we couldn’t phone our “referrees” that fast. After the viewing we had to quickly get to Turner’s car auctions. As our desired car was finally for auction the first bid was already higher than our limit. So we went to the next auction. There we were bidding for 2 cars after all. But we didn’t get any of them. A tiny bit frustrated we were driving to another car dealer becaus we were destined to buy some wheels today. The next car dealer was a picture perfect one. A bit sleazy and somewhat shady. We decided to make another try. We were driving to Glendield (this is also where the fine german bakery is situated ;)) and had a look at “Wheels on Wairau”. Arthur (our car dealer) showed us a lot of vehicles, but none of them felt like ours. At the end he said that they did get a new one freshly off the boat from Japan and that we are welcome to have a look at it but it hasn’t been serviced or polished yet. Well there it was, our car. A white Mazda Axela. We made a test drive and bought it spontaneously. We are getting the car next week freshly polished and serviced. Mission 1 completed. So that we wouldn’t get bored we had another viewing on the afternoon. The apartment was quite ok but it was definitly missing the ocean view and it was a tiny bit too far away from everything. But the agent (Val) said that we would be her first choice and that we shall hand in the filled application form as quick as possible.

Friday: Well, still someting to do. Yep we were sill searching for an apartment. We told Val that we didn’t wan to apply for the flat just yet as we wanted to look around a bit more. After all the apartment wasn’t exactly what we were searching for. So we viewed another flat today. But that one was a total letdown. By that Val´s apartment was still on top of our list as we would probably get that one. We couldn’t view another flat directly at the harbour as the agent couldn’t get a hold of the current tenant. Hence we’ve been strolling around for the rest of Friday, beeing lazy and enjoying that we are close to the sea.

Saturday: We had a viewing appointment at 10am for our “dream flat”. We have been a bit nervous because the apartment had all we were looking for. Details will follow in a seperate post with pictures :). Jane showed us the apartment and then left us alone so that we could together decide if we are interested. We were just smiling at each other and were immediatly on the same page that we wanted to have exactly this apartment. As Jane returned she wanted to know if we want to move in as we were the best candidates so far. We agreed and she asked when we want to move in. There was nothing to think about. “Dream flat” or “Nightmare hotel” (maybe a bit exaggerated) wasn’t a difficult decision. Thus we completed the formalities and then moved down Queen Street with bag and baggage. Mission 2 completed.

More on the apartment and our first night etc. in the next post.

Lots of love from sunny Auckland, Martina and Jürgen