Fun fact: New Zealand in Māori is Aotearoa. Another fun fact: Aoteaora means Land of the Long White Cloud.

It’s been 45+ days of living in the Land of the Long White Cloud (sans clouds) and I must say it’s been quite nice, good-as-gold, and sweet-as calling New Zealand home.

On February 24, we said goodbye to the Bay Area for the second time in two years. Sorry about that, friends. We packed up everything we owned, which isn’t a lot…

….and hopped on a 6-hour flight to Honolulu, where we had the world’s shortest layover. No joke, I had stress dreams about it weeks prior to our departure. But we made it on time for our lovely 10-hour flight to Auckland. We even got the window side of the aisle, which only has two seats, so no rubbing elbows with rando strangers. Just my husband. Score.

After 16+ hours of travel, we landed on February 25 (after losing a whole day) and we hit the ground running. We’ve adulted the shit out of the last month. We bought a car, bought a house, and I got a haircut. Finally. But let’s start at the beginning.

We stayed in Christchurch with my lovely in-laws for a week. We chilled. We worked. We ventured out for drinks.

First order of adult business? We needed a car. Stat. Gone are the days of taking BART or Muni everywhere. Don’t get me wrong – there were times I wanted to punch it right in its smelly, urine-drenched face. But public transpo was my semi-reliable, cheap sober cab. It was nice to not own a car. Until we finally owned a car…seven years later. Her name is Moshi (named after our lovely time in Moshi, Tanzania).

She looks like all the other silver Toyota RAV 4s on the roads in NZ. And trust me, there are a lot. I’m convinced this car/color combo is the official car of the country. But Moshi is different. To us, that is.

After Moshi, I figured I should probably convert my US license to a NZ licence. Please note the different spelling. It’s things like this that’ll surely drive me mad. No pun intended. That, and trying to convert celsius into fahrenheit and kilometers into miles. The latter is easier.

Turns out NZ driver licencing stuff runs like a well-oiled machine. You go into the AA (which is pretty much their equivalent of the DMV sans the desire to kill yourself) and wait like a whole two seconds until some smiling, yes, smiling employee helps you. Then, 5 minutes later, BOOM. Here’s your licence. I got the fancy plastic one in the mail like a week later.

The next big thing on our to-do list was to find a place we could picture adulting in. It has been 2+ years since we sold all our stuff and have been living in strangers’-sometimes-turned-friends’ homes. We were both just itching for a place of our own. A place where we get to pick the bed we sleep on. A place where we can paint a damn wall if we want. A place where you don’t hear your upstairs neighbor migrating from one room to the other like a fuckin’ elephant on the Serengeti. I was over it. About a year ago. I wanted a home.

After our week in Christchurch, we took Moshi out on the open road for her first road trip.

We headed north to our first potential home, Nelson. Of the three times I’ve been to New Zealand in the past, I have never been up to Nelson. Rookie.

We stayed for two-ish weeks up in Nelson. Soaking up the beachy/chill/hippie vibe.

Staying at some adorable Airbnbs.

And witnessing some epic, no-filter sunsets.

We quickly realized Nelson was our hippie spirit animal. And when you know, you just know. So we started to pursue buying a home quite aggressively. F looking at other cities/towns. Nelson is where we belong.

We went on a bunch of first dates with homes. We knew what we wanted. A home with a view. A home that had some outdoor space. A home that was in a quiet neighborhood but close to the stuff.

We found an amazing realtor named Rebecca. But she never really was OUR realtor. In New Zealand, the realtor works for the seller, but Rebecca made us feel like we weren’t sloppy seconds. She showed us a few houses and then simply asked us what we wanted in an ideal home. So we told her the above and she mentioned she had a home that wasn’t going to go to market for another few months. But. But she would reach out to them and ask if we could view the place. They were her friends. They said yes. So we went. And you know what? It was love. Like instant, take-your-breath-away kinda love. The kinda love where you talk in a baby voice and call each other annoying pet names like bae and boo. It just felt so right right away. I tried to play it cool. But I couldn’t. There was no way I was going to wait 3 days to text this babe back. I wanted it now.

