The Metropolis - our home in Auckland for the next few months. 

Boots on the Ground

John arrived in Auckland on January 21, Conor and Mike on January 27, and I will be leaving Bend on Monday. The wheels are starting to turn, the money is in place, and we have accomplished quite a bit in the past few weeks. John bought a green Suburu from our friends Malcolm & Janet, and he has been staying at their house while looking for a home. Conor called yesterday when they arrived at Prince's Wharf from the airport to check in. John found them a nice apartment on the wharf - right near one of the cruise ships that has just docked. I anxiously await pictures and news which I am sure Conor will be posting to this blog just as soon as he finds an Internet connection. (hint, hint)

John found us a very nice apartment at the Metropolis (see photo). It's something we have always wanted to to . . . live in a city, take advantage of all of the cultural opportunities, and walk to work. It's about seven blocks from the Met to the restaurant which is a walk I am looking forward to. In the building we have a gym and a swimming pool, not to mention a spa and a fabulous view of the city and the harbor!

I have been tying up loose ends here in Bend. We have cut off our land telephone line effective Feb 1, so the number we have had for 25 years will go back in the hopper. As my friends know, I won't miss it at all since I rarely even answer the phone! My last official duty as Paula Day drives me to the airport on Monday morning will be to drop off the digital cable box at BendBroadband.

It will be sad leaving Bend, my home for over 30 years, but I am looking forward to a fabulous adventure with my family in our new adopted home. There's not a more beautiful place on earth, except maybe Broken Top on a warm sunny afternoon in October with the geese flying overhead, the leaves turning orange and red, and that inimitable sweetness of Fall in the air.

JB's model of the future Mexicali Fresh. I should have saved all of the others . . . we would have a veritable museum of restaurant models! 

Our Kitchen Manager, Mike Moor, testing some new recipes in the Buell Test Kitchen, 

Travel Plans & Other Activities

We have made our travel plans for our return trip to Middle Earth. I was starting to get a little frustrated with the price of airfare, and then stumbled upon a fantastic resource. Travel Team out of Seattle has taken care of all of our plans, for about half the price of other fares I found online. Seriously, if you are planning a trip to the South Pacific, send Dale at Travel Team an email. I would estimate that so far they have saved us about $5,000. (It will come in pretty handy when we are buying that new Robo Coupe.)

JB leaves Redmond on January 19, Conor and Mike on January 26, and I take flight on January 31. Tyler will be following after the mighty Sonoma Academy Wolves complete their basketball season in February. We are on hold with those plans just in case they make the playoffs.

We have completed the menu board and are fine-tuning the recipes. Some of them we are taking from popular items at Mexicali Rose and Baja Norte. Others we are developing fresh and new. We will have our famous carnitas and margaritas that have stood the test of time, and have mastered a wonderful new garlic-lime chicken marinade.

It's been great fun making a testing the new recipes. Today we even got our housekeepers Maria and Susanna into the mix. They suggested a little more salt and oregano for the veggie mix and it proved to be a very nice improvement!

Let's see . . . 25 days and counting until we get the keys!

Happy Holidays from Bend. It's probably the last white Christmas we will see for a few years! 

A Few Quotes About New Zealand

If it would not look too much like showing off, I would tell the reader where New Zealand is." ....... Mark Twain 1897

When asked his opinion of New Zealand: "I find it hard to say, because when I was there it seemed to be shut." ....... Sir Clement Freud 1978

"A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines" ....... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin 1909

When George Bernard Shaw visited New Zealand a reporter asked him his impression of the place and, after a pause, Shaw is said to have replied: "Altogether too many sheep" ....... George Bernard Shaw 1934

Inking the deal. JB, Matina (vendor) and Hilary (negotiator). 

It's Ours!

The time has come the walrus said
To talk of many
things:
Of boats and rats and tickle sticks, of
motorbikes and
bees...

Our offer for the purchase of Sierra Cafe has been accepted! We will take possession on 1 February and open for business around the middle of March. Of course we have lots to do between now and then, but that's the fun part of this adventure. Interestingly, it turns out that the other offer ahead of us was also a Mexican restaurant.

