Apologies to everyone who has logged on this month to find no new blogs - We're going to pull up our socks and make a new resolution, from now on blog adventures once a week.






Its been a busy month here, we have been exploring Auckland and talking to the locals - "bloody poms get everywhere", "Auckland's full of posers", "you should see the sheep", "many Asians", "everyones leaving for Australia", "everyones coming into Auckland", "get out of Auckland"... some of the statements we have heard this month from the locals. Everyone is called bro and most people finish their sentence with the letter a, a bro.

Auckland has a clean city centre, plenty of skyscrapers, the highest tower in the Southern hemisphere and all of it built around a giant harbour. Around the city centre are leafy suburbs and large parks full of all blacks hopefuls (more on the all blacks hysteria later). An Englishman told us the other day he thought Auckland is like England was in the 1960's. I asked him what does he mean by this and he said: here you can leave your front door open, kids can play in the street, everyone knows their neighbour, no-one gets mugged and everyone knows what each other is doing, a bro.

I was interested in his statement about Auckland- Are we walking about in an environment similar to 1960's England? and so last week I decided to explore his theory with a number of questionable, self invented, scientific experiments, a bro.

Firstly when I went out on our house every morning I left the front door wide open, this was in-fact no different to its normal position. Nothing was stolen. We watched some kids playing in the street, they seemed pretty safe. The neighbours came over this week to tell us to turn the music down. Neighbours met. I didn't fancy testing the mugging chances so I asked everyone at the call centre I worked at and no-one had any mugging stories. So there we go, Auckland actually is somewhat like England was in the 1960's.

I spent 12 days at a call centre job selling a land line telephone service. My interview was conducted in an usual fashion. I rang them on Friday afternoon, we talked about traveling for ten minutes, they asked do I have any sales experience in a call centre, I said yeah loads, they asked can I start work at 4pm, it was 2pm, I said yes and after 10 months of unemployment I was back paying taxes.

I arrived at the office to find on each desk there was no computer, just a phone. In the corner of the room was a desk heaving with phone books, rip out a page and there's your sales leads. I was told a lot of NZ is still virgin territory for telesales, some people have never had a sales call before. The top guy here cleared $1600 in commission last week (about 500 quid). Training involved listening in to people on the phone, about 7pm a crate of beer was produced and handed out. By 7:30 everyone had given up working, and by 9pm, the end of the shift, there was a large office party going on.

Na Zillun as the locals say is completely rugby mad. Its every boys dream to play for the national team, the All Blacks. The dream starts from a very young age, where the young-uns try out for the 'small blacks' Of course if you don't make it into the first team, then there is the b-team the 'junior all blacks'. The black themed sports madness goes on: The national basketball team, the 'tall blacks', the cricked team 'the black caps', badminton the 'black c*** ', the wheelchair rugby team the 'wheel blacks', men's softball the 'black socks'. Honestly I'm not making this up. The national football team broke with tradition and are the 'all whites'.




Rugby does seem to rule this nation. The most recent all blacks game in the tri-nations was last week and during the game the streets were completely empty of people and cars. The city centre has four gigantic bill-boards with digital clocks displaying the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds till the world cup starts. TV adverts invite people to take pictures of them selves on mobile phones and text them in to find out which all blacks player they most look like! Which all blacks player they most resemble! What the... I sent a picture of Kat in and they texted back with: the rugby ball, (only joking about the rugby ball). All the school kids are taught the haka, the all blacks Maori dance, Kat was learning it this week.

Kat's been getting on with school, enjoying her five children, her brand new classroom and endless resources. Her school is a private Jewish school, but the teachers don't have to be Jewish and neither do the pupils. Her children get taken off for an hour a day for Jewish and Hebrew lessons with a special teacher. Kat has to work extra long hours while she is under the microscope from all the kiwi teachers who want to find out how the new English teacher's teaching methods.

We went to Auckland's top tourist attraction last Saturday - skytower, the highest tower in the southern hemisphere. Eating lunch in the revolving restaurant at the top was excellent fun and a new experience. Incredible view of the city, then its chat chat chat, wow another great view and so on. Glass panels in the floor allow you to look down at the boy racers. There is a huge boy-racer scene here, the minimum drivers age is just 15, the country is full of cheap Japanese racing cars and insurance is well, optional. Turn 15 and you can legally start driving a Subaru Impreza, who would say no to that.

Cooper Out, a bro.

Love Dan & Kat