I have moved into a house in Mt Eden, a suburb of Auckland. The location is superb. Close to town and about 25 minutes drive from work. The house is also fantastic, if a little chilly. The New Zealanders don't seem to believe in central heating. We have one gas fire in the lounge and the rest of the heating is provided by thick wooly jumpers. Its not too bad though, and for winter i think it is boardering on a heat wave!!! Others would disagree.
My House - Its behind the tree!!!
Right, my house mates. Well i am living with 3 gorgeous girls. Heidi, Jamie and Tracy. They are a great laugh and have made my transition to NZ painless and simple. My only reservation about these guys is their obsessive watching of NZ Idol, Shortland Street and Footballers Wives on tv. Thankfully the latter has now finished, but I am still stuck with NZ Idol and 'Shorties'!!!
I also now have my own transport. I have a truck. The budget for my new car wasn't enourmous, but I was pointed in the direction of Ellerslie Car Fair. Every sunday morning, anybody selling a car can turn up at Ellerslie Racecourse and sell their car. I was expecting a few cars to be there, but that few turned out to be hundreds, of all shapes, sizes, ages, makes, types, everything. After an hour or so of mooching around i was drawn to the 4x4's (after i deliberately ignored them at the start of my quest). And there it was. A Toyota Hilux Surf. What a beast - 3.0L V6 with all the trimmings. A little worn and battle hardened shall we say, but it goes well and everything works. It was mine!!! How practical for a city!!!
The Beast!!!
I am still waiting for my stuff to arrive from the UK so my room is a little baron at the moment. I am getting by though. I am only really missing my paddling kit - i want to go paddling - and some tunes. But hey, it will be here in a few weeks - if it gets through customs that is!!! I am also looking forward to getting my bike here. As it comes into summer i can dodge the traffic, cut through the park to work (One Tree Hill) and stop getting cake fined at work for being totally unsustainable by cruising around in my fuel guzzling beast!!!
Things here are pretty cheap. But i guess that is partly because in some ways i am still working to UK living. I got a new stereo for my truck last week. Was considering the total pimp out with a sub and an amp but couldn't bring myself round to the Tim Tits school of driving sounds. It is dead cheap over here as imports come direct from Japan. The damn thing took me a whole day for fit and wire up. I had to dismantle the entire dashboard to get it in. But i now have the piece of mind that if anyone tries to nick the stereo in the night, they will still be there in the morning trying to figure out how to get the damn thing out. And you know how you take something apart, not really knowing how, and then rebuild it, again not really knowing how, and then you get the odd bit left over. Well i managed to rebuild my dash minus 3 bolts and a random cable and connector (a little worrying). At the moment everything is working fine though.
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