Licensed to Thrill

Our NZ driving licences arrived in the post this morning. They're not dissimilar to the UK photo licence, they're the same credit card size but they're a pleasant green colour rather than the rather girly pink colour in the UK. Much more pleasant to look at and even our photos looked reasonable.

Also arriving this morning was the Wireless router from Telecom. I had it sent to the hotel instead of the house as we don't move in until Thursday. I made all the arrangements on Sunday, and everything was quite straightforward other than having to fax a copy of my passport over to their credit control people since I have zero credit history in NZ. I had a call a bit later asking if I could email it instead as they were having fax problems. I expressed my concern that a communications company was having fax issues which got them all defensive until I revealed it was just my warpy sense of humour tugging their chain. The house has a Telecom line already, so there's a $50 charge to reconnect, which saves the full install cost of $199. The router and broadband connection is free provided we keep the line for 12 months, otherwise there's a $199 termination fee, but I guess that means we get to keep the router. We've gone for a 3GB service, but this can be up rated if need be depending on how much youtubing gets done. One downside to the free wireless hotspot is that movies seem to be blocked. No surprise really I suppose.

The router comes with two micro filters, which on close inspection look very much like the ones you get in the UK. The connections look exactly the same, which makes me wonder if the integrated faceplate I left in the UK would work over here. It might me entertaining to find out. I may try the Zyxel router I brought over from the UK. Allegedly it will work over here. Watch this space.

We returned to the Appliance and Furniture Factory Outlet and paid the balance on Friday's shopping spree. Ouch. While we were there, we bought another mattress - reduced in price due to a minor tear on the underside which won't cause any real issues. It's a pukka mattress not a foam job, so we're going to use it with the Warehouse bed. We also contemplated another set of bunk beds, which look seriously solid. We went away to think about it some more, $800 is still $800.

This afternoon we went to an impromptu beach party. There were 10 or so other ex-pats who had all lurked on the expat forum at various times, including a couple of teachers from Leeds who I had picked up from the Mount and dragged along to the beach with their two toddlers. They'd only been in NZ for about two weeks, much the same as us so we were comparing notes rather a lot. It wasn't the best weather, but we chatted and ate picnic food and got to know each other a little.