Alan's Rambles: July 2017

This morning we both were awoken by Sabines alarm at around 7am. So thats it, officially we have no jet lag even though we still get tired in the evenings.

Sabines coworker Eulalia picked up Sabine at 8:30 this morning. We met her briefly the day we arrived. She lives nearby and so its not a big deal picking up Sabine whilst we are still living here in Mornington.

I had a house viewing appointment at 11:45am with a small brand new bungalow just up the road. its almost brand new and looks very low maintenance. So its a contender. Unfortunately I wasn't the only one viewing it. I was a bit weirded out by how after 5 minutes the people looking at it walked out. I stayed to ask the lady a bunch of questions regarding the property. You are only given a ten minute window to see the places and ask questions. I do find that a very strange thing, but they all do it.

I came back home and typed up my findings. After that I walked to town. I could have driven but because of car parking I decided not too. I used the really useful offline maps app to guide me through the alley ways and streets to get to town. Mostly steeply downhill the whole way.

I went to BNZ and spoke to the manager lady I spoke too on Friday. She set me up with online banking and telephone banking, and also wanted to have a really REALLY long chat with me. About an hour to be exact. Her friend is selling a Mitsubishi 4x4 so I asked for the details. She was even happy and willing to see what type of car it was on the internet. NZ seems to be a country where you really do speak to people and get to know them, like people of a village would.

I went to Vodaphone to get a sim card. I have an NZ number now. I went to Sabines office to give her my new phone number but instead I got to hang out with her and Rebecca and have a nice long chat. Sabine absolutely loves her new workplace. Its a really great gamble that paid off in the end. At least, so far so good.

Sabine could leave her workplace at 3pm, alongside me. I never expected this. We proceeded to shop in a nearby New World and walk home, up the very steep hills. For those that do not know, Dunedin is the home to Baldwin Street, officially the steepest street in the world. I love how NZ isn't scared to build their houses on huge hills.

We came home and phoned the lady regarding the 4x4 car. We will see it tomorrow.

Sabine has to go to work next on thursday. She needs an Inland revenue (IRD) number in order to do anything next in her work. So she's sorting that out now.

Our dinner has Mango masala in it. it was very tasty!

Regarding what I was saying earlier, Its now the evening and I'm not that tired. So yeah, we have NO jet lag anymore.

26 Wed-
Our taxi picked us up at 10am. It was sad leaving my parents again :'(
The taxi driver was a South African woman trying to make it work in England for her kids. We got caught up in traffic but she took an interesting back road to Heathrow Terminal 3. Time rushed by. Sabine had to use this funny machine that gives out the boarding passes and luggage tags. Then she had to queue for ages for check in. After that we had a final english hot chocolate at Costa. I saw her off at security then made my way to an underground train service between terminals to get to terminal 5.
I spoke to BAs customer service regarding my second luggage. They inputted in the system some stuff and I paid for it. They also got my bags tagged there and then. Because I was worried about my transfer to the Air New Zealand flights from Hong Kong onwards, I made my way to the Air NZ check in desk via the underground shuttle train to terminal 2. Air NZ said there's no issues and that there isn't an additional cost. Also my luggages will go direct to Dunedin.
I started queuing up for check in at 7pm. It was bloody slow. So much so they put me into a business class check in queue which was equally as long.
I got through security fine. I decided to use the walkway at terminal 5 to get to my gate section. I actually enjoyed the walk alone without anyone around me. Everyone else was taking the train, but the walkway I was on was cool in both respects. It was nice being in a quiet area for once, even if it was for only 10mins. It was advertised as a 20min walk. Kinda wish it was.
I got myself a marmite sandwich from Starbucks! It was very nice too!
I'm now in the plane. I've got kids behind me! XD Actually I kinda like that. I want them to keep me awake! XD
Take off was 10.26pm UK time.
I watched Dr Strange on the plane. It was ok but still, meh. However I did like the throwaway line about multiverses existing. It legitimately makes ALL marvel films canon, yet obviously the MCU is the original universe.

a lot of waiting at Heathrow

27 Thu-
At 2.38ish (UK time) I was ⅔ into the film Logan when a Chinese boy about 15 years old came out the loo directly in front of me and fell to the ground, very nearly having fainted. Those around me including myself waived to the stewards and stewardesses at the back for attention. He never properly fainted though. They gave him oxygen and water and he seems okay. But still. Holy crap fire!
I watched Logan in full in the end. Not much cop. Bland storyline without much to really care about.
After that I watched Pulp Fiction. I've never seen it from start to finish before. To be honest it wasn't that great. It had atmosphere but also didn't have a storyline. It was more that the characters themselves were the storyline, with each one being someone to hate for one reason or another.
I've been on this plane now for about 10 hours. It feels weird to be on a plane for so long, and soon i'm going to be on another one for equally as long. Aye yai yai. I was given leg room but it's in the middle row of the plane. I hate everyone using it as a walkway, especially the annoying Chinese kids who don't care where they stand. A number of times the've nearly stood on my bad toe (I've had my shoes off).
I was served breakfast around the same time one would have breakfast in the UK, about 8.30ish. Funny to think that Sabine isn't even going to properly have a Thursday as she's travelling over the international date line.
Ok so I've had to change my clock to Hong Kong time. It's now 4.15pm in the afternoon (9.15am UK time).
Right so I ended up only having 2 hours at Hong Kong. I didn't have time to look around duty free. I got my boarding passes at the internal flights check in area. There wasn't anything to pay for the extra luggage of mine.
The Taranaki Sevens team are apparently on board this Air NZ flight. Cool!
Take off time was 7.53pm/11.53pm NZ time.
I had the beef for dinner. It was okay.
They hae come arpuns twice slready offeri g wine. Ive had two already. Im drink.
I went for tje merlot foe the first instance, but then the pinonwoi afterwards. Pinonwai tastes bland. Kinda watered down.
Lol im drunkm.
I sobered up watched a Japanese film called Birthday Wishes. It was a real tear jerker.
I didn't get much sleep. Roughly an hour.

