Hello other side of the world,

I can’t even express how glad I was when I finally got off the plane in Auckland, New Zealand. The flight was long and the woman occupying the window seat was sick which made that I had to get up to let her go to the toilet many times…

Luckily, after the somewhat inconvenient flight, the airport shuttle took me to my accommodation. On my way I thought I missed the country and arrived in Asia. It was impressive to see how many Asian people live in Auckland, but my sight changed quickly, because the majority of people that live in my residence are of Indian origin. It is great that Auckland is such multicultural city, because besides Asians and Indians, you can find hundreds of other nationalities.

Interesting internship at Hamburg Sud NZ Ltd.
After getting all my stuff in my room and relaxing a couple of hours, my official first working day for Hamburg Sud NZ Ltd. arrived. It is a German company that was founded in Hamburg. They are among the top 20 largest container shipping lines in the world. Hamburg Sud operates with more than 300 offices all over the world and they are a member of the Oetker group; a well known and one of the largest family owned enterprises in Germany.

The office is located downtown within a 20 minute walking distance from my home. It is nice that it is so close, however, the walk to work is a tough climb uphill every morning. My colleagues and my supervisor are just incredibly nice people and heaps of fun. Every last Friday of the month is “Jeans Day” which means you may wear jeans if you donate NZ$ 3 . It is also the day on which everybody stop working half an hour early to have a drink and a chat with all colleagues before going home.

I get to do many different challenging tasks. Some are administrative, such as entering ocean freights into a system, with the intent to inform people on the rates of all kinds of shipments. Others are little projects like calculating the market share of different commodities shipped from New Zealand to all over the world. As long as everybody finishes everything accurately and in time, my supervisor doesn’t have problems with little chats in between work or leaving work early for other appointments etc. Therefore the working environment is totally relaxed, yet at the same time everybody is working sufficiently with good results.

Up next an update on my travels
I think that my duration here will be a mix of work and travelling. New Zealand is divided in two islands; the North Island and the South Island. The distanced here is manageable so I can explore the North Island on my weekends. I hope to visit the South Island when I have some more days off. I will give an update on my New Zealand travel activities and experiences in my next post.

All the best,
Anna

Read the other blog posts by Anna:

1. "Luckily I still have lots of time to explore" 
2. "Wild Jungle and animals..."
3. Time to say goodbye!