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Hey All,
By now we bet you're thinking that the only thing slacker than us is a 60-year-old adult movie actress ………… and you're probably right!A thousand apologies for the amount of time it has taken us to update our blog, we hope this mammoth entry makes up for it!(Oh, we last left off with us boarding our plane to New Zealand)
We arrived in Auckland on a wet, windy cold morning around 4am.We were tired and extremely grumpy after a terrible flight caused by cramped seats, crap food and crying babies!After collecting our luggage and picking up a coffee we heading straight to the taxi rank along with an Irish guy called Derek who we met on the flight.It was quite a shock arriving in a country were we didn't have to watch our backs for kidnappers, not to mention the amount of English being widely conversed (it took us about 2 weeks to completely cut out the Spanish in our day to day conversations).We jumped into a taxi and headed straight off to our friend Nicks (a Kiwi) who we had arranged to stay with for a week or so.Whilst back in Leicester we lived with Nick at Hazel Street so it was strange when we buzzed his apartment at 5am and were united the other side of the world.Nick let us in bleary eyed and after a quick catch up he left for work and we hit the streets of Auckland armed with a map and wandered the streets.
Fast forward 2 weeks and we had seen the most of what Auckland had to offer and drank in most of its bars.It's a funny city Auckland, modern, hip, kicking and diverse.The main area of central Auckland revolves around Queens St, most of the shops are on (or just off) it as are the bars and food halls.There's a sushi bar on every corner and a coffee shop for every sushi bar.The past 2 weeks consisted of us bumming round eating sushi, drinking coffee, going to the cinema and visiting the main tourist attractions such as the museums, parks and the underwater world.
After spending 2 weeks on Nicks floor we started to get restless so moved into a long term stay hostel and set about making a plan.We had to decide if we were going to stay in Auckland and work now, start travelling New Zealand now, go down to the South Island and work now ……. The list was endless.It took us another 2 weeks bumming around to decided we were going to get jobs in Auckland now and then travel the islands in the summer (Nov-Feb).With that in mind we had to get out of the hostel we were in.It was cheap but as it was long term stay it was more of a half way house!Nick lived on the 8th floor of an apartment block and by chance there was an apartment going on the 2nd floor.It was a bit more than we wanted on rent (about $300 per week) to spend but it was fully furnished, new, close to the town centre and had a balcony overlooking the harbour.Before we started job hunting we went to Auckland version of Skegness, Mount Maunganui.Nicks grandparents have a house on the beach at 'the Mount' so we all chilled there for the weekend.It's classier than Skegness but the weather was the same, though even that can't spoil waking up listening to the sea.
When we returned to Auckland we went job hunting and it didn't take long for us to get tax numbers, bank accounts and jobs sorted.I started working in a coffee shop and Lee in a hotel.The money sucks but we've been pulling long hours to make up for it.Still we're not living like paupers, we went to see the Cure and we have tickets to see Muse and Kings of Leon (who we wanted to see for years)
So after all the daily adventures of South America we're back to working life for now.We constantly have to fight off the hunger for travel but we know it'll be worth the wait when summer kicks in and we can really see what New Zealand is really like.The New Zealand we know now is bound to be very different from the one we find when we get out on the open road and we can't wait.
We've made new friends and found old.We were walking around Auckland city centre one day when I felt a tap on my back.We both turned around and it was Rob Joines, a Kiwi guy that I working with in a Leicester bars 4 years!We'd been out of contact for 3 years, how crazy is that!
As we're working we've been taking full advantages of our weekends getting drunk, egging people off Nicks 8th floor balcony (one night we went through 127!) and generally chilling out and looking forward to the summer.
Anyway, that's about all we have to report on at present.We hope you are all well and as soon as we have something interesting to say we'll update the blog again.
All our love and we miss you all.Rob & Lee xxx
PS. Here are some links to photos so far on the trip
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37157&l=db424&id=905945789
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36029&l=326f5&id=905945789
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25928&l=d07a9&id=905945789
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