Seals at Red Rocks

I know its been a few weeks since our last update, I'm sorry... We started work which has focused a lot of our attention over the last couple of weeks, but we are still enjoying the evenings and weekends to explore. The weekend weather has been variable, but fortunately we have gotten at least one gorgeous winter day per weekend. This gave us a chance to continue to check out the beaches around our new home. We had heard about a seal colony that winters about an hour walk from Owhiro Bay in an are called 'Red Rocks'.

Red rocks is an easy walk out, along the tide line from the parking lot. During the week if you have a 4x4 or just don't care about your car much, you can drive along a rough 'road' much of the way there. You'll also find a few remaining 'Baches' which are basically old shacks built 60 or more years ago and seem to have no electricity or running water.

The beach around Owhiro Bay are black sand sand or small pebbles and like many beaches in the area have extensive amounts of kelp sea weed. drift wood and shells at the high tide line. Frequently you will find dried out Paua shells or sea snails. After 45 minutes or so, you can start to see a large rock outcropping which explains the name of the walk. I don't know what kind of geological anomaly caused this when all of the surrounding cliffs are much darker, but its quite striking.

You can smell the seals before you see them. During the winter months, bachelor seals who didn't find a mate, hang out on the rocks like a bunch of teenagers, sunbathing, sleeping and hunting until the spring comes and they can try their luck again.

 

Hiking in The Pinnacles

In our last week before starting work, we decided to take another trip out to the Wairarapa region about an hour outside of Wellington to explore an area called the Pinnacles - formally, the Putangirua Pinnacles. You can find more about the hiking trails around this area on the Department of Conservation website. We had driven out to the Wairarapa a few weeks previously on a fine day and discovered an incredible deserted beach. At the time, we didn't know about the Pinnacles which were about 15 minutes from where we'd been standing, so when we found out, we knew we had to go back.

If you're an extreme LOTR fan, you may remember this as the Path of the Dead in the Return of the King. The rock formations are an example of badlands erosion and seem very fragile. The website and trail head both warn walkers to watch out for falling rocks and they aren't kidding. There are two possible trails - one up through the river bed and the other across the top of the close by hills looking down on the Pinnacles. We decided we wanted to take the river bed path which took about 90 minutes one way and maybe 45 minutes back, but we stopped several times to take pictures. There were only two or three other cars in the parking lot and and throughout the entire hike we only crossed paths with three other people.  This was a Friday in the winter though, so perhaps it would be busier on a summer weekend.

The path wasn't very clearly marked - in our experience an exception for NZ trails, but with an environment that is changing rapidly due to erosion and in a river bed like this, its not terribly surprising. The way we walked up (not the real path) required us to cross over the riverbed several times. It hadn't rained in several days when we did this hike, so the river was really more of a stream, but I would not have wanted to try this route right after heavy rain. Chris enjoys taunting me in crossing streams as I hate the thought of getting wet, so I got my own back by taking a video of him doing a great Dirty Dancing impression :-).

Once you leave the park, there is an incredible drive up the side of a hill overlooking the beach we had previously discovered. On a clear day, you can see the outline of the South Island and just enjoy the incredible colors of the water and sky. 

On the way back, we stopped in a lovely little town called Featherston which is no more than a collection of half a dozen shops on the side of a road, but they have a good cafe and a great cheese shop called C'est Cheese where we bought some rather excellent aged Edam which we enjoyed with a glass of NZ wine looking out from our valley that evening.

Feeding Red Pandas At Wellington Zoo

Yesterday we had the most amazing experience. We got to meet three of the four Red Pandas that live at Wellington Zoo. Wellington, like a handful of other zoos around the world offers 'close encounters' with some of their animals. This helps raise money for the zoo, raise awareness of the conservation needs of the animals and also enables the handlers to perform health checks. Wellington has a few different close encounters, the format of which depends on the animal. Here you can meet Red Pandas, Meerkats, Cheetahs and Giraffes. The Red Panda experience is by far their most popular and has been on our bucket list for a while.