It was like a secret love affair since the house wasn’t even listed yet. No competing with other peeps. Just us. And now, we’re ready to go public with our boo. Meet our lover. We shall call it Werneth (will we? – Craig), since that’s the street we’ll live on. Let’s just call her Wernie for short.

She’s modern and classy. Just the way we like it.

She not only has a killer deck (with killer views)…

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Baby also got back(yard). Complete with five chickens, some olive trees, an avocado tree, and more.

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Don’t worry, we’ve already been busy brainstorming names for our chicken children. Here are a few options in the running: Yolk-o Ono, Hennifer Lopez, Victoria Peckham.

I love everything about this house. And although we own zero furnishings, I just know this funky home is gonna be my fuckin’ homie.

After we fell in love and put out on the second date, we decided to still keep our plan of exploring the south island a bit. Mainly, because our Airbnbs were non-refundable. So there’s that. Plus, we had to wait for a home inspection, LIM report, and solicitor approval. All which would take a total of two weeks to complete.

From Nelson, we drove to the lush West Coast. Again, never been. She was a beaut.

But damn she had sandflies. So while we had an amazing, beachfront Airbnb, the sandflies cramped our style a bit. We stayed inside most days and would run out to catch the epic sunsets.

We spent five nights on our private beach sans cell phone service and then headed south, stopping at the Punakaiki Pancake Blowholes along the way.

I must admit, I thought these would be lame. I was wrong. These blowholes blew my mind. Nature, you are so rad. And a bit aggressive. But I dig it.

Next stop, Franz Josef Glacier for two nights. We didn’t do anything glacier-related. This stop was mainly to break up the trip down to Queenstown. We briefly thought about spending the money for a scenic flight, but the foggy, rainy weather dampened the mood.

From Franz Josef we wiggled our way towards Wanaka. I’ve always loved Wanaka. It’s like Queenstown without ALL the tourists. Don’t take that to mean zero tourists, because Wanaka is booming like John Cusack’s stereo in Say Anything. We were in Wanaka for one night only, so we simply chilled/went to a bar because we planned to do the Instagram-famous hike up Roy’s Peak the next morning. This hike is no joke. And as our first real exercise in 20-some days, it was a doozy. Eight kilometer climb. Eight kilometer descent. But the view was out of this fucking world.

I love a good climb. I could climb for days. It’s the going down that’s the problem (that’s what she said). Luckily we had our trusty hiking poles, otherwise shit wouldn’t have been so cool.

The next few days were a struggle. Limp. Limp. Gimp. Gimp. Chug. Chug. Wine. Wine.

Our last-ish stop on our mini road trip was Queenstown. Queenstown was definitely one of the top places we were thinking of moving to, until we met Nelson. Then it was all Queenstown who?

We rented a cute Airbnb that was only a short drive away from the hustle and bustle of Queenstown. It was nice being removed from the tourists. We’d get up, work, then play.

We explored off the beaten paths. Literally. We hit up Moke Lake. Which won’t be so secret since Chris Motherfucking Burkard just posted about it. Is he following us or something?

After 5 nights in Queenstown we headed back up north to Twizel. The Glennie fam has a home there. So it was nice to not have to pay for accommodation. Twizel is super close to the tallest peak in the country, Mt. Cook. It’s a mere 10-minute drive to pretty lookouts.

And the area is surrounded by canals. On really calm days, the reflections are crazy. It’s like nature’s pocket mirror. And she looks goooood.

There you have it. We’ve accomplished a lot over the past 45+ days. I’ve learned to adjust my words and make them more kiwi-esque to blend in (however my accent is a dead giveaway): trim for skim/nonfat, sauv (pronounced SAV) for Sauvignon Blanc, takeaway for to-go, coriander for cilantro. The list grows by the day.

What’s next for us? We wait until May 18. That’s the day we get the keys and finally have a place to call home. At least move-in day will be a breeze, with our handful of bags. Who’s gonna be our first visitors? No pressure.