Hemos llegado, Part II

We landed at about 7am New Zealand time and we weren’t too tired. We first went through immigration and we didn’t know what to expect, seeing as how were are new residents and all. Didn’t know if they’d want to search bags or even strip search us before getting our “official paperwork.” But it was just a simple stamp. I asked the immigration officer after she quickly checked the passports, looked at our photos, and did the loud stamp of each document, “We need to get a residence permit, where would we do that?” She said quickly, “I just gave it to you.” Okay then, we were a bit confused, but later we looked at the passports and indeed the stamp she used was a residency stamp that says, and I’ll quote, “Holder may remain indefinitely.” Sweet! I guess that’s all, I was expecting a tattoo on my forehead or something.

Then we proceeded to get the luggage to go to customs but the luggage didn’t come. We waited and waited and finally at the absolute very end of all 350 passengers getting their bags (an hour or so wait), we saw ours coming out . . . well, all but one. Turns out one of my bags didn’t make the flight from LAX and was due to arrive on the next flight that would land in about 30 minutes. Eh, not too bad all-in-all, we did the luggage xray thing, took off out of the airport, found a shuttle, and came into the city around time for rush hour!

Smart people that we are--well, that I am since I did all the booking (props to me!)--we had booked our waterfront apartment for a week but started it the night before so that we could come straight to the place once we arrived at the wee hours of the morning. What a great idea that was (not mine originally) as we didn’t have to worry about what to do until 3pm at check in.

We decided to book a great place for our first week, right on the waterfront on Prince’s Wharf overlooking city bridges and shipping yards, it’s so awesome to be living on ocean/water again! The views are incredible. We didn’t try to sleep even though the bed and couches looked very inviting. We had to wait a bit for my bag to be delivered, it arrived at about 1pm. We had picked up our rental car around 11am downtown at the place we rented before and the guy there gave us great advice on purchasing a car locally as he used to be a used car salesman. We were going to head out to scout local dealers in the afternoon, I guess Auckland has about 400 car dealers alone! The funny thing is that all the used cars come from Asia anyway, so they could just have one car dealer in a stadium or something!

Here’s the point where I’ll stop and share: remember that question you all asked us at least five times a week for the past 4 months . . . (not, have you sold the house?) ARE YOU EXCITED? Well . . . I (Angela) admit today I was excited for the first time since we heard we were accepted as New Zealand residents. We’ve both been just “living in the day” as we called it, up until now just trying to get our stuff done: clean the house, sell the house (ugh), sell cars and furniture, leaving our jobs (!) etc. etc. Not to mention packing and loading for the shipping container, sending money to NZ to live off of, yada yada yada. We haven’t felt excited for so long because we’ve really just been managing until this point to make it through each day knowing that one day soon we’d arrive in New Zealand and we wouldn’t be coming back (as if on vacation).

I was pulling our rental out onto the streets of Auckland city around 11:30am on our first day and I realized that I had to drive on the left side of the road, not for the next month, but from NOW ON. And it was in that moment that I became excited again about this adventure. I was excited to be doing something different, literally the opposite of what I’ve been doing for so long. It’s a great feeling changing your perspective entirely and realizing you will make it through.

And everything else we did on our first day felt the same: I just kept thinking I will be doing all of this in this way from NOW ON. I have to buy groceries like this from NOW ON. I have to spend how much (?!#*(@*) on shampoo from NOW ON. I have to rebuild a household with New Zealand dollars on a budget from NOW ON. I can’t afford to have a Starbucks any old time from NOW ON. I have to carry an umbrella, I have to spend winter in July, I have to say “cheers, mate” and “give it a go” from N OW ON. And all of that is totally fucking cool to us right now, really cool. Sorry for the Italian word there, but I just had to swear.

So, first day done and things are totally awesome. They won’t always be that way, but that’s okay too! Talk at you again soon. We’re off to bank and buy a car over the next few days, that’ll be another adventure to write about I’m sure! DnA

BTW, Sky Sport 1 shows 2 hours daily of the Tour de France, so that is why Don won’t be writing until the end of July.