(Excerpted from Cindy’s blog)
The water is a beautiful blue-green! Today very choppy!! The weather here is also rainy and very windy!! Has been since we’ve been here. But not that cold, just when you are standing in the wind. But when the sun is shining, very nice.
Well, we are not relaxing yet! We did have one day where we walked around and just enjoyed the day. Then we met with our relocater and had to get back to work. Bought a car this morning after spending yesterday renting a car and driving around the areas we are considering living and visiting schools for Max. Then looked at a few used car lots. Found a couple of candidates. So we signed papers today and looked at insurance options and financing. Nice though that the price of the car was pretty much it… no added tax and this and that added in to get to the final price. Nice and simple! Interest rates are pretty high here… 11 %. The car is a 1996 Toyota Ipsum.
Tomorrow we meet again with the relocater who has some places to show us. We only have her for this one day. Hopefully we will find a house to suit or we are on our own!
We walked around downtown Auckland this afternoon. The stores are all fairly small shops, sort of like we saw in Paris and Japan. There are a few malls they say but we haven’t been to them. Out of town there are some bigger stores that sell furniture and appliances, etc. But ultimately Auckland is a city like they all are; lots of buildings, lots of people!
We did cruise by the beaches yesterday and they are very picturesque! And not that many people. We plan to explore those more….