Susu Solutions

I've been without internet access since our arrival in Auckland. Let's catch up on events so far:

Friday Oct 6th: Business Class Premiere Rules
Adam and I were perturbed to find out in Los Angeles that Air New Zealand sat us on different floors of the airplane but pretty soon we didn't care 'cause we had seat-pods. These are totally awesome individual seats that convert to beds with all kinds of Star Trek inspired gadgetry. I felt so sorry for the Economy Plus passengers behind me who had to watch us getting a full night's completely inclined rest and waking up occasionally with mussed hair to use the washroom. My sleeping sac was very cosy and I kind of wished the flight was a little longer.

Saturday Oct 7th: arrival
Hopped, skipped and jumped out of the airport after a friendly grilling from New Zealand immigration. We picked up our Rav4 rental car and apartment key from the Avis desk. Saturday 7 am traffic in Auckland is pretty non-existent so we're home in our temporary digs and unpacked before 8 am. There's a crazy plasma screen TV on the wall and the welcome letter says you absolutely MUST NOT TOUCH the screen. Happily there's a BBQ on the balcony that we can play with. I skipped up the street to pick up the paper and look for Bran-Bix and soy milk - Adam's favourite breakfast. No luck with the Bran-Bix: have they discontinued it since we left in February? Saatchi & Saatchi's office manager thoughtfully left us some food in the fridge (including BEER) but we headed out for lunch and settled on a Japanese place filled with authentic Japanese people. Up the street at the Butcher's we bought some lamb leg steaks and yummy yummy lamb - mint - rosemary sausages. Mwa ha ha! All that lamb only cost us $20 and it would have cost at least $40 at home! We felt like we fooled the butcher.
We thought we'd look for the grocery store on foot and got a bit lost but corrected with the aid of Adam's new PalmOne and Google Maps. Instead of the grocery store we found a pedestrian stair descent to Adam's new office but we weren't sure if it was the right place 'cause we couldn't find his company's sign (more on this later). Turned around and headed back to the apartment to get the car and look for FoodLand.
Finding Foodland wasn't too hard by car. Most of the grocery prices were less outrageous than I'd anticipated, except for some parmesan cheese that cost $25. Thankfully there's a local parmesan that's $6.

Home again home again. I wanted a nap 'cause my eyes felt like they were drying up in their sockets. First I curled up with a blanket on the couch... and then Adam curled up on the other end... and next thing we knew it was after 8 pm and totally dark outside. We decided to barbecue the lamb anyway (see Sunday to find out the surprise ingredient in our barbecue). It was very tasty with garlic and mint and potatoes. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to sleep so I slurped down one of the Heinekens in the fridge. Passed out before 11 pm.

Sunday Oct 8th: we wake up in New Zealand
Adam started fiddling with the alarm clock around 5 am and then we were both awake. And it was dark outside and continued to be dark for another couple hours. I went exploring looking for a running path and found out it was really hilly out there. Nonetheless I discovered a footbridge overpass to the waterfront trail. Adam discovered it independently and we crossed paths when I headed back. On my approach back to our apartment I discovered that we had found Adam's new office yesterday 'cause the company's sign is screwed on in gigantic metal letters across the top.
The basil and mint plants that we bought at FoodLand kept falling over so we went looking for pots. On the way to a Remuera nursery we got a call from Adam's new office mate and we arranged to meet for coffee at Palmer's nursery. From the plants on display it looks like you can grow all kinds of yummy citrus fruits here including grapefruit and kaffir limes. More lamb for lunch at home. In daylight I discovered a small snail on the barbecue: hard to know whether it was alive or dead the night before when we were testing the barbecue on our lamb steaks.

Monday Oct 9th: Adam's first day at work
Adam had a breakfast meeting nearby and then a dim sum lunch so I was on my own for the whole day. I walked into town to arrange banking and pick up our mail from the post office: we forwarded everything from home to 'Poste Restante - Auckland' and presto - you can forward it anywhere you happen to be living in New Zealand for free. After lunch I ventured out in the car to drive around Temaki's Mission Bay: it's totally beautiful. I only gave myself a 1 hour driving adventure and then drove back in to stay safe off the road before the kids got out of school. I made a yummy lamb sausage dinner with lots of fresh herbs and then we fell asleep early again.

Tuesday Oct 10th: Hail and sun and fishponds and hats in the ocean
Here's the kind of day I had: I went out for a run and it started raining hard so I turned back. I decided to use the apartment complex's gym but grabbed the car keys instead of the apartment keys and locked myself out. So I ran down to Adam's office to get his keys - wearing only shorts and a t-shirt and holding my iPod and water bottle. I decided to drive out to Temaki again to park by the waterfront and run from Mission Bay to St Hillier. More beautiful scenery. I was running against the wind on the way back and Adam's hat blew off my head and straight into the ocean. I jumped down from the sea wall to rescue it without getting my feet wet. Success. Got back to the apartment and spaced out for a bit before heading up Parnell Road to look for an internet hot spot. No luck - at least unless you want to pay $10 an hour at Starbucks on top of their overpriced beverages. I abandoned half my hazelnut hot chocolate and walked back to the apartment. Then I dropped my keys in the fish pond while inserting my Ving card to open the front door. THEN I walked down to Adam's office to freeload off their internet connection and got caught in a hailstorm. My jeans were totally soaked but I decided to go anyway. Apparently the hail fell right through the roof at his office and onto people's desks: it's an old building.

Wednesday Oct 11th: We find a car
The Japanese get rid of their cars after 10,000 km of driving and send them straight to New Zealand for our benefit. We'd heard the rumour but learned today that it's true. We picked out a little Nissan March 2004 model with less than 9,000 km for a very reasonable price.
Earlier in the day I experimented with the New Zealand health care system. My nasty chest cough has lingered around for over two months and I've decided to give it notice. Making an appointment to see a doctor here is extraordinarily easy compared to wrestling with the system in Toronto. I've had to wait as long as a month to make an appointment to see my doctor at home. Here I called and got an appointment for whenever I wanted the next day (and I'm sure the same day would have been possible). The catch? You have to pay $60 for the appointment: they have user fees here. On the other hand my appointment started nearly on time and the waiting room was clean and comfy. Seniors and some other groups pay a lower rate ($35 or something - it probably depends on the doctor) and your prescriptions aren't covered either. So far I'm pretty happy to fork over $60 in return for getting to see the doctor right away in an uncrowded waiting room - and a lot of the other health care service is free. I'll do some more research and document my thoughts on Canadian vs New Zealand health care.

So that's most of the story so far. We're having lots of fun and today the weather finally cleared up and I didn't get caught in any rain or hail. Crowded House wasn't kidding about four seasons in one day.