Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
June 2007 | Blog home | August 2007
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Shopoholic and her husband hopped a bus (after getting breakfast at Wholly Bagels, again!) out of the city into the valley, a 20-minute ride that was kinda cool given the views of the water and the super fast and crazy bus driver. We passed by the Beehive (photo, left) the government building for New Zealand's parliament. We arrived a mere 15 minutes after the mall opened and got to work.
We shopped for an hour and headed upstairs to the third level where the super sized cinema was based—oh my, it’s been a year since we’ve sat comfortably in a huge movie theatre in a comfy seat and enjoyed a Hollywood blockbuster. (Nelson has a movie theatre, but it’s sooooooo uncomfortable, the seats are made for kids or little people, I think.)
For three hours we sat through Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and neither of us was impressed, to be honest. (See our movie review). Afterwards, we hit the shops again. Most were the same as downtown, but oddly they had quite a bit of different merchandise. I guess what appeals to the suburbanites doesn’t really cut it in the big city. Anyway, we found a few more treasures-of-the-moment and headed back to the city with an even crazier bus driver than before. 
I think it must be a requirement to drive as fast as possible through tiny streets nearly busting side mirrors on cars.
Don spotted several interesting things in the city, the most exciting to him was the soft cookie vendor, selling "American style" cookies. We stood in line for 10 mins to get a cookie! Then there was this street cleaner with his bike-based porta-vacuum. How clever these Kiwis are. So adorable! 
We checked out on Sunday morning, hit Wholly Bagels again, and hopped the airport bus out of town. I wonder if locals know there is a secret tunnel reserved only for buses that takes them through the key hill separating the city from the airport, normally a hugely congested traffic zone for cars. Secret passages, and we got to the airport in about 20 minutes.
You might think an international airport would have more strict security measures, but again we were not subject to any security searches or screenings whatsoever. Kiwis are very trusting people.
Back home we emptied our bags and assessed our goodies. I didn’t mention earlier that we left for Wellington with one suitcase and came back with two: we packed a smaller one inside a larger one and took them to Wellington that way, expecting we’d fill both on the way back. Indeed, that was the case, largely thanks to Don purchasing a pair of shoes. And just for the record, he outspent me on the trip--not sure how I let him get away with that one, but I bet I'll catch up in time.
All in all a great time out into a big city with lots to do and see and great food as well. I think we'll make it an annual trek to be sure.
Well it's the one year anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand (coincides nicely with our wedding 
anniversary as well - 11th - gift from Angela picture at right, NZ greenstone) so I figured what better time to tell you more about what I've been up to (beyond what Angela has already covered in previous blogs). Yes, it is all about me. Anyway, I have added a weekly (or so) update on what I've been up to on my front page so if you just want a quick recap of my week - it's the place to go.
I'll start with work. Things have been very busy over the last 3 weeks or so. Funny how part of the reason we left the US was to slow down our lives. I've been working full time since 01 November with an ever increasing number of hours put in each week. I've had to add 30+ staff to my largest client (along with installing a drug screening process) over the last 3 weeks. With them all in place it should mostly be maintenance for the next several months - it will give me a chance to get back and find some new clients. I've recently been promoted to Branch Manager which is a new position to the company so we are treading new ground. It will be up to me along with my counterpart in Invercargill and the Managing Director to further define the role (definitely exciting to me). Finally, I'm happily anticipating the arrival of my new company car within the next couple weeks - Hyundi Tuscon - which isn't that big of deal unless you've seen the current thing I'm driving.
What else? Due to spending so much time at work lately my workout schedule has suffered a bit as has my plans to take up a few additional hobbies. On the plus side I have been doing a fair share of reading, you can always see what I'm reading or what I have read on my book reviews page. Still like to watch a good movie but nothing we've seen lately falls into this category.
The TV season really goes all year here, as one show ends, another starts up (i.e. just finished Survivor plus Lost and Grey's Anatomy are ending but The Sopranos just started up). I've also spend time perusing the Documentary, History, Discovery, and National Geographic Channels - recently watched a good program about the Millau bridge and one about the Airbus 380 along with probably too many documentaries about Iraq (definitely more informative than the news, and based on what I've seen, there really is little hope for that poor country - that would probably be better off if it was split into 3).
Considering the Tour de France starts on Sunday, 3 - 4 hours a day have already been booked - Sky Sports has complete live coverage of every stage. Nice. Should be wide open this year - provided all riders don't test positive before the race starts.
