Well hello old blog. I know, i know i've not written here in about 2 months. But can you blame me? I travelled most of the western coast of Australia, went to a wedding where i camped outside the reception tent (literally), visited more wineries, canceled a trip to Fiji, went to San Francisco, New Jersey and Florida, got SCUBA certified and even went indoor rock climbing. Hardly time to update a blog. Forget the fact that i'm now in New Zealand. Which is where i've decided to pick up.

So Matt and i headed off to New Zealand, our new home on the 16th of Jan. Never before have i had such a poor start to our trip. We leave Newark and arrive only to discover that our flight was now 30 mintues earlier than previously listed (thankfully we were 2 hours early). Not like it mattered as our flight to LA was over an hour late. We arrived in LA and ran down to the Air Pacific counter to checkin for our flight to Fiji. As previously mentioned, we were supposed to go to Fiji but as they had a coup we decided better safe than sorry, that didn't however change our plans to get to Auckland via Fiji. We checked in and arrived at our gate just as boarding was starting. Well, no time for mucking about in LA. We got on the plane only to discover the TV's in front of our seats didn't work. Nor did the lights above our seats. Given that this was going to be an 11 hour flight, neither of us was too pleased.

We managed to sleep most of the way and arrived in Fiji. We had to check in once again and then discovered the stupid Continental chick didn't check our bags in straight thru to Auckland only just to Fiji. We were told not to worry and went and camped out in the airport for a few hours. Only to hear "Will Matt Kemp please come to the service counter" not long before we were due to leave for Auckland. Turns out our bags weren't in Fiji...they were still in LA! We got into Auckland and then found out we weren't going to have our bags for another 2 days as they'd only fly them out on an Air Pacific flight. Matt's family friend, Barb and her boyfriend picked us up and took us to Te Atatu (west of Auckland) to stay with them. After picking up some necessities for our next few days of being bag less) we crashed. Friday morning we headed into the city and met up with their friend Murray who showed us his city apartment to help us get an idea of what we might be looking for/at.

Aucklands sky tower:


We checked the net and scheduled several viewings for Saturday and headed back to Brians. Saturday we got up nice and early and went in to check our first apartment out. It was right in the center of downtown in brand new apartments called the Volt on Queen. We instantly fell in love with the apartment building although the apartment we looked at itself was a bit tiny for our tastes.

Well to make a long story short we wound up looking at the Volt apartments with 4 different agents and after looking at many different flats and offering different prices we wound up with one we loved. It's on the 15th floor, the building has a gym, a sauana and an indoor lap pool! Overall has the most stunning view of Auckland that you could ever imagine.

Here's some pics of our flat:
Our building--see us all the way almost at the top (there's 17 stories)


Kitchen


Living room


our gym


Inside the gym


Nice view huh?


Then it was onto the job hunt. We've been pretty strapped for cash (although we wouldn't have traded in our experiences travelling the last month for anything). Thankfully Matt got offered a job right after his second interview and is looking at a pretty nice salary. He went for a second interview but took the other job.

That leaves me at home and on the hunt. Thankfully because he is earning so well theres no immediate pressure for me to find a job (other than for my own sanity). So i'm trying a bit of everything trying to find something i'll really love.

We don't have the internet in our flat yet but will hopefully have a phone line in by next Friday which is the first step so..