Windy Wellington

The drive from Palmerston North to Wellington was quick! We arrived at our hostel in a little area outside the city called Plimmerton. Our hostel is beautiful, right on the beach, and there are even electric blankets on the beds! Here is a view from right outside our hostel:

Once we arrived we started the great apartment search--which turned out to be quite a challenge due to the sheer lack of advertising--which seems to be a common theme here. So we did a little bit of searching, finding from what we could online and just driving around, but ultimately it seemed living in the Wellington area is a bit pricey. It was our plan to find an apartment here and try to get jobs in our field but as Steinbeck said "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Now, we have only been here a week but we figure it is best to start out with some easy money and low cost living and then move on to bigger things. 

So, we think we will head up to an area called Hawkes Bay to a town called Napier which is a big area for fruit and vineyards. John's parents have old family friends there from Luxembourg who have offered to accommodate us for a week and provide meals in exchange for 5 hours of work/day on their vineyard while allowing us to look around the area and see the options available. So we will probably head up to Napier tomorrow, look up some opportunities (including PickNZ) for the next one to two months until summer rolls around. After that we hope to have enough money to come back to Wellington and return to our original plan.

Although John's father, Martin, has graciously advertised our cause/job search for Wellington on his Facebook status. Thanks so much Martin! (Let us know if anyone contacts you) :) And in other Facebook news--congrats to John's brother, Alex, on his engagement to his girlfriend, Grace! We will have to make it to the wedding--wherever/whenever it is!

But for today, we ventured into Wellington via the bus and took a little tour of the city. We went to the new Te Papa museum, a great and impressive museum about the history of the country. Best of all, it was free! Afterwards, we went to a coffee shop that offers free 1 hour internet with any purchase (where I am currently writing this blog) and ran into our American friend that we met at the hostel in Auckland! Small world. 

Well, tomorrow will be one week in the country and I must say we have been pretty productive thus far! It wouldn't be an adventure without any twists and turns here and there, and hopefully things will eventually go our way--and even if they don't--it's still really pretty here!

Next stop: Napier!