Movin' on up...to Johnsonville!

We found a flat!!! After searching for a few days, meeting lots of nice ppl and seeing some not so nice places, we found a place and flatmates that we just adore!!! It's in a beautiful house up on the hills in a little town called Johnsonville. It's a beautiful 20 minute train ride out of the city and the town itself is just adorable! The house is nice and modern (and clean) on the inside and has a great view of the city and harbour below. We'll be sharing the place with 3 guys--a 20 year old physics student named Conner (and his GF sarah who is there often), Phil,a 20 year old funeral director (yah!! I have my own little kevin abroad!), and a 25 year old marathon runner from England. And yes, the place is super clean! And not just for a house of guys---it's clean by our standards!! Rent is really afforable ($70 a week each---which works out to be about 50 US dollars) and they have everything we need. Internet, dishes, completely furnished room, washing machine, dryer, etc. So, we leave our hostel tomorrow and head to our new home! We can't wait! No luck on jobs yet but now that we have a place we can really focus on getting that done. You may think we did this backwards but Wellington is so accessible that nothing is really out of the way. I'm going to walk into a few vets offices and apply to a few temp agencies. The next 2 months we are focusing on making some money and just living like locals and really taking in the cultural of this place.

We had our first car experience yesterday and it was awesome!! Just being in the passenger side is so cool! We are still getting used to looking the correct way to see approaching cars and not being weired out when we see a little kid in what would be the drivers seat at home!

I'm really upset that the big thing of ketchup Kim got for me before I left didn't make the packing cut! I had to leave it behind due to a lack of room and I'm missing that heinz deleciousnes already! "Tomato sauce" is a poor, poor excuse for ketchup. But me and Molly have done a good job of whipping up some great meals! And more then one have been based on 'guesstimates' b/c apparently we left converting measurments back in the 2nd grade. I'm sure we'll improve in that area!

So, I totally saw Lauren Hill (no, not the famous one---a friend from Rice) in the grocery store the other day. If that doesn't prove that it's a small world, I don't know what does!! She was only in Wellington for a night but we chatted for a while and she showed us some great pictures. This country has SO MUCH waiting for us!!

We went to the zoo today---I have a new favorite animal (see above). I just want to squeeze his cute little face!!!!! muuuwwwaaahhh

Hope all is well back home!! I'd like to give a little shout out to my Rice girls who have won their first 2 conference USA games!! Keep it up guys :)