You can book online or by phone, and for about $99 NZD you get to sit quietly while a Red Panda jumps up on your lap and eats grape and pear pieces out of your hand for half an hour. These guys are a little like meeting a hungry cat. They will come over and eat what you offer, and they may allow you to stroke them once or twice, but once they are done, they're off to go sunbathe in a tree. 

We met Kushi, a two year old female originally from Hamilton Zoo, and her perspective beau, six year old Manasa and his father, Isha. Each lives in a separate Red Panda environment which is full of trees and paths for them to climb and explore. It was a "cold" winter day - around 10 degrees C, so the Pandas were pretty active with their thick fur coats and they were more than happy to jump up on us and let us feed them. 

All three of them were very curious and friendly and while we were feeding them, the keeper gave us a little of their history, answered our questions and talked a little about their conservation. While I would have LOVED to have snuck one of these gorgeous little fur balls home, they are on the endangered list and very few are still living in the wild. I'd give you more details, but honestly my ears and brain shut down while the keeper was talking because I was overloaded by furry red gorgeousness. I guess we'll just have to go back a second time to hear the talk...

10 Unexpectedly Awesome Things About Wellington

There are so many great things about living in New Zealand. If I were to count them all, that list would be a LOT longer than just ten, and many would be things we expected based on our previous visits. But these ten things are those we really hadn't expected and that have really struck us since we have been here. 

Good Coffee - Anywhere*

*Except for Starbucks

If someone asked me where in the world has really good coffee, I would probably have said Columbia, Jamaica, Italy, France and probably USA along with a few other places. Chris and I are big fans of lattes. When we used to visit family in Hudson NY, every day we were there we would go to Swallow, our favorite coffee shop on Warren Street that served Stumptown Coffee and made the BEST latte (Swallow is now called Moto Coffee Machine and a cross between a motorcycle shop and a coffee shop. This only makes sense if you know Hudson - but they are the same guys and make the same awesome coffee). We found a couple of places in DC that had good coffee, but really nowhere that came close to Swallow. Here in Wellington you can basically go anywhere and they will have awesome coffee. I am still not completely sure I can taste the difference between a latte and a flat white, but rest assured, they are both awesome. I have heard there is a Starbucks here, but I haven't seen it yet, and it seems that locals treat it more like a tourist attraction than a place to get coffee. 

Fantastic Craft Beer

In addition to being big fans of coffee, we are both also big fans of craft beer (could we get any more hipster?). I wasn't anticipating a big craft beer scene in Wellington but boy was I wrong! There are a ton of little breweries making some really awesome small batch beer. I would say it tends more towards the hoppy end of the spectrum in general, but we have both enjoyed beers from Mac's, Panhead and Behemoth and finding many more to taste!

The Sky Is SO Blue

It took me a while to notice this because it IS winter and frequently overcast for at least part of the day. But if you catch Wellington on a clear day the sky is an amazingly deep blue that I don't think I've seen anywhere in the US. I can only think that this is down to a lower level of pollution and a lot less high level cloud from jet contrails as so few flights fly over New Zealand compared with Virginia. I remember reading that in the three days immediately after 9/11 when commercial flights were still mostly grounded in the US, the sky was so blue. Makes you think...

So Is The Water

The ocean surrounding Wellington and the water in the harbor is an incredible range of translucent blues. It varies from an aqua you would expect to see in the Bahamas to a deep royal blue and every shade in between. Again, I can only think this is down to so much less pollution, but whatever the reason, it is really striking. Especially when you come into land at the Airport and you can see so many different shades. 

Fiji Is a Three Hour Direct Flight Away and Wellington Airport is Awesome

Speaking of the Airport, its also amazing. Its small, easy to navigate and super relaxed. NOTHING like US airports. No TSA craziness, no people screaming at you, even if a lot of the rules are the same (laptops out of your bag, no liquids in carry on etc) somehow NZ has managed to ratchet back the general level of stress you experience at airports. Maybe it has something to do with these?

