9 to 5 or 6

After nearly two weeks of apartment hunting, car shopping, and sightseeing, it was time for Bryan to start his first job. His father had joked with him that he thought that he would never live to see the day when Bryan would no longer be a student, but twenty-two years and six months after he first set foot in a classroom, Bryan was about to embark upon his first day of work. He had had summer jobs, of course, but this was his first permanent job - one that he had to report to nine hours every day, five days out of every week. He would now have to get up early every morning and sit at a desk all day; quite a change from his easy, flexible days as an applied math graduate student. One consolation that Bryan had, one thing that helped him ease into the working world from the grad school world was the informality of his new office's dress code. His jeans would not have to be reserved for the weekends, and tucked-in shirts would not be required, a small comfort.

Much like Jane imagined he acted on his first day of school, Bryan woke up very early on March 17. His first day of work was St. Patrick's Day, surely an auspicious sign of the good things to come. He dressed in a new outfit that he had bought in Chicago weeks before he had left: a polo shirt, khaki pants, and a new pair of dress shoes. The dress code at Industrial Research Limited was a loose one, but Bryan wanted to look nice on his first day. Jane reminded him as he dressed of a Dilbert cartoon in which someone informs Dilbert that customers don't trust an engineer who dresses well - the worse dressed you are, the smarter they think you are. Bryan tucked in his shirt anyway.

Without his usual Sports Center to watch, Bryan had to content himself with a New Zealand morning show on TVOne. It being St. Patrick's Day, Breakfast had a roaming reporter stationed at an Irish pub in Auckland that had begun selling it's first Guinnesses at 7am that morning. This reporter even talked to one man who had already had three pints of Guinness and was preparing to head off for his day of work. It seems that every part of the Irish diaspora celebrates in style . . . or at least drunkenness. Bryan's beers would have to wait until the evening, though, because he was off to work by 8am.

Little Red Wagon

Since they had landed in Auckland, Bryan and Jane had been told that they would need a car. The city of Auckland is a sprawling metropolis, or at least as sprawling as a city can be with only 1 million people in it. With only a mediocre bus service and ferries connecting the two sides of the city together, Bryan and Jane knew that if they wanted to see more of the city than what was within a mile or so of their apartment, they would need a car. And so they spent several days walking through used car lots trying to decide on their right-hand-drive car.

Before coming to New Zealand Bryan had been enchanted with the idea of owning a vintage Mini. As if his American Miata wasn't a small enough car, the compactness and character of the original Mini intrigued him and now that he found himself living in a former British outpost, it became the car that he decided would be his next toy. Every time a Mini crossed their paths, Bryan always pointed it out and said, "Now wouldn't that be a great car to drive around in?" Of course, he recognized that it wouldn't make a very practical every-day car; for that, Bryan and Jane went to the Asian importers.

Because of strict emissions laws, most Japanese car owners replace their cars every four years, selling their old car to Australian and Kiwi importers. Like the former British colonies, the Japanese also drive on the left, so their cars are perfect for the ANZ market. The one thing about Japanese cars that Bryan found a bit disturbing was the tendency of Japanese drivers to trick out their cars: big stereos, race-car seats, spoilers, and lots of other little extras that made almost every car look like it had been on an episode of "Pimp My Ride."

Car lot after car lot, Bryan and Jane circled around the Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, Holdens, Fiats, and Fords peering in the windows to see the car was automatic or manual. Before they were married, Bryan had warned Jane that her Saturn would be the last automatic she would own, and she had sold that car off on a snowy night in Chicago in late February.

They were at first looking for a Subaru (pronounced Sue-bar-ou by Kiwis), but it turned out that they did not age well in the Pacific. The last Subaru they test drove was missing chucks of its body, and Bryan felt that it did not handle well. It was all rather unfortunate for the salesman who had been helping them, for he thought that he was going to have a sale that day, but as they drove back to the lot, Bryan and Jane both knew that they would not be going home with that car. All of the car salesmen they had met thus far had been pleasant, non-aggressive people - so unlike American used-car salesmen. They allowed Bryan and Jane to walk around their lots and did not pressure them to buy a car they did not like or try to get them to look at cars outside their price range. The salesman at Buy Right Cars was no different, but he had been looking forward to selling a car to the two Americans. Not to be defeated, the salesman invited them to look around a bit more and see if there was anything else they might like. "We've got a manual Toyota at the edge of the lot that you might be interested in," he informed them.

Mostly to humor the friendly salesman, Bryan and Jane checked out the red Corolla wagon. Bryan had been of the opinion when they began their car search that there were only two types of cars worth owning: a two-seater or a wagon. As they neared this particular wagon, Bryan and Jane also noticed that it had a sunroof, another one of Bryan's car desires. It was also not as tricked out as many of the other Japanese imports they had seen had been. During the test drive, Bryan further found out that this little wagon had a lot of power. Bryan and Jane left the lot after the test drive, but they returned four hours later to buy the red Corolla wagon. The Mini would have to wait.

