Living in an Upside-Down World

New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, but besides the seasons, we keep finding other things that are reversed, too.

Some examples of upside-down-ness:

• Yes, the seasons are reversed. It's January right now and it's 80º here. For a split second, we can't understand why on earth the news is showing so much snow in New York ... oh yeah, it's winter up there.

• The experts say there's different constellations visible down here. I wouldn't know, because I never could find the Big Dipper when I lived in the northern hemisphere, so don't count on me seeing the Southern Cross now that I'm in the southern hemisphere. But the experts say it's there. The Southern Cross constellation is actually on the New Zealand flag, so I guess I have seen it in a way. My niece also wanted to know if we see a different upside-down face of the moon. Beats me. Anyone know the answer to this?

• There's also the popular story about toilets swirling the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere. I'd like to say that I have done first-hand research on this - I actually went to the airplane toilet just after we passed the equator and watched it flush. But there was so little water that I couldn't tell. We also examined the hotel toilet with the same disappointing conclusion. Once we moved into our house, I continued my research without success. Kiwis are very conscious of conserving water, apparently. So I looked it up online and found an explanation on a website written by Penn State's Earth and Mineral Sciences department. (http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html) It says that the direction it drains depends more on the shape of the bowl and the position of the drain than the hemisphere. If we had a perfectly spherical bowl with water draining exactly in the center, we could test it in 2 different hemispheres and maybe barely see the Coriolis effect. It does exist, but it is barely discernible. Mostly, that whole swirl story is urban myth with a little science thrown in.



• You turn on a light switch by pushing the switch DOWN. This explains why I am frequently walking in a dark room, I guess.
(the switch on the right is ON)








• Along those lines, every outlet has a switch on it, too. Which must be flipped down (of course) in order to get power. So you have to turn on the outlet AND turn on the hair dryer to get it to work. If only this could explain my bad hair days. (these outlets are ON)




• The hot water comes out of the right-hand faucet in our house, although I have seen it on the left in other places. Anyway, I keep brushing my teeth with warm water. Ew.

• Since Kiwis drive on the left, they also tend to walk on the left side of the sidewalk (called a footpath). Consequently, we frequently find ourselves dodging other pedestrians whenever we forget to stay on the proper side. We also cause crashes in the grocery store as we drive our "trolleys" on the wrong side of the aisle.









Speaking of which, since they drive on the left side of the road, it ALSO means...

• ... the driver's side of the car is on the right now. When Curt and I are going someplace, I keep walking to the wrong car door to get in as a "passenger" and find myself staring at a steering wheel. How did that get there?

• ... the turn signal is on the right, which is not where I'm used to it being. As a result, I keep hitting the windscreen wiper whenever I'm turning left. I definitely have the cleanest windscreen in the country.

• ... the seat belt is attached to the frame over my RIGHT shoulder. I need to buckle and unbuckle it near my LEFT hip. My instincts still reach to my right hip. At which point I find myself inexplicablly pinned in the car. Help! I can't get out!

• ... the gear shift is on the left. So I have to shift left-handed. Which is not my most coordinated hand. One of these days, I'm going to be in Reverse instead of Park. Yikes!

• ... when we're driving on the motorway, the slow traffic stays LEFT. The speedsters whiz past us on the right. The exits are off from the left, too.

Prices

My mom wanted to know how expensive things are in New Zealand, so here goes:
(All amounts are listed in US dollars for you based on the current exchange rate $1NZ = $0.68US.)

First, the bad news –
• Houses are expensive! The average price for Auckland is about $250,000, and this is for a SMALL 3 bedroom, 1 bath house that may not even be 1,000 square feet. Most don't have garages, either. Yet New Zealand has one of the highest percentages of home buying in the world. I think more of our paycheck will go to housing than we're used to ... but less will be spent on other areas (see below) ... so it comes out almost even. Overall, living in New Zealand may be 5% more expensive than in the States.