This part of the episode was slightly unnerving because we were in a new country where business is done differently. We had to rely heavily on the wonderful people we have met to help steer us through the gates. However, once we were inside the restaurant we were in familiar territory. JB is so excited he actually feels like working again, which is amazing. We have posted a slideshow called Sierra on the right so you can get a feeling for what the space looks like.

We probably won't be posting much until after the first of the year. Happy holidays everyone - to friends both old and new.

Kia Ora.

Kiwis push the envelope in their advertising. Here's one of our favorites. There are more to come! 

Beach flowers from Mangawhai Heads (1.5 hours north of Auckland) 

Moving Right Along

We have been busy the past few days getting all of our business affairs in order, Kiwi style. They do things a bit differently here, so we have engaged the services of a very fine attorney (recommended by our new Kiwi friend Ken, who was referred by our old Bend friend Hawk), a restaurant consultant who sees our vision and has tons of experience opening new eateries in Auckland, and a rather goofy banker recommended by the NZ restaurant association. He had trouble spelling Oregon and Buell (even when our passports were sitting in front of him), so that is the one relationship we may need to reconsider.

Some advantages to doing business here include the fact that there is NO capital gains tax and our US dollar buys about 1.50 NZ dollars. However, the US$ is on the slide and we are worried that by the time we set up shop we will have even less buying power. Word around here is that the Euro is becoming the safe haven of choice. Savvy financial managers have always looked to the US$ as a solid place to weather a global downturn. With our mounting deficits and lackluster economy, they are beginning to buy Euros. That could weaken the dollar even more over the next year or so. (Notice that I am not pointing fingers or making any political statements here.)

We have made our offer for the waterfront cafe space. It's a backup, and the vendor (that's what they call the seller here) is interested in talking to us because we have no contingency on financing. We will be meeting with the landlord on Monday, he has the final say in who will be able to take the space. Luckily, our Bend friends Phil & Carole Frazier have introduced us to the US Ambassador to New Zealand and he has offered to smooth any wrinkles we may find along the way. John is pacing like a caged animal, he can't stand the suspense. We are convinced this is the perfect space for Mexicali Fresh.

We will post the results of our meeting on Monday - stay tuned!

This is it. The Hilton is to the right down the wharf. 36 cruise ships dock here during the summer. To the left is another huge hotel and Price Waterhouse office building. Recent market studies show that there are 5000 local residents within 2.5K. I think they were all down here celebrating on Guy Fawkes Day! 

So tired, tired of waiting . . .  

Guy Fawkes Day 

Guy Fawkes Day

Friday night the explosions began. We didn't know what to think . . . there were fireworks everywhere! It looked just like the 4th of July, and from our vantage point at Prince's Wharf we could see north to Takapuna Beach, west down the wharf to the Viaduct and up on the hill to Ponsonby. Kids were screaming and carrying on in the bars, everyone was out and about.

Now we know what all the fuss was about. November 5 is known as Guy Fawkes Day and is celebrated in all of the commonwealth countries throughout the world. It commemorates the foiling of a plot - known as the Gunpowder Plot - to blow up the House of Lords in 1603 while the king, James I was opening the new session of Parliament. Guy Fawkes was one of the conspirators, the one caught red-handed. The 5th November was established as a day of thanksgiving that the plot didn't work. Today they have bonfires and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, let off fireworks, and eat toffee. I might also add that an ample amount of alcohol is consumed, gauging from the trucks on the wharf the next morning stocking the bars!

Formosa Auckland Country Club 

Apologies to our friends and family who may be offended by this image, but we had to share the feelings we are getting from the Kiwis and Brits in this part of the world. 

It's Just the Two of Us

Tyler and Conor left last night and we spent the evening in slack-jawed disbelief at the outcome of the election. John says that his record has held up well - he has still never voted for anyone who has ever won an election! I had my glory days in the 90s, so I can't complain. I guess every cloud has a silver lining because our stock market portfolio looks a bit better today than it did yesterday. Let's hope the dollar gets stronger as well!

We spent this morning looking at a few more restaurant locations. They do things a bit differently down here so we are learning as we go along. Often, you pick a spot you want and your agent just contacts the owner and negotiates a deal for you to take over. We are waiting to see about the cafe pictured in the October 31 posting - we should know on Friday.

It's quiet without the boys, but it's a gorgeous sunny day and we are sitting on the deck watching the sailboats float by. Life is good.

Future Home of Mexicali Fresh?