Final random note - I thought winter would be difficult here due to the lack of central heating. Really, it hasn't been that bad. Yeah, it's cold but you get used to it. Cold in the morning when you get up but once the electric heaters get warmed up, all is fine.
Well that's it for me for now, look for my next blog in October. (Just kidding.)
Hi all! I am Lucy, I have found your website while searching for some info at Google. Your site has helped me in a big way.
~Lucy
Happy 1st anniversary in New Zealand. Congratulations, Don, on your new job description. Glad that you'll also be able to see the Tour. Will look forward to your next quarterly report.
~
Love, Dad & Mom
Enjoyed reading your quarterly blog and hope you get more time to get to those workouts. How exciting to be able to branch out to a new field. Good for you.
~ Love, Mom & Dad
Here are a few things funny, quirky things I've put into my brain lately.
**I was preparing for the Nelson Mayoral Election 2007 in meetings today as I've been assigned to take on some of the communications tasks relating to the election, and there was an interesting suggestion by one of my Kiwi workmates. On the communications plan was the phrase "participating in democracy" in relation to a task, and my workmate suggested that we not use that phrase because of the word 'democracy.' To her and many others, she feels it has a negative connotation (and at this point she looked at me and apologised) in that the United States has absconded with the real meaning of the word and "we" (meaning, NZers and Nelsonians) don't want to give people a negative impression of good things that go with an election. I admitted to no offence and implored the group, in fact, to reclaim the word, take it back for good (in my best superhero voice, with jingle music), and use it in the positive spirit it was intended, but everyone opted not. What a drag, eh!
**I am late in wishing you all a happy 4th of July and in saying happy birthday to Allyssa Gregory who turned 18 on the 5th, and to my dad who turned 61 on the 6th.
**Being a new NCC employee, it is my task to write a mini bio of myself for the internal newsletter. I did a bang up job, I thought, and discovered another American within the NCC halls who actually lived in Fort Collins for 10 years up until 2000. He said: how do, GO RAMS!! and welcome to NCC.
**Today I was in an induction meeting with the Community Services staff (who were so amazingly kind to call up last Friday to a workmate to assess my beverage preference and thus greet me at 9am this Monday morning with a chai latte welcome gift!!) and I found out the funniest thing...I think I've mentioned before that New Zealand didn't have television until the 1970s, THE 70s!!!!! Canyou imagine.
Anyway, so Kiwis are relative newbies to the whole thing. Well it turns out that everyone who DID have a television had to have a license to use it, paying $50 per year in a form of taxation. Even worse ... apparently there were vans that would troll the streets each night with special antennas to determine which house had a TV on so they could look at their records to determine who had paid the fee. And this only ended in the mid-80s, my colleague told me. Her friends would sometimes get caught, because she said everyone tried to avoid paying it, but they'd get a visit from the TV police! HILARIOUS, this sounds straight out of the Twilight Zone or something.
Well, Angela is away at a conference for work so I figured I should pick up the slack and post about our party commemorating our first full year here. Crazy for us, this represents the first time we have held a gathering of more than a few people. Ok, so 20 people isn’t huge but it is certainly a record for us.
We had decided it might be nice just to gather a few of the 
folks that we’ve gotten to know in our first year here. Angela came up with the theme and organized all of it - cocktail party with some trivia involved (each person would have to correctly answer a question prior to receiving a drink). There were 5 different drinks: champagne and Hypnotic, cosmopolitan, kamikaze, mudslide martini (my contribution), and, of course, the ultimate margarita.
We decided to supply all the liquor and have the guests bring most of the food. Angela toured about the 3 liquor stores in town to find the key brands of alcohol that we required (i.e. 5 bottles of Absolute Vodka, several bottles of Sauza Tequila, etc.). We even had to rent champagne flutes and martini glasses from a local store.
Angela spent most of the day of with a couple friends helping out at a local event. Actually she helped man (errrr woman) the Vote booth for the Nelson City Council as well as a friends booth for her new internet company -- Floozy. Me, I had to ready the house, pick up and clean the glasses, watch the Tour de France, etc. all the important stuff.
A couple hours before the party Angela started mixing several of the drinks in prep. The idea was to give each person their first drink when they arrived and for any subsequent drink, they would have to answer a trivia question – either from Trivial Pursuit, Cranium, or something unique about another person at the party. If they couldn’t answer the question, they were free to ask anyone else at the party except the person they came with. Yes, nice icebreaker. This went over very well with all although some were a bit wary of the question piece but after a drink or two, all was good.