Now some good news –
• Auto insurance costs us $300 for maximum coverage, including roadside assistance. In the US, we paid $1,000 for minimum coverage.
• Medical insurance costs nothing.
Here's some prices for various purchases:
• $3.20 for a grande at Starbucks in NZ (but $2 for a "flat white")
• $10 for a hair dryer
• $8 for a toaster at a mega-store like Walmart
• $4,200 for a used Honda mid-size car with 40,000 miles on it
• $3.80 a gallon for gas
• $3.50 for a box of granola-type cereal
• $2.80 per pound for grapes
• $20 - $30 for men's khaki pants at a department store like JC Penney's
• $9 for a haircut at a cheapo chain like Supercuts

Wellington

We continued our holiday journey, driving from Rotorua to Wellington at the south tip of the North Island. Petrol stations seem to be more sparsely distributed in New Zealand than in the US, so the fuel gauge needle was uncomfortably close to the red E at the end of the dial. I was also doing mental math to convert kilometres and litres to miles and gallons to predict the amount of distance we could travel before we would run out of fuel and call for roadside assistance. We finally came to a station and Megan breathed a sigh of relief. I never had any doubt.

The price of petrol does not vary by more than a few cents per litre at all of the petrol stations. There must be some kind of national collusion because competition among different brands does not seem to make a difference: about nine out of ten petrol stations sold regular gas for 141.9 cents per litre (that converts to $3.65 US per gallon).

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant along the southwest coast and had a fine meal of fish and chips. The restaurant faced the ocean surf which was stirred up in a frothy tempest resulting from a storm that had blown in that afternoon. Wellington is famous for its wind, rivaling Chicago for the frequency and intensity of windy days.

We found our hotel after a couple of circuits through the CBD. The Wellesley Club is a very ornate hotel with old fashioned decor, appointments, and high coffered ceilings. We were given the McVicar Suite which was just adjacent to the Davidson Suite, What were they thinking? Fancy hotel bathrobes were supplied, but we ignored the fancy embellishments and wet bar offerings. Who do they expect to eat one small serving of Pringles potato chips for 3 dollars? Not us!

We ate the complimentary continental breakfast in the hotel dining room, but I insisted that we stop for a flat white at a local coffee shop before we headed to the Parliament buildings.

We walked around the Beehive (that's what the new Parliament building is affectionately called) and the old Parliament Buildings and arrived at the entry just in time for a guided tour. Our tour guide spoke with an American accent but he seemed very knowledgeable about the New Zealand history and government. We toured the House Chamber and saw the Queen's throne (it's really just a red upholstered high back chair!). The Queen is still officially the Head of State but it's obviously a ceremonial vestige of another time period.
The old Parliament building had recently been upgraded for earthquake safety. We saw a short video about it and saw the actual contraptions in the basement. They're called flexible base isolators and they were my favourite part of the whole tour, The base isolation system was developed in New Zealand by a Kiwi structural engineer and they are quite proud of the technology that has been exported around the world.

After the tour, we walked across town toward the Te Papa Museum, and Megan gave me a welcome civics lesson in parliamentary government and proportional representation. I need to learn more but it was a good start. The Labour (liberal) party controls Government now (barely) and the National (conservative) party is the Opposition. There are half a dozen minor parties like the Green, Maori, and New Zealand First party, but they only have a few seats. Coalitions and alliances are formed to ensure a majority voting block and this makes for some interesting bed partners. There's a fair amount of stealth, betrayals, and back stabbing. It's Shakespearian.

The Te Papa Museum is a new building lacking architectural distinction. It doesn't seem to have any memorable form or texture from the outside, and the galleries are chopped into odd spaces with no apparent flow or order. It's not even a sculptural edifice like the Guggenheim in Bilbao which works inside and out on so many levels. The permanent collection of paintings is small (most of it is science and history-related children's exhibits, which Megan liked) and the temporary art exhibits were average. The best part was a room with a vaulting stained glass window refracting a filtered blue light on a multi-coloured, whimsical marae within.










We walked back toward the hotel, stopping to see St. Paul's Old Church (1886) which has a very attractive timber vaulted gothic roof structure. A US Marine Corps flag was inexplicably mounted in the nave prominently alongside the New Zealand and American flags. Why?








Two buildings away, we visited the National Archives and were the only visitors to walk through the exhibits which included a display under glass of the original Treaty of Waitangi (similar to the Declaration of Independence) and other original founding documents in an unguarded, dimly lit vault. There was also an exhibit about an airplane crash in Antarctica 25 years ago, killing 250 sightseers. We had no idea there were flights to Antarctica! Apparently people used to fly there and back (without landing) just to see it from the air.


