Onto Wednesday, the first day in NZ that I got to blow dry my hair. I must admit, I felt more civilized and put together when I was able to blow dry my hair. The big part of this day was spent catching the bus back into town to go to the Warehouse...not because we needed a lot but because we wanted to. However, before we made it out there we stopped in at the National Bank on Cuba so we could see if our ATM cards had come in and to take out the $400 we owed the club for paying the bond on the house. Banking done (the ATM cards had not come in), we passed some used cars for sale and also picked up some adverts for used cars. We thought we'd comparison shop to what Graham had to offer yesterday.
We walked through town, checked out the public library where Josh found someone's wallet in the men's restroom, browsed through the city counsel building, looked in a pet shop, and stopped in at a used car lot. The used car lot actually had two cars that seem suitable. Both are Nissans. One is a Maxima and the other is a Bluebird. The Bluebird is a really popular brand here. The Maxima is what they call New Zealand New which means it is less likely to have had its odometer tampered with in comparison to the Japanese imports. The Bluebird is an import. They both cost $4,995 NZD or about $1,000 less than the manual Graham has. Graham told us if we found other cars we like that we could bring them by his shop and he will look at them. We plan to do this with one of these cars.
After looking at the cars, we had about 25 minutes to shop in the Warehouse before the bus came. Quickly bought more towels (4 for $10 what a deal), an iron, and more electrical converters. Back outside to catch the bus and Josh can't make up his mind about which side of the street we should be on until it is too late and we are walking fast to make it to a bus stop that we can't see but what we can see if we turn around is the white bus quickly overtaking us from behind, then turning the corner ahead of us, then we see the bus stop sign. Well, we'll know for next time but for now we have bags and the option to wait another hour for the bus or to walk home again.
This is too familiar. Can we walk up to town next time WITHOUT bags and catch the bus back WITH bags. It isn't a bad walk at all from the Warehouse to home...only a 15 minute walk today. At least it's sunny and not raining.
So sunny, in fact, that Josh and I have burned our faces by being outside. David and Bernice have warned us about the thin ozone here and that people burn faster but we still haven't purchased sunscreen in all our trips up to town. Next time. Except now we'll have to meet with the Rotary club Thursday night looking like lobsters. Josh is redder than me though.
Dinner is boil-in-a-bag-rice, however, Uncle Ben down under hasn't learned about the 5 minute rice. Here, Uncle Ben boils for 15 minutes...and that's the fastest box I found! Josh bought a huge thing of duck sauce to put on his rice but he didn't like the flavor so much. Fortunately for me, Kikkoman soy sauce tastes the same here as at home.
We did laundry for the first time. Note to self: do not separate by color when washing new towels. Just wash all the fuzzy towels together. I got green towel fuzz on all our black shirts but it brushed off eventually. Hanging laundry out on the line is an amazingly relaxing, theraputic thing (at least the first time I did it). Looking up at the sky above and the grass below as you hang out your clothes is really peaceful and perhaps because you're out in nature, it seems like less of a chore. We didn't get the laundry on the line until around 5 pm, so we ended up having to pop a few of the towels into the dryer. Happily, both the washer and dryer work well.
We got the trash bagged up because it has to go to the curb at 7:30 am and Laurie the landlord came over to say that he and Janis would be leaving the next morning to go on their week long holiday. We watched some Angel DVDs and then Josh went to bed while I stayed up to research cars. There really isn't much in our budget.
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