A week of discovery

1. You don’t have to spend a fortune to start backyard beekeeping.
2. Marua (Maah-rua) Road, Ellerslie.  What a great street.  My new favourite lunch spot, my new favourite food store and a second hand bookshop all in a few hundred metres.
3. Mexican Specialities – cafe and Mexican importer – YUUUMMM!
4. Asian food wholesaler / retailer: Shaji’s Spices.  These guys have every kind of seed, pulse and spice under the sun, at great prices and they’re just passionate about their food.  And they get five deliveries of fresh Indian bread a day.  Five.  How cool is that?
5. Auckland’s iconic Sky Tower has (thick) glass panels in the floor of the observation deck so you can walk over hundreds of metres of thin air.  Which might have been a problem for me if I hadn’t already discovered...
6.  I can overcome my fear of heights.  Tree Adventures.  Fun and sore arms.
7. Auckland Council gives 2 hours worth of consultation free about improving the energy efficiency and healthiness of your home.  And then EECA give grants for things like insulation materials and workmanship.  But we all knew that already, right?
8. Wool insulation just isn’t as good as fibreglass, inch for inch.  L
9. A great Italian pizzeria in central Auckland.  Real pizza.  At last.  Thank goodness.  These guys are super friendly too.
10.  Medievo: an Age-of-Empires-esque computer game which I can play within my browser.  That could cause much distraction...

Mount Eden

Things have been too rainy to be fun here in Auckland.  Then again, it seems like most of the South Island is under floodwater, which might be less fun.
In a rare hour of sunshine, I walked up Mount Eden.  Despite it being 8am, it was rather crowded up there!  (I felt a twinge of superiority, however, for my early morning effort, when I saw the coaches which had carried most people up there.)
Meanwhile my quest to appreciate Auckland food continues.  Dinner disappoints - my moussaka in a Turkish restaurant seemed to be topped with Smash.  Given that the topping was about two-thirds of the moussaka, this was particularly unfortunate.  But if an Auckland chef is asked to cook before lunchtime, they excel!  Breakfast here is of a quality you would expect in only the most spectacular British coffee houses.  Maybe they're just morning people...
Some pics:

The Job Lot

Jobs, or should I say careers, were a big part of the decision to move to New Zealand. Oceania was touted to be weathering the global storm better than most places, and it would certainly have a more modern, merit-based approach to recruitment than Italy.

I don't want to tempt fate by speaking too soon, but I've had a really good interview (my third meeting with a potential employer), and I might soon be a gainfully employed person once more. Relief! Self-worth!

Going out for a pub meal tonight to celebrate with the housemates. Review to follow.

* * *

The Horse and Trap pub just across the trainline in the trendy Mount Eden quarter gets a big thumbs up. Nice terrace, nice atmosphere, and some nice offers to pull you in. The boys had chosen to go there for the Friday night deal of pork ribs for $5 (€2.50 or £2.30) - big bowl of 'em. My pizza was slightly less bargainous, being $17.50 (€9 or £8) (but considerably cheaper than the Italian restaurant the other night which was $24 or €12.30 or £11). It was called:

Grazer - roast red capsicum, garlic, spiced pumpkin, eggplant, topped with mozzarella

and its kind hasn't been seen within the Italian peninsula. In fact, I'm not entirely sure it classifies as a pizza. Was nice though. I can't imagine what our pizzaiolo would say about the so-called:

Italian - chicken, bacon, blue cheese, onion jam

except that it's not. Still, who's complaining? I'm getting used to paying $34 for the absolute cheapest bottle of plonk (which, to be fair, was quite drinkable), when good wine in Italy was easily half that. I guess I should switch back to beer drinking. It's not cheaper, but they do make some great ales here. I enjoyed Monteiths Original.


In Italiano!: Il lavoro
Il lavoro constituiva gran parte della decisione di trasferirci in Nuova Zelanda. Sembrava che si sosteneva meglio nella crisi mondiale, e comunque, l'atteggiamento neozelandese sarebbe sicuramente piu' moderno e piu' basato sul merito di una persona rispetto alla situazione in Italia.
Non voglio parlarne troppo presto, ma sono ottimista di aver trovato un lavoro; ho fatto un buon colloquio. Che solievo! Che ritorno di autostima!
Esco con i coinquilini a festeggiare - commenti sul pub saranno publicati dopo!