A brief walk back to the hotel and another walk to an Indian restaurant with take-away curried lamb finished us off for the evening. Megan soaked her sore feet in the luxurious hotel bath after a long and tiring but very interesting day.

Rotorua: geysers, woodcarvers, kiwi birds, & Maori performance

It was time for another vacation. Hey, it's summer! And I don't have to go to work until Feb 2 so the way I see it, this is my chance to see the rest of the country. :)

This time we decided to drive down the center of the island on our way to Wellington, the capital city.

Our first stop was Rotorua, also known as RotoVegas or Rottenrua. It's a geothermal area with lots of geysers and boiling mud pools and dormant (we hope) volcanoes. But it's a little stinky with a sulfur smell. It's also been infested with tons of other touristy things to do. Here in NZ, thrill-seeking adventures are very popular, so many of the activities involve speedboats, sky diving, ziplines, zorb ball, and of course bungy jumping, which was invented by the Kiwis. Curt and I elected to pass on all the thrill rides and went for something far more educational: geothermal activity with a touch of Maori culture.




We went to a complex called Te Puia and saw bubbling oozing mud ...










... and geysers shooting 100 feet into the air. You could feel the heat radiating up from the ground through your shoes!










Te Puia is also the home of the national woodcarving school, a skill much-prized in the Maori culture. We got to see some of the students working on large totem-pole-sized carvings, and smaller ones that were about the size of a shoebox.

There's also a kiwi bird exhibit at this complex. The kiwi is the (unofficial?) national bird. It's nocturnal, and endangered so you don't see them very often. Like many birds in NZ, they're flightless. Since there were no mammals anywhere in NZ there were no predators, so over the centuries many birds lost their ability to fly. They don't even have wings anymore. Kiwis have just a body with feet. It's funny. But cute. I was excited that we finally got to see a real live kiwi!



The highlight of our visit was the Maori performance. First, a warrior comes out to "greet" our leader. (Our leader was a visiting Australian serviceman dressed in camoflage fatigues.) The warrior's greeting isn't meant to be hospitable - it's meant to intimidate the visitor. Our leader is instructed NOT to flinch, not to smile and not to laugh while the warrior tries to scare him, even when he sticks out his tongue and bulges his eyes. A few weeks ago, a Dutch tourist smirked and the warrior got upset that he wasn't taking his ceremony seriously enough so he head-butted him! He broke his nose and gave him 2 black eyes. He lost his job and was recently sentenced to community service. Even though this happened at a different location, we were VERY careful to be respectful and not to laugh.

After the welcome ceremony, we took off our shoes and went inside an intricately carved marae (meeting house) for the cultural performance. They sang Maori songs and did dances and the men performed the haka, a famous war dance that NZ's national rugby team (the All Blacks) does before every game to try to intimidate the opposing team.

Overall, we spent 4 hours at Te Puia and it was worth it!

Kauri trees

In New Zealand, there's a HUGE tree called a kauri. There used to be thousands more, but they were logged back in the 1800s to use as masts on ships. The ones that are left are protected, I think, and their locations are advertised in the tourist brochures so people can go see them.

So we went to see a square kauri while we were having a little vacation on the Coromandel peninsula. It looks squarish because it was almost like 4 trunks meshed into one. It was 1200 years old and 30 feet around. And it's not even very big compared to some. The biggest one in the country is Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest). It's 2,000 years old, 160 ft. tall and 43 ft. around.

To get there, we had to drive on a gravel road and then walk up 162 steps. (I counted)

You can easily see Curt in the close up picture of the tree at the top of this blog entry.

He's also waving to me in this long distance shot, wearing a white shirt. See how small he is compared to that tree?

Piha beach, surfing

We went to Piha beach today. It's on the west coast, facing the Tasman Sea and Australia (which is 1,000 miles away). Most of Auckland faces east towards the Pacific coast and South America (6,000 miles away).

Piha is a famous surfer beach because it has such wild waves. It also has an unpredictable rip tide, and swimmers need rescuing there a few times every week. There's frequent stories in the newspaper about the latest rescue.

We had to drive on a winding road over a small range of mountains to get to the west coast. It only takes about 30 minutes (!) from Auckland to get there; you're actually crossing the entire isthmus.