As a frequent flyer in the US I had TSA pre-check and Global Entry and even with its strict bio security rules, NZ is still 100 x easier to navigate. Before we moved here I took a plane pretty much every week from Washington Reagan to Dallas Fort Worth for work. That's about a three hour flight. You know what's a three hour direct flight from Wellington? Fiji. And Sydney. If you change, you can easily get to New Caledonia, Tahiti, American Samoa and basically any other Pacific Island paradise you can think of in just a handful of hours.  

Amazing Hikes In The Middle Of The City

Today I decided to explore the trail that starts at the end of our street. Two and a half hours later, I feel like I was transported to somewhere hundreds of miles from civilization and back into the city. We are very fortunate we live in a neighborhood that backs onto 'the bush' as folks call it here. Otari-Wilton's Bush is connected to the trails behind us as well as a great trail called Skyline that goes across some of the peaks behind the city. I just did a little 2.5 hour loop but I went from our living room to the following views on foot in less than an hour. That snow capped mountain you see in the third photo is actually on the South Island. Blows my mind you can see that from the trail in our back yard!

Its Like We Live In Pandora

Not just the amazing fern trees and other native plants that NZ is famous for but the wild life too! We have a giant mountain parrot that comes and sits on our roof and makes a hell of a racket. But its the coolest thing - its a rare bird that has been reintroduced to Wellington called a Kaka. While we have seen our local Kaka numerous times, I have yet to get a picture of him/her, so here is a stock photo so you can see what I am talking about. Here is also a link about their reintroduction into Wellington and the associated challenges. 

Wellington has a pretty impressive zoo, as well as an Eco Park called Zealandia which is basically a nature reserve in the heart of the city where they have protected and reintroduced native species of flora and fauna. We haven't made it over for a visit yet, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Public Transportation Is Really Good

Wellington has a mixture of light rail, traditional gas powered buses and trolley buses. They go pretty much everywhere in the city. There are also cabs and even Uber. The buses use a payment system called a Snapper Card, like a SmartTrip Card in DC, but this card also let you pay for metered parking in the city and even cabs. Sadly it is not the same system for the trains which need a separate ticket, but its still great. As far as cost, I would say its about on par with the DC metro, perhaps very slightly cheaper. 

Chocolate!

The Swiss are famous for it, and the British sure know how to make a good Cadbury's bar, but let me tell you, Whittakers chocolate is the bomb! There have an every day type of bars with all the flavors you would imagine, milk, dark, hazlenut, almond, mint etc, but there is also an artisan type with flavors like Marlborough Sea Salt and Caramel, Pear and Honey and Oolong Tea. Recently Whittakers also partnered with some of the best Milk in NZ to create the Lewis Road Creamery Whittakers Chocolate milk. OMG. This country is very dangerous...

The Movies Are Cheap And Movie Theaters Really Nice 

After having sticker shock by basically everything it was amazing to experience the movies here. We went to the Reading cinema at Courtenay Place to see the latest Jason Bourne movie. Wellington doesn't seem to have IMAX, but they DO have something called Titan which blows IMAX out of the water. This was the biggest screen I had ever seen, amazing sound and leather recliner type seats for $11 NZD. About 50% less than an IMAX show in DC. The movie theaters also have a bar/restaurant where you can have a beer and a bite of real food before the movie. What's not to love?

How to Get Set Up

Getting set up in a foreign country is a complicated dance with lots of different steps that need to be completed in the right order. I think we mostly got things right with this move, and in the hope this may be useful for someone else, here is what we did.

