I went in for my follow-up visit yesterday to the doc. (Follow-ups are half-price within 48 hours you know.) Anyway, the doc pretty much figured that after four days, I probably wasn't too likely to have appendicitis. Likely culprit? Salmonella or giardia.
The docs ordered some tests done and I should know for certain within the next couple of days. I think it's mostly a moot point though as I'm feeling about 95% today.
Anyway, this wasn't intended to be so much of a "How's Peter Doing?" sort of post. I more wanted to give a little glimpse into what seeing the doctor in NZ is like.
In general, it's a lot like going to a clinic in the US, but with a bit less waiting than I've ever seen in the US. Your experience may vary. Both doctors that I talked to seemed knowledgeable and willing to speak to me frankly and in technical terms. They have a network of medical diagnostic labs here, so any time you need to have blood work or any other testing done, you simply go to the closest branch. That's extremely handy. And, being NZ residents walking in off the street, two doctors visits cost a total of $105. Not super cheap, but definitely better than paying a premium for health insurance plus a deductible. There are some "frequent user" programs that can drop those prices even more.
It looks like I won't get to experience a kiwi appendectomy after all, but from what I've seen of the system, it works. Gee, who'd have thought? Socialized medicine works? Shocker!
Monday, April 16, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
First experience with NZ medical establishment
So, almost three days ago, I started having a low grade fever and chills. Pretty standard. Chilly weather has started, and I pretty much figured that I was about due for a case of the sniffles.
Well, about two days ago, I started getting some mild pain in my lower abdomen. Nothing to write home about, nothing bad. Well yesterday that mild dull aching pain migrated and seems to have localized itself in my lower right abdomen. Ugh.
I called the local hospital and asked if I should come in. They referred me to a medical advice hot-line staffed by registered nurses. She asked me a bunch of questions about the pain, the nature of the pain, any fever, etc. She then cautiously said that I should probably take a trip in to the doctor and recommended a 24/7 clinic here on the North Shore. I asked her if I should go in now, or wait till morning. She told me it was my choice, but that she'd suggest going in now.
I met a doctor who poked and prodded my abdomen. I had the classic textbook symptoms of appendicitis--pain that starts below the navel and eventually settles around the appendix. However, I didn't have severe pain and I didn't have "guarding" or uncontrolled tensing of the abdominal muscles when poked in the appendix. Pretty suspicious stuff, but nothing to get too worked up over. He recommended drinking plenty of water and sleeping on it. Presumably it would be better or worse in the morning.
It's morning now and I don't really feel better or worse. After I have a chance to wake up a bit, I think I'll probably call back in to the clinic and ask, "now what?"
Well, about two days ago, I started getting some mild pain in my lower abdomen. Nothing to write home about, nothing bad. Well yesterday that mild dull aching pain migrated and seems to have localized itself in my lower right abdomen. Ugh.
I called the local hospital and asked if I should come in. They referred me to a medical advice hot-line staffed by registered nurses. She asked me a bunch of questions about the pain, the nature of the pain, any fever, etc. She then cautiously said that I should probably take a trip in to the doctor and recommended a 24/7 clinic here on the North Shore. I asked her if I should go in now, or wait till morning. She told me it was my choice, but that she'd suggest going in now.
I met a doctor who poked and prodded my abdomen. I had the classic textbook symptoms of appendicitis--pain that starts below the navel and eventually settles around the appendix. However, I didn't have severe pain and I didn't have "guarding" or uncontrolled tensing of the abdominal muscles when poked in the appendix. Pretty suspicious stuff, but nothing to get too worked up over. He recommended drinking plenty of water and sleeping on it. Presumably it would be better or worse in the morning.
It's morning now and I don't really feel better or worse. After I have a chance to wake up a bit, I think I'll probably call back in to the clinic and ask, "now what?"
Monday, April 09, 2007
In Other Easter News...
You'll be pleased to note that 16,121 bunnies were killed in Central Otago during the annual Easter Bunny Hunt this year. As a major pest in New Zealand, Kiwis are pretty pleased with the haul.
Another story in today's paper reports that the Easter kiwi (that's the bird, not the fruit or the person) has been voted the preferred Easter mascot for New Zealand by the people at the Makenzie Easter Show in Canterbury.
Maybe we'll see chocolate kiwis popping up in the seasonal isles of the supermarket next year.
Another story in today's paper reports that the Easter kiwi (that's the bird, not the fruit or the person) has been voted the preferred Easter mascot for New Zealand by the people at the Makenzie Easter Show in Canterbury.
Maybe we'll see chocolate kiwis popping up in the seasonal isles of the supermarket next year.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Montana Jazz Festival - Tauranga review
Easter weekend we hopped in the car and headed down to the Montana Jazz Festival in Tauranga (yes, New Zealand). Being jazz aficionados from Montana, it's a little strange seeing Montana logos, jazz, palm trees, and beaches all in one place. We're familiar with this excellent Montana Jazz Festival. Additionally, we spent some quality time with our good friends Tim and Sara who also moved from Missoula to New Zealand and are now living in sunny Tauranga.
Tauranga was clearly the place to be over the Easter holiday. New Zealand has a silly law that causes most businesses to close Easter weekend. I say it's a silly law, because most kiwis don't even go to church. Enacted 17 years ago, it's not like the Easter weekend trading law is some sort of grand old tradition. I'll go on record as calling it a lame, anachronistic "blue law" that has no place in a secular country.
Tauranga doesn't suffer from the trade act because it has a jazz festival. I think it's because we jazz types are in cahoots with Satan, and he knows which strings to pull to get an exemption. I'm not sure what it means, but in Tauranga, you could even get some "coffee up your jazz."
As we arrived downtown, it was clear this was a big festival. A number of roads were blocked off and the sound of one band bled into the next. As we walked down one street, we saw the NZ Air Force band playing an excellent rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Hey, that's pretty funky. The female vocalist singing most definitely had pipes. They finished to boisterous applause despite playing a small side-street venue. Then they launched into another Stevie Wonder chart. They must have been doing a Stevie Wonder tribute gig. Hey, they're an Air force band, they can get away some kitsch--it is a festival after all.
But as we walked from venue to venue, I noticed that everyone we heard was playing covers. They weren't just covers, but covers of pop music done "jazzy." The jazz we heard were mostly standards. There's nothing wrong with playing some of the standards, but it felt a little tired to hear the most standard of standards against a backdrop of jazzy pop oldies.
Out of the approximately 15 songs I heard, some 12 were clearly identifiable covers or "ultra" standards. I hate to sound like a whiner, but a steady diet of (I'm not making this up) the theme from "Love boat" or a swing rendition of "All Along The Watchtower" started grating on me.
By the time we decided to head back to Auckland, I'd pretty given up on hearing jazz. It was fun; it had a nice carnival atmosphere (complete with bouncy castles, jugglers, and escape artists), but it wasn't really a jazz festival in any way that I was familiar with. It lacked authenticity. I began to realize that the festival was a ruse for bars to sell a whole lot of food and booze on Easter weekend.
Fortunately, on the way back to car we found salvation. There was a little trio setting up down one of the side streets. They had their white hippy van parked next to them, their dog lazily lying in the shade.
And I'll be damned if they weren't playing honest to goodness real jazz. They had some rough transitions in spots, but they were playing together and off of each other. And for the 40 minutes that we listened, they didn't trot out any pop covers.
Tim asked what their band was called. "Do you have any suggestions?" they laughed. This was in sharp contrast to pretentiously named groups like the Grant Winterburn Experience. Thank you, anonymous band. You saved Easter.
...
As a postscript, anyone near Missoula in April should go hear the Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival at UM. Bob Mintzer is going to be there, and he's brilliant.
Tauranga was clearly the place to be over the Easter holiday. New Zealand has a silly law that causes most businesses to close Easter weekend. I say it's a silly law, because most kiwis don't even go to church. Enacted 17 years ago, it's not like the Easter weekend trading law is some sort of grand old tradition. I'll go on record as calling it a lame, anachronistic "blue law" that has no place in a secular country.
Tauranga doesn't suffer from the trade act because it has a jazz festival. I think it's because we jazz types are in cahoots with Satan, and he knows which strings to pull to get an exemption. I'm not sure what it means, but in Tauranga, you could even get some "coffee up your jazz."
As we arrived downtown, it was clear this was a big festival. A number of roads were blocked off and the sound of one band bled into the next. As we walked down one street, we saw the NZ Air Force band playing an excellent rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Hey, that's pretty funky. The female vocalist singing most definitely had pipes. They finished to boisterous applause despite playing a small side-street venue. Then they launched into another Stevie Wonder chart. They must have been doing a Stevie Wonder tribute gig. Hey, they're an Air force band, they can get away some kitsch--it is a festival after all.
But as we walked from venue to venue, I noticed that everyone we heard was playing covers. They weren't just covers, but covers of pop music done "jazzy." The jazz we heard were mostly standards. There's nothing wrong with playing some of the standards, but it felt a little tired to hear the most standard of standards against a backdrop of jazzy pop oldies.
Out of the approximately 15 songs I heard, some 12 were clearly identifiable covers or "ultra" standards. I hate to sound like a whiner, but a steady diet of (I'm not making this up) the theme from "Love boat" or a swing rendition of "All Along The Watchtower" started grating on me.
By the time we decided to head back to Auckland, I'd pretty given up on hearing jazz. It was fun; it had a nice carnival atmosphere (complete with bouncy castles, jugglers, and escape artists), but it wasn't really a jazz festival in any way that I was familiar with. It lacked authenticity. I began to realize that the festival was a ruse for bars to sell a whole lot of food and booze on Easter weekend.
Fortunately, on the way back to car we found salvation. There was a little trio setting up down one of the side streets. They had their white hippy van parked next to them, their dog lazily lying in the shade.