The beach was beautiful (aren't they all?) and there were maybe 100 people. There was also 4 lifeguards and assorted lifsaving vehicles. One lifeguard was being filmed that day as a cameraman followed him around. Apparently there is a whole TV show about the Piha lifeguards.

There were about 20 or 30 surfers out in the water, but not a lot of actual surfing going on. Mostly they stand around and socialise with each other, waiting to catch a good wave, I guess. About every 5 minutes, one of them gets up on his board and surfs 50 feet or so until they wipe out. It was fun to watch :)

I could have laid there for hours, reading and napping and listening to the surf, but we didn't want to get burned so we didn't stay too long. The ozone layer is VERY thin down here, and people are acutely aware of skin cancer. Everyone wears hats, from babies on up to old people. The burn index that day was 12 ... on a scale of 1-11. Really.

Driving on the "wrong" side of the road

Today I had my first experience driving on the left side of the road. And overall, it went pretty well.

I didn't want Curt to be in the car when I drove because I wanted to concentrate fully on the road. (And because he used to gasp/yell/swear when I was backing the VW out of our steep driveway in Portland.) So today, while he was taking the train downtown for an interview with the recruiter, I had a chance to try driving for the first time.

I only went on the wrong side of the road once ... and that was in a car park (parking lot) so it hardly counts. :)

My biggest problem is the blinker which is positioned on the right, and I am used to it being on the left. As a consequence, whenever I'm getting ready to turn, I reach left, and end up activating the wiper instead! I must have the cleanest windscreen (windshield) in town by now.


On my way to the store and back, I successfully negotiated 4 roundabouts.

I even got on the motorway to try it out, and made it back home safely.

But I'll definitely need more practice! I'm not used to where the mirrors are yet. And it's still tricky trying to judge where the nose of the car is when I'm pulling into a parking space.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with myself. (insert smug smile here)

As we used to say at the end of a successful road trip: Nobody died and nobody threw up.

P.S. - Curt's interview went GREAT. They loved him (naturally) and are setting him up for an interview with the engineering company next.

Avondale Spiders

New Zealand is known for having absolutely no snakes and hardly any spiders (compared to Australia where there are thousands of deadly creatures everywhere you turn). But we managed to move to the one neighbourhood in Auckland (Avondale) that is known for its large, hairy spider. Who knew.

Apparently, the Avondale spider is quite famous in the spider world because it was the species that was used in the movie Arachnophobia. They're up to 8 inches across and pretty hairy, but entirely harmless (so they say). That made it perfect for scaring the pants off the audience, but not endangering the actors during filming. Still, I'm hoping never to see one personally.


Avondale seems to have embraced its reputation as a spider town. There is a large spider sculpture (named Dale ... get it? ... AvonDALE?) in the town square, which has become a local landmark.





And the Avondale school uses the spider as its mascot.





Here's what the NZ scientists say about the AVONDALE SPIDER:
Delena cancerides Walckenaer
(Araneae: Sparassidae)

The large harmless spider found around the Avondale area of Auckland is an Australian huntsman spider. This spider found its way to New Zealand in the early 1920s, with the first specimen found in 1924. It probably came in imported wood used for railway sleepers. It has not spread very far from Avondale, so it has received the popular name of Avondale Spider. In South Australia this species is quite common, and people encourage them to live in their houses to keep the pest insect population down.

Where found
They are nocturnal and like to hide during the day in dark, dry places. In their natural habitat, which is under loose-fitting bark of wattle trees, they live in large colonies. Around houses they hide in attics, under corrugated iron, behind pictures and bookcases, and in sheds and garages.

Food
These spiders are fascinating to watch. They sit motionless on walls and then rush after prey. They very quickly devour prey, sucking all the juices out and discarding the hard outer pieces. Their favourite foods seem to be moths, flies, cockroaches, and earwigs.

Size
The first reaction of most people on finding Avondale spiders is usually horror. The spiders move very fast when disturbed (as do people when frightened!). Mature spiders with legs outstretched can measure up to 200 mm across (8”).