Step 1. Finances
If possible, set up finances from your home country. New Zealand banks (ANZ in particular) made this process incredibly simple with a banking package advertised on their international splash page targeted directly to immigrants. Basically you can set up an account from your home country, transfer money into it, then when you arrive, visit the local branch with ID, complete the opening process and have immediate access to your funds. In the case of ANZ, we were also provided on the spot with an ATM and debit card which let us use cash machines, buy goods online and use the EFTPOS machine in shops straight away. Amazingly the NZ bank was OK with us not providing an address initially. I am quite sure this would not be the case in the US. When we explained our situation, they just asked us to come back and update our address once we had one. As a second tip, we transferred funds from our US to NZ accounts using a fintech company called Transferwise which was much cheaper and faster than an international inter institution transfer.

Step 2. Immediate Transportation and Housing
We were very fortunate that as part of our relocation, the firm provided two weeks of accommodation and two weeks of car rental. This was about the perfect amount of time. We ended up finding a flat and moving in within a week, but it took us almost a full two weeks to find and buy a car. Having a place to sleep and a way to get around for at least a couple of weeks was critical in reducing the stress levels and increasing our flexibility.

Step 3. An Address
An address is a precursor to so many things, so this should be a top priority. Having the funds in place to pay a deposit and initial moving costs make this possible. More details on house hunting in Wellington can be found in the post - "You Don't Look Like Axe Murderers..."

Step 3b. Permanent Transportation
We decided we wanted to buy a car to provide more freedom and flexibility, but depending on where you live, you could make do with public transportation for sure. Wellington has a pretty good system of buses, light rail and the iconic Cable Car.

Step 4. Utilities
With a home comes all kinds of fun things like bills. Unless you are renting somewhere that provides an all inclusive rent price, you will need to get set up with things like power, water and internet. Once again NZ made this unbelievably easy. They have a service called FastConnect. You basically call as single number, provide your new address and they contact power companies, water etc and get you set up. Its free for individuals and paid for by the utility companies I believe. Its amazing, they were super responsive and saved us a ton of research figuring out who we needed to call to get set up. Internet isn't one of their services, but Chris loves diving into the details of things like this, and he had our WiFi set up in the new place before we even moved in.

Step 5. Local ID/Drivers Licences
Although we could have driven within NZ for six months or so on our US license, we decided we wanted to have some local ID and a drivers license was the easiest way to do this. Now we had an address we took our US licenses to the local VTNZ filled in a form paid a modest amount and in a week or so we should have new NZ licenses sent to us.

Step 6. Taxes
Assuming you're not independently wealthy and you will have to work, you will have to register for some kind of local Tax ID. In NZ this is called and IRD number. In order to apply for this, we needed NZ bank accounts, photo ID and a local address. You fill in the forms online, scan in your documents and 8-10 days later you can get paid in NZ!

Step 7. Healthcare
As part of our visa, we are entitled to NZ healthcare, which like the UK is open to all residents and citizens. You can also get private health insurance, but I am not sure yet if we will do this. We do need to register with a local doctor however and that's our next step.

Step 8. Register to Vote!
Ok so maybe this one is only SO important this year and with this US election, but for sure we want our voices heard. Fortunately visiting the US embassy homepage from overseas right now directs you straight to the Federal Voting Assistance Program site which enables you to register to vote by postcard. I can't wait to see how this works..... Wish you were here, the weather has been somewhat crappy but the people are lovely. PS I vote for Hillary...

That's all the basic stuff you need to function, but of course to integrate and get to know your new home, there are lots more fun things to do - like explore the area, find the best bars and the nights for the best happy hours and meet your new neighbors. But we'll leave that recap for another time!

Kiwi/US Culture Differences #1

I have a feeling there may be several posts on this topic. This first one is almost more of a values difference than a culture difference, but it seeps into the culture of life here so bear with me. There isn't a neat and tidy way of putting this, but its the difference between the US culture of acquiring 'stuff' in your life much of which is inexpensive, often low quality and more often than not disposable; and the Kiwi culture of value and usefulness of all things until they are literally dust.