And I'll be damned if they weren't playing honest to goodness real jazz. They had some rough transitions in spots, but they were playing together and off of each other. And for the 40 minutes that we listened, they didn't trot out any pop covers.
Tim asked what their band was called. "Do you have any suggestions?" they laughed. This was in sharp contrast to pretentiously named groups like the Grant Winterburn Experience. Thank you, anonymous band. You saved Easter.
...
As a postscript, anyone near Missoula in April should go hear the Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival at UM. Bob Mintzer is going to be there, and he's brilliant.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
How I'm spending my summer non-vacation
Did you know that everything is the opposite of the US in New Zealand? Students go to school in the summer, boys play jump rope in high school, and teachers can actually pay the bills on a first year teacher's salary.
Of course I'm speaking with a bit of hyperbole, but not much. Indeed, it's summer right now and school started for me 5 weeks ago. While I was baking away in my office last week I wandered over to the window to get a bit of a breeze. My shared window looks out over one of the sports fields, and what do I spy on the far edge of the PE activities but a group of students playing jump rope. Blink, blink. At a boys' high school. Blink, blink. Later that day I was talking with the boys on the tennis team I manage, and I mentioned that boys don't jump rope in the States. Nor do they usually play volleyball competitively in high school. They were aghast; volleyball is one of the more popular sports for boys here. "Skipping rope is just...well...fun," they added. We all had a good chuckle about those backward Americans that were stuck down in the Northern Hemisphere.
Of course there are those things that span cultures as well. Boys still scratch themselves flagrantly in public places, their feet smell just as bad (if not worse) down here, and I'm realising that teaching is basically the same no matter where you do it. Given a little support and respect, every day can be productive and enjoyable. And, of course, we all have our off days.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) my life is revolving pleasantly around my work these days. Sorry about the lack of blog posts, but I just haven't really done much in the last month or so. I get to work while the sun rises over Rangitoto Island, which I can barely see from my office window, and I typically don't finish my day until about 6 pm. Monday nights I go back to school for an evening Maori language course that is run through our Community Education department. Teachers study for free and partners get in half price, so Peter's taking a Russian conversation class on Tuesdays.
Saturday mornings I cheer on the tennis team that I "manage." I've not been asked to coach, but instead to organise a group of boys to play socially. We practice once a week if they are done with their homework and I go to their matches every Saturday to keep score. So my Saturday mornings are spent outside in the sun with a group of friendly young men who enjoy playing a sport simply for the fun of it. Things could be worse; I could be asked to coach pee wee soccer in the suburbs of America.
I've had some requests to share my experience teaching in New Zealand schools. My goal is to set up a separate blog for that purpose. Watch this space, as they say, for the upcoming URL. I'm probably going to get that going come the end of the first quarter of school. That's coming up in-yikes!-4 weeks. Man! Time flies when you're having fun.
Pictures of my school will be forthcoming as well once I figure out if it's legal for me to go snapping photos of my workplace to post on the net.
Of course I'm speaking with a bit of hyperbole, but not much. Indeed, it's summer right now and school started for me 5 weeks ago. While I was baking away in my office last week I wandered over to the window to get a bit of a breeze. My shared window looks out over one of the sports fields, and what do I spy on the far edge of the PE activities but a group of students playing jump rope. Blink, blink. At a boys' high school. Blink, blink. Later that day I was talking with the boys on the tennis team I manage, and I mentioned that boys don't jump rope in the States. Nor do they usually play volleyball competitively in high school. They were aghast; volleyball is one of the more popular sports for boys here. "Skipping rope is just...well...fun," they added. We all had a good chuckle about those backward Americans that were stuck down in the Northern Hemisphere.
Of course there are those things that span cultures as well. Boys still scratch themselves flagrantly in public places, their feet smell just as bad (if not worse) down here, and I'm realising that teaching is basically the same no matter where you do it. Given a little support and respect, every day can be productive and enjoyable. And, of course, we all have our off days.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) my life is revolving pleasantly around my work these days. Sorry about the lack of blog posts, but I just haven't really done much in the last month or so. I get to work while the sun rises over Rangitoto Island, which I can barely see from my office window, and I typically don't finish my day until about 6 pm. Monday nights I go back to school for an evening Maori language course that is run through our Community Education department. Teachers study for free and partners get in half price, so Peter's taking a Russian conversation class on Tuesdays.
Saturday mornings I cheer on the tennis team that I "manage." I've not been asked to coach, but instead to organise a group of boys to play socially. We practice once a week if they are done with their homework and I go to their matches every Saturday to keep score. So my Saturday mornings are spent outside in the sun with a group of friendly young men who enjoy playing a sport simply for the fun of it. Things could be worse; I could be asked to coach pee wee soccer in the suburbs of America.
I've had some requests to share my experience teaching in New Zealand schools. My goal is to set up a separate blog for that purpose. Watch this space, as they say, for the upcoming URL. I'm probably going to get that going come the end of the first quarter of school. That's coming up in-yikes!-4 weeks. Man! Time flies when you're having fun.
Pictures of my school will be forthcoming as well once I figure out if it's legal for me to go snapping photos of my workplace to post on the net.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Did you know? (Plus a summer update)
California redwood trees have been imported to Aotearoa. I took this picture at the One Tree Hill Domain in central Auckland:
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Rest assured, California readers, that you will not get homesick here.
On another note, summer is treating us well. I sort of feel like we've just arrived here in New Zealand. Despite many of the disparaging things we've heard from many kiwis about Auckland, I have to confess that I'm really liking it here. In retrospect, moving down in time for a second winter was ill-advised and probably soured us on Wellington. Fortunately, summer erases all problems.
Yeah, traffic's bad, but it could be a lot worse. Yeah, public transit could be better, but I can mostly get where I want to get on it. Yeah, finding real chiles and tomatillos is nearly impossible. But all of this has the spectacular backdrop of beaches, ferns, grass-covered volcanic cones, shimmering water, and impossibly blue skies.
The only thing I can really complain about these days is that I'm getting a touch bored staying home while Roni goes to work. (What a problem to have!)
So, I've officially started looking for a new job. Words cannot express how much more relaxed I am about finding a job this time. Roni's job pretty much pays our bills, so I feel like I've got some more leeway to do fun stuff. I'm going to look into doing some contract work. It's less stable than a "real" job, but it's potentially more lucrative and would give me opportunities to take time off if and when I have a project that I want to chase after.
Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop blogging, brushing up on my programming skills, and studying for the Russian conversation class I'm taking on Tuesday evenings.
Yup, life is good. I could get used to this.
.jpg)
Rest assured, California readers, that you will not get homesick here.
On another note, summer is treating us well. I sort of feel like we've just arrived here in New Zealand. Despite many of the disparaging things we've heard from many kiwis about Auckland, I have to confess that I'm really liking it here. In retrospect, moving down in time for a second winter was ill-advised and probably soured us on Wellington. Fortunately, summer erases all problems.
Yeah, traffic's bad, but it could be a lot worse. Yeah, public transit could be better, but I can mostly get where I want to get on it. Yeah, finding real chiles and tomatillos is nearly impossible. But all of this has the spectacular backdrop of beaches, ferns, grass-covered volcanic cones, shimmering water, and impossibly blue skies.
The only thing I can really complain about these days is that I'm getting a touch bored staying home while Roni goes to work. (What a problem to have!)
So, I've officially started looking for a new job. Words cannot express how much more relaxed I am about finding a job this time. Roni's job pretty much pays our bills, so I feel like I've got some more leeway to do fun stuff. I'm going to look into doing some contract work. It's less stable than a "real" job, but it's potentially more lucrative and would give me opportunities to take time off if and when I have a project that I want to chase after.
Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop blogging, brushing up on my programming skills, and studying for the Russian conversation class I'm taking on Tuesday evenings.
Yup, life is good. I could get used to this.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Devonport auto show
The other day, while driving home, I was struck by a strange conglomeration of surprise and surprise at my lack of surprise. Here's a photo:
My surprise: Hey, there's a Corvette. You don't see many of those here.
My lack of surprise: Huh, (look carefully now) it's got a California licence plate.
My surprise at my lack of surprise: It's got a California license plate???
Okay, I'll admit it, we drove right by the turnoff to our house so that we could tail them. We had to get a picture. Unfortunately, my cellphone was the best we had. I was driving, and Roni didn't know how to use the camera on my phone. Sorry, this was the best picture we could get.
Anyway, upon closer inspection we realized that, not only was this a California registered Corvette, the steering wheel and driver were on the traditional American side of the vehicle. Very odd.
We thought about following them and asking them about their car and why they had it in Devonport, but we decided that would make us look too stalkerish. In retrospect, anyone who loves their car enough to ship it to New Zealand probably wouldn't have minded bragging on it to a couple of American emigrés.
Trivia:
Corvette rhymes with courgette, which is what they call zucchini here. Messed up, huh?
My surprise: Hey, there's a Corvette. You don't see many of those here.
My lack of surprise: Huh, (look carefully now) it's got a California licence plate.
My surprise at my lack of surprise: It's got a California license plate???
Okay, I'll admit it, we drove right by the turnoff to our house so that we could tail them. We had to get a picture. Unfortunately, my cellphone was the best we had. I was driving, and Roni didn't know how to use the camera on my phone. Sorry, this was the best picture we could get.
Anyway, upon closer inspection we realized that, not only was this a California registered Corvette, the steering wheel and driver were on the traditional American side of the vehicle. Very odd.
We thought about following them and asking them about their car and why they had it in Devonport, but we decided that would make us look too stalkerish. In retrospect, anyone who loves their car enough to ship it to New Zealand probably wouldn't have minded bragging on it to a couple of American emigrés.