Life history
The mature males are frequent visitors inside houses in the months January to March when they are looking for a female to mate with. Females are capable of laying up to 200 green eggs in an oval-shaped, white papery-looking egg sac about 25 mm long (1”) by 12 mm wide (1/2”). Females guard their egg sac, and after 4-6 weeks open this up to enable the spiderlings to hatch. They will look after the spiderlings for a few more months until they disperse. Spiderlings will feed communally if the prey is too big for them to manage on their own.

by Grace Hall
Landcare Research

New wheels

Today I went shopping for a used (or pre-owned to put an artificial luster on it) car. Car shopping falls just below root canal surgery on my list of least favourite things to do. It's not that difficult. It's just that no matter how much consumer research I do and how many classified ads I peruse, I just can't seem to shake the notion that I'm being fleeced and that I'll drive away in a shiny lemon with empty pockets and my pants around my ankles.

Although we've managed to learn how to use Auckland's mass transit system of buses, ferries, and trains which seems to adequately cover a wide territory with a minimum amount of transfers and fuss, we need at least one car in the driveway to satisfy that most famous of American addictions: the automobile.

Rick and Kris agreed to help me by taking me to a car fair at the Ellerslie Racecourse. The car fair is an organized flea market of sorts consisting of private sellers who gather in a vacant parking lot to display their wares for buyers seeking a good value, attempting to avoid commission costs, inflated profit margins, and general defilement that inevitably comes from used car dealers. The car fair appears to be well organised, with parking attendants in neon coloured traffic waistcoats. A trailer with helpful officials is there to provide immediate internet service for checking any Vehicle Identification Record so that if the car has been reported stolen, or has outstanding citations, these minor indiscretions may be cleared up prior to concluding any deals.

Megan and I originally talked about buying a small pick-up truck, or ute as they're called here. But Kiwis don't share the same predilection for the 4 x 4 and off-road vehicle that Americans crave: a rig (said in a deep voice while adjusting the crotch and spitting). So there is a dearth of utes to choose from and most of these seem to have retained their value, which really means they cost way too much. SUVs are out of the question since petrol costs about $3.65US per gallon and we don't want any part of that conspicuous consumption. SUVs in Auckland are unaffectionately called Remuera tractors, which labels these gas hogs with the ritzy suburb that has an average home sale price just shy of $1,000,000. You get the picture.

I spent most of my time looking at cars in an area designated between $5,000 and $10,000, which is about the price range you get for cars that are 5 to 12 years old with mileage (why isn't it kilometreage?) ranging up to 250,000 km. I settled on a 1994 Honda Rafaga with 63,500 km selling for $6,800. I talked the seller (the name on his business card was Max Ma but it seemed made up to me) down another $250 for a cash deal, which was about all the hard ball dealing I could stomach. If I were a real Kiwi, I would have held out for about a $1,500 discount, but I don't have the patience or the swagger necessary to pull it off. The car has a 2.0 litre engine, 5 cylinders (yes, 5, not 4 or 6), automatic, cruise, A/C, and low miles if you believe the odometer wasn't tampered with before the used car was imported to New Zealand from Japan a year ago. To save my last shred of pride, I choose to believe it. Ignorance is bliss. Plus the conversion to US dollars would be about $4,500. Do I sound defensive?

After concluding the VIR check and driving to the nearest post office to fill out a Transfer of Title and forking over a hand full of cash, I safely navigated my way back to our new home in Avondale, driving on the left side of this upside down world. A new car and a new home all in the same day! Making progress.

Curt

Moving in, Camping out, Meeting the locals

On Sunday, Rick and Kris picked us up at the hotel and helped us move our stuff to the new house. Since our belongings don't arrive on the ship for another few weeks, we are basically camping out in this empty house. Rick and Bev provided a mattress & sheets, a card table & 2 folding chairs, and some dishes to get us started. They've been a godsend.

Next, the 3 men went shopping for a car, and I stayed behind to nest. I have to trust them to make a good choice, and not come home with some hot little sportscar convertible. While they're gone, I set up house as much as I could and then took the bus to the grocery store. What an experience!