Waiheke Island

As the day for Bryan to begin work drew nearer, Bryan and Jane decided to spend some of their remaining free time exploring the more resortish aspects of Auckland. Finding a beach or a bush to walk through are not difficult even from the center of town. Go fifteen minutes or less in any direction, and you will be in the middle of nowhere with nothing but lovely vistas around you. On one particularly sunny day, Bryan and Jane decided to head a little farther afield than they had thus far been and hop a ferry to Waiheke Island.

Waiheke Island lays about 17 km across the Hauraki Gulf from the city center, just beyond Rangitoto Island. Heavily populated for a Gulf Island, Waiheke boasts a thriving art community and is a popular destination for international tourists looking for a couple days on the virtually deserted beaches. To get there from Auckland, Jane and Bryan boarded a ferry in the harbor along with what seemed to be a traveling cadre of British biddies. These women (it could be gleaned from their conversations) had left their husbands behind in Bristol, Kent, and Sussex to come out and enjoy the tail end of New Zealand's summer. What a post-imperialist would have to say about them! They all worried out loud about how their men back home were getting on and laughing that at least they didn't have any washing up to do while in their own private paradise.

The ferry ride lasted for about half an hour, moving swiftly through the salty water passed inferior islands that don't have ferry docks. Landing on Waiheke, Bryan and Jane picked up a map and decided to take the two mile walk to the Mud House Winery. Waiheke, it turns out, is home to several wineries. Though not as prolific as those in Hawkes Bay or Marlborough, the Waiheke wineries put out decent wines at fairly reasonable prices, but their main attraction is their magnificent location. Following a series of deserted roads up the mountainous terrain of the western edge of Waiheke, Bryan and Jane came upon the Mud House Winery. The humble entrance to the winery belied the beauty that existed within. Walking up the dirt road surrounded by grape vines, Bryan and Jane came to the heart of the Mud House: two house-type dwellings, one offering wine tastings and the other a restaurant. Bryan and Jane entered the first of these buildings, blinking as their eyes adjusted from the sun, and were greeted by a friendly woman behind a counter. This woman then proceeded to tell them a little about the winery and got them all set up for a wine tasting. Having never done a wine tasting before, Bryan and Jane were a bit self-conscious as she poured out the seven different wines, describing the scents and flavors that could be found in each as well as a bit about the process that went into making them. To Jane, at least, they all just tasted like wine, some better than others, but she could not pick out the many things she knew she was supposed to be sniffing and sipping for. Bryan, however, did not seem to be as flustered, offering up comments to the woman behind the counter after each glass.

Having drunk their $5 worth of wine, Bryan and Jane reemerged into the sun and walked around the winery and its vineyard, the beauty of which can really not be described. Up a hill to look out over the entire island and back down again, passing fully ripened white and red grapes as they returned to the path that would lead them back to the road.

As they had walked up to the Mud House, Bryan and Jane had noticed a sign tucked between some bushes that announced a tramping path to Blackpool Beach. Intrigued by this sign and the indiscernible path that was promised behind it, Bryan and Jane left the main road and set off into the bush of Waiheke. It turned out that this tramping path was not for the faint of heart. It went first straight up the same hill that Bryan and Jane had climbed in the winery only to immediately send them back down it. On the way down, they encountered obstacles in the form of barbed wire fences and horses; it seemed that the path had lead them onto someones private property. Trying to rectify the situation, Bryan and Jane set off down a muddy path alongside a wooden fence that looked as though it headed to something that looked like a beach. Knocking brambles off their socks and pushing past palm branches, Bryan and Jane found themselves on the promised beach. They walked the length of this beach back to a main road, which took them to the center of town.

Now to say "center of town" is a bit misleading, as the center of Waiheke consisted of two cafes, a video store, three real estate agents' offices, a vegetable stand, and a cleverly-signed butcher shop. But there was a sign prominently displayed along the main street that pointed in the direction of a beach. Bryan and Jane decided to check this beach out as well, and so headed in the direction indicated by the sign. Little did they know that this sign would lead them down the steepest walking hill known to man, with switchbacks periodically placed on the way down so that you could actually walk it. The beach at the bottom, however, made up for the difficulty in getting down to it. White sandy beaches, only a few people dotting the shore, and about a dozen boats anchored about 100 yards out to sea. As they walked along this beach, Bryan and Jane saw that the British biddies had also found this hidden treasure (though they probably took the bus to get there).

With the sun beginning to set, Bryan and Jane took the road back to the ferry. As they traveled back to Auckland proper, it began to sprinkle. "We left just in time," Bryan said. And indeed they had, for it began to rain harder as they made their way from the harbor back to their hotel.