Trivia:
Corvette rhymes with courgette, which is what they call zucchini here. Messed up, huh?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Living in the 'net boondocks
The stages of culture shock are reasonably well known:
1. The honeymoon stage ("gee ,everyone / everything is so different and nice")
2. The irritation / anger stage ("why the heck do they do that?")
3. The rejection stage ("oh, it's kiwi, it must be bad")
4. The integration stage ("eh, when in Rome. . .")
5. The reentry stage ("Were things really like this before I left?")
I preface this entry with the qualifier to point out that things could really be worse. We live within a 5 minute walk of the beach. I get a great view of the Hauraki Gulf and Auckland's majestic harbor bridge when I walk down the driveway to the mailbox.
Ultimately, however, this story is fixed somewhere between points 2 and 3 on the culture shock list. Those who are faint of heart and those who are enamored with New Zealand's telecommunications infrastructure are advised that this author intends to express some particularly vitriolic sentiments about New Zealand telecommunications.
First, a little history: When we arrived in New Zealand, one of the first things we did was to look for a café with wireless internet access. Auckland, City of Sails, home to approximately 1.2 million people, is a modern, cosmopolitan city. By contrast, Missoula is a city of under 60 thousand, surrounded by a vast expanse of rural. In Missoula, the coffee shops have offered free wireless internet, or 'wifi,' for several years. In fact, Missoula's wifi hotspots came to several local bars and even to the Mount Olympus of microbreweries, The Kettlehouse. (As an aside, people sometimes ask us if we miss anything from the States that they could send. Yes. We miss Double Haul IPA from the Kettlehouse. It comes in shippable cans.)
The state of wifi in Auckland, however, was a bit different as we soon found out. We stopped into a handful of non-Starbucks coffee shops along Queen Street, the cosmopolitan center of Auckland, and asked, "Do you have wifi here?" Most responded, "Huh"? A few responded, "Uh, no."
Hmm. . . This doesn't look promising. Well, we needed to tell the family that we made it alive, so we swallowed our pride and went to a Starbucks. "$10 / hour for wifi?! " Well, that clearly wasn't going to be sustainable. So, we economized on internet usage and found other internet cafés that were (*cough*) less posh than your average Starbucks (and not even in the same ballpark as our local coffee shops in Missoula).
We went through a dark period in Wellington when we ended up buying dial-up access just so that we could search for jobs online. But, I found work and we moved into a slightly more permanent apartment. We could get broadband! In our own house!
We were so excited, we hardly even cared that our broadband was:
1. incredibly slow
2. required us to pay for a phone line that we didn't need or want
3. limited the amount we could download (In Missoula, like most places in the US, broadband is unlimited)
4. cost twice as much as the service we left in Missoula (above and beyond the $30/month phone service that we didn't really need).
This was all okay until a variety of factors led to us moving north from Wellington to the warmer and much less windy climate of Auckland. Upon planning our cross country move to Auckland, one of the first things we did was to schedule a service move with Telecom for our phone and Internet. We were very explicit about timing. I was planning to take some time off to do some personal skills development, and the Internet factored heavily into those plans. We didn't want any screw-ups. We called well in advance.
Fast forward to our arrival in Auckland. After a long hard day's drive, I decided it would be nice to kick back, check my e-mail, and catch up the news. So, I plugged in our networking stuff and got ready for some much deserved web surfing.
Nothing.
Okay, let's do some troubleshooting (as you know, I'm rather proud of my Shaolin-like computing abilities.). About 2 minutes of troubleshooting later and I've decided to see if I can even get a dial tone off the phone line. I plug in a phone and listen. "Hey, hon! I can hear the ocean in here." Frack.
The next day, we go to the neighbor's apartment, introduce ourselves, and ask to use her phone to call Telecom. While we're making small talk with our neighbor, we ask her if she ever has problems with her phone. "Oh yeah," she says, "Since we had a big lightning strike last year, everyone in this area has been having odd problems."
Oh, boy.
I reach Telecom, report the fault, and they tell me that it's going to be over a week before they can get a technician out to look at the problem. I, downtrodden, hang up. No, wait! I come from America, land of consumer activism. Didn't a Montanan just win a New Zealander of the year award for her work in consumer advocacy? She even lives up here in the North Shore!
The next day, I called back to Telecom and very politely told them my predicament and asked them if there was any way they could expedite the technician. (Word to the wise: always be friendly with anyone you speak to at any tech support group. Being rude exponentially decreases your chance of a favorable resolution.) "Yeah, we can get a technician out in 3 days." Not the best, but better than the previous estimate. I take it.
Finally, Telecom Technician Day comes. We are elated. After digging around at our jacks for a while, and poking around outside, we have a dial tone and Internet! We are elated. . . .
Later that day: "Does it seem like things are really slow?" I ask. "Yeah, it does," says Roni. "Does it seem like a lot of pages won't load on the first try?" I ask. "Yeah, it does," says Roni.
I get back on the phone with Telecom and explain the predicament. They say they'll get a tech out in about a week. Yay.
Technicians come, technicians go. I estimate I've called Telecom about 15 times in the last month and a half. I think Telecom has sent a half dozen technicians. I have case numbers with Telecom's technical support, Xtra Broadband's (Telecom's broadband partner) "advanced ADSL helpdesk," Telecom's customer support, and one of Telecom's line repair outsource providers--plus a couple other case numbers that I can't remember where they go to.
Last week we had a very friendly line technician come to our apartment. He determined the problem was definitely not in our house, but in the main line servicing the area. "Oh yes, that lightning strike last year really caused a lot of problems in this area," he explained. Unfortunately, he couldn't really do anything. It was another group's responsibility, and (wouldn't you know it?) he can't see the fault anymore anyway. Of course he couldn't see the fault; our DSL connection drops intermittently. He told us to let them know if we continued to have any problems.
I've decided I need to ramp things up a little. I started using a network tool called 'ping' to determine when our connection goes down. (I apologize to the techies for the oversimplified explanation. I also apologize to the non-techies for the overly technical explanation.) Basically, what I've been doing is saying "are you there?" to Telecom every three seconds for 24 hours at a time. If Telecom responds, I know that our connection is still up.
In one 24 hour span, our connection might drop as few as 20 times. 10 hours in to the current test, it has already dropped over 40 times. D'oh!
"Pinging" doesn't just tell me how often our connection drops. It can also tell me how long it takes information to cross our scratchy lines to Telecom. The time it takes for us to talk to Telecom would not make a satellite internet provider proud. (Satellites beam a signal over 22,000 miles and are notorious for high latency pings.) Ouch.
We can't even carry on an instant messenger conversation without frequent interruptions. A common conversation looks like this:
Friend: "Hi, Peter. How's it going?"
Peter: "Great. How are you doing?"
Friend ". . ."
Friend ". . ."
Peter: "Are you there?"
Friend ". . ."
Peter: "Damn."
There are plenty of reasons to move to NZ. If you are an IT professional or must otherwise rely on an internet connection for your livelihood, New Zealand probably isn't right for you.
Anyway, I called back to Telecom today to let them know that, yes, I'm still having the problem. They're going send a tech out sometime next week.
1. The honeymoon stage ("gee ,everyone / everything is so different and nice")
2. The irritation / anger stage ("why the heck do they do that?")
3. The rejection stage ("oh, it's kiwi, it must be bad")
4. The integration stage ("eh, when in Rome. . .")
5. The reentry stage ("Were things really like this before I left?")
I preface this entry with the qualifier to point out that things could really be worse. We live within a 5 minute walk of the beach. I get a great view of the Hauraki Gulf and Auckland's majestic harbor bridge when I walk down the driveway to the mailbox.
Ultimately, however, this story is fixed somewhere between points 2 and 3 on the culture shock list. Those who are faint of heart and those who are enamored with New Zealand's telecommunications infrastructure are advised that this author intends to express some particularly vitriolic sentiments about New Zealand telecommunications.
First, a little history: When we arrived in New Zealand, one of the first things we did was to look for a café with wireless internet access. Auckland, City of Sails, home to approximately 1.2 million people, is a modern, cosmopolitan city. By contrast, Missoula is a city of under 60 thousand, surrounded by a vast expanse of rural. In Missoula, the coffee shops have offered free wireless internet, or 'wifi,' for several years. In fact, Missoula's wifi hotspots came to several local bars and even to the Mount Olympus of microbreweries, The Kettlehouse. (As an aside, people sometimes ask us if we miss anything from the States that they could send. Yes. We miss Double Haul IPA from the Kettlehouse. It comes in shippable cans.)
The state of wifi in Auckland, however, was a bit different as we soon found out. We stopped into a handful of non-Starbucks coffee shops along Queen Street, the cosmopolitan center of Auckland, and asked, "Do you have wifi here?" Most responded, "Huh"? A few responded, "Uh, no."
Hmm. . . This doesn't look promising. Well, we needed to tell the family that we made it alive, so we swallowed our pride and went to a Starbucks. "$10 / hour for wifi?! " Well, that clearly wasn't going to be sustainable. So, we economized on internet usage and found other internet cafés that were (*cough*) less posh than your average Starbucks (and not even in the same ballpark as our local coffee shops in Missoula).
We went through a dark period in Wellington when we ended up buying dial-up access just so that we could search for jobs online. But, I found work and we moved into a slightly more permanent apartment. We could get broadband! In our own house!
We were so excited, we hardly even cared that our broadband was:
1. incredibly slow
2. required us to pay for a phone line that we didn't need or want
3. limited the amount we could download (In Missoula, like most places in the US, broadband is unlimited)
4. cost twice as much as the service we left in Missoula (above and beyond the $30/month phone service that we didn't really need).
