An Office With A View

It's Friday (thank goodness) and I finally have some time this evening to sit down and talk with you all.  We had an awesome weekend last weekend and got to test out the camper van. Between that and the fact that I've been working 12 hour days since I got hired, I haven't had much time (or energy) to write any blogs.  A lot has happened since the last blog, and to avoid an incredibly long and unfocused entry, I'm going to roll these out one per day to catch you all up.  

Last Tuesday we moved out of our month long home, the Oaklands Lodge (great hostel btw if anyone is traveling to Auckland) and into a two bedroom house with our kiwi roomies Eden & Ryan and their black lab Daisy.  (177 Richmond Road, Auckland for those of you who want to street view it).  Our new roomies have been a great resource in familiarizing us with Auckland and New Zealand and have kept us laughing since we met.  Eden is a freelance graphic designer, while Ryan is a cop and they're both around our age.  We really look forward to hanging out and getting to know them better as time goes on.   

That only covers half of the big news, so as I mentioned above I got a call about 5pm the night we moved out of the hostel informing me that…I got a job! I was to start the next day bright and early at 8:30am (talk about short notice right?). Luckily the bus stop is literally a stones throw from both our new place and the office.  I'm working for the Auckland Council processing citizens opinions of the new draft Unitary Plan put forth by the council for the future growth of the city.  The donut shaped office has 360 degree views of the city and harbor from the 22nd floor of the ASB building downtown, about a block from the Sky Tower (135 Albert Street, Auckland).  It's a good thing the view is so nice, because I hadn't worked but for maybe 30 minutes before they asked if I could stay until 9pm and have been doing so most days since.  So I went from being unemployed for a month to a 12 hour days 5 days a week.  Don't mistake this for complaining though, one thing I haven't yet mentioned is that my hourly rate is more than I was making back home.  If you couple that with the overtime, I'm easily making more money than I ever have in my life.

A sunset view over the harbor from the office

Kayleigh hasn't had quite such good luck, but as you all know, she is a trooper!  She is still looking for a job, and she has had a few interviews so far, so let's all cross our fingers for a call back!

That'll do for today, but check in every day this week to hear about our amazing weekend, New Zealand food, music, some of the best kiwisms yet, AND…(drum roll)…Kayleigh's first blog!

The kiwisms for today are:

-In multi level buildings, the 2nd floor is called the 1st floor, 3rd floor is 2nd floor and so on.  This is due to their calling the bottom floor the "ground floor" as opposed to the "first floor" 

-The trunk of a car is called the "boot"