The best examples I can give of this are Trade Me and second hand shops. As I mentioned previously, we have suffered from a decent amount of sticker shock here on everything from toasters to office chairs. As we have been setting up our simple Kiwi life, and without a paycheck for a couple of months, we have looked for creative ways to save money and cut costs. Chris and I have always been big fans of second hand - whether that means antiques or furniture from Craigslist. Most of the furniture in our house in Alexandria in fact was from Craigslist, local vintage shops and even Goodwill. So after arriving here, we sought out much of the same equivalents. The difference comes in the kinds of things you find for sale here. Things that people would not donate to a charity store in the States but would just go straight in the trash, are for sale here (albeit for a few bucks). In fact, one of the second hand shops is literally at the local dump. Some things that people have been thrown out have been rescued and can be bought from a shop at the same location. This is not a criticism and is in many cases not simply due to lack of resources, but more a difference in values.

Kiwis seem to have more of a culture of 'making do' and less of an expectation of new and shiny. Our discovery of this first hand started with the housing search and was reaffirmed with our Trade Me experiences. For example, when looking for an office chair, we found the following...

Office Chair on Trade Me

This led to a discovery of the $1 reserve category, which led to the following...

Selection of $1 reserve items

And my absolute favorite...

Yep, this dust could be yours for just ONE DOLLAR!

Happy shopping people :-)

Wellington Beaches

We've been pretty busy for the last couple of weeks getting everything set up so we haven't had a lot of time to explore the area. Fortunately, Wellington is a very reasonably sized city - still big enough for you to feel that it IS a city, but small enough to get anywhere pretty easily. Chris and I joke that wherever we need to go, google will always tell us it takes 16 minutes.

While we haven't managed to go too far afield, we have managed to check out some awesome beaches. Considering its the middle of winter here, its still pretty pleasant to walk on the beach as long as you have a thin jacket and a wind break. I don't know how busy it will get in the summer, but with the exception of one or two other dog walkers, and in Lyall bay the crazy surfers, often we won't see anyone at all.

As well as just amazing wild beauty, the beaches are also full of awesome shells, polished stones, drift wood and sea weeds. It's definitely not the groomed sand of South Beach, but its all the more impressive to me because of its savageness. You can really imagine that things are pretty much unchanged between your footsteps and the footsteps of the first person to discover the beach. All of the photos below are from beaches within 15 - 45 minutes of downtown Wellington.

Owhiro Bay - 15 minutes from downtown

Pauatahanui - 30 minutes from downtown

Queen Elizabeth Park, Paekakariki - 45 minutes from downtown

Paua Shells and Driftwood

Car Buying NZ Style

Once we found somewhere to live, our next priority was finding a car, and after driving around these crazy narrow streets for the last week, we both agreed that smaller was better. Back to our old friend Trade Me again to get a sense for the market and figure out all these new car brands that we'd never come across before. As an auction driven site similar to eBay, many of the listings show two prices - a no haggle 'buy it now' price and an auction price and end date. We started online, then headed out to visit a few different places. 

Cars in NZ are split into two major types right off the bat - "NZ New" and "Imports". As you might have guessed, NZ New cars are those that were imported here as brand new cars and have stayed registered in NZ. Imports were originally sold overseas (Usually Japan) then imported to NZ and registered. The big difference is NZ New cars have a verifiable track record in the country, while Imports are a little more variable, but also cheaper. A lot of dealers provide warranties or guarantee odometer readings but often there are still little quirks with imports. For example, a lot of times the radio will be super fancy in a reasonably old car, but everything will be written in Japanese. In some of the newer cars with electronic odometer and information panels integrated as part of the car itself, you will see the messages in Japanese. Unfortunately the Japanese characters for "Check Engine" or "Oil Change Due" are equally indecipherable to me. 

  

We started off visiting an auction house in Lower Hutt because they had a lot of listings on Trade Me. They have auctions on Wednesdays and Thursdays and their auction house also sells a lot of 'buy now' cars you can just jump in and drive around the yard. Unlike in the US, you are basically left to your own devices. There is no car dealer following you around chatting you up and trying to pressure you into anything. There are people there to answer your questions, but they pretty much leave you alone unless you need them. 