This was all okay until a variety of factors led to us moving north from Wellington to the warmer and much less windy climate of Auckland. Upon planning our cross country move to Auckland, one of the first things we did was to schedule a service move with Telecom for our phone and Internet. We were very explicit about timing. I was planning to take some time off to do some personal skills development, and the Internet factored heavily into those plans. We didn't want any screw-ups. We called well in advance.
Fast forward to our arrival in Auckland. After a long hard day's drive, I decided it would be nice to kick back, check my e-mail, and catch up the news. So, I plugged in our networking stuff and got ready for some much deserved web surfing.
Nothing.
Okay, let's do some troubleshooting (as you know, I'm rather proud of my Shaolin-like computing abilities.). About 2 minutes of troubleshooting later and I've decided to see if I can even get a dial tone off the phone line. I plug in a phone and listen. "Hey, hon! I can hear the ocean in here." Frack.
The next day, we go to the neighbor's apartment, introduce ourselves, and ask to use her phone to call Telecom. While we're making small talk with our neighbor, we ask her if she ever has problems with her phone. "Oh yeah," she says, "Since we had a big lightning strike last year, everyone in this area has been having odd problems."
Oh, boy.
I reach Telecom, report the fault, and they tell me that it's going to be over a week before they can get a technician out to look at the problem. I, downtrodden, hang up. No, wait! I come from America, land of consumer activism. Didn't a Montanan just win a New Zealander of the year award for her work in consumer advocacy? She even lives up here in the North Shore!
The next day, I called back to Telecom and very politely told them my predicament and asked them if there was any way they could expedite the technician. (Word to the wise: always be friendly with anyone you speak to at any tech support group. Being rude exponentially decreases your chance of a favorable resolution.)
Finally, Telecom Technician Day comes. We are elated. After digging around at our jacks for a while, and poking around outside, we have a dial tone and Internet! We are elated. . . .
Later that day: "Does it seem like things are really slow?" I ask. "Yeah, it does," says Roni. "Does it seem like a lot of pages won't load on the first try?" I ask. "Yeah, it does," says Roni.
I get back on the phone with Telecom and explain the predicament. They say they'll get a tech out in about a week. Yay.
Technicians come, technicians go. I estimate I've called Telecom about 15 times in the last month and a half. I think Telecom has sent a half dozen technicians. I have case numbers with Telecom's technical support, Xtra Broadband's (Telecom's broadband partner) "advanced ADSL helpdesk," Telecom's customer support, and one of Telecom's line repair outsource providers--plus a couple other case numbers that I can't remember where they go to.
Last week we had a very friendly line technician come to our apartment. He determined the problem was definitely not in our house, but in the main line servicing the area. "Oh yes, that lightning strike last year really caused a lot of problems in this area," he explained. Unfortunately, he couldn't really do anything. It was another group's responsibility, and (wouldn't you know it?) he can't see the fault anymore anyway. Of course he couldn't see the fault; our DSL connection drops intermittently. He told us to let them know if we continued to have any problems.
I've decided I need to ramp things up a little. I started using a network tool called 'ping' to determine when our connection goes down. (I apologize to the techies for the oversimplified explanation. I also apologize to the non-techies for the overly technical explanation.) Basically, what I've been doing is saying "are you there?" to Telecom every three seconds for 24 hours at a time. If Telecom responds, I know that our connection is still up.
In one 24 hour span, our connection might drop as few as 20 times. 10 hours in to the current test, it has already dropped over 40 times. D'oh!
"Pinging" doesn't just tell me how often our connection drops. It can also tell me how long it takes information to cross our scratchy lines to Telecom. The time it takes for us to talk to Telecom would not make a satellite internet provider proud. (Satellites beam a signal over 22,000 miles and are notorious for high latency pings.) Ouch.
We can't even carry on an instant messenger conversation without frequent interruptions. A common conversation looks like this:
Friend: "Hi, Peter. How's it going?"
Peter: "Great. How are you doing?"
Friend ". . ."
Friend ". . ."
Peter: "Are you there?"
Friend ". . ."
Peter: "Damn."
There are plenty of reasons to move to NZ. If you are an IT professional or must otherwise rely on an internet connection for your livelihood, New Zealand probably isn't right for you.
Anyway, I called back to Telecom today to let them know that, yes, I'm still having the problem. They're going send a tech out sometime next week.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Beef...oh, so THAT'S what's for dinner!
Continuing on with our "Things to Eat in New Zealand" thread of blog entries, we have a few new gems for all of our devoted readers. Some of you may remember the Great Wallaby Incident of '06 we wrote about a while ago. Well, for all of you living in cattle country, here's another meaty wonder just for you.
Peter immediately started laughing in the grocery store when he saw this and snapped a picture with his cell phone. I just sighed; I had seen this before in other supermarkets. What has the world come to? And just what were these sausages made of if not beef? They had no ingredient label, so my mind just had to wander through all of the worst case scenarios as we walked by the sheep's kidneys toward the kleenex isle. The best thing I can say about these sausages is that they were much cheaper than any of the other items in the meat case. Needless to say we didn't get any.
We also saw this product near the checkout stand. Part of me actually wanted to by a box, just to compare it to the original. I know that they call raisins 'sultanas' here and that it probably tastes exactly like it does in the States, but still. Unfortunately, like most of the imported food here (and a lot of it is imported), it cost way more than I wanted to pay for it. We're in the process of sifting through the markets to find the cheap and healthy locally produced food. It's not proving an easy task, but since when is anything healthy or responsible easy?
I'll end this post with nod to all of you Futurama fans out there. I actually found this product at a dairy (aka convenience store) in Wellington. Not only was is Bachelor's brand food product (conjuring up images of Fry living on specially formulated brown stuff in the year 3000), but it claimed to be the UK's favourite mutilated vegetable matter.
My official review is mixed. It was better than I expected it to be-reminiscent of the condensed Campbell's split pea and bacon soup I loved as a kid-but still a cylindrical mass o' mashed vegetable that tasted just about as good as something like that can. I would only recommend this product to people with a nagging and sick sense of curiosity who also have $2.50 to spare.
Peter immediately started laughing in the grocery store when he saw this and snapped a picture with his cell phone. I just sighed; I had seen this before in other supermarkets. What has the world come to? And just what were these sausages made of if not beef? They had no ingredient label, so my mind just had to wander through all of the worst case scenarios as we walked by the sheep's kidneys toward the kleenex isle. The best thing I can say about these sausages is that they were much cheaper than any of the other items in the meat case. Needless to say we didn't get any.
We also saw this product near the checkout stand. Part of me actually wanted to by a box, just to compare it to the original. I know that they call raisins 'sultanas' here and that it probably tastes exactly like it does in the States, but still. Unfortunately, like most of the imported food here (and a lot of it is imported), it cost way more than I wanted to pay for it. We're in the process of sifting through the markets to find the cheap and healthy locally produced food. It's not proving an easy task, but since when is anything healthy or responsible easy?
I'll end this post with nod to all of you Futurama fans out there. I actually found this product at a dairy (aka convenience store) in Wellington. Not only was is Bachelor's brand food product (conjuring up images of Fry living on specially formulated brown stuff in the year 3000), but it claimed to be the UK's favourite mutilated vegetable matter.
My official review is mixed. It was better than I expected it to be-reminiscent of the condensed Campbell's split pea and bacon soup I loved as a kid-but still a cylindrical mass o' mashed vegetable that tasted just about as good as something like that can. I would only recommend this product to people with a nagging and sick sense of curiosity who also have $2.50 to spare.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Greetings from Auckland
So...Auckland.
Big. Sprawling. Culturally diverse. Warmer than Wellington. Rolling waves of suburbia. Surrounded by teal water and walkable-in-your-bare-feet beaches. Home of the Sky Tower and the All Blacks. Also goes by the friendly monicker of "The City of Sails." Population: 1,158,891. Number of cars: roughly 660,000. And now officially the home of Peter and Roni.
Fact: Aucklanders spend, on average, more money on transportation than food. That'll give you an idea of the car culture around here. Yes, it's as bad as Kiwis say, but I don't think it's any worse than driving during rush hour in any major US city. Needless to say, things are spread out enough that we bought a car on our first full day here. She's small and a bit older, but she's in good shape.
Our furniture and other belongings arrived in good condition a few days after we got to town, and we are now officially mostly unpacked. We still need a few pieces of furniture to really get the place up and running (bookcases and such) but we really like the new place. Let's take a little tour, shall we? A big welcome from Peter...
As you can see from the pictures it's nice and sunny, with good Rata wood floors and plenty of trees and flowers to lend shade. I'll get more pictures of the wonderful flowers hanging out around back. It has a shaded yard for barbecuing and friendly neighbours all around of the human, cat, dog and unidentified caged bird varieties. We even have a lemon tree in the back yard. We're told that it will produce lemons if we water it enough, so we're on the ball with that already. I can't wait to be able to say, "Hon, we're out of lemonade. Would you mind popping out to the tree for me?" I doubt it will produce that much, but still, a lemon tree!
We're also about a 15 minute walk from one particularly nice swimming beach. That will definitely come in handy once the weather gets even warmer.
Well great, you might say, Auckland seems pretty nice. You have an apartment you like, you have a month off before you have to go to work, you have swell neighbours. Are there any down sides? Well, as I mentioned earlier, the city lay out is generally sprawling and there is a huge number of cars on the road. Traffic is truly horrendous. The roads here seem to be full to overflowing with single occupant vehicles. And though there are marked bike lanes in a lot of areas, the condition of the roads and paths is such that, as Peter found out today, you can easily take a nasty fall if you don't go pretty darn slow. There are obstacles everywhere, gaping holes in the pavement, rain gutters that run parallel to the roadway and are just big enough to suck your front tire 3 inches down into a sewer drain. In order to get a really good hike or bike ride you basically have to drive someplace. This is far from bad, considering that most of the places we can go to are within a 30-45 min drive, but somehow that seems inconvenient after living in a place like Missoula. To all of you Missoulians (well, Montanans) out there, consider yourselves lucky that nature is literally right at your back door.
