To fully experience a new city, it is important to ensure that one attends a local, established establishment on a Saturday night. With that in mind, we agreed when asked by some Generation Zero-ers to go to Family, a notorious gay bar. There are three separate rooms at Family: two upstairs (separated by a pinball arcade), and one downstairs through a narrow, UV-lit corridor. The entire evening was incredibly surreal. From the karaoke room, you go next door to hardcore electro with suspect middle-aged dancers on stage, and even more suspect loner middle-aged man in baseball hat and polo-shirt, and wander downstairs to a sticky-floored room with the tempo changing every 30 seconds, so attempts at dancing turn into a confused melee of unsynchronised bopping and hopping.
Although between us we only had three G&Ts, the next day we awoke extremely groggy, finally emerging at lunchtime to head to a Hawaiian-themed "Gentle Stretch" class (apparently the previous week's theme was Lord of the Rings) at G's dance studios. The class was very stretchy but not always so gentle, the first half dedicated to gentle hip-swaying and arm-waving to traditional Hawaiian music, followed by some "OK, now do the splits" exercises. This was deservedly followed by a corn fritter/avocado combo for G (here they put avocado with everything- it's amazing), and a tomato-y pasta for C, with a side-order of books.
C spent the afternoon reading papers for her course, occasionally complaining about badly-drawn tables and getting excited when actual maths was featured. G read and got confused about flat viewing times. So. Many. Viewings. It was then time to go and meet Jimmi, to discuss the room that we hoped to move in to. This turned out to be a very strange encounter.
We met J at his other apartment, which is situated in a hotel in Auckland Central. He began by hurriedly sitting us down in the lobby to inform us that we would have to live in his hotel apartment until the room we were originally interested in became free. Once his friend could move out (in approximately 1-2 weeks' time), we would be able to move in. He would let us have the room in his hotel apartment for the same price in the meantime, as he needed someone for the room and would be out of the country for a few months from Monday. Additionally, the two current flatmates in our newly-proposed room would move temporarily as well: the male would go and live with the Thai chef who rents the second room in our original flat, and the female would share a room with his partner. We both looked at each other- was this for real?
J began by showing us around the hotel. It's a very pleasant building, with two gyms, a sauna, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, outdoor giant chess board and tennis courts. We then went to the apartment, which was lovely- plenty of light, with our own separate double room and bathroom. There were four burners in the kitchen, a comfortable living area with huge TV, small dining table and balcony. We met J's partner, who would continue to live in the flat while J was away, their adorable 20-month-old daughter who is going with J to Thailand, and another flatmate. We spoke about contracts and questioned everything thoroughly. He seemed very genuine, and just quite desperate to get someone to rent his room before he left the country.
We went and pondered things over some Indian food. It was a very decent flat; by all accounts we would be getting a reasonable deal with no additional letting costs, and J didn't seem to have anything to hide, despite the complexity of the situation. He was also happy for us to pay a bond when we moved into our intended flat, once his friend had moved out, and seemed fairly lax about signing any binding contracts (he said that it was up to us whether or not we wanted a contract). If he is a scammer he's definitely doing it wrong! We decided to say yes to both- what's the worst that could happen? Still slightly baffled, we found some dairy-free sorbet and walked back to the hostel, hopefully for one of the last times.
This morning, we met J again, and signed an open-ended, flexible contract (yes mothers, before you ask we read the small print), and received one key. We will receive the other key tomorrow from Parny (J's partner who seems very lovely), pay our first week's rent, and move in! Here's to our last night in a hostel for as long as we can help it!
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