-Chapter 9- The first night in the car..

The previous owners, I think, were surprised by their flight home. At some point they simply parked the car on the side of the road, took the essentials with them, and left. They left the bed unmade, forgot bunny costumes behind the seat, colorful knit bags, Santa hats, a few clothes, rusty cutlery, toilet paper, hard rock CDs, and an ancient gas stove. (It also looked like the previous owners were hippies). It was probably very silly of us to dispose of everything, but we are just too sensitive to sleep in bedding of strangers. I don't think we would have ever felt completely comfortable and the car was supposed to be our home for the next 6 months after all.
After driving to two recycling yards in pouring rain, our car was mostly empty. Except for the chemical toilet, a power cable, and of course the shelves. In the afternoon, we drove to a parking garage in the Bayfair shopping center to do a basic cleaning there with rain jacket, hood, and rubber gloves.

 After 5 attempts, we finally managed to successfully apply for the tax number. We went on a long shopping spree at the warehouse and bought a lot, but we considered everything very carefully whether we really needed it. Ultimately, we did need everything. It should also be noted that everything was quite cheap (e.g. a kettle for €6 and pillows for €3). By 8 p.m., we had everything we needed for the first time in the car, except for the mattress. We drove to all the warehouses in Tauranga and the surrounding area in turbo mode and finally found a thin mattress that would hopefully fit into the car by eye, but we searched in vain for a ruler. We were so exhausted that we painstakingly tried to push the mattress to the exit with a normal shopping basket because an employee had moved our empty basket. We had to keep stopping, Celina had to walk backwards, and after a customer laughed at us saying "This looks awkward", a kind employee brought us a better basket. In the dark supermarket parking lot, we struggled to get the mattress into the car, which unfortunately didn't fit properly. On one side, it is curved up to the window, but it didn't bother us further.

For the first night, we had chosen a free campsite in Tauranga that was supposed to have a toilet. It turned out to be a row of parking spaces by the sea, and because it was Friday night, there was a lot of activity. Celina failed in her attempt to change in the toilet as there was a wild party going on there. The bouncer didn't let her through. He even asked her if she was also on the way to the party (with toiletry bag and pajamas in hand). So we took turns changing behind the car, made the bed, and stacked our suitcases and our bulky backpacks on the front seats. We were then sitting in the car at 11:00 p.m. It didn't go as smoothly as we had imagined. Try sleeping as the only campers in a parking lot where there are only drunk partygoers. We also didn't have curtains, a toilet, or running water. We were also afraid to turn on the light because then people could have seen into the car even better than they could already. That's why I started sewing the tablecloth we bought into curtains in the dark. When we managed to hang them up, the next problem arose. A car parked right next to us, we heard voices of drunk people, but the door was still slightly open. It was jammed... So we weren't safe in the car, but we couldn't get out either. I had to climb over the seats and our luggage from the front (of course a car drove by at that moment), get out, and open it from the outside. Then we could finally sleep. That was our first night in the car.

-> To be continued