Speaking of thing outside back doors, we have something outside ours that we're fairly certain no Montanan has. We have a feral hedgehog. And not the small pet store variety, I'm talking BIG hedgehog. We put some particularly stinky trash out on the back stoop our third night here and later we heard the signature rustling of a garbage snatcher. Having grown up in an area where racoons regularly scatter the contents of a garbage can around an area the size of a baseball diamond within 5 minutes, I ran to the back door with broom in hand. When I opened the door a rather large and un-perturbed looking hedgehog was munching away on our refuse. It kept its nose down and gave me a sidelong glance, as though to get a good, long look at that annoying thing making all the noise. We poked it gently with the broom handle to get it out of our trash, and eventually it waddled away. We almost had the camera out to document the new neighbour but we were too late. Supposedly hedgehogs like to eat dairy products and fruit, so we're going to bait it in order to get a picture of him. Dumpster diver or no, he is a cute little bugger.
Peter thinks we should name him Sonic. I vote for The Hauraki Homebreaker, after the name of the gulf that separates North Shore City from central Auckland. What do you think, gentle reader? The floor is now officially open for all suggestions original and plagiarized. After all, what is a mascot (a status I think he deserves) without a name? A lousy one, that what.
It's evening here and we're closing up for the night. Bugs are much bigger and thicker here, so it's time to close up and snuggle under a comfy quilt with a book (thanks again, Mom, it looks and feels oh so wonderful!). We'll leave you with a picture of the Harbour Bridge and the Sky Tower as seen from the end of our street at dusk. Both are Auckland icons. The trees covered with red blossoms are Pohutukawa trees, commonly called New Zealand Christmas Trees because they bloom in December. They smell wonderful and have red, whisker like petals tipped in yellow pollen. The city is now bathed in pinkish flakes of a New Zealand Christmas.
Big. Sprawling. Culturally diverse. Warmer than Wellington. Rolling waves of suburbia. Surrounded by teal water and walkable-in-your-bare-feet beaches. Home of the Sky Tower and the All Blacks. Also goes by the friendly monicker of "The City of Sails." Population: 1,158,891. Number of cars: roughly 660,000. And now officially the home of Peter and Roni.
Fact: Aucklanders spend, on average, more money on transportation than food. That'll give you an idea of the car culture around here. Yes, it's as bad as Kiwis say, but I don't think it's any worse than driving during rush hour in any major US city. Needless to say, things are spread out enough that we bought a car on our first full day here. She's small and a bit older, but she's in good shape.
Our furniture and other belongings arrived in good condition a few days after we got to town, and we are now officially mostly unpacked. We still need a few pieces of furniture to really get the place up and running (bookcases and such) but we really like the new place. Let's take a little tour, shall we? A big welcome from Peter...
As you can see from the pictures it's nice and sunny, with good Rata wood floors and plenty of trees and flowers to lend shade. I'll get more pictures of the wonderful flowers hanging out around back. It has a shaded yard for barbecuing and friendly neighbours all around of the human, cat, dog and unidentified caged bird varieties. We even have a lemon tree in the back yard. We're told that it will produce lemons if we water it enough, so we're on the ball with that already. I can't wait to be able to say, "Hon, we're out of lemonade. Would you mind popping out to the tree for me?" I doubt it will produce that much, but still, a lemon tree!
We're also about a 15 minute walk from one particularly nice swimming beach. That will definitely come in handy once the weather gets even warmer.
Well great, you might say, Auckland seems pretty nice. You have an apartment you like, you have a month off before you have to go to work, you have swell neighbours. Are there any down sides? Well, as I mentioned earlier, the city lay out is generally sprawling and there is a huge number of cars on the road. Traffic is truly horrendous. The roads here seem to be full to overflowing with single occupant vehicles. And though there are marked bike lanes in a lot of areas, the condition of the roads and paths is such that, as Peter found out today, you can easily take a nasty fall if you don't go pretty darn slow. There are obstacles everywhere, gaping holes in the pavement, rain gutters that run parallel to the roadway and are just big enough to suck your front tire 3 inches down into a sewer drain. In order to get a really good hike or bike ride you basically have to drive someplace. This is far from bad, considering that most of the places we can go to are within a 30-45 min drive, but somehow that seems inconvenient after living in a place like Missoula. To all of you Missoulians (well, Montanans) out there, consider yourselves lucky that nature is literally right at your back door.
Speaking of thing outside back doors, we have something outside ours that we're fairly certain no Montanan has. We have a feral hedgehog. And not the small pet store variety, I'm talking BIG hedgehog. We put some particularly stinky trash out on the back stoop our third night here and later we heard the signature rustling of a garbage snatcher. Having grown up in an area where racoons regularly scatter the contents of a garbage can around an area the size of a baseball diamond within 5 minutes, I ran to the back door with broom in hand. When I opened the door a rather large and un-perturbed looking hedgehog was munching away on our refuse. It kept its nose down and gave me a sidelong glance, as though to get a good, long look at that annoying thing making all the noise. We poked it gently with the broom handle to get it out of our trash, and eventually it waddled away. We almost had the camera out to document the new neighbour but we were too late. Supposedly hedgehogs like to eat dairy products and fruit, so we're going to bait it in order to get a picture of him. Dumpster diver or no, he is a cute little bugger.
Peter thinks we should name him Sonic. I vote for The Hauraki Homebreaker, after the name of the gulf that separates North Shore City from central Auckland. What do you think, gentle reader? The floor is now officially open for all suggestions original and plagiarized. After all, what is a mascot (a status I think he deserves) without a name? A lousy one, that what.
It's evening here and we're closing up for the night. Bugs are much bigger and thicker here, so it's time to close up and snuggle under a comfy quilt with a book (thanks again, Mom, it looks and feels oh so wonderful!). We'll leave you with a picture of the Harbour Bridge and the Sky Tower as seen from the end of our street at dusk. Both are Auckland icons. The trees covered with red blossoms are Pohutukawa trees, commonly called New Zealand Christmas Trees because they bloom in December. They smell wonderful and have red, whisker like petals tipped in yellow pollen. The city is now bathed in pinkish flakes of a New Zealand Christmas.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Happy Halloween!
On a lighter note than the last post...Happy Halloween! I have to admit, I miss the general revelry a bit more than I thought I would. Even though we didn't do anything more last year than carve jack-o'-lanterns and buy candy that no one came for because is was too cold, at least we got to see kids get excited about institutionalised make-believe. I like the fact that in America that kind of imaginative revelry is possible and even encouraged for one night of the year, even if my adult life doesn't always make the time for it.
Halloween isn't celebrated nearly as much here as it is in the States, but I get the feeling that it's starting to catch on. There are a few stores that have advertised costumes and candy, and there are a few stoops in the neighbourhood with carved pumpkins on them (not the big orange kind but the smaller peach-coloured kind you get for cooking). I've even seen a few clubs downtown advertising parties, but they're pretty few and far between. All in all there's a distinct lack of orange here. I did see a black cat today, so I'm actually taking that as a good sign.
There's another holiday later this week that may be overshadowing this new-fangled Halloween stuff. It's called Guy Fawkes Day and it's causing all kinds of fire-cracker fun. Basically, this Fawkes fellow tried to blow up King James I and the rest of the House of Parliament in Britain. The original plan was to light off 32 barrels of gunpowder stashed in the basement of the House of Lords on 5 November 1605. This came to be known as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and was a planned act of violence by an angry group of Catholics against a Protestant government that didn't exactly have a good track record of treating Catholics with respect. Needless to say old Guy was caught on 5 November, tortured and summarily executed. Some argue that he was tipped off by a member of his group who feared for the lives of innocent civilians, but no one knows for sure. What we do know is that 5 November, or Guy Fawkes Day, is now either celebrated as the day a traitor was struck down or the anniversary of an attempt to do away with intolerant government. I suppose how you celebrate the day depends on your political persuasion. You can find out more about this interesting holiday at www.gunpowder-plot.org.
So far I get the impression that the holiday, in it's modern form in New Zealand, is an excuse to buy fireworks legally and blow them up at all hours of the day and night. Officials keep warning that if the sparkler bombs and random acts of arson don't stop they'll ban the sale of fireworks to private citizens. We'll have to see what comes of it when the holiday passes, but from the crime stats in the daily news it's not looking good for the Kiwi pyros out there. The holiday used to be celebrated with bonfires (the holiday is also known as Bonfire Day) and the burning of Guy Fawkes in effigy. The effigy-burning isn't as common anymore, but playing with fire is still the way to do it up right here. We're planning on getting our fix of explosives at a professional fireworks show over the harbour this weekend. Should be sweet as!
Halloween isn't celebrated nearly as much here as it is in the States, but I get the feeling that it's starting to catch on. There are a few stores that have advertised costumes and candy, and there are a few stoops in the neighbourhood with carved pumpkins on them (not the big orange kind but the smaller peach-coloured kind you get for cooking). I've even seen a few clubs downtown advertising parties, but they're pretty few and far between. All in all there's a distinct lack of orange here. I did see a black cat today, so I'm actually taking that as a good sign.
There's another holiday later this week that may be overshadowing this new-fangled Halloween stuff. It's called Guy Fawkes Day and it's causing all kinds of fire-cracker fun. Basically, this Fawkes fellow tried to blow up King James I and the rest of the House of Parliament in Britain. The original plan was to light off 32 barrels of gunpowder stashed in the basement of the House of Lords on 5 November 1605. This came to be known as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and was a planned act of violence by an angry group of Catholics against a Protestant government that didn't exactly have a good track record of treating Catholics with respect. Needless to say old Guy was caught on 5 November, tortured and summarily executed. Some argue that he was tipped off by a member of his group who feared for the lives of innocent civilians, but no one knows for sure. What we do know is that 5 November, or Guy Fawkes Day, is now either celebrated as the day a traitor was struck down or the anniversary of an attempt to do away with intolerant government. I suppose how you celebrate the day depends on your political persuasion. You can find out more about this interesting holiday at www.gunpowder-plot.org.