There also seem to be a good number of smaller dealers who have a handful of inventory that you can make an appointment with. We visited one guy we found on Trade Me who basically sells cars from his house - he has them dotted all around the streets surrounding his flat (and now the random parking we see everywhere makes a bit more sense). Then we found another guy who specializes in little imports and works out of a big garage in an industrial park. Somehow he managed to cram about 20 cars in one unit with barely enough room to walk between them. Basically you decide which cars you want to test drive and then he plays car Tetris moving about 10 different cars to get to the one you wanted.

The other random thing about test driving cars is no one asks for your license or any kind of identifiable info before slapping a dealer plate on the back of the car and handing you the keys while they stay behind moving cars to get to the next one you want. I thought this was another crazy example of Kiwi trust and openness, which it is, except after driving a dozen or so cars now I also realize all of them have zero gas. Which basically means if you wanted to run off with them, you'd only get a mile or so away before you broke down. Brilliant. 

Well we finally found 'the one' - after flirting with a Ford Fiesta, a Mitsubishi Colt Plus, a Toyota Corolla and a VW Golf, we settled on a Mazda Axela (Mazda 3 to us in the States). Its a 2005 but looks brand new, reasonable mileage and, of course an awesome Japanese GPS system that will helpfully navigate us around Tokyo, but sadly not Wellington...

 If the process of test driving cars was ridiculously easy, the process of buying one was even easier. After we took it for a spin and decided to pull the trigger, we went inside handed over our US driver licence, then a runner literally ran across the road to the VTNZ with our license and the signed one page sales agreement and came back less than 10 minutes later with our new NZ license plates. Paying was also a lesson in trust -  most debit cards here have a $5,000 daily limit on them for purchases unless you call the bank and change it, so the guy just charged us $4,000 on the spot (at his suggestion, in case we wanted to make additional purchases that day!) and then he basically handed us an IOU form with the balance written out and their bank account details. He was like just transfer the rest of the funds over today or tomorrow, whatever works... The dealers insurance covers us until we get home, so in about 27 minutes we were driving out the gate with our new car.

I freaking love this country! 

Sticker Shock

We knew before we got here that some things were going to be more expensive than in the States just based on the location of New Zealand and the market size. We were nowhere near prepared for just how much more expensive some random things were. Take for example, our $100 toaster and $149 kettle.

A pretty similar looking Black and Decker toaster is about $18.99 on Amazon, while a Hamilton Beach glass kettle is $28.02. Even taking the exchange rate into account, that's about a 400% mark up on each. We didn't bring any small kitchen appliances like these because 1) they would have taken too much space and 2) the electricity is 220 V here and even with an adapter, we'd  probably blow out the internal workings pretty swiftly. Which means we are beholden to NZ prices...

Except... sales. Kiwis LOVE sales. While there are only a handful of big store brands here (So far we've tried Briscoes, Farmers, Harvey Norman, The Warehouse and Noel Leeming) there seems to be some kind of sale on pretty much all of the time. We stumbled across Briscoes pretty early on and thanks to a VERY helpful person there, we discovered that they have 30-60% off sales pretty much every time you turn around. Then there are the catalog sales which have even bigger discounts which means we ended up paying $29 for our toaster and $49 for our kettle - or only about a 25% mark up which is slightly less nauseating.

Food is a bit more expensive than the States, but the quality of general day to day stuff is much higher it seems, so it pretty much evens out. Eggs for example. OMG, New Zealand eggs. They are amazing.

