The hunt

The bits and pieces we gathered from the short conversations with locals on our long walks were giving us the impression that we needed to find an apartment before many more were snatched. I had forgotten how necessary my cell phone was and how searching for a place to live was becoming even harder without one. The residences here are quite secure. I appreciate that, especially after tea time with SWAT last fall. The rub is how to even talk to anyone to get inside to find out how to use that security to our benefit. Being that Paul and i are the self-sufficient stubborn types, it was going to take a little humility or an open door or a lot of leg work to get a roof over our heads. Or all three. We'll brief you on the highlights since we've spent the past two and half days searching. In our search for food we happened upon The Docks Apartments. The office was open so we walked in. Mr. Santer offered to show us a one bedroom since a 2 was out of our price-range, first the unfurnished, then the furnished. The unfurnished was tight, and by tight i mean really, really small. I've said it before, Americans take their square footage for granted. He showed us the furnished. We tried hard not to laugh. The furniture looked like it was made out of matchsticks and the couch was size: Paul-and-half-of-one-of-my-butt-cheeks. The bed, well, we'd have to take turns sleeping on it and when it was Paul's shift he'd have to be diagonal. Picture the scene from the movie "Elf" and you'll have an idea. We thanked him for his time and started to work the rest of the city in a zig-zag sort of formation. Our quest gave us one thing...a scale of comparison for fair prices and weeded out our need for a furnished apartment. We'll take our chances with what sticks we can find once we've secured a roof. We walked some more. We came upon the The Towers, or what Paul refers to as "The over-priced holes jetting into the sky". The Tower actually consists of two elevator shafts, each surrounded by a series of cubbie-holes, called apartments. The guy at the desk handed us a key stating the tenant hadn't checked in yet so we could inspect it for ourselves, and added that water, electric, phone and a weekly cleaning was all included for $350NZD a week. We found the elevator, easily, since it was the mitochondria of the cell, and rode up to the 8th floor. The door immediately opened to a hot-plate, a sink the size of a cereal bowl, and the smell of pee. Immediately (and i mean immediately) off of the kitchen was a room with a double bed, a larger room with a twin bed and a toilet room. I was trying to think positively when i suggested it wasn't so bad and that we could turn one of the rooms into a study/living room/guest bedroom and the other just a bedroom. Paul was thinking realistically when he pointed out that you couldn't stand at one end without touching someone standing at the other end. Then we discovered something even more alarming. We noticed the numbers on the bedroom doors (if you could call them that) and realized...we were standing in two apartments at the same time. While quite impressed that we could be in two places at once, we were equally unimpressed that we would actually be sharing our spit of a kitchen and whiff of a toilet with someone else. We returned the key and ran. After more searching and examining and inspecting and walking so much i wanted to take my legs off and carry them we decided we still liked The Docks the best and the price they were asking was actually looking more and more reasonable. We sent an email the Mr. Santer stating we were interested in the unfurnished one bedroom and we'd be by Monday to apply. Sunday, in another attempt to explore the city and blister our blisters we unintentionally ended up at The Docks. Surprised the office was open we walked in to inquire. Mr. Santer hadn't gotten our email but that if we wanted a place we should probably get it ASAP since the two he showed us last week were already gone and he had one left that he had just shown to another lady only minutes before. (I knew he wasn't lying since i'd seen her leave and confirm the apt no. as she did, unless...it was just an elaborate performance) He showed us Apt. 133. After all we'd been through, it looked like paradise. "What do we need to do to get it?" (Thinking we needed our visas and credit approvals and such.) "Just sign some paperwork, pay the fees and its yours."

We have an apartment and we still can't get a library card. This is an unusual country.