As usually, moving to a new city is pretty busy on the first days. After the fun Pride of the weekend, I spend Sunday and Monday getting my bearings and setting up camp.

I went to Vodafone again – their service in Australia was great – and it looks like the Kiwi version is just as good, within 10 minutes I had a functioning mobile phone and iPad chip and was set for 5 weeks online. I really feel naked without it, and it greatly helps navigating around new cities.

I also got a bus card for the local transport, found a supermarket (yummy dairy – I’ll need some time to get through that), and explored my area, Ponsonby Road and Karangahape Road – don’t even try that tongue twister. Everybody just calls it K-Road.

K-Road is where the nightlife happens, a bit run down, seedy, full of bars, some strip clubs and adult shops, restaurants… It was Sunday, so everything was a bit quiet, but I’ll check it out again towards the end of the week.

I found two nice Cafés already, Marcello’s (with free wifi), just five minutes down College Hill, where I set up my work station, and Café Cezanne, a cute, slightly alternative café with a restaurant that has a pretty good veggie selection (like most places in NZ, no problem here).

Unfortunately, I got a bit of a draft running around. The weather is a weird mix of cold winds & hot in the sun, with temperatures dropping markedly by sundown, and I was running around in shorts and t-shirt.

So I have a cold, and it’s all a bit slow, but I have enough time to explore, so some quiet days are ok and welcome.