Kira Ora - Hello from New Zealand

3/16/2012

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Auckland, New Zealand - Here We Are!

We did it! We made it here to Auckland, New Zealand! We finally made it to our travel day, the day of 18.5 hours of being in transit, sitting on planes, making transfers, passing time... we made it! The travel really wasn't too bad at all, and lucky for me I chose my perfect travel buddy! We laughed and laughed - especially at our ridiculous attempts to get in comfortable sleeping positions on our 13.5 hour overnight plane ride. Our first day has been a good one! Very sunny and warm and beautiful. We wandered around a good majority of downtown Auckland - lucky for me Luke is a bit better with directions and remembering where he has been before. Then we booked into our hostel, had a "short" 3-hour nap and we were at it again. Wandering around the downtown core, enjoying all the people watching. :) Fun Fun Fun! 

Here are a few of my New Zealand first impression observations:
`
The seagulls are TINY! Like the size of pigeons! Either we have mutant seagulls in Victoria - or New Zealanders don't leave much garbage for them to feed on! 
  • There seems to be no New Zealand fashion - it is purely wear whatever you like! 
  • Internet is very hard to come by and costs for every time you use it! Even at Starbucks!
  • There are lots of hostels to chose from, but we think we made the right decision!
  • Our first hostel meal - rice, carrots & beans! cheap cheap
  • We already think we brought too much stuff! Fail
Luke and I both love sunshine! And Auckland! And being fun-employed! 
Excited for our 18.5 hour travels to New Zealand! Wasting time @ YVR
Where are you New Zealand?
First beer in NZ at a slanted bar 
Thinking of you Tingy
Getting Exciiiited
Sky Tower in Auckland
There's New Zealand!


More About Our Final Day In Canada Below


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The Passport Journey

2/7/2012

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I'd say the very beginning of our actual trip planning began on a Saturday morning, sipping coffee and silently giggling to ourselves about the prospect of actually embarking on a move across the globe. Luke set out to call his boss and break the news, I browsed every and any New Zealand website I could find and we continuously passed glances of excitement between each other. Life couldn't be more exciting.

Than it dawned on me... to leave the country, one must have a valid...
PASSPORT!
So, we both enjoyed one more calm sip of delicious weekend morning coffee and *poof* we turned on Extreme Dea and Dukey  mode. I grabbed every piece of identification I could find, we piled into the car, grabbed Luke's information, and then searched and searched and searched for parking downtown Victoria on a Saturday. After finally finding a spot, we literally ran to the mall, searched out the passport office at the top of the building, got told very rudely that we are 'no exception and everyone must wait in line', took a number and *poof* sat down to wait. dum de dum de, tick tick tick... we really began to feel the morning caffeine going to waste at this point. 

So after hours of waiting, filling out the paper work, waiting, re-filling out the paper work, and waiting some more, we finally were able to complete our passport renewal applications. Lucky for us I trusted my intuition that it was worth it to wait all day and hand the application to a person, rather than fill it out, likely wrong, mail it off, and then have it returned a few weeks later learning that you now must do it all over again. This played a crucial time-saving role when it came time to apply for our New Zealand Working Holiday Visas. 
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