Day 9 Wellington New Zealand

today started out quiet while the kids played in the hotel I blogged and Garrett went to work to use the Internet on a big computer and to use the phone there. I have a cell phone now but it is SO outrageous here for cell phone plans that for my $59 a month I only get 310 or 320 min a month-can't remember at the moment. I get 1000 texts though so that is what I will have to do I guess. They don't use your minutes if someone calls you but since it is so expensive for minutes no one calls they just text (from what I have heard). Also you can't call a cell phone from your land line without an additional charge on your home phone bill. It costs above and beyond to call a cell #. That is a frustration for us here right now since we are so handicapped without cell phones. We are used to having no land line and using them for everything. I feel handicapped without my unlimited minutes :(

So in the afternoon we went to see a few more houses. The first one was yucky and the second was absolutely charming. I just loved the newly remodeled kitchen and the woodwork. Garrett said it is a regency style house (he is much better with that sort of thing than I am with his history of architecture background). It was 5 bedrooms and 2.5 baths and with a view that is absolutely astonishing. BUT there are a few safety issues with having kids and there isn't a heat pump. It isn't in a great location for sun as natural heat in the winter either so they would have to put in a few heat pumps and do a few things to make it more safe. We are in a bargaining position too though because they have had this place listed on trademe for a month now. Trademe is their equivalent of Craigslist. Tomorrow we will go see the other two houses that we liked and we will try to make a decision on a place to live.

After houses we went to get a very late lunch/early dinner before finishing our hunt for furniture. I neglected to mention we had looked at a few furniture places before going to look at housing. We ate at a little Malaysian take-away close to Weta. We have seen something called butter chicken listed lots of places so Garrett ordered that to try it and I got chicken in some kind of peanut sauce with nuts and coconut. Enoch and Ezra were very upset that their was no seafood chowder but they settled for some noodles with prawns, squid and who knows what else. Enoch really didn't like it that much and kept saying he wished he had gotten the seafood fried rice. The Rita however (Malaysian non-yeast bread)was a huge hit with everyone. The food was very very good and quite cheap considering it was about $30 USD for 3 adult entrees and 2 specialty breads-that would include tip and tax and everything.

Next we went to look at more furniture to get an idea about what we are up against price wise. It isn't too bad when you are investing to stay but since we are tying to plan like we will only be here a year it makes it seem much more expensive. We are going to try to get things second hand except maybe mattresses. I would rather not sleep on something that I don't know where it has been :)

Ezra has informed us all day that he is sick of looking at furniture and houses. It is boring and he isn't getting out of the car anymore. He wants to be left alone in the car but when I say OK you stay here and we will go look he gets panicky and he says "who is going to stay with me?" I say-no one we are all going to look and he says "but I am not going and I want someone to stay with me" It always takes him about 5 minutes to agree to come with us. Poor kid-poor parents :(

Hopefully we will be done soon!

Gotta run Ethne is really upset and not sleeping tonight. I am not sure what is up with her but Garrett just wont do at a time like this--she wants mommy :(