It’s been a mad couple of days. Upon arriving at the airport, I had no transport – Billy (one of our drivers) had accidentally left the AC and lights on in the car, and subsequently flattened the battery. So he was a half hour late picking me up. I then found out that it was my car that had broken down 🙂 hahaha. Glad it wasn’t me!

Stopped into the Holiday Inn where I will be living for the next 3 weeks to drop my gear off, book in (upgraded to a King room – w00t) and freshen up before getting into work about 3pm. In the two months since I was last here, not much has changed – the fires, the people, the smells… The crazy bloody car drivers!

The first day was a bit of a write-off – I had been up since 11:30pm the previous day (local time), but one of the new expats brought me back to the Hotel just after 6pm, he lives here in a serviced apartment – so beers out by the pool, and then dinner. Pork Belly – which could be good or bad. In this case – it was OK but way too fatty for me – and the pork is really gamely/strong tasting.

On Friday, Dom took me into work and I could see it was going to be a busy day. Needed to get some FX done, get my license, be inducted by HR, get an ID card, have our Risk Manager talk through security, get my car, learn how to drive in Moresby, spend time with the team, do real IT work, meet everyone – somehow stop for lunch (which didn’t happen)… And you know – in Dunedin, that would be a full day – in Moresby it’s frantic, frustrating and just plain hard to fit that all in and be calm about it. But at the end of the day – I went to 3 banks, had a FX teller try and scam me out of $100 kiwi, drove over town to get my ID picture taken, Billy got me sorted at the license centre – jumped the queue and was only in there for 15 minutes. (Billy has connections) and knocked everything else off – ended up at the Yacht Club at 5pm for drinks – phew.

Then drove from the yachty in the dark by myself, took a VERY wrong turn and started going down the road that Billy said NOT to go down in the nighttime – so figured out my wee CRV does awesome uturns at speed, and got back to the Holiday Inn with a bit of a grin on my face. Then, the guards at the carpark told me I couldn’t go in the gate, as the carpark was full… WTF? I put on my kiwi charm, “hey bro, ya think I could park where that cone is?”. And got told that it was a managers carpark. So I somehow convinced him that a paying guest was more important than his manager – and that I’d come back down later and move the car. Sorted bro!

Today, up early – breakfast and off to Vision City to get a shaver and other stuff. I can see why the locals are all skinny buggers, they can’t afford breakfast – kiwi $20 for a box of nutragrain… So a got a box of cornflakes for the low low special nambawan price of K13.20, a plate, spoon etc.

Then off to Digicel, to get into the front of the queue, to be moved to another queue, to give the fuck up and stand off to the side. I kept being brushed against in the queue, and I hate that, it gives me that paranoid feeling, I hate people behind me. I’ve taken to having my wallet in my front pocket – just like I used to in other countries… Finally, I get someone to ignore everyone else and sell me a mobile wifi hotspot for my iPad and k50 topup, so all up k250 so I can have some Internet. Going spare without it – so a little sanity might prevail now. Back in the car – and bloody hell, going the wrong way… Lucky Moresby is pretty easy to get around, but it meant I hooked into a bunch of traffic…

Got my Internet up and running – hit Facebook, twitter, and rung the wife and kids for a very quick chat. Xaria was laughing at me on the phone – too cute. Miss them all heaps – but won’t be long till they are here 🙂

Started my IT analysis report that I hope to have finished by tomorrow, and very soon I might head down to the poolside for a nice cool longneck.

and that’s the start of our life here in the Land of the Unexpected – awesome!

Later
Aaron

Stress < it happens

Over the past 3 weeks, I gave work an end date, got some awful flu, organized the movers, booked a motel in Picton, booked the Interislander ferry, sold lots of stuff, gave lots of stuff away, sold a car, organized the rest of the stuff, finished work, travelled the length of the country by car half a day ahead of the worst snowstorm to hit New Zealand in 80 years (we woke up to it at Taupo), somehow Jacinta and myself kept 3 kids amused for 4 days traveling, spent 2 days at the inlaws, went to bed late – got up at 1:30am, drove back to Auckland to catch the 6am flight to Brisbane…. And here I am. 33,000 feet up and just over halfway to Brissy. Missing Jacinta and the kids already… Phew. We even got our house rented within a week… Karma.

By 1pm today (Thursday) I will be well and truly an expat – staying at the Holiday Inn, Port Moresby for the next few weeks whilst I find somewhere to live.

Wish me luck 🙂

Aaron