Saturday. Bacon and eggs. You can count on it.
After breakfast and skyping with Alex and Max (they’re leaving Hawaii later today, heading back home via a night in Vancouver) it was time to take the bus down to Manukau and pick up our rental car. But when we got there, the guy I’d arranged things with on the phone a few days ago ‘was off’. And his young helper couldn’t really help us. No, we don’t have a car for you. We won’t have a car until next Wednesday. What? We’re two and a half hour from here next Wednesday. The guy calls Russell, the guy whom I’d arranged things with. Nope. Nothing. Okay, can you call the Rent-a-Dent at the airport and find us a car there? He does. Hangs up the phone, happy. YES! They have a car. Okay… but it is a thousand dollars more than the one we’d arranged for here. Not good. Finally I call Russell myself. I’m not happy. It’s the weekend and we don’t have a car. He sounds sorry. Asks to speak to the young guy at the desk. Now we got something. We’ll take a used van for the next 3 or 4 days, and then Russell will swap vehicles with us next Wednesday or Thursday, once the Toyota we were supposed to get is back in. He’ll drive the car out to where we are and swap vehicles. Okay. Not quite what we ordered, but we can make this work.
We drove the van back to the shopping centre across the street from our apartment. Went to McDonald’s for lunch. Bought a cooler and ice pack and more groceries and headed back home.
We watched some news — another shooting in the US (Fort Lauderdale Airport, some more craziness from President-elect Donald Trump, etc. — and had sushi take-out for supper. We started watching another Netflix series (The Crown). We got a call from Brian and Val — they’d just landed at the Auckland Airport and learned that their hotel/apartment had a fire and won’t be available. We offered to host them, but they’d already made alternate arrangements. So we’ll probably see them for brunch tomorrow and discuss upcoming itineraries.
We watched Netflix until eleven, then went to bed.