Exciting Times!!

Well for most people, not that exciting but I'm very excited to have had very productive house-hunting day today and maybe even possibly car-hunting but will come on to that in a minute!

I tried to log on yesterday to tell you about my busy Sunday but couldn't so yesterday...I met a lovely teacher called Jennie (Miss Gottwald) who works at the school I'll be teaching at. She told me all about the lovely staff and children at Yendarra and I'm very excited about starting there! Their day is very different to ours (no break until 11.10am!) but I'm sure I'll get used to it all! She took my along the waterfront which is beautiful and we saw lots of joggers, cyclists, skaters, etc. Maybe that's where I'll do some running! ;) We went up a hill to see a memorial-lovely views from there and apparently lots of people choose to get married there. We then went to see he house before going for a walk through Cornwall Park (where I saw my first NZ sheep!) and up One Tree Hill. There are so many hills in Auckland which were all once volcanoes but I'm not getting any better at climbing them!! It's called One Tree Hill because there is a stump of a tree at the top which was cut down by white settlers in NZ. Apparently, this really offended the Maouri people (NZ natives) so when they were improving relations with the Maouri people they build a monument here to show that the NZ Europeans respected the Maouri's and their culture and beliefs. I do have pics but can't get them onto this computer for some reason so will upload them another time! Again, beautiful views from up there of Auckland and Rangintoto...!

After this, we went for lunch at a beach called Mission Bay-this is along the waterfront and is where lots of rich people live near the coast. (Coincidentally, it is also the location of my favourite house from my search today but I don't think I fit in with that description of the residents!) During the meal, I heard from Jill (Caroline's friend who lives in Auckland) and she invited me along to a clothes swap at her house...this is a party of girls who all take along old clothes that they don't wear anymore and swap them for other people's unwanted clothes! It's a brilliant way to recycle things and despite having nothing to contribute myself, I managed to come away with a few bits and pieces which was great! All of her friends are really lovely too and it was fantastic to meet them all. :D

Today, I've just been getting a few jobs done and relaxing-had lunch at the harbour and an ice cream! :) I've discovered, on recommendation by Jennie, the NZ favourite in ice cream flavours which is called Hokey Pokey! It's caramel ice cream with honeycomb bits in (like a Crunchie) and is delicious! Yum! :P My first ice cream in NZ was excellent and probably the first of many as there are ice cream parlours all over the place!

This evening I've visited 3 potential new homes and loved all of them. They're all very different and in different places and similar priced so am having trouble deciding which to go for but am going to sleep on ti and hopefully be able to make the right decision tomorrow! I'm going to be getting a room in a shared house and so the people who live there already are quite important and all of these were so friendly it's going to make the decision very tough!

Also, one of the rooms is available because the man staying there is moving back to Germany and luckily, he is also selling his car so I may have myself a little motor too! :D

All round an excellent but tiring couple of days so I'm off to bed!

Hope you're all well. Thank you for reading my blog (sorry my posts are so long but you know I love to talk!). Well done for sticking with it and thank you for all of your kind messages and comments-it means a lot that you're all thinking of me because you're all certainly in my thoughts!

I'll be sure to send more personal replies when I'm more settled and not paying for the Internet per hour!

xxx

PS. I'm so glad to hear you're getting on well with Mrs Ansell and Mrs Davies, 4E - I knew you would! I'll soon be a distant memory! :'(