Neverwhere

Dear loyal readers, we apologise most profusely for our lack of posts as of late - our actions have been somewhat tedious, and the mere act of committing them to pixels was an unbearable thought.

So, yes, we are still in the hostel, with no end in sight, no magical wand to whisk us into a place of our own. On Monday we went to a flat viewing, but there were so many people vying for the place (it was quite nice), we thought that we didn't stand too much of a chance. After the viewing, we went to Raviz, a curry house. The papodoms arrived with no chutney, the onion bhajis and pakoras were virtually identical, and completely tasteless. Then, C's vegetable jalfrezi arrived, and turned out to be sauce-covered paneer, with extra cheese grated on top. To add insult to injury, they were out of large bottles of Cobra (so we had two small ones instead!)

On Tuesday we took a walk to Parnell, where we went to a really, really lovely house with a potential flatmate who works for Amnesty International. We are still waiting to hear back from them, but have hopes that they may want us yet. We also went to an evening flat viewing of a place that was very dark and dingy, with about 30 people viewing. We turned around, and decided to try to get the stairs out of the building. We wound our way to the very bottom, to be faced with a fairly impenetrable fire exit. We turned around, and found a lift on the third floor to take us down, but were unable to activate the lift without a swipe card. Several minutes of hitting the "open door" button to no avail later, and someone on the ground floor finally called the lift to rescue us.

Yesterday we went to the university in the morning to sign up for some of the clubs and societies. We had a good long chat with one of the admins for "Generation Zero", a national group of young Kiwis who lobby the government for environmental legislation. Then, free vegan semolina pudding (delicious!) at the "Sustainability Network" stand. Free pens from the Green party (can you see the theme here?), and then free tampons from the feminist society. Two book club memberships later, and the skies opened down.

The weather here seems to be fairly unpredictable. You wake up, and it's nice and sunny outside, but then suddenly it rains, and it's freezing. Just when you're all bundled up in your scarf, it's suddenly beautifully sunny again, and the sun looks at you as if to say "Me? Nah, man, I've been here the whole time."