Another view from the office above, looking out towards the city. Our apartment is located to the right of the photo, and my route from home is along the road you can see in the bottom right.
Here we are in our new home. It's quite lovely and so so central (basically right off the central shopping street in Auckland). Drop us a personal email if you'd like our postal address to send all those well wishing/birthday cards - cheers!
It's been three and a half weeks so far and things are settling down. Tom has been at work for 3 days so far as a Business analyst at Telecom New Zealand and taking under 15 minutes to walk to work is awesome (its ok, awesome is an official business term here!)
Rachel is progressing with her artistic projects and has even managed to get her paint brushes out (and the paints too!)
The weekends have so far mostly been spent socialising and drinking (it would be rude to say no, as we are so central in town!) but we promise to take in a bit more culture over the next few weekends and get out and see the countryside a bit more. Hopefully ski-ing will be on the agenda too!
The two pics of us here are in our apartment and the other one is of Tom's new office. The views from the 14th Floor (Tom's level!) are pretty damn good. Considering it's at one of the highest points in Auckland, you can see for what must be about 15 miles . At least it's something to look at if working gets too much!
So if you want to come visit, please let us know! We are more than ready for guests (with our fully kitted out second bedroom quietly waiting for our first guests to arrive)! :)
Well it's been just over one week that we've been in Auckland and things are going swimmingly.
First off, we've found a city centre apartment. After everybody telling us "Don't go for the first place you see", we went for the first place we saw. But it's nice, and after seeing other places we could have got for the same money, which we're much smaller and less central, we are very happy with our decision. We move in on Friday 12th August 2005.
Secondly, we had fun on our first weekend. A school disco party on Friday night (see Danni & Mikey in the pic) was followed by Danni's birthday meal @ Estasi in Ponsonby, Auckland.
Thirdly the job search is going well, but perhaps slightly slower than expected. The agencies seem pretty clued up and there seem to be a fair few jobs out there. Knowing our apartment is only a short walk away from most of the central offices helps too - Tom is looking forward to those 8.30 am alarm calls!
There's also a possibility of us both working together with a friend to produce some artistic work for a stall at the Ellerslie Flower Festival in November, which is great. And Tom's supposed to be in training for the Auckland Marathon in October, which isn't so great (for him)!
We've finally arrived in NZ and it's cooooold winter - buurgh - but the air is clean, the sky is blue and Tom's got a new haircut! I almost cried as his lovely long hippy locks fell to the hairdresser's floor but the finished result is pretty good - what d'ya think?
This photo is after the second cut, as Tom didn't like the first one - not short enough! He's off to join the marines next week ;)
Danni & Mikey have been very generous in putting us up (putting up with us) 'till we find our own abode, so huge thanks and good luck to them!
We're getting on with the job & flat hunting as well which'll keep us busy for a while.
Laters xx
