New

So, we knew this day had to come, eventually. We had prepared as best we could and packed and preened Newt up for his grand relinquishment, back to Spacestation Auckland.
We drove back to the Penrose Spacestation and, sadly, gave up the keys to the lady on reception. The end of an era has been reached.
The loss of Newt was felt deeply and immediately, as we then had to carry our very heavy, unwieldy bags up a hill to the train station. We caught the train back into Auckland city and then spent an hour or so trumping about looking at hostel deals and prices. After an almost-cave to the enchantments of the Chifley Suites, we found Base ACB in the center of town, right on the main street. We got ourselves a room for the next two nights and were allowed to leave our bags at reception while the room was cleaned. We went off to the food courts to snuffle up some lunch, having had only a cereal bar for breakfast.
In the bustle of a busy lunch hour food court (oddly situated on the upper floor instead of the usual basement) we found pizza. It was good. We stared at the Christmas decorations swathing every possible surface in mild amazement - we know its coming, but it doesn't seem Christmassy to be wandering around town sans coat, scarf and twenty other layers. I was in sandals!
Returning to the hostel, we got to our room (a small, oddly shaped room overlooking the main street, painted a sickly cream with red velour curtains and a very noisy fridge - but still almost four times the space we had in Newt!) and dumped our stuff inside. Tired already from lugging the bags about, we had some down time where Alex became unconcious and I checked my emails.
Later in the afternoon, we went into town to check our post! How exciting! After locating our temporary address, we both found the post - two unassuming plastic boxes shoved under the desk in the corner in supposed alphabetical order - and marvellously, we have both been granted IRD numbers, so we can now continue on in the steps necessary to 'Getting A Salary in New Zealand'.
We returned, once again, to Base and sorted out dinner. Yum. We had the tag end of our packet of noodles, rehydrated with powdered tomato soup. Luckily, we also had cookies waiting for us in our room, to be devoured for afters. While we ate we had an enjoyable conversation with Paul, a traveller from Belfast who had just arrived in NZ after a seven month stint in South America. So, after many questions about llamas and mummies in Peru, not to mention Aztecs, we allowed him on his way again and came back upstairs to munch on those cookies, along with hot milk from our powdered milk stores (we ran out of hot chocolate powder!) So, now we resemble small children being granted hot milk and cookies as a treat for being good. Doh.