There's a bus stop at the end of our road, but I was standing on the wrong side of the street when it drove by. (I keep forgetting what side they drive on) I hailed the bus, and the bus driver graciously stopped for me anyway. He asked me if I'm going to "limo." Huh? "Limo." Finally I understood: he was saying "Lynn Mall." Yes! That's where I was going. Well, he started chatting and by the end of the ride we were best friends. His name is Roy. He lives right around the corner from us. It's a good neighbourhood, he says. The next passengers got on, a young woman and her baby. They proceded to tell me all about Dora, another regular bus rider who is quite a character, apparently. I told them about how we just moved here, and that I would be teaching at Te Atatu Intermediate, and that the 3 men were out buying a car today. Everyone was quite amused to hear that I trusted them to select a car without me. Once we arrived at the mall, Roy pointed out the grocery store, where to pick up the bus to come back home, and what time it would come. People sure are friendly! I've noticed it especially when I am by myself. I must look lonely and lost. (I usually am)

When I got back, I saw the car Curt bought: blue Honda Rafaga, like an Accord. It seemed like a good choice. (Whew!) We promptly hopped in the car and did some shopping. Since our electrical appliances from the States wouldn't work on NZ voltage, we didn't ship them; we planned on purchasing new appliances once we arrived. So that evening we bought a toaster, a warp-speed electric tea kettle, a fan, and a radio alarm clock. Yesterday, we'd picked out a fridge, TV, microwave, and washer & dryer, which will all arrive tomorrow. It felt a little less like camping out once we had a few of those things. But we'll be sleeping on a mattress on the floor for 4 more weeks. And I'm old!

Originally, we hoped the container full of all our furniture and belongings would be on a ship that would arrive here Jan 16 ...but that ship was full so it went on the next ship which would arrive Jan 30 ... then we got a call that said it wouldn't be here until Feb 6! My job starts Feb 2 and I'll still be wearing the same 4 sundresses over and over. And none of my teaching files will be here, or my vast classroom library collection! Brother. I was hoping we'd be pretty settled by the time I started working.

Cricket, rugby, and library cards

Today when I was at the Telecom store trying to set up internet access and cable TV at our new house, the two young salesmen tried to educate me about New Zealand sports. They were asking if I wanted the Rugby Channel (I kid you not) or the other Kiwi sports channels. But I declined and told them I don't understand any of those sports anyway. I noted, however, that there's been a lot of cricket on TV lately, which I can't follow at all.

Here's what I learned from the Telecom guys: Cricket is a lot like baseball except instead of running around four bases, they just run back and forth between two bases. (Think of them running from home to 2nd and back) And instead of three guys batting per inning like in baseball, the entire team of 11 gets to bat. Then it's the other team's turn to have their 11 guys bat. But in cricket each team only does this twice, not 9 times like in baseball. There's somethig called an "outing" that may be the same as an "inning" which would be pretty funny if you think about it. I don't really know yet because I haven't learned any of the terminology. I'll work on it.

Anyway, besides cricket, I also admitted that I don't know anything about rugby. Well, the whole office was in an uproar about that one. Everyone agreed that I simply MUST learn about rubgy, because it's the national sport here. In the end, they inspired me to go find some books about rugby at the public library.

So Curt and I took a little field trip to the library and even got our own library cards. Getting a library card was actually pretty exciting because it made me feel like an official Auckland resident and not a tourist. I think it's significant that I got my library card before I got a credit card or a debit card. I LOVE libraries. We spent a delightful evening there browsing through magazines, DVDs, newspapers, and books. There were about 5 shelves full of rugby books in the 796.33 section. I checked out one book called "The Girls' Guide to Rugby" and a children's non-fiction book about how to play rugby. Here's what I know so far:

They have really cool names for the positions:
FORWARDS:
• Hooker
• Loose-head prop
• Tight-head prop (the hooker+loosehead+tighthead combined are also called the front-rowers)
• Locks (also called the second-rowers)
• Blind-side flanker
• Open-side flanker
• Number 8 (Yes, that's the name of the position. Does this guy always wear number 8 on his jersey?)
BACKS:
• Half-back
• First five-eighth (I am NOT making these up)
• Second five-eighth
• Left wing
• Centre
• Right wing
• Full-back
Don't you love those terms? I'm especially fond of the" Loose-head prop" and the "Second five-eighth." I need to continue my research and find out what those names mean or where they came from. It's hard for me to imagine little kids growing up wanting to become a "Second five-eighth" but that's exactly what the children's book was about!

Now for the scoring: They get five points for a "try." To me, a "try" would mean they attempted to get the ball over the line but didn't make it. But I am wrong. A "try" means they DID get the ball over the line. They scored! They scored a "try." I can tell this is going to take a while before I am rugby-literate.

