Last day at David's (10.10.16)

Today was probably one of the most eventful days of our trip so far. Our alarm clock rang at eight. While I prepared breakfast, Jasmin tried to get out of bed. It was sad that it was the last day at David's. David is a very nice person who can make incredibly good mushroom risotto. Anyone who travels to Auckland and wants to recover from jet lag away from the city center will be well taken care of at David's. Not only because his room is very affordable and he is a sympathetic person, but also because he is hardly ever home, so it feels like you have a whole house to yourself.

At twenty to ten, we took the bus to Mt. Wellington, where we had contacted a car dealer. Andrea, the young woman from Chile who also had a room at David's, and her boyfriend accompanied us to give us some advice and make sure we wouldn't get ripped off by the dealer. Because to be honest, we didn't know much about cars (and still don't know much).

First, we were shown a Toyota, whose deal breaker was the manual transmission. In New Zealand, where the landscape is the opposite of flat and you also have to get used to driving on the left, I prefer an automatic car, even though I always drove manually at home. So the dealer took us to the Subaru, with which we took a test drive. Apologies again to everyone who thought I wanted to kill them. That was definitely not my intention. No one had told me that you have to slam the driver's door with force, so the door opened during a left turn and we all got scared to death.

Luckily, nothing happened, we are still alive, and hey, I managed to drive on the left without any problems (at least for now). The car drove well, it was big enough to sleep in, and the only thing we still needed to buy was a mattress. We both fell in love with the car and wanted to buy it, but not for $2400.

After negotiations, we managed to lower the price to $2000 and bought the car. What a crazy feeling. I'm buying my first car in New Zealand, at the other end of the world, and signing a purchase agreement in English (which luckily I understood completely after a few embarrassing questions). What?

We had to wait for an hour because the car was getting a new warrant of fitness (similar to the German TÜV), so we walked to Silvia Park, which was five minutes away and where we had been with Andrea a few days ago to go shopping at the newly opened H&M (which turned out to be quite disappointing at the time, but that's another story).

In Silvia Park, we ordered some food. I had a yogurt with fruits, nuts, and a kind of jam cream, and Jasmin treated herself to a cheese sandwich. Meanwhile, we thought about a suitable name for our car. I mean, come on, the first car needs a name, especially when you're going to travel around New Zealand with it for eight months. The first suggestion fit so well that we didn't have to think any further. From today on, our car would be called Billy.

After picking up Billy, getting the keys handed to us, and driving back to David's house to get our luggage, we had a late lunch there. It was almost four o'clock by then and we had messaged the hostel that we would come at four to check in. Our schedule didn't quite work out in that regard.

We made puff pastry with sweet potatoes and sour cream, and salad, before we packed our backpacks into the car and finally left the house.

Here I would like to mention briefly that driving on the left wasn't as smooth as during the test drive. The habit of driving on the right caught up with me faster than I thought, and we almost had a heart attack again. Again, I apologize, I am actually a pretty good driver.

But before we could continue to the hostel, we needed money, so we stopped at an ATM. That's where the next shock came. The machine didn't accept our card and told us to contact our bank. Unfortunately, we needed the money now, otherwise we would have to sleep on the street tonight. Andrea helped us out and said that she had also experienced the same thing at the beginning, the bank had to activate our cards first.

With a guilty conscience, because she didn't lend us a small amount of money, we brought the two of them to Andrea's friend's accommodation. I have to say, Andrea's friend, whose name I unfortunately forgot, was a real help with the car purchase.

Then came the big question, where can you park your car for free for five nights in a big city? We had no idea, and as long as we didn't get any money, we didn't want to take a paid parking space. We first approached the internet, which didn't really help, then Anya, who asked her host parents. They knew a parking lot that was 40 minutes away from the hostel on foot, but it was free, so we drove there.

After parking and locking the car, we set off fully packed towards the hostel. Unfortunately, our Google maps didn't work very well, so our arrival became more of a back and forth and a "where are we?/do we have to turn right yet?" questioning. Until someone approached us - we must have looked really desperate - and asked us where we wanted to go. It's amusing to know now that we were already on the right street and the hostel was less than 100 meters away, but we still didn't see it.

Instead of arriving at four o'clock, we arrived at nine. We checked in and got the room key for Room 408, which we shared with six other people. After stowing away our luggage, we strolled through Queen Street again, where we got an ice cream from Burger King (70 cents, my friends, 70 CENTS, and not even converted into German cents), and sat down in a small park.

Now we have five days in Auckland Central ahead of us before we go to a farm on October 15th to work there.

Jana