The little fast food restaurants offering Thai noodles, Egyptian food, burgers and sandwiches attract customers even on gloomy and overcast days. Pedro shoots towards me with his skateboard only protecting himself with a blue hat against the drizzle. “I’m just heading home from work. I’m 18 and I am working at my brother’s painting company. Can you see these colored lanes for buses and cyclists? I mix the pink paint for the cycleways. Originally I am from Brazil, came over to New Zealand when I was 15. It’s a relaxed place here. I have always been independent financially because I worked after school. I wanted to be a botanist and studied biology but I am doing painting now. I don’t plan for the future really, planning is boring. This place here is a stepping stone for me, everything is a stepping stone eventually, isn’t it?”