So it took all week, but we finally picked up our car today. Which is good because we have already booked the ferry to the south island early Monday morning. We also arranged for car insurance, as well as contents insurance for our stuff (mainly to cover our computers and cameras, I suppose). And made some copies of our new keys. We also took a load of our stuff to our new place. Tonight is our last night in our temporary lodgings. The house’s owner is coming back tomorrow at 1pm. We’ll take the rest of the stuff over in the morning. Our new digs have a fast internet connection, so it should be easier to upload photos to the web. And the big thing we’ve been waiting for — hooking up the Vonage phone to the internet, so we can call people in the states whenever we want.
We also did some shopping today for some stuff we will need in our new place. The room is unfurnished, so we need to find a bed. Until then we will be sleeping on an air mattress. We bought a wool duvet, which is relatively common here in the land of sheep, and two pillows. Now we need to find a duvet cover and some sheets. And some other furniture. But most of that will have to wait until we get back from our tour of the south island, which is supposed to be very scenic and fun.
The car we bought is a Japanese imported used car. Very common here. The Japanese do not buy used cars, so when someone sells a car there (or buys a new car and trades in their old car) the used cars are normally shipped to other places. Since the Japanese drive on the left side of the road, same as here, New Zealand is a common destination for these used cars. They are typically in very good shape, so they are a good deal. The only funny thing is that the user manual for our car is in Japanese. But other than that, you’d never know.