Auckland at last
When we finally got through immigration, customs, and biosecurity in the Auckland airport, we found Brendon waiting for us on the other side. Brendon and Dillie were Shannon's flatmates when she was going to grad school here in 2008. Once we found out for sure that we were coming back, they began looking for a house large enough for the four of us to share. So now here we were finally back and eager to get started on our life here.
The first day at our new house was spent just acclimating. The house is on a major road in the Auckland suburb of Mt. Eden so it's pretty noisy with cars and trucks going by at all hours. The house is a main floor with a finished basement. Upstairs is the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and the full bath. Downstairs is a living area that we think used to be the garage, a half bath which also has the washing machine, and a bedroom. We have the basement...again, lol. We do seem to attract basements but at least this time we have windows. The bus stop is just down the street so that's cool. Shannon can hop the bus and it drops her at the door of her new job. It's a bit farther for me. I can catch the bus downtown and then either walk or catch another bus to my new store. It's actually about the same distance as when I worked in Seattle and lived in my ghetto apartment.
We left the States on Tuesday but because New Zealand is on the other side of the international date line, we arrived on Thursday. We needed to get a lot done on Friday so we got up and had a fairly early start. First we hit the university to see Shannon's new boss, Igor. Now, I'm a big fan of Young Frankenstein and for those of you who've seen it, you can imagine how hard it is for me to say Ee-gor instead of Eye-gor. All the way up to his office I kept chanting "Ee-gor, Ee-gor" so I wouldn't accidentally slip, lol. It all turned out okay and I didn't make an idiot of myself.
Shannon's new job looks like it's going to be really good for her. The project is to scan maps of New Zealand and put them in a searchable database. They are going to be sending her to Wellington at some point for a few weeks to scan maps housed at the military base there. Some of them are as old as the late 1800s. The first part is scanning and then there will be years of processing them to make them searchable. There is the potential for several years of employment which would suit our purposes quite well. If she doesn't go crazy from sheer boredom before then, lol.
While in the library at the university, we had to pop into the toilet. As we walked down the line of stalls to choose one, we came across one that was essentially a hole in the floor. I'd heard that in some Asian countries toilets consisted of holes over which you squat but I'd never actually seen one before. It was a little...daunting. I have enough trouble squatting in the woods. There's no way I would willingly choose to do so in a public toilet when there were perfectly good seats in the next stall. It kind of makes me rethink visiting Japan though. I mean, how do you keep from peeing down your leg? I'm just not that coordinated. Plus my thigh muscles aren't that strong.
After uni, we had to find a post office to get our IRD numbers. In the States, we have social security numbers. Here in NZ, they have IRD numbers. The difference here is that they aren't required. You don't have to get one to work. However, if you don't you'll pay tax on your income of about 35%. If you do get the number, you pay a much, much lower rate. Basically we just had to fill out some forms and take them to the post office. They'll send off our paperwork and hopefully we'll get numbers in our mailbox by the end of next week.
The next stop was my new Starbucks store. Although it's pronounced Stahbooks here. It's about a half hour walk from downtown and it was a beautiful day so we hoofed it over there. The store is inside a grocery store called New World. It's probably more accurate to call it a kiosk than an actual store. The whole area behind the counter will really only fit two people. When we got there only one person was working. What a huge change from my old store! The Marble Falls store was a drive thru store and actually quite large. In order to run smoothly, there needed to be at least three people on duty at all times. Four actually worked better. It looks like this store will do well with only two people. I think working in a small store will be good for me starting out. I mean, there's so much new stuff to learn. For one thing, they have different money. They have coins that are 10c, 20c, 50c, 1 dollar, and two dollar. The bills are 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s, etc. They don't have pennies, nickels, or one dollar bills. So, just learning new money will be a challenge at first. Plus, there's different health codes and labor laws. I'm sure a lot is pretty similar but there will be some differences. Once I feel comfortable with everything and I put in some time at this store, I can always transfer to somewhere else.
This weekend has been pretty mellow. It was the last couple of days of our vacation. Yesterday, we went to Pac-n-Sav which is the Walmart equivalent here. We needed to stock up on groceries and such. Shannon and I spent way too much time ogling all the stuff that's different. I mean, they have pretty much the same type stuff but it's all in different packaging and made by different companies. Although we were in awe of the tuna selection. They had six shelves about four feet long each with nothing but flavored tuna. It was cool!
Today Brendon and Dillie invited over another couple for Valentine's Day and we had lunch including an amazing heart shaped cake Dillie made from scratch. Shannon has spent the better part of the evening playing Grand Theft Auto on Brendon's PS2 while I've been writing this post. It's kinda funny because it's not her normal style of video game.
Tomorrow we go back to our regular work-a-day world albeit in a different country from last time. Shannon starts her job at 10am and I go in at 3pm. Definitely hours I can live with. Tomorrow evening, we're going to check out a bed I found on Freecycle because right now we're sleeping on an air mattress that has to be blown up every morning, lol.
