It's....New Zealand.

About a week ago, I received a phone call from a schoolteacher who had found my purse! She found my purse in a toilet a few miles away from the carpark. All of the kids on the bus used the toilets and afterwards she checked the toilets and found my bag, thinking it was one of the kid's. No one claimed it and so she looked inside, found my empty prescription, called the Paihia pharmacy, got my address from the pharmacy, looked up the phone number for 27 Selwyn Rd, and then called the hostel! SO NICE! (But talk about lack of patient privacy!) She offered to drop off the purse at the Whangerei police office.

On Tuesday, I went down to Auckland for my appointment at the US Consulate Office Wednesday morning.  On the way, I stopped at Whangerei to pick up my purse….or so I thought.

First. Backtrack to my FIRST experience with the New Zealand police system. When we found the broken car window, popped trunk, and missing purse (and i-pods), we called the national police system and reported the crime. The report was given a national number and brief details were taken. We were then instructed to go into a local police office to give more details and to pick up a copy of the police report that we could show insurance companies, the American embassy, and whoever else was interested in the crime.

We stopped at a small police station on the way back to Paihia around 6:00pm. The lights in the building were on and there were two cars in the carpark, but no one answered our knocks on the door.

Ok. We decided to go to our good ol’ local police station in Paihia. Arriving around 7:15 pm, we found a notice on the door. “The police station is closed. In an emergency, please call the constable at xxx-xxxx. However, please do not disturb the constable because he may be at home.” (Side note: “may be” was actually spelled “maybe”. All of NZ sucks at grammar. No joke.)

I guess I don’t have much to compare to. I’ve never had to go into a police station in the US to report a crime. But for some reason, I have this idea that a police station is always open.  Is that true? Does anyone have any idea until what time most US police stations are open?

Fast forward to yesterday.

I walked in to the police station in Whangerei, explained the situation, and the man behind the desk apologized and said that the woman who had the keys to the lost and found was out to lunch.

I was a bit shocked that the keys to A PART OF THE POLICE OFFICE were OUT TO LUNCH.

Alright. No matter. I ended up going a bit out of town to the waterfalls Liz mentioned in a previous post and eating a picnic lunch there.  It was beautiful.

Right. So we returned to the police station after an hour, plenty of time for the lost and found keys to have enjoyed a cheeseburger at McDonalds.

I walked in and re-explained the situation, this time to a man who looked Japanese and whose first language was definitely not English.

He went back to the tiny lost and found pile of envelopes and letters. I watched from behind the glass, growing more frustrated, knowing that my, “rather large, burgundy, over the shoulder purse” (complete with hand gestures), was in NO WAY in the small pile of envelopes.

After about five minutes of searching, the man returned empty handed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not there.”

Obviously.

I RE-EXPLAINED what was missing.

“Oh!” The man exclaimed. “The lady with the keys for THAT lost and found is gone for the day. Come back tomorrow morning.”

“WHAT?!”

By this time, I was furious.  I had to be in Auckland, about 3 hours AWAY from Whangerei, in the morning. Also, there was also no physical way I could be back to Whangerei from my appointment in Auckland by the time the police office closed.

The police officer wrote down a phone number on a piece of paper and passed it under the glass. “Next time,” he said, “Call this number before you come in to make sure that she is here.”

After venting my frustrations to the man behind the glass, I stormed out of the police office, phone number in hand and trying really hard not to cry. I had SO been looking forward to getting my purse back, to getting back to having my little stones that I carry, the pictures I have with me, the blessed medals and cards in the pocket of my purse, the connections I have to everyone back home.  Plus, Whangerei is about an hour away from Paihia; it’s VERY hard to just travel to Whangerei when the bus only goes twice a day, I don’t own a car, and I have to clean practically every morning.  Grrrrrrrrr…..

But! Auckland was awesome. It’s definitely not the most beautiful, nor oldest city in the world…..but they have a great maritime museum! I was honestly expecting to be bored out of my SKULL, but I did learn a lot about Mauri’s culture and New Zealand’s water history.

And the US consulate appointment went by – no sweat! Everyone was very nice and helpful and I should be the owner of a new passport within a week.