No Longer Homeless

We found a house to rent! It feels good to finally have an address we can use. Whenever we do any kind of paperwork such as opening a bank account or even signing up for the grocery store's special savings card, we need an address. But besides the convenience of finally having an address, it just plain feels better emotionally. On the way to NZ we were freeloading at my brother's in Hawaii for a few days, and Curt kept joking that we were homeless (we were) and unemployed (he is). It's somewhat scary to realize that those joking remarks were actually true.

The whole process of moving to a new country is a lot like starting out at age 18 and moving into your own place for the first time. I remember setting up a telephone account for the first time back in 1975 and not knowing how, and of course the telephone company wanted an outrageous deposit because I wasn't an established customer and they didn't know if I was trustworthy or not. And now we're back in the same situation, trying to figure out how to establish telephone service and electricity and internet and garbage and water and drivers license and on and on. It's not too hard – even a little fun at times – until you realize, "Hey, I'm too old to be doing this all over again!" : )

Anyway, back to the house: It's older and smaller but has a great view. Sound familiar? (our house in Portland was small and old and a little dumpy but had a breathtaking view of Mt. Hood) The back yard is on a tidal estuary full of mangrove bushes and ducks and we can see across the water to the Te Atatu Peninsula where my school is. So I'm only 10 minutes or so from my work. Curt will probably have a longer commute if he gets a job downtown. The house has three bedrooms, only one bathroom and a galley kitchen, but it also has a fireplace, a deck and an entire wall of windows facing the water, It's at the end of a cul-de-sac with great neighbors on both sides. We plan on renting this house for 6-12 months while we get acclimated to our new life in New Zealand and then we'll buy a house.

Now that we have a house, we have to start buying electrical appliances like TV, washer & dryer, fridge, and microwave. Since New Zealand operates on 220 volts, we couldn't bring our 110 volt appliances with us. Curiously, our lamps work at either voltage, as does this computer. Don't ask me why. I am definitely scientifically/electricity-challenged and I really don't get it. I just know we didn't bring our big appliances and now we need to buy replacements. So we're scouring the ads in the newspaper and the other want ad publications and internet sites, looking for "whiteware." That's what fridges, washers/dryers, stoves, dishwashers, etc. are called.

PS - I think Curt has given up on the tea-drinking idea. (see the earlier post about Kiwi food) He needs his coffee. Otherwise he gets all out of whack. He's succumbed to the java lure once again.

Happy New Year

It's a new year: 2006. Last night we watched the fireworks exploding from the Sky Tower, only a block from our hotel, and thought about what the new year would bring for us here in New Zealand. This New Year's Eve celebration seemed more significant to us than most New Years in the past, since we're beginning a new life in a new country. Therefore, we've decided to make a few lists. Although they're not really resolutions, they do help us clarify our objective in moving here.
Next January (2007) we'll compare our actual life to these hopes and dreams that we listed here on January 1st, 2006.

WHY DID WE CHOOSE NEW ZEALAND?
• It's far away from everywhere.
• They're a small nation, not a terrorist target, and not aggressive. They don't invade other countries.
• It's an opportunity for us to explore a whole new quadrant of the world. Besides traveling all over New Zealand, during the next few years we can visit Australia and islands in the South Pacific like Tahiti or Fiji.
• There's new wildlife and flora for us to learn about (even penguins!)
• It's warm! It's subtropical. And it's Celsius.
• There's wide open spaces with lots of sheep. Sheep are cute and fuzzy.
• There's beautiful, plentiful, empty beaches.
• It's full of friendly people, and they're very welcoming.
• They speak English but they have a cool accent.
• It's anti-nuclear and anti "Coalition of the Willing"
• They honor their native culture.
• There's great public facilities at parks, beaches, community centres, etc.
• They have a female Prime Minister ... and it's no big deal to them.
• There's less consumerism, less materialism. Hardly anyone drives an SUV just as a status symbol.
• Guys don't sag their pants. :)

WE HOPE THAT IN OUR NEW LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND, WE WILL ...
... explore nature more
... paint more (Curt)
... acquire an accent (Megan)
... learn a little Maori language and some Maori culture
... make friends and invite people over more
... give more back to our community, through voluntering maybe