Those that made it through the 5 different drinks were entered into a draw for a prize (gift certificate for a local restaurant/ bar and a cocktail recipe book). I think Angela calculated that those who made it through all of the drinks would be having about 15 shots of alcohol (TAXI!!!!).
Funny thing that we soon discovered was that of the 17 people who could make it, 6 weren’t planning on having more than one drink. We soon realized we would have plenty of leftovers. We also were informed that Saturday night was a big All Black rugby match – so of course we had to have that on the TV (and had to switch between rugby and the NZ – Jamaica netball game). In case you were curious, both NZ teams won. And yes, the Tour started at 11pm so dominated the silent TV at that point.
All started well as the guests showed up. Our German friends, Ina and Stefan, who recently bought their first house, informed us that they were expecting their first child. Every time we see them they have some new big news. Our friends Chris and Jade had just returned from a month long trip to Europe and with Chris’s birthday on Sunday decided we would celebrate at 12:01am with cake.
Angela was busy bartending most of the evening and I just mingled between groups of guests (I was supposed to take pictures but somehow forgot and Angela had to snap a few at the end). To be honest, after several drinks in the night became a bit of a blur. Conversation fluctuated between the Tour (naturally), travel, the international media, the trivia questions, and so on.
Most of the questions went off very well. In several cases we required people to spell words backwards which isn't overly difficult unless you've had several drinks. One of the better questions of the night was put to Stefan - he was asked to find the Floozy in the room which was made more interesting since Floozy didn't translate well into German. He finally found Kate & Colin (who started the Floozy internet company) after asking several women if they were a Floozy. Nice. Another involved someone finding a person that had recently been surrounded by naked women - that was Jade who had spent a stint in a Turkish bath during her European trip. At one point several of the party goers had it and decided to ask us some questions about New Zealand. We didn’t get one right but were close on a couple.
In the end I think there were about 7 who completed all the drinks for entry into the final drawing. Jade, Angela’s friend from work, won and was very excited – as she put it, “I never win anything.”
For us it was a great time and well worth all the effort that we put into it. I think we’ll plan something else for the summertime when the views from the house can be fully enjoyed. I'll take more pictures at the next one.
I've not blogged for some time now, it seems. The reason is that I've been leading what most of you consider a "normal" life: I've been working full time for a few weeks. It started with my official first day at Council with a very busy induction (training) schedule and then we took off to Wellington for those 4 days away. As soon as I got back, I had to start a three-week term of working 40 hours/week to cover for one of my colleagues who was on holiday (and still is). Last week our party took the wholly peas out of me with planning and cleaning and recovering, and this week I had to go to a 2-day non-stop conference in Rotorua...I feel like I've not slept in so many weeks!
This week was down time and time to catch up on 3 weeks of not doing the washing, a carpet covered in crud and a bathroom that was in dire need of a scrub. But the socialising didn't end! Our schedule had us going out on Saturday and hosting the blokes for a viewing of the Tour today, Sunday. Very little time to catch up on life.
But here I am this weekend, finally sleeping again through the night and recovered a bit from the rush. I have one more week of full-time work in front of me, and then I can slack again...did I mention that I don't like to work full-time? Well, I don't. Don doesn't either, but he's the one who started all this "work" stuff last August when he found himself wanting to "contribute" to our new life in some way. Well, he's contributing now, that's for sure!! And I'm slacking and loving it.
What is likely to happen is that I will do more of a 30-hour work week and Don in time is going to look to do the same at whatever job he has at the moment. I've been trying to talk him into going back to school to do something with computers, that's been of interest to him. When I was in Rotorua, one of the conference speakers talked about the mega boom of computer technology needs and that New Zealand, and the world as well, is going to have a shortage of tech workers. In New Zealand, one of the best tech schools is right here in Nelson, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology. Our plan has been for Don to do some school stuff when he's ready at NMIT. That will mean he'll slow down his work schedule, and thanks to our good paying jobs, we should be able to manage. That is, if he can get his mind to forget the horrible time that was his MBA.
I will kick into gear again after this coming week and get cracking on the site. I expect you'll hear from us again during the week, but we'll get things updated more after the freakin' crazy full-time schedule I'm doing is over. WHAT was I thinking??!!
For the first time in my life I’m learning what it’s like to live in a small town that feels constant pressure from the big city and the big city folk. Pretty much every town or city outside of Auckland takes a second-tier position to the big city Auckland.
I see this on news stories, I hear it on the radio, and local Nelsonians repeatedly complain about Auckland’s big city ways and terrible traffic and hectic lifestyle and expensive housing.
