No shirt, no shoes, no service *some conditions apply

I have been in New Zealand for a little over 24 hours now and I thought the best way to give you my first impressions would be a list of observations. For those of you wondering about the flight...I made it alive, and yes, we had a movie inspired reunion ... but more from a comedy than a romance as I was pushing a trolly with 4 bags on it and was trying to weave amongst people while Mark was trying as well to doge people with their own trollies. 

1) The temperature is HOT! When the airport doors opened and we walked out to the car park it was as hot as it was on that one hot day we had in August where you didn't want to move or eat....and it was 6:00 in the morning. The day only got hotter from there. 

2) Kiwi's like to "Art it Up"...it is everywhere... there are carvings on everything cement from overpasses and guardrails to paintings on the sides of buildings. 

3) Shoes and Shirts are just a suggestion. I first noticed some small children at McDonalds - where we stopped for coffee - running around barefoot. I made the assumption that they had recently been in the play place. I was wrong as shortly after I noticed grown men and women without shoes. Mark said that it is completely acceptable to not wear shoes on your down time, and that very few children actually wear shoes at all. 

4) Driving on the left side of the road also means that the flow of pedestrian traffic is on the left side of the road and I have yet to adjust to walking this way and have spent the better part of the last day apologizing  to people that I almost hit as I am looking around at the scenery. 

5) Everything here is as green as what you see on TV, in magazines and in photographs. The buildings are even beautiful with a lot of greenery. 

6) Kiwi's love American fast food and Canadian beauty products. I even found a Lush here today. 

7) Stationary is absurdly priced, trying to help me orient myself Mark decided to take me to the staples equivalent to "price" a few things for my classroom. I was hoping to  spend 20-40 dollars to get a few binders, some pencils and some sticky notes and paper. Well, I could not be more wrong. 1 binder, the cardboard kind that ruin with moisture and split up the seams was 24.99. One binder. 24.99! A package of 5 pads of post-it notes was over 30.00 and a package of 10 pens in a variety of colours for marking was just shy of 50.00. 

8) You can only tell it is Christmas by the fact that they are selling trees, stockings and decorations at almost every store. They are also playing a lot of Christmas music in the mall which oddly sounds so strange as one of the most popular tunes is "let it snow" and snow is the furthest thing from the weather report around here. 

Mark and I will update you on our place once we move in and take a few photos. We sign and get the keys from the real estate agent on Monday and will move in on Monday morning. Monday afternoon we are heading up to Leigh to get Mark's belongings and then coming back to Auckland on Tuesday or Wednesday. I don't expect we will update before the weekend as we will have to wait until we have internet installed at the apartment.