Auckland Day 2

Justin and I woke up very early this morning...trying to adjust to the time change!  We lounged around for a while and then set out to find a bank and an apartment.  We went to Westpac bank in the same building as my office.  We set up an online bank account with Westpac before we came over.  We were told to bring several forms of ID and 2 forms of proof of our US address in order to activate our account.  However, we were able to activate the account with only our passports.  It was way easier than expected.  We walked away with a checking and savings account, 2 debit cards, and free online banking.  Our debit cards do not have our names on them but we were required to sign them.  One thing that has been great is that Westpac is a partner bank with Bank of America and as such, we are able to use our Bank of America ATM card in the ATM and withdraw cash for free. 

Our bank representative mentioned that the supermarket was just around the corner and we were very curious.  So we walked a block or so and found the Countdown which is a grocery store similar to what you find in the US.  We were beyond excited to find out that Kiwi's do in fact eat!  We seriously walked around the store exclaiming at the different items we recognized!  I'm not sure this is a good thing or not...but I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of our day.

We spent the rest of the day looking for an apartment.  We walked around town writing down potential buildings and then googled them when we returned home.  It is proving harder than anticipated to locate potential rentals.  We have a good list for tomorrow and plan on calling a number of open rentals in hopes of getting to view some apartments. 

We had dinner down close to the harbor at the Britomart Brewery.  It was a typical open air restraurant and we enjoyed our dinner with some nice US 80's music in the background.  Justin had fish and chips which he enjoyed and I had some sliders that may have been pretty good if not overcooked.