So far I get the impression that the holiday, in it's modern form in New Zealand, is an excuse to buy fireworks legally and blow them up at all hours of the day and night. Officials keep warning that if the sparkler bombs and random acts of arson don't stop they'll ban the sale of fireworks to private citizens. We'll have to see what comes of it when the holiday passes, but from the crime stats in the daily news it's not looking good for the Kiwi pyros out there. The holiday used to be celebrated with bonfires (the holiday is also known as Bonfire Day) and the burning of Guy Fawkes in effigy. The effigy-burning isn't as common anymore, but playing with fire is still the way to do it up right here. We're planning on getting our fix of explosives at a professional fireworks show over the harbour this weekend. Should be sweet as!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
America: You are making us sad.
What is a blatantly political posting doing on this otherwise happy go lucky blog about a foolish twenty-something couple selling most of their stuff, packing up, and moving to New Zealand? It turns out that American politics are unavoidable even on the other side of the globe.
After the dozenth person asked Peter last week at work, "Hey, Peter, did you hear that the US just suspended habeas corpus?" you start to think that there might be something wrong.
Actually, we've been of the firm belief that something has been wrong for some time, however, things are clearly getting out of hand. The fact that the Bush administration now has the means and the motive (and one can assume the intent) to disappear U.S. citizens merely by having them declared "enemy combatants" is shocking and should never, ever happen in a country which professes to value liberty.
Let's not go on at length about this one here, but we're merely going to refer you to Keith Olbermann's eerily direct essay, ""Beginning of the end of America".
The second scary realisation came this weekend when we read about new provisions in the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" that erode the previously rigourous controls on the president's ability to use the US military against US citizens living in the US. As this article points out, there is a technical definition for this: martial law.
Now, whether you believe that Bush intends to abuse this power or not, is immaterial. Maybe he won't. But do you trust the next president, or the president after that not to?
Even legal powers can be abused. In this sad, scary blog a college grad student is harassed by the FBI. His crime? He pointed out that certain airline security measures could be circumvented by someone with the computer skills of the average 12 year old or an above average chimp. Never mind that Bruce Schneier pointed it out in 2003, or that Senator Charles Schumer did in 2005. Fiction? We wish we could say it were. From Mr. Soghoian's blog:
I didn't sleep at home last night. It's fair to say I was rather shaken up.
I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed.
Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers - and various other important things. I have no idea what time they actually performed the search, but the warrant was approved at 2AM. I'm sincerely glad I wasn't in bed when they raided the house. That would have been even more scary.
All this, and the security theatre last time we visited the US, has us wondering about the collective health of our nation of birth. The kiwis that we meet here are pretty uniform in their opinions. Most seem to like America and Americans very much. However, they are equally of the opinion that our government was fraudulently elected and is now running roughshod over it's own citizens and the rest of the world.
If this is all a bad dream, how do we pinch ourselves awake?
Roni & Peter
After the dozenth person asked Peter last week at work, "Hey, Peter, did you hear that the US just suspended habeas corpus?" you start to think that there might be something wrong.
Actually, we've been of the firm belief that something has been wrong for some time, however, things are clearly getting out of hand. The fact that the Bush administration now has the means and the motive (and one can assume the intent) to disappear U.S. citizens merely by having them declared "enemy combatants" is shocking and should never, ever happen in a country which professes to value liberty.
Let's not go on at length about this one here, but we're merely going to refer you to Keith Olbermann's eerily direct essay, ""Beginning of the end of America".
The second scary realisation came this weekend when we read about new provisions in the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" that erode the previously rigourous controls on the president's ability to use the US military against US citizens living in the US. As this article points out, there is a technical definition for this: martial law.
Now, whether you believe that Bush intends to abuse this power or not, is immaterial. Maybe he won't. But do you trust the next president, or the president after that not to?
Even legal powers can be abused. In this sad, scary blog a college grad student is harassed by the FBI. His crime? He pointed out that certain airline security measures could be circumvented by someone with the computer skills of the average 12 year old or an above average chimp. Never mind that Bruce Schneier pointed it out in 2003, or that Senator Charles Schumer did in 2005. Fiction? We wish we could say it were. From Mr. Soghoian's blog:
I didn't sleep at home last night. It's fair to say I was rather shaken up.
I came back today, to find the glass on the front door smashed.
Inside, is a rather ransacked home, a search warrant taped to my kitchen table, a total absence of computers - and various other important things. I have no idea what time they actually performed the search, but the warrant was approved at 2AM. I'm sincerely glad I wasn't in bed when they raided the house. That would have been even more scary.
All this, and the security theatre last time we visited the US, has us wondering about the collective health of our nation of birth. The kiwis that we meet here are pretty uniform in their opinions. Most seem to like America and Americans very much. However, they are equally of the opinion that our government was fraudulently elected and is now running roughshod over it's own citizens and the rest of the world.
If this is all a bad dream, how do we pinch ourselves awake?
Roni & Peter
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Blown away by Wellington
The other day at work, my british coworker stumbled in about 10 am, his usual arrival time. What was unusual was that he was looking even more dazed and confused than he generally does.
"Quite a wind out there."
"Yeah," I said, watching a plastic bag outside get scooped up and launched vertically 10 stories.
Almost at a mutter he continued, "I dropped my wife off today for a tennis match and I walked over to the office from there. I walked around the corner of a group of buildings and I must have caught the wind just right, but it took my glasses off."
"Wow! That is an impressive wind!" I said. "So, did they get scratched when they fell?"
"I don't know. The wind took them and flung them across four lanes of traffic. By the time I got over there, I couldn't find where they had gone."
I'm sure the story continued from there, but I think I had already begun to wonder what I'd look like with a glasses band or maybe one of those chains that little old ladies wear.
Not to sound like a whiner, but I counted the months of predominantly inclement weather we've had here in Wellington so far. May, June, July, August, September, and now October??? What the hell? I thought New Zealand is supposed to be warm and sunny?
To be fair, October has been reasonably warm. We've only had to run our electric heater a couple of times so far this month. I've asked people if it clears up much. "Aw, yeah, well October is really the beginning of the windy season, but heading into December summer is brilliant."
Great.
Meanwhile, up in Tauranga, our friend Tim is enjoying sailing and sunny weather. The lesson here? In the distance between Billings and Missoula, you can go from sunny skies and calm weather to gale force, antarctic wind.
So, where does that leave us? Extremely happy to be looking at heading further north. Roni just got offered a year-long position in the North Shore area of Auckland. My job has been a bit of a dissapointment, so I'm not really too sad at the prospect of having to find a new one.
They say, "Nothing beats Wellington on a good day." Problem is, there are shockingly few of those.
"Quite a wind out there."
"Yeah," I said, watching a plastic bag outside get scooped up and launched vertically 10 stories.
Almost at a mutter he continued, "I dropped my wife off today for a tennis match and I walked over to the office from there. I walked around the corner of a group of buildings and I must have caught the wind just right, but it took my glasses off."
"Wow! That is an impressive wind!" I said. "So, did they get scratched when they fell?"
"I don't know. The wind took them and flung them across four lanes of traffic. By the time I got over there, I couldn't find where they had gone."
I'm sure the story continued from there, but I think I had already begun to wonder what I'd look like with a glasses band or maybe one of those chains that little old ladies wear.
Not to sound like a whiner, but I counted the months of predominantly inclement weather we've had here in Wellington so far. May, June, July, August, September, and now October??? What the hell? I thought New Zealand is supposed to be warm and sunny?
To be fair, October has been reasonably warm. We've only had to run our electric heater a couple of times so far this month. I've asked people if it clears up much. "Aw, yeah, well October is really the beginning of the windy season, but heading into December summer is brilliant."
Great.
Meanwhile, up in Tauranga, our friend Tim is enjoying sailing and sunny weather. The lesson here? In the distance between Billings and Missoula, you can go from sunny skies and calm weather to gale force, antarctic wind.
So, where does that leave us? Extremely happy to be looking at heading further north. Roni just got offered a year-long position in the North Shore area of Auckland. My job has been a bit of a dissapointment, so I'm not really too sad at the prospect of having to find a new one.
They say, "Nothing beats Wellington on a good day." Problem is, there are shockingly few of those.
Monday, September 11, 2006
The Interesting Thing About Public Transit
Since arriving in Wellington, public transit has been my lifeline to work. We live on the opposite side of a 'mountain'- read 'hill' if you're from Montana-from the rest of the city, and the only way through when wearing professional attire is via bus. Most mornings, this takes me to the train station where I board a car for destinations on the northern end of the harbour. While it takes a little longer to get around than by car, I somehow don't feel like such a nameless face when I'm on a platform with many other nameless faces. A teacher at an area school made the point that commuting alone creates a sense of separateness, and even conditions us to pull away from people we don't know. I have to say that this is a fairly accurate and astute observation.
While I haven't made any friends per se on a train or bus, I've definitely met a number of characters that have become familiar faces. There's the ticket taker on a frequently taken train of mine who is there every morning, without fail, with a hearty "good morning, how are you today" and a smile (from under a huge red mustache). A small thing, yes, but a nice way to start the day. Then there are the two 20-something guys who always sit near each other, each reading parts of the same paper, buy each other coffees and get off the train together, but never speak a word to each other while actually ON the train. My favourite, though, is the young angry bus driver who works the afternoon shift in Porirua. He's not in the least self-conscious about flipping off fellow motorists, and he'll mutter the most foul obscenities under his breath when the middle school kids press the call button and then don't get off the bus. I always smile and thank him when I get off, and he always says "cheers" with a smile in return.
