Day 4 Wellington NZ

This morning Garrett went to work at 9am. He called us at 10 to let us know we wouldn't be looking at any houses today but that tomorrow we would start at 1:30 and go see about 5 we have appt. for. The kids and I went to the bank again and got those AMEX travelers checks. These things are really a big pain. It cost me 5$ just to deposit them :)

Next we went to the store with all the Christmas ornaments and such to hunt down a kiwi bird ornament for Enoch and a reindeer ornament for Ezra. They were going to buy them with their first NZ pocket money. We didn't find anything we really liked so we kept shopping. We did find a precious baby doll for Ethne to put on her Christmas list. She really liked it a lot.

After that we walked over and got cookies at a little stand that looks exactly like a Mrs. Fields but it is called Mrs. somebody else. the kids ate their cookies while we walked to the bookstore and when they were finished we went in and read for a little while. We read a kiwi version of A Christmas Carol and we read a kiwi 12 days of Christmas and we read part of an ocean book and then...we had to leave. Ethne pooped and we didn't have any wipes. So we went back to the hotel and had lunch (which was spoiled by their cookies) and Garrett came home. We were supposed to go get cell phones and look at cars but wow it took a long time to figure out cell phones. We walked to the place we thought we could get phones from and found out that we had to have either a NZ passport or a NZ DL. The guy told us to go to AA to get the DL and assured us we would not be able to get phones without doing this. He also told us that we wouldn't be able to keep our USA DL for longer than 3 months. After that if we got pulled over we would be in trouble.

We got to AA and they told us our USA DL was good for a year and if we left the country even for a week to go to Australia or somewhere when we got back it would be good for another year. She said that she had never heard that about the cell phones. We walked back to the other store and they said if there was a way to do it they didn't know how and they sent us to a 2 degrees (one of the cell phone providers)store. There they told us our USA passports and visas were just fine but we couldn't sign up for a plan that was longer than the actual visa. By the time we picked out phones the kids were going nuts so I walked them down to the park on the warf and we played while Garrett got the plans. An hour later G comes walking up to the park with NO cell phones. He went through a lengthy process and found out that they didn't have any of the free phones in stock and he would have to come back tomorrow unless he wanted to get a more expensive phone. Also he couldn't get my phone because I had to be there in person. I left him with the kids and went back to the store and got my phone and plan and by the time I was done it was 6pm and everything was closed. Things close very very early here. Pretty much everything is shut down by 5:30pm.

Garrett was in a super grumpy mood after his cell phone experience and didn't want to go back to the hotel so we went to a fresh fish shop and got fish and chips and talked with a local guy about the kinds of fish he sells and how much they sell for etc...Interesting guy.

All the car places were closed which was a bummer so really we couldn't take care of any more business outside of using the internet.

We came back here to the hotel and Garrett can't stop playing with my phone :) Funny he wanted only the free phone but from the moment I got back to the park he has hardly kept his hands off of my phone. He keeps telling me what a sweet phone it is and telling me what all it can do. Makes me laugh.

Tomorrow we will start bright and early at the car dealerships to find a car that will work for our stay and still have great re-sale ability when we are done with it. Wish us luck.