I want to leave y'all with a commercial I saw on TV a couple of days ago. My jaw about hit the floor because there's no way something like this would ever make it on the airwaves in the US.
www.youtube.com/watch
The first day at our new house was spent just acclimating. The house is on a major road in the Auckland suburb of Mt. Eden so it's pretty noisy with cars and trucks going by at all hours. The house is a main floor with a finished basement. Upstairs is the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and the full bath. Downstairs is a living area that we think used to be the garage, a half bath which also has the washing machine, and a bedroom. We have the basement...again, lol. We do seem to attract basements but at least this time we have windows. The bus stop is just down the street so that's cool. Shannon can hop the bus and it drops her at the door of her new job. It's a bit farther for me. I can catch the bus downtown and then either walk or catch another bus to my new store. It's actually about the same distance as when I worked in Seattle and lived in my ghetto apartment.
We left the States on Tuesday but because New Zealand is on the other side of the international date line, we arrived on Thursday. We needed to get a lot done on Friday so we got up and had a fairly early start. First we hit the university to see Shannon's new boss, Igor. Now, I'm a big fan of Young Frankenstein and for those of you who've seen it, you can imagine how hard it is for me to say Ee-gor instead of Eye-gor. All the way up to his office I kept chanting "Ee-gor, Ee-gor" so I wouldn't accidentally slip, lol. It all turned out okay and I didn't make an idiot of myself.
Shannon's new job looks like it's going to be really good for her. The project is to scan maps of New Zealand and put them in a searchable database. They are going to be sending her to Wellington at some point for a few weeks to scan maps housed at the military base there. Some of them are as old as the late 1800s. The first part is scanning and then there will be years of processing them to make them searchable. There is the potential for several years of employment which would suit our purposes quite well. If she doesn't go crazy from sheer boredom before then, lol.
While in the library at the university, we had to pop into the toilet. As we walked down the line of stalls to choose one, we came across one that was essentially a hole in the floor. I'd heard that in some Asian countries toilets consisted of holes over which you squat but I'd never actually seen one before. It was a little...daunting. I have enough trouble squatting in the woods. There's no way I would willingly choose to do so in a public toilet when there were perfectly good seats in the next stall. It kind of makes me rethink visiting Japan though. I mean, how do you keep from peeing down your leg? I'm just not that coordinated. Plus my thigh muscles aren't that strong.
After uni, we had to find a post office to get our IRD numbers. In the States, we have social security numbers. Here in NZ, they have IRD numbers. The difference here is that they aren't required. You don't have to get one to work. However, if you don't you'll pay tax on your income of about 35%. If you do get the number, you pay a much, much lower rate. Basically we just had to fill out some forms and take them to the post office. They'll send off our paperwork and hopefully we'll get numbers in our mailbox by the end of next week.
The next stop was my new Starbucks store. Although it's pronounced Stahbooks here. It's about a half hour walk from downtown and it was a beautiful day so we hoofed it over there. The store is inside a grocery store called New World. It's probably more accurate to call it a kiosk than an actual store. The whole area behind the counter will really only fit two people. When we got there only one person was working. What a huge change from my old store! The Marble Falls store was a drive thru store and actually quite large. In order to run smoothly, there needed to be at least three people on duty at all times. Four actually worked better. It looks like this store will do well with only two people. I think working in a small store will be good for me starting out. I mean, there's so much new stuff to learn. For one thing, they have different money. They have coins that are 10c, 20c, 50c, 1 dollar, and two dollar. The bills are 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s, etc. They don't have pennies, nickels, or one dollar bills. So, just learning new money will be a challenge at first. Plus, there's different health codes and labor laws. I'm sure a lot is pretty similar but there will be some differences. Once I feel comfortable with everything and I put in some time at this store, I can always transfer to somewhere else.
This weekend has been pretty mellow. It was the last couple of days of our vacation. Yesterday, we went to Pac-n-Sav which is the Walmart equivalent here. We needed to stock up on groceries and such. Shannon and I spent way too much time ogling all the stuff that's different. I mean, they have pretty much the same type stuff but it's all in different packaging and made by different companies. Although we were in awe of the tuna selection. They had six shelves about four feet long each with nothing but flavored tuna. It was cool!
Today Brendon and Dillie invited over another couple for Valentine's Day and we had lunch including an amazing heart shaped cake Dillie made from scratch. Shannon has spent the better part of the evening playing Grand Theft Auto on Brendon's PS2 while I've been writing this post. It's kinda funny because it's not her normal style of video game.
Tomorrow we go back to our regular work-a-day world albeit in a different country from last time. Shannon starts her job at 10am and I go in at 3pm. Definitely hours I can live with. Tomorrow evening, we're going to check out a bed I found on Freecycle because right now we're sleeping on an air mattress that has to be blown up every morning, lol.
I want to leave y'all with a commercial I saw on TV a couple of days ago. My jaw about hit the floor because there's no way something like this would ever make it on the airwaves in the US.
www.youtube.com/watch