Even on the street at crosswalks and bus stops people will strike up small conversations with you about whatever happens to be going on. I've encountered this congeniality since the first day we got here, but this willingness to interact has never hit me as strongly as it did at the train station earlier this week.
I was at a coffee cart early one morning waiting for my cuppa. The woman in front of me had placed a rather large order and was frantically counting out coins to pay for it all. To our left sat a train waiting to pull away, and I noticed a conductor waving her arms in the direction of the coffee cart. I thought nothing of it, seeing as it wasn't my train (or it could have been that early morning I-really-need-some-coffee haze clouding my mind). A minute later another conductor came up to this woman in front of me and asked her if this nearest train was hers. When she said yes he told her that it was leaving right then. Her face froze, and you could tell that she was stuck having to choose between dashing for her train empty handed, or asking the barista to give her her money back. Instead of heading back for the train or telling the woman to hustle it up, the conductor took one look at her conflicted expression and politely asked the barista how long it would be until her drinks were done. The cart employees were just about done, so the conductor waited with this woman and even helped her carry her drinks back to the train. Another conductor was waiting nearby to pleasantly shoo them onto a car. The minute the car doors closed, the train took off.
I had to pause at this, dumbfounded by what I had just seen. The first thought through my mind was "well, that never would have happened in Germany". Then I thought, "wait a minute, where would that have happened other than here"? I had just witnessed a quintessentially kiwi encounter. It's this willingness to interact that makes New Zealand unique, a sort of every-day-diplomacy that keeps everyone moving along congenially. Things are rarely black and white, and from my perspective it seems like Kiwis grow up knowing that if you just talk about an issue a little bit all parties can usually get what they need. No need to fuss, shout or throw down ultimatums. One has no reason to pull away from others here; to do so would actually do more damage.
It's nice to know that kindness can happen at 7:15 am before you have your coffee.
While I haven't made any friends per se on a train or bus, I've definitely met a number of characters that have become familiar faces. There's the ticket taker on a frequently taken train of mine who is there every morning, without fail, with a hearty "good morning, how are you today" and a smile (from under a huge red mustache). A small thing, yes, but a nice way to start the day. Then there are the two 20-something guys who always sit near each other, each reading parts of the same paper, buy each other coffees and get off the train together, but never speak a word to each other while actually ON the train. My favourite, though, is the young angry bus driver who works the afternoon shift in Porirua. He's not in the least self-conscious about flipping off fellow motorists, and he'll mutter the most foul obscenities under his breath when the middle school kids press the call button and then don't get off the bus. I always smile and thank him when I get off, and he always says "cheers" with a smile in return.
Even on the street at crosswalks and bus stops people will strike up small conversations with you about whatever happens to be going on. I've encountered this congeniality since the first day we got here, but this willingness to interact has never hit me as strongly as it did at the train station earlier this week.
I was at a coffee cart early one morning waiting for my cuppa. The woman in front of me had placed a rather large order and was frantically counting out coins to pay for it all. To our left sat a train waiting to pull away, and I noticed a conductor waving her arms in the direction of the coffee cart. I thought nothing of it, seeing as it wasn't my train (or it could have been that early morning I-really-need-some-coffee haze clouding my mind). A minute later another conductor came up to this woman in front of me and asked her if this nearest train was hers. When she said yes he told her that it was leaving right then. Her face froze, and you could tell that she was stuck having to choose between dashing for her train empty handed, or asking the barista to give her her money back. Instead of heading back for the train or telling the woman to hustle it up, the conductor took one look at her conflicted expression and politely asked the barista how long it would be until her drinks were done. The cart employees were just about done, so the conductor waited with this woman and even helped her carry her drinks back to the train. Another conductor was waiting nearby to pleasantly shoo them onto a car. The minute the car doors closed, the train took off.
I had to pause at this, dumbfounded by what I had just seen. The first thought through my mind was "well, that never would have happened in Germany". Then I thought, "wait a minute, where would that have happened other than here"? I had just witnessed a quintessentially kiwi encounter. It's this willingness to interact that makes New Zealand unique, a sort of every-day-diplomacy that keeps everyone moving along congenially. Things are rarely black and white, and from my perspective it seems like Kiwis grow up knowing that if you just talk about an issue a little bit all parties can usually get what they need. No need to fuss, shout or throw down ultimatums. One has no reason to pull away from others here; to do so would actually do more damage.
It's nice to know that kindness can happen at 7:15 am before you have your coffee.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Have you eaten your wallaby today?
When I came down here, I was expecting to get to eat some different foods. But not wallaby. I figured that 1. those cute little critters only lived in Australia and 2. they weren't a food commodity. And thanks to travel, my assumptions have been proved wrong yet again. There are a few of the little buggers on parts of the south island (transplanted there by humans), and they are obviously making their way into the food chain somehow. I don't know if they're farmed, or if they're hunted (much like possum is hunted because of it's ivasive and destructive nature).
This edible adventure happened a few weeks ago when Peter and I went out for pizza. We saw a special on the board for a wallaby pizza with nuts and orange relish. Thinking it couldn't taste that bad, we went for it. And we were right; wallabies are as tasty as they are cute. They taste like a good beef shank, and the orange relish made it wonderful sweet-savoury dish.
Watch out, wallabies, you're now on our culinary hit list.
This edible adventure happened a few weeks ago when Peter and I went out for pizza. We saw a special on the board for a wallaby pizza with nuts and orange relish. Thinking it couldn't taste that bad, we went for it. And we were right; wallabies are as tasty as they are cute. They taste like a good beef shank, and the orange relish made it wonderful sweet-savoury dish.
Watch out, wallabies, you're now on our culinary hit list.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Wintry Goings-On
Little more than a month ago, we were living in what seemed like limbo. No jobs, no permanent address, no mental energy to really take time to enjoy sightseeing (the worry that comes along with a job search is uniquely plaguing). Then, just like those warm and sunny winter days here, some goodness come out of nowhere all at once and without warning.
Within the course of about a week and a half, both Peter and I landed jobs and we found a decent apartment. Just like that. And we've been at a sprint ever since.
Peter's job is with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in a security architecture capacity. And I found a relief (substitute) teaching pool that arranges work for relief teachers at all of the various schools in the Wellington area. There are so many of them that these pools are a pretty common and handy way for us relievers to get and maintain contacts.
Since I still had to wait for a bit of paperwork to get processed before I could start working, I took on the temporary job of getting our apartment into shape. You don't quite realise how much crap you have--and need, really--until you either move it, store it, sell it, or replace it all. In our case, until you have to sell it all then replace it. Oy.
Since we don't have a car, I've been making plenty of trips in to town on the bus and getting as much as I can carry back without knocking elderly women out of their seats. It probably would have been a lot easier had we a car, but then again it would have been a lot easier to spend more than was necessary had we a car to carry a bunch of crap in. At least this way we're more aware of the necessities and not tempted to get too many fun things. Although it has been pretty fun to outfit our kitchen with decent cookware and our living room with matching furniture. We even have room for a dining room table (as if the quasi-British accent didn't make us Yanks feel civilised enough).
So here we live, in our own flat not far from our last place in the Hataitai suburb, with work to occupy our days and errands to occupy our evenings and weekends. We're into a new routine, and, although it's keeping us busy, life is good.
Peter's work is interesting, as is mine, and we're starting to get a sense for what it's like to really live in New Zealand. You learn quite a bit about a culture from dealing with people on a professional level. We've learned that the morning tea ritual, a break at mid morning where people relax with a snack, is pretty common at work as well as for tourists. We've also learned that it's not uncommon for work places to go out on a Friday after work to have a staff drink at the pub. Social time seems to be pretty important here.
I'm also getting to learn a lot about the culture from the kids I meet in the schools. Children are culture sponges, and everything they do has been taught to them by through their parents, the movies they watch, and the values placed on them by society. They're turning out to be a curious mixture of Kiwi and American culture, and it's pretty apparent that all of the American media, music, and marketing that makes its way here has had a big impact. I've been told to keep an eye out for American spellings in English classroom here, as most kids type their projects in Microsoft Word, which has a default spell checker set to American spellings. Odd, eh? I guess that's one more incentive for me to quickly learn to spell, punctuate, and conjugate within the language system here. We've even met some Kiwis who actually know more about American history from watching shows like Deadwood than some Americans do after having gone through US schools. You have to hand it to the Kiwis; they're a pretty culturally savvy lot.
We'll be posting again soon about some of the fun things we've done and seen when the sun comes out here. The sun isn't a common visitor for us at the moment, but when she comes out the whole of Wellington scrambles outside. Unfortunately, the work-a-day world is just as boring here as it is in the states, so not much to record there as far as photos are concerned. Stay tuned, we'll be posting again soon!
Within the course of about a week and a half, both Peter and I landed jobs and we found a decent apartment. Just like that. And we've been at a sprint ever since.
Peter's job is with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in a security architecture capacity. And I found a relief (substitute) teaching pool that arranges work for relief teachers at all of the various schools in the Wellington area. There are so many of them that these pools are a pretty common and handy way for us relievers to get and maintain contacts.
Since I still had to wait for a bit of paperwork to get processed before I could start working, I took on the temporary job of getting our apartment into shape. You don't quite realise how much crap you have--and need, really--until you either move it, store it, sell it, or replace it all. In our case, until you have to sell it all then replace it. Oy.