* * *

Mi piace la Horse and Trap nel quartiere del momento Mount Eden. E' un ambiente bello con un terrazzo fuori. Ho mangiato una pizza, ma non e' stata per niente come le pizze in Italia. Si chiamava:

Grazer - peperoni rossi arrosti, aglio, zucca speziata, melanzane, mozzarella

In realta', non sono convinta che se la possono chiamare "la pizza". E' stata buona comunque. Non sono sicura che cosa avrebbe detto il nostro pizzaiolo italiano della:

Italian - pollo, pancetta, gorgonzola, confettura di cipolla

a parte che non lo e'.
Il vino piu' economico del pub costava $34 (€17,50), non era male. Al posto del vino dovrei bere la birra. Non e' piu' economica, ma se la fanno bene qui. Mi piace la "Monteiths Original" birra rossa.

Auckland is my oyster - Food in NZ

Isn't it nice to be able to choose between hundreds of different styles of food? Well, yes and no.
Thai food and sushi have made a welcome return to my diet.  Proper chips are also very welcome - not French fries but proper, steaming, chunky chips...  And there is something about going to a market or food shop and not recognising the foods that makes me more excited than a kid in an icecream shop.
But instead of delighting in the choice, we've been nervously checking that our Italian staples - pasta, tomato passata, ricotta, parmesan and so forth - are actually available here.  Thankfully, most are.  We pay three times the price and don't have a choice of brands, but still.  We've got very comfortable with our pasta-five-times-a-week diet.

Food shopping
Supermarkets in Auckland aren't quite the serve-your-every-need-from-cradle-to-crypt affairs that British supermarkets have become - and that's probably a good thing.  They are on the pricey side, and we've found independent fruit and veg stores to be better value.  There are also lots of Asian supermarkets of various creeds, which no doubt cover at least 101 kinds of seaweed etc. - fun for trying new things.

The crowds head out of the city for the weekend - probably to tend their olive groves

Markets
We enjoy shopping in open-air markets, but our one experience so far has been the Matakana Saturday morning market.  It's a small town market that brings yuppies from far and wide.  Merchants sell everything from fancy pastries to their own olive oil.  There's more arts and crafts and artigianal produce than you can shake a stick at.  I like the principle of small scale/organic/local production.  Fresh off the boat from rural Italy, I was a bit overwhelmed by the crowds of sundress-wearing mums and toddlers, and put out at waiting 10 minutes for a substandard coffee.  (Don't even get me started on coffee - I miss my Italian breakfast like crazy.)  I can't help it - I just think of my Italian neighbours making their produce without the fuss, hand-decorated labels or hefty pricetags.  I've become an Italo-snob.  That said, it's the sort of thing I would have loved five years ago, and will probably go back to loving soon.  I recommend it to anyone. www.matakanacoast.com

www.matakanacoast.com

Little Italy?
Still on the quest for a taste of home, we went for our first meal out together to a local Italian restaurant in Newmarket, Auckland. 
It was BYOB (I love having BYOB again!) so I go a bottle from the nearest offies for $12 (about 6 euros).  Wine here is fairly good quality, a bit heavier than I'm used to, but doesn't come cheaper than about $10, so it's not for everyday drinking.  It's nice to have a choice of good white wines, which wasn't available in Abruzzo.  That said, they don't go beyond Australia in sourcing their wines, so it's all local stuff - good for the carbon footprint, but less good if you just fancy some Montepulciano.
The restaurant was run by a lovely Iranian chap.  Great service, enormous prices ($24 for a 12" margherita pizza), and, unfortunately, not spectacular authenticity.  We'll keep hunting for the perfect Napoli flavour.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do 
I've always found this principle serves me well when eating abroad.  New Zealand is no exception.  Kiwis go crazy for their savoury pies and their fish and chips.  The quintessential pie is a traditional style pot pie, serving one, and available all over from bakeries.  They're incredibly economical, starting at $2.80 for a fresh meat pie.  Some bakeries even do vegetable pies, and I've throughly enjoyed the couple of pies I've had.  
The next kiwi obsession I'm looking forward to trying is the eggs benedict breakfast.  Mmmm.

New Zealand fish and chips, photo courtesy of www.nzataglance.com