Day 2

Time to begin the apartment hunt in earnest. I have access to the internet so I can go and sift through the website that most people agree is going to be the best way to find an apartment: trademe.co.nz. Even the real estate agencies list the apartments that they manage on the site, in addition to all independent landlords. It’s not quite as easy to use as Craig’s List, mainly because rent is listed per week here and it’s often unclear what exactly is included in the rent and how big the apartment actually is. A listing for a one-bedroom apartment could mean a teeny tiny studio, or a bedroom available in a multi-bedroom apartment, or it could mean what we understand to be a one-bedroom apartment (kitchen + livingroom + separate bedroom). Also, I needed a furnished apartment with a bed and desk and kitchen furnishings. A landlord that says furnished could mean there is a bed and a refrigerator, with literally nothing else. Or there could be a bed with sheets,

The very first apartment I looked at was in a high rise apartment building that’s called “student accommodation.” This means your room has a twin-size bed, a mini fridge, a little sink, a small wardrobe, and a teeny tiny bathroom with the teeniest stall shower you’re ever seen. There’s a communal kitchen for which you have to supply all of your own pots, pans, dishes, silverware, etc. Electricity is not included in the rent (which is common across the board), and rent for this teeny studio runs from $670-765/mo depending on whether or not you want a view. Let me emphasize that the room is probably 10’ x10’, and I’m not joking. Subtract the square footage occupied by bed, wardrobe, fridge, etc., and there’s not enough space to turn around. The building is very new and clean, but good lord, I think I might become claustrophic.

So I continue on trademe and make some phone calls, schedule some appointments to view apartments for Wednesday. I stopped into a real estate agency that I’d been told about, and the apartment prices were out of reach. But I was curious to see what an apartment centrally located in the city would look like, so I scheduled another viewing for Wednesday.

All the while I just trucked around the city, getting my bearings and becoming familiar with the weird street system and the university campus. Even though coming here without an actual place to live is out of character for me, I was quite glad that I hadn’t committed to anything before even getting a chance to look at apartments or figure out what part of the city I might like to live in. I know now that if I’d found a place on trademe and agreed to it before even coming here, it very likely would have turned out to be a disappointment because after traversing the city and finding the law school, I knew that there was one particular area that I really wanted to find a place in.

As it was only my second day, I wasn’t too anxious about finding a place yet, especially since I had some appointments the following day. And I got to meet and have lunch with the two New Zealand students who are heading to IU Law for the fall semester: Mike and Kristy. If you guys are reading this, um … well … hi! Don’t be embarrassed! You’re my two favorite new people, and I need to brag about you. The NZ semester starts in mid-July, so I had to get here early, but these two don’t have to leave for the States until early August. After emailing over the last few months, it was such a pleasure to get to meet them and have a long lunch. The extremely basic parts about living in a new place (like where’s the grocery store? Which bank should I choose? Why do some phone numbers have 6 digits and others 7 or 8? Where’s the discount store, for chrissakes?) are just details, but man is it great to have some natives to ask questions. I think during lunch most of the conversations were prefaced by me saying, “This might sound like a dumb question, but…” Anyhow, if you know me, you know I love food. Mike had picked a brewpub. It’s like he could read my mind. For lunch I had chicken, steak, prawn, and shrimp skewers (which the menu called surf and turf) with a chardonnay pea puree and a little salad of spicy greens. And a couple of dark Celtic beers. Delicious.

The sun sets here around 5 or 5:30pm. It’s winter, after all. It was my second day in the city, and after Mike walked me back to my hostel, there were just a couple hours left of daylight. But my waking/sleeping schedule was still a little off, and I was exhausted. So I just relaxed a the hostel for the rest of the evening.

A note about hostels:

The YHA (Youth Hostel Association) of New Zealand is by far the very best hostel I have ever stayed in. The university booked my stay for me, so I had a good member discount, and I was in a 4-person room, so the entirety of my 8-night reservation would cost me about $133. For future reference, I’m generally converting NZD to USD for you so you don’t have to do any math. Since I had so much stuff with me, I was a little nervous about leaving anything of value in a room that 3 other people had keys to, so I pretty much carted around my laptop, converters, and any other important items just for piece of mind. I’m still sore from so many days of carrying heavy stuff around the city, but (SPOILER ALERT) none of my stuff from my two great big suitcases left in the room was stolen. The YHA had comfortable beds, warm comforters, piping hot showers that were quite clean, super friendly and helpful reception staff, plenty of maps, and a communal kitchen with tons of cooking equipment. The only thing that was not on par with other hostels that I’ve stayed in was that they didn’t offer breakfast. But no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Anyhow, I chilled at the hostel and went to bed early because I was getting up super early the next day for World Cup!