We were pretty tired last night and had to call it a night at 9:30pm. Jet lag however kicked in with a vengeance, more so for David. He woke up at 1am and 2am although managed to get back to sleep quite quickly. 4am was a different story though when he lay awake staring at the ceiling, in the dark, for an hour before dozing off again. After waking again briefly at 6am, we finally got up at 8am.

It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining and there was next to no wind. We had an alfresco breakfast on the terrace, again enjoying some fresh, crusty bread with the usual Finnish breakfast accompaniments of meat, cheese and cucumber. And of course, lots of coffee. The Finns love coffee and are actually the worlds biggest consumers per head of population.

After breakfast we were back on the internet in search of somewhere to live. Maria was searching on the website of a property agent we'd been recommended to and had already been in touch with. He had three properties that would suit us; an apartment in Grey Lynn, just 3 streets away from where we were staying, a town house near Victoria Park on the outskirts of CBD and an apartment close to the waterfront.

David phoned Jason, the agent, to see if we could arrange a visit and to his surprise was told there was an open home at the town house at 11:30am today and he could take us to see the Grey Lynn apartment afterwards. The waterfront apartment had already gone.

Victoria Park is only a couple of kilometres away from the house and being such a nice day, we decided to walk there. David had already arranged to get a lift with Jason back to Grey Lynn. It only took 25 minutes to walk to the meeting point and we were on good time. As we waited though, more and more people started to arrive to view the townhouse. We had been reading and hearing about the huge demand for rentals and stories about people preparing CV type documents and putting in higher offers just to try and be selected. We started to get a bit of sinking feeling.

The townhouse was in a great location and had an onsite gym and small pool in the private complex. The house itself was not so great; it was very small and had a really unusual layout. As much as we wanted to find somewhere to live, this would be a mistake to take it for the sake of it.

Back in Grey Lynn, we were taken to a small apartment building just a few streets away from the trendy and popular Ponsonby Road which is packed with bars and restaurants. The apartment we were taken to was on the top floor, in the corner and seemed to be away from any noise. There are only 12 apartments on each side of the building so it can’t be too busy or noisy. There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms and open kitchen/dining/living area plus an enormous covered, balcony the width of the entire apartment. It was like another living area especially as there were sliding doors which opened up to 4 metres wide, providing a proper indoor/outdoor flow.

We were quite taken with it but didn’t say anything at the time, we told Jason we’d have a talk over lunch and get back to him in the afternoon. Daniel, Heidi and Luca joined us for lunch and recommended going to Ponsonby Central. It’s a concentration of cafes, bars, restaurants, pop up retail stores and a produce market, all with a very local feel to it.

The place was packed, most likely because it was Friday lunchtime, and it was hard to find a seat anywhere. There are a dozen places to eat, all offering different food from all around the world. In the end we found a table at the Japanese restaurant, Tokyo Club. David decided to go for a big 'grilled’ Bento Box which wasn’t particularly traditional but very tasty all the same. Maria always finds it difficult to resist sushi and despite having it for dinner a couple of nights ago, she was eating it again.

By mid afternoon, we decided we wanted the apartment in Grey Lynn we’d seen a few hours ago and called Jason. He sent through an application form to be filled in and when we read it, it dawned on us that we really might have a problem. There were a number of questions about current employment which is understandable because they need to be sure the rent will be paid.

Without jobs this might prove a stumbling block even though we had cash in the bank to comfortably pay rent for 6 months. We completed the form and before sending it off, David phoned Jason to explain our situation. He said to send the application through to him and he would ask the property owner whether they wanted to accept us as tenants or not. The owner was currently on a plane to Australia so a response would be a few hours away.

There wasn’t much else to do but read a book in the sun while we waited. Afternoon crept into evening and still there was no news.

Daniel brought out some cold beers and fired up the BBQ to make dinner, which helped take our mind off the anticipated phone call. It didn’t take long for a heap of juicy steaks and gourmet sausages to be delivered to the table. Half through our meal the phone rang; Jason told David that we could get the apartment on the caveat that we paid 3 months rent up front. That wasn’t a problem for us and the best part was that if we would go to the office tomorrow morning to finish the paperwork, we would get the keys there and then. What a result. We can’t believe our luck!