Day 03

Yesterday was a NZ holiday- the Queen Mum's birthday. Funny thing is that her birthday is actually in April, and Australia doesn't celebrate until next week. I don't quite get it, but I don't think anyone is complaining about having a day off. There were a lot of holiday sales yesterday, but there are also holiday surcharges applied (15%) on food at most restaurants.

I am trying to figure out pricing on everything in New Zealand. Some things (ex: fruit) are really cheap, but other things (ex: books) are incredibly expensive. Also, tax is included in the price of everything and there is no tipping... So what you see is what you pay (it makes you feel a lot better when things look a little bit pricey)!

Today was the first day that Paul wasn't around to point things out, so Jon and I went adventuring around Auckland. Jon rented a car yesterday, so today he practiced driving on the other side of the road. It went pretty well, but roundabouts are REALLY SCARY when you constantly feel like you're going to be getting in a head-on collision. We also managed to get a parking ticket (already). I am the QUEEN of ridiculous parking tickets (backing into parking spots, parallel parking facing the wrong direction, parking in my own apartment complex, etc.). We put $4 into the parking meter and got a ticket for 4 hours, ending at 3:38pm. We returned to the car around 3:00pm to a ticket, issued at 2:41pm.
Offense: Parked (more than 2 hrs not more than 4 hrs) in excess of the maximum authorised time.
I don't even know what that means..? There were two signs and one said P240 and one said P5. I think we paid at the P240 meter, but parked in the P5 space? I'm guessing that you're not supposed to do that...

Anyway, back on the subject of work, Customer Care (my group) has been having a bake-off. Today was Paul's turn to compete, so we experimented over the weekend. We made mini chocolate-coffee cupcakes with mascarpone frosting. Paul's biggest fear is that he will win this round and have to make another dessert, but they are pretty fancy, so it just might happen!

Went to the bank today to finish setting up my new account. The banks here are crazy and do all sorts of wacky stuff like try to sell you life insurance. The lady kept trying to sell me all sorts of stuff and I had no idea what she was talking about. Also, banks have lots of crazy fees for their services, but they did give me a free piggy bank, so I'm happy.



Keep left!!













Paul making cupcakes
















Cupcakes