Breaking news: we *probably* have a place to live! Neither of us are getting our hopes up until our bums are firmly planted inside the flat, clutching the bit of paper that says that we're allowed to plant our bums inside the flat, but all things considered, this can only be good news.
The potential property is in the centre of town and a couple of minutes' walk from C's campus. It has four burners, a bathtub, is fully furnished and has plenty of space. There is one other flatmate- a Thai chef who is out at work from early 'till late, and a balcony overlooking the city. We are to meet up tomorrow evening with "Jimmi", who we will be renting from, and sort out some paperwork. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, arms crossed, legs crossed... If everything looks legit, we should have somewhere by Tuesday!
We're both becoming a bit madder with each day spent in the hostel. Last night C was rudely awoken by shouting drunk man next door (G slept soundly through- silicone earplugs are a miracle), and we're both very eager to leave the less pleasant aspects of hostel living- corridors smelling of BO, people smelling of BO, in fact, just mostly a lot of things to do with BO and annoying shouty people at 3am.
C started uni on Thursday. She attended two lectures on environmental policy and governance, and research methodology. She was given assignments and papers to read, and spent most of the day familiarising herself with the literature. G went to ballet and applied for some more jobs. The following day, G had an interview with an agency, and spent an hour being grilled on her past, present and future occupations. She decided to walk back over the Auckland Domain, a huge park featuring a hill with some oak trees scattered about. It was a beautiful sunny day, which took away some of the stress of flat/job-hunting.
As C was immersed in her papers, G went to view another flat to keep our options open. This was above Whitcoulls, so couldn't be any more central. It was nice enough, but the viewers were told they may have to vacate at any time as the owners were trying to sell the flat. No thanks! G got some lunch in town (hummus, avocado, salad, mango chutney and cashew nut sandwich and a CRONUT just because).
Later on in the day, we went to the first gathering of Generation Zero, a collective of young people dedicated to campaigning for a zero-carbon New Zealand. We spent the first part of the evening pasting posters to whatever we could find (excluding the more obvious no-nos, still not sure if what we were doing was strictly legal). The posters featured a large portrait of Kim Dotcom's face (C-"who??" G-"the guy from Megavideo, etc") with someone asking him "Why are you so sweaty?" in reference to global warming. We're not really sure why they chose this particular individual for their poster campaign, but we think that Kim Dotcom must be a popular cultural icon in NZ as everyone seemed very enthusiastic about him.
All postered out, we headed to "Bungalow8", a bar that does free food platters for groups of 5 or more. Giving the deep fat fried meat options a miss, this sadly translated to bland nacho chips with salsa for the two of us. The ale was nothing special- our quest to find decent ale is so far unfulfilled. This aside, we had a truly enjoyable evening getting to know the other Generation Zero-ers. C made another Jewish friend and G had a fascinating chat with a PhD student about his research analysing brain signals in neonates. On the way back we picked up some tasty vegan wraps from the Kati Grill on K-Road, and enthused about things to come.
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