Ally & Suzy's Blog

At the Waterfront Quay, Auckland

It’s been a busy old week! We spent the Sunday saying our goodbyes in the morning at the Airport. It was pretty overwhelming seeing so many of you at the airport to wish us a farewell. I felt really ill as I had a bad dose of the man flu (which I still have by the way, and I seem to have now given to Suzy), so if I didn’t appear grateful at the time, I’m sorry about that, but I was dying!

What can I say about the flights? Well, the first connecting flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow was with BMI and went well. We sat around in Heathrow for a few hours and had a pizza, then we got checked in when the gate opened for our onward flight with Air New Zealand. I would thoroughly recommend them, the service was excellent, the ride comfortable as economy class gets and the champagne was free of charge, as was all the food so I can’t complain there. We arrived in LAX on time, hung around for the plane to get cleaned and re-fueled and then got back on for our forward destination. I don’t like the American immigration folks – asked me all sorts of questions about why I was going to New Zealand, took my fingerprints, my retina scan and all sorts. I felt like telling them ‘none of your damn business!’, but I thought better of it!

Arrived in Auckland on time. Sailed through Customs, Security and examination (we had to get our bags checked because we declared that we had trainers that had been used for hillwalking). When we were heading for the door, I looked straight ahead, and there infront of us was Symon Tait, a friend of Adam Duff’s who I had recently got talking to on Facebook before I left to go to New Zealand. He stood there grinning with a poster saying ‘Ally & Suzy’ on it

The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Symon Tait!

This was all at around 5.30 in the morning, mind you. Not only did he drive us to the lodgings where we are shacking up for the first 11 days, but he gave us a wee pit-stop tour of the city in the wee small hours! Since then, everything has been as plain sailing and as pleasant as this. We were utterly bowled over by the pleasantness of not just Symon, but everyone else we have had proper dealings with in New Zealand so far. At least the rumours I had heard about Kiwi’s being a friendly bunch is one truth we can agree on!

For the first few days, jet lag sapped most of our energy and our sleeping pattern was pretty irregular. It wasn’t until day 6 that we started to return to anything resembling a decent sleep pattern. However, one (hopefully long-term) side-effect of this jet lag is that is has cajoled me into waking up at around 7am most mornings with the rising sun. I feel happy to do so, as I had mostly been sleeping around 12 hours before waking so I was at least ready to wake. I think this will bode well with getting back into a work routine.

By Wednesday we had managed to get out and about as far as the top of the road in Ponsonby, which is the area our lodge is in. Ponsonby is quite an up-market area, which was not our intention, it just worked out that way. There are lots of nice boutique shops, pubs and restaurants up on Ponsonby Road, which is about 5 minutes walk from here.

Suzy on Ponsonby Road

On Thursday, we ventured up Ponsonby Road and met a nice lady at the ANZ bank called Vera Kawan. She set up our account and made sure all our pennies came through. She was really nice and helpful and told us which hospitals were good for having a baby, which is good to know! Vera must have thought I was a real hobo though because I was still dying with the man flu, and not only that I couldn’t hear a thing out my ears as they were completely blocked up (from the flights). To top it off, I had conjunctivitis in my left eye, so all in all I pretty much looked like Sloth out of the 80′s film, The Goonies! There was puss coming out of my eye and it was all inflamed and everything. Not nice!

After spending over $100 dollars in Woolworth’s for some medicinal stuff and food, we headed back home. Friday rolled along quicker than I had imagined and I got booted and suited for my meeting with Martin Wong at Hudson recruitment which was in the Gen-i Tower in downtown Auckland. It was a huge, rather intimidating looking skyscraper (as many are down there). I went in there and was met by Martin at 2pm, I went through quite a lot of interview type questions with him so he could assess I whether I was just another idiot, or whether I knew what I was talking about. Hopefully, I was in the latter bracket! He seemed to think my salary expectations were accurate, which was pleasing to know!

Friday was also a busy day because we had two other appointments which we had made on the way back down Ponsonby Road the day before with LJ Hooker Real estate and another real estate firm. Firstly we saw an apartment up on Wellesley Street, it was fairly cheap but it was pretty ropey looking so we gave it a miss.

Our Pad in Parnell!

After my appointment at Hudson, I went down to the Parnell area to view an apartment on Beach Road. It was pretty spiffy so I showed Suzy and her decision was what made it concrete. We took the bus back to Ponsonby and signed the lease there and then with LJ Hooker. Very easy to do – they didn’t even want to see proof of income or anything. I guess I must just have a trustworthy face! We are due to move in on the 2nd of June. Friday was the first day we saw any bad weather since we got here. The temperature all day was a steady 13 degrees C, but the rain started around 11am, and didn’t stop until around 3.30pm. When I say rain, I mean heavy duty, bouncing off the ground and back up 2 inches or so rain. After the rain stopped, within seconds, the clouds disappeared and as you can see by the sunlight in the photo to the right, by 3.45pm it was lovely and sunny again. Apparently this is normal for Winter in Auckland!