Home, James - Welcome to Christchurch

Last night was our last night in Auckland and to celebrate our trip and end the holiday in style, as I may have mentioned once or twice, we planned a trip to a Brazilian barbecue place - a churrascaria. All you can eat meat. Gluttony-tastic. Well, I'm pleased to report that it lived up to expectations. The food was lovely, very tasty indeed. The rodizio style did not let us down and it was all so tender and tasty. A good evening was had by all and I hope Len and Val were pleased with our recommendation.

Vitor, and other churrascaria afficiandos, will be disappointed that there was no picanha, no cupim, no beans, no pou de queijo, no feijouada, no guarana, and no mousse de maracuja. But it didn't spoil the evening. It was a churrascaria with a Kiwi twist. And it worked.

And today we're in Christchurch, the place we now call home. It's so good to finally be here. We've got a lot to sort and it's all a bit daunting, but at least we're here. I can now start interviews in person, we can get a car, and we can get unpacked. We can stop living out of a suitcase. It will be nice.

Wendy, our relocation expert, met us at the airport and brought us to the apartment. Christchurch traffic is a little different to Auckland traffic, that's the first thing I noticed. Oh, and the sun was shining. We arrived to beautiful blue skies. Flying in with the snow-capped southern alps glistening just outside the window was certainly a great welcome.

The apartment is all we could have hoped for. Clean, smart, modern, and everything here we'll need for the next three months. It's only three months, but it's long enough to settle in. I keep thinking it's hardly worth unpacking but then I remember it was three months I was in New York for and that was long enough for it to feel like home.

This afternoon we nipped out to the city centre, which is only five or ten minutes walk away. We needed to get some food and basic groceries, and also we wanted to buy a new printer as well as a wireless router modem. Groceries - tick; printer - tick; router modem - oops! Turns out I picked up a wireless router, not a wireless router modem. What a mistake to make. Hopefully they'll swap it tomorrow though. Setting up the broadband wasn't quite as easy here as it should have been either. It seems the username and password we were given hasn't been set up by the account holder at all. Luckily the guy at the Xtra help centre was able to guide me through setting up a temporary username that we can use for a week or so, until it's set up properly. Which was good. We're connected, and that's all that we need for now.

I got email today from someone at Canterbury University. They want to see me for an interview regarding the Student Data And Reporting Analyst role I applied for a week or so back. I'd almost forgot about that one. That's next Wednesday, although I need to phone them to confirm. So I've got a meeting with the recruitment consultant about Meridian tomorrow, I have to do online psychometric tests and arrange in-house numerical/verbal testing for the Ravensdown role, I've had an email saying that the HR Manager at Orion wants to see me on Monday afternoon, and now Canterbury University want to see me next Wednesday. It's manic, eh? Better than not having any potential jobs though, for sure. We really do need to get a car sorted though.

Right, time to go unpack, and then prepare for the interview tomorrow.