Hong Kong

28 Fri-
Caught up with a bunch of The Big Bang Theory episodes.
I've had no sleep. 1 hours sleep per flight, and now it's 24 hours ago since it was the evening in England at Heathrow. I'm starting to feel sick with tiredness yet i'm not sleepy.
Arrived at 10.02am.
I had to collect my luggages and get to the domestic terminal. I decided to walk there. I met a frantic Sabine once arrived. She shouted out "ALAN!" at me, and thats how we met up. She obviously didn't receive my text because she was a bit panicky. The domestic flights penalise you for hand luggage over 7kg. Outrageous. I sorted out my bag, she sorted out hers. We made it to the gate and took off in a small Air NZ plane at 12.38pm. Originally we were sitting in different seats, but amazingly she wasn't seated that far away from me. A kind man swapped seats so that Sabine could sit next to me. There was also another woman to the right of Sabine that we chatted too also.
We flew into Dunedin airport which was on the flat ground that was recently flooded. However the airport is fine now. The surroundings were beautiful green rolling hills with houses dotted about. we were met at the airport by one of Sabines supervisors, Rebecca, who is from the USA and came out to Dunedin on a 3 year basis and never left.
She drove us via the country roads into the city and up to our AirBnb, and helped unload the luggages into the house. The house is amazing. Its pretty cold, but amazing.
Next she drove us to town where she pretty much gave us a tour of what is around and the banks and supermarkets etc. She dropped us off and Sabine and I went to BNZ to open a joint bank account. We were going to go to ANZ but Rebecca suggested that would be a bad idea as she was screwed over by them.
During the process of opening an account I went to a travelex and exchanged some british pounds for putting it into our new account.
After that we searched for the Inland revenue building but it was shut so we shopped at Countdown and rejoined with Rebecca at Otago University's medical buildings. Sabine had already bought an NZ sim card earlier today and used it to phone Rebecca. She was impressed we could find the place, and asked if we would like a quick tour of the building. So we did. The place looked a hell of a lot better than where Sabine worked in America. It actually reminded me of Erlangen University's lab building a little bit.
Rebecca drove us home which was amazingly nice.
The house is cold but still amazing. There is a 'Heat Pump' which is basically a giant air conditioner. It heats the room up very well, but is designed to heat the house. Yeah right.
We ate pizza which we cooked and enjoyed. We finally went to bed around 8pm. It didn't take very long to fall asleep. We had basically been awake for something like 48 hours by this point.
I woke up with a start an hour later. I was in agony as my tibialis anterior, the front part of my leg, locked up in a cramp. I couldn't move my foot at all. Sabine woke up and helped me out with massages, and thanks to this I recognised what needed to be done. I asked her to help move my leg to the wall so I could release the pressure by forcing my foot to move. Almost instantly the pressure dropped off and I relaxed again. Then we fell asleep again equally as quickly.

The flight to Dunedin

29 Sat-
We both made it through the night without issues, waking up at 5am.
The outside looked beautiful at night on this hill. We have amazing views of the town and harbour. The sky was perfectly clear with the stars out, and the orange lights of Dunedin were twinkling, exactly as it was when I was volunteering in Normandale in Lower Hutt.
I skyped my parents as we watched the beautiful New Zealand sunrise.
Just after 8am the car rental guy arrived to pick us up and drive us to his office down the hill. We got the paperwork sorted and now have a car for 10 days for flat viewings.
We drove back and enjoyed the views from our property and watched the birds come and go. The blackbirds are very fat.
There was this amazing fantail that gave us a show. He was gorgeous and a fatty too.
We had cereal for lunch because we had nothing else, then at 11 a leasing agent picked us up and drove us to 4 different houses around the city. The tour of the city was pretty nice too. House number 1 was the best of the bunch. She also mentioned a house that she was selling which is owned by Joey Wheeler the rugby player. We never went in there but we drove past it. She's renting his place with his furnishings apparently. Property 1 was very nice, 2 was a no go, 3 was weird because it was still under refurbishments, and 4 was ok though there is an outhouse directly underneath.
The lady drove us home and then later we had two more viewings with another agency, where we had to drive to see the houses. Property 1 had a funny smell, and 2 was just simply put, NO!
After that we drove to Pac N Save and did some shopping for tonight's bolognese.
Coconut Lychee flavoured Tim Tams are delicious.