I remember travelling around Colorado, living full-time in Denver, and trying to spread word of my nonprofit organisation to local communities, towns, and smaller cities. I’d run into the prejudice each and every time of being someone ‘from Denver’ wanting to come into the town and do a variety of things: impose something on small town, doing something better than it’s done in the small town, and always answering the question if the service is offered to people outside of Denver.
It’s very odd to be on the other side of this now, and I find myself making comments about Auckland and Aucklanders and those big city folk. On the radio one morning, the morning show talked about the national government’s desire to put traffic control onto a major downtown Auckland street, but there was resistance by many outside of Auckland to pay for it. The morning show hosts decided to make prank calls to lower South Island cities seeking donations for revamping this famous street. Each and every caller laughed in their faces (through the phone, of course) that no way on earth would they contribute a donation to pay for something only Aucklanders use.
But that is often the case, of course, is that the big city draws the tax dollars, draws the support, draws the news and press coverage. I don’t know if this is typical, but I’ve not heard of it: the 2007/08 budget was announced and major roading improvements to the Auckland region to be completed over the coming year will be largely paid for out of an increase in the petrol tax only in the Auckland region.
Having said all this, I can think of numerous times that I have gone to Richmond (town next to Nelson, pop. 10,000) or talked to a Richmonder and heard about “big city Nelson” and how it costs so much to shop there and park there and it’s just not family oriented any more, as if it’s really cosmopolitan or something! HILARIOUS, I suppose the feeling of big city, small town happens everywhere!
My friend Jade recently returned from a 5-week trip to Los Angeles, London, major cities in Europe, Turkey and Phuket in Thailand. (Whew! Can you say whirlwind?!) But she said she learned one thing on her trip, taking the wise advice of a friend in London: remember, things aren’t better or worse, they’re just different.
How true, something we all absolutely must remember when we travel for sure. But it is something you need to remember as well if you move to another country. (I would suggest you not just remember it, but live by it!) How many times have I uttered that phrase in our experience moving to New Zealand??!! And this country is a modern, English-speaking country, you can’t get much closer to home. It never fails to amaze me just how much remains different here down under.
I can tell you I often think “that’s different AND it’s better, waayyy better.” But I’m biased and that’s why I moved here in the first place! And then there are things that you’ll say “well, that’s different AND it’s icky too.” In the latter category, I have to admit, I don’t like the way Kiwis take care of their cats.
I’m a cat lover, a cat person, I think my cats are my kids, etc. etc. etc. So be forewarned about my position.
First, cats here live outdoors. Housecats. They live outdoors. Not in houses. I guess now there is an exception, and that is my cutie Olivia. She is the only cat I know of that doesn’t go outside. Based on everything I know from my veterinarian and various humane societies, cats who live outdoors are less healthy, lead more dangerous lives, and have shorter life spans. I know cats live outdoors in the States too, but there are probably as many who live indoors. Not here. All cats spend days and nights outside, coming in and out either through a cat door or by the owner’s opening of a door.
The same end results of cats living outdoors exists here as in the States: they are dirty, get into fights, pick up illnesses and diseases, and get run over by cars. One of my friends has two hairy loved ones, and one gets into fights all the time. She’s had to take him several times to see the vet because he developed abseces from fight injuries.
One of my workmates had an older cat who had kittens; she kept one of them (another issue if they are not de-sexed/neutered or spayed) and has come to love that little thing to death. She lives only a driveway away from State Highway 6, the national highway in our region. It’s busy, all the time. At 11 months or something, her cat got hit by a car, broke a hind leg and front paw, I believe, and had to be rushed to the vet. Luckily she survived and was nursed back to health after months of healing from bone repairs. Of course, she (the cat) wanted to head right back outside straight away, but she was made to wait a week or so. Now she still heads outside just the same as always, except with a limp.
A few weeks after we moved into our current house, the carcass of a cat that had clearly been run over by a car was sitting on the edge of the footpath just down the road a bit after someone clearly moved it off the road for the owner to find it and take care of it. You may be asking yourself, “take care of it? What does that mean?” Well, it means putting the cat carcass in the rubbish bin for weekly pickup. But the owner of this poor cat never claimed the body and it lay out there for days, until the next rubbish pick up.
I’ve mentioned people I know not to place blame. I accept (sorta but not really) that this is the way it is for poor pussycats in New Zealand. Everyone treats them this way, it is part of the culture. For now I guess we live as an example only.