Since we don't have a car, I've been making plenty of trips in to town on the bus and getting as much as I can carry back without knocking elderly women out of their seats. It probably would have been a lot easier had we a car, but then again it would have been a lot easier to spend more than was necessary had we a car to carry a bunch of crap in. At least this way we're more aware of the necessities and not tempted to get too many fun things. Although it has been pretty fun to outfit our kitchen with decent cookware and our living room with matching furniture. We even have room for a dining room table (as if the quasi-British accent didn't make us Yanks feel civilised enough).
So here we live, in our own flat not far from our last place in the Hataitai suburb, with work to occupy our days and errands to occupy our evenings and weekends. We're into a new routine, and, although it's keeping us busy, life is good.
Peter's work is interesting, as is mine, and we're starting to get a sense for what it's like to really live in New Zealand. You learn quite a bit about a culture from dealing with people on a professional level. We've learned that the morning tea ritual, a break at mid morning where people relax with a snack, is pretty common at work as well as for tourists. We've also learned that it's not uncommon for work places to go out on a Friday after work to have a staff drink at the pub. Social time seems to be pretty important here.
I'm also getting to learn a lot about the culture from the kids I meet in the schools. Children are culture sponges, and everything they do has been taught to them by through their parents, the movies they watch, and the values placed on them by society. They're turning out to be a curious mixture of Kiwi and American culture, and it's pretty apparent that all of the American media, music, and marketing that makes its way here has had a big impact. I've been told to keep an eye out for American spellings in English classroom here, as most kids type their projects in Microsoft Word, which has a default spell checker set to American spellings. Odd, eh? I guess that's one more incentive for me to quickly learn to spell, punctuate, and conjugate within the language system here. We've even met some Kiwis who actually know more about American history from watching shows like Deadwood than some Americans do after having gone through US schools. You have to hand it to the Kiwis; they're a pretty culturally savvy lot.
We'll be posting again soon about some of the fun things we've done and seen when the sun comes out here. The sun isn't a common visitor for us at the moment, but when she comes out the whole of Wellington scrambles outside. Unfortunately, the work-a-day world is just as boring here as it is in the states, so not much to record there as far as photos are concerned. Stay tuned, we'll be posting again soon!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Talking to Peter & Roni
Hey, all. This is a quick note to let you know that Roni and I are available via Skype pretty much all the time when we are home. Our joint username is 'schmiedeskiwis' and you should be able to reach us pretty much as reliably as via telephone.
For those of you who don't know about Skype, it is a piece of software that allows you to place internet telephone calls for free. The quality is generally on par or superior to telephone, especially if you have broadband. Quality is acceptable even if you only have dial-up Internet access. Please run (don't walk) to http://www.skype.com and download it.
When you call here, please remember the time difference. Also, we haven't (yet) figured out a good way of accurately setting our status, so it may show us online/idle/whatever regardless of where we actually are. Suffice it to say that, if you ring and we're home, we'll answer. It's a lot like a regular telephone that way :-)
We may eventually switch over to a different internet based phone service, but until that time, Skype works very well.
For those of you who don't know about Skype, it is a piece of software that allows you to place internet telephone calls for free. The quality is generally on par or superior to telephone, especially if you have broadband. Quality is acceptable even if you only have dial-up Internet access. Please run (don't walk) to http://www.skype.com and download it.
When you call here, please remember the time difference. Also, we haven't (yet) figured out a good way of accurately setting our status, so it may show us online/idle/whatever regardless of where we actually are. Suffice it to say that, if you ring and we're home, we'll answer. It's a lot like a regular telephone that way :-)
We may eventually switch over to a different internet based phone service, but until that time, Skype works very well.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Happy Queen's Birthday!
Today New Zealand celebrates Queen Elizabeth II's birthday. Her birthday is actually 21 April, but New Zealand celebrates on the first Monday of June. The country enjoys a three day weekend, and there are a few ceremonies held here and there (though there was nothing special going on here in Wellington).
The nation-wide excitement that happens on the Queen's Birthday is the Queen's Birthday Honours list. This is a list that the Queen comes out with to acknowledge those New Zealand citizens who contribute to New Zealand's culture and society. You can see some of the recipients here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=513&objectid=10385054
As far as I can tell, most people use the weekend a lot like Americans use the President's Day weekend: make home improvements, take skiing trips, visit family, go shopping, etc. One of the main differences is that here, any business that chooses to stay open on a public holiday like this has to pay their employees holiday pay. This means that restaurants will tack a 15% surcharge to your meal (a very fair thing to do, I must say), and some stores and shops choose to close in order to avoid the added operational costs. So it's a crap shoot as to what's open and what isn't. We spent the day in classic kiwi style: we went shopping for furniture for the new apartment and went out for lunch. After all, it's our new patriotic duty. :)
The nation-wide excitement that happens on the Queen's Birthday is the Queen's Birthday Honours list. This is a list that the Queen comes out with to acknowledge those New Zealand citizens who contribute to New Zealand's culture and society. You can see some of the recipients here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=513&objectid=10385054
As far as I can tell, most people use the weekend a lot like Americans use the President's Day weekend: make home improvements, take skiing trips, visit family, go shopping, etc. One of the main differences is that here, any business that chooses to stay open on a public holiday like this has to pay their employees holiday pay. This means that restaurants will tack a 15% surcharge to your meal (a very fair thing to do, I must say), and some stores and shops choose to close in order to avoid the added operational costs. So it's a crap shoot as to what's open and what isn't. We spent the day in classic kiwi style: we went shopping for furniture for the new apartment and went out for lunch. After all, it's our new patriotic duty. :)
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
The Weather Gods Must Be Crazy
Old Man Winter is the same bastard wherever you go. He has this knack for finding your comfort zone and then, with the fingertips of one hand lightly touching those on the other and a maniacal gleam in his eye, nudging the temperature and wind speed just beyond it. I normally consider myself tough when it comes to weather; anyone from Montana has to to avoid the mockery. But I feel that, because I grew up in Montana, I'm also tough enough to take the humiliation standing tall.
I, a country girl, am hiding from 45 degree weather.
It was bound to happen at some time. Like all Montanans who leave their native habitat, I knew that my body would go into shock from the warmth and humidity, unable to cope with hospitable conditions. I knew that eventually my blood would thin, I would gradually switch from wearing long sleeved T-shirts to wool sweaters, and that I would take to using an umbrella instead of just nestling into an ever-dampening jacket collar.
Perhaps it's because I had this image of New Zealand as a tropical paradise. I came here looking for lush, warm, sun drenched valleys safely hidden from the snowy mountains by a wall of silver ferns. Research told me that it can get quite cold in most of the country during the winter, but because I just left a Montana winter behind, my desires overshadowed common sense. I feel a lot like the Montanan in spring who pulls out the shorts just a few weeks too early; I'm stubbornly (and unsuccessfully) trying to force the weather to accommodate my pasty-fleshed desires. I think I'm going to put away the tank tops and go shopping for a few of those comfy looking New Zealand wool cardigans.
That being said, we've been getting a healthy amount sunshine. When those days roll around we hop on the bus and head out for a walk in a new-to-us part of town. We've mostly been exploring the suburbs, as we've been apartment hunting, but on occasion we venture into the more natural parts of the city.
Not too long ago we heard that a seal colony comes to shore every winter near Island Bay, a southern suburb of Wellington. Deciding that while it was breezy and grey, it wasn't all that cold. So off we went to find some seals. Island Bay is named after it's main island feature, Tapu Te Ranga, which served as a refuge for the Ngati Ira Maori tribe when they were under attack. It protects the bay from the harsh Cook Straight weather, and is rather nice to look at, too. The shoreline in this area is fairly rocky, and the tide pools collect surprisingly little plant life. Here's one of the more occupied pools we found.
While we didn't see any seals or blue penguins (who also come to shore here), we did get to watch a number of birds playing in the updrafts generated near the cliffs. With the weather getting colder by the minute, we headed back to our flat for the day. These sunny periods just don't last long enough for me.
I, a country girl, am hiding from 45 degree weather.
It was bound to happen at some time. Like all Montanans who leave their native habitat, I knew that my body would go into shock from the warmth and humidity, unable to cope with hospitable conditions. I knew that eventually my blood would thin, I would gradually switch from wearing long sleeved T-shirts to wool sweaters, and that I would take to using an umbrella instead of just nestling into an ever-dampening jacket collar.
Perhaps it's because I had this image of New Zealand as a tropical paradise. I came here looking for lush, warm, sun drenched valleys safely hidden from the snowy mountains by a wall of silver ferns. Research told me that it can get quite cold in most of the country during the winter, but because I just left a Montana winter behind, my desires overshadowed common sense. I feel a lot like the Montanan in spring who pulls out the shorts just a few weeks too early; I'm stubbornly (and unsuccessfully) trying to force the weather to accommodate my pasty-fleshed desires. I think I'm going to put away the tank tops and go shopping for a few of those comfy looking New Zealand wool cardigans.
That being said, we've been getting a healthy amount sunshine. When those days roll around we hop on the bus and head out for a walk in a new-to-us part of town. We've mostly been exploring the suburbs, as we've been apartment hunting, but on occasion we venture into the more natural parts of the city.
Not too long ago we heard that a seal colony comes to shore every winter near Island Bay, a southern suburb of Wellington. Deciding that while it was breezy and grey, it wasn't all that cold. So off we went to find some seals. Island Bay is named after it's main island feature, Tapu Te Ranga, which served as a refuge for the Ngati Ira Maori tribe when they were under attack. It protects the bay from the harsh Cook Straight weather, and is rather nice to look at, too. The shoreline in this area is fairly rocky, and the tide pools collect surprisingly little plant life. Here's one of the more occupied pools we found.
While we didn't see any seals or blue penguins (who also come to shore here), we did get to watch a number of birds playing in the updrafts generated near the cliffs. With the weather getting colder by the minute, we headed back to our flat for the day. These sunny periods just don't last long enough for me.
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