Whoops. Again. It has been a long time since I last posted, and a lot has happened so this post will most likely miss a lot of stuff out. Sorry!
You see what happened was that in the UK I had a bit of time on my hands as we had done quite a lot of the stuff that needed doing. When we arrived in NZ on the 26th October (yay All Blacks!), however, we had a bazillion things to do.
Looking for a flat was one such thing and it took us ages. We looked at 26 different places all over Auckland, eventually finding a lovely place in Remuera. We did apply for another one in Mission Bay but were rejected! How rude!
Other things we had do on arrival were; buy a car, apply for jobs, sort out furniture, buy a kettle, visit schools, visit agencies, eat, sleep, apply for more jobs, and more jobs and even more jobs!
I applied for over 30 jobs, eventually getting one in South Auckland. My wife also got a job, but not in South Auckland. Nice and close to where we live actually, so that is all good.
No we both have jobs, we have also got working visas - not to be confused with Permanent Residency Visas - that allow us to come and go and work in NZ for the next two years. However, our other PR application should be processed at some point making things a bit more, er, permanent. Surprise, surprise my wife and I each had to pay another separate fee for each of our work visas even though we had already forked out over £1000 for our original visa application!
Anyway, the good news is that we have a flat, a car, jobs and visas so all-in-all it has been successful couple of months. Except for the lack of blog posts...
So we are going back to Brum for Christmas, and then come back for three weeks of summer in NZ before starting teaching! Exciting stuff.
More to come - when I get around to it...
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ReplyDeleteYeh! Congratulations to you both! How exciting - now you will get your permanent visas :) We are actually flying out to Auckland tomorrow, but won't land until the 2nd of January. I start working January 12th and my husband begins school (he got accepted into the Massey teaching program which was so exciting) on February 7th. We have plans to stay in Auckland the 1st week to take care of the bazillion things we need to do too - bank account, buy a car, tax number, drivers licenses and we just hope buying a car can go quickly. I'm so excited for you and glad it all worked out so far.
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