The most randomly expensive things have been plastic things like trash cans, storage bins or anything that is molded plastic. When we were packing up our life in the States we bought dozens of these huge black plastic bins to store our things in. Costco has then for about $8 per bin, a comparable bin at The Warehouse (which is New Zealand's answer to Walmart it seems) was $70. SEVENTY DOLLARS. For a molded plastic bin. What?? I even checked two different stores to make sure they didn't just accidentally add a zero... Meanwhile, our trash can. We didn't want to pay the hundreds of dollars a metal trash can would surely cost, so we thought we'd go with a nice cheap plastic one. Except the nice cheap plastic ones still cost about $40 BUT they all assure us, they are Made in Italy. Hmm... Italian leather, sure. Italian molded plastic??

The Kiwi Accent

I love the Kiwi accent. I'm still not 100% sure I can accurately differentiate between the Kiwi and the Aussie accent, and I know admitting to as much is like saying I can't tell the difference between a Canadian and an American, but I am loving the process of getting my head around it.

First of all, Kiwis have a strange case of vowel slippage. What this means is vowels that we know and love as Americans sound quite different here - and confusingly, they are usually swapped with other vowel sounds. The most common example is Fish and Chips becoming something like more like Fush and Chups. But its much more entertaining than just that.

The 'e' sound like in 'men' becomes an 'i' sound like in 'itch'. So for example, Chris and I were listening to a local radio station that as far as I am concerned is called the 'Idge', but is in fact called the 'Edge'.

The 'er' on the end of words also disappears somewhat and becomes more like an 'ah' as in British English. So an American glass of water, becomes a glass of wohtah - but not in a Boston/New York way.

This becomes confusing when whole sentences as strung together - so for example, if a man has a tennis lesson at ten after six in the morning; in New Zealand is sounds more like a min has a tinnus lisson at tin aftah sux in the mohrnin. That's a terrible approximation, but you get the idea.

Lots has been written about it apparently - a quick google search turned up this, but these idiosyncrasies  have definitely led to some moments when Chris and I have had to take a time out and have a recap of a conversation to make sure we're grasping everything correctly - especially over the phone. By no means is it as confusing as learning a new language, but by its very similarities lie the biggest pit falls.

Some of my favorite and most dangerous vowel swap outs are as follows:
- Pen to Pin as in "Can I borrow your pin?" = hunh?
- Men to Min
- Sex to Six
- Six to Sux
- Deck to Dick - probably best if I don't give examples of the above...
- Tennis to Tinnus
- Winter to Wuntah

And many more... There are also some wonderful examples of Kiwi slang words that we have come across too, but those are for another post... :-)

EDIT: My brother just shared this awesome youtube video about New Zealand Deck Sealant. Slightly politically incorrect and definitely NSFW...

In the mean time, here is a random beach Chris and I found about an hour from Wellington. As Chris said, its not very crowded...:

"You don't look like axe murderers..."

Our first priority once we arrived in Wellington was to find an apartment or 'flat'. Everyone we spoke to directed us to New Zealand's equivalent of Craig's list - which is called trademe.co.nz. I had been looking at listings for a while from the States to get a sense of price points, neighborhoods and get a feel for the market, but I hadn't been able to set up many viewings ahead of time as I needed a NZ cell phone number to fill out the online forms.

New Zealand is both incredibly open and very protective at the same time. There aren't a ton of rules, but their systems really only work when you are in country and starting to get set up. For example, I needed to get a Trade Me account to save listings I was viewing, but I wasn't able to set an account up from the States because they saw my international IP address and blocked me from signing up. I emailed their generic help desk number expecting nothing to happen, but I quickly got an email back from a real person who was able to manually set up an account for me once I explained that we were moving to Wellington, but weren't in country yet.

The rental market in NZ is different to the States in a number of ways:

• Renters pay the listing agent fees. Unlike the States where the landlord does. Of course you can find some listings direct from owners who don't charge a listing fee, but these are few and far between. It seems like the listing fee is equivalent to approximately one week's rent. Which brings me to the second big difference...
• Rent is listed and charged by the week. So you will see listings for $600 or $700 but that's really $2,400 or $2,800 a month. People are really flexible on terms, you can pay your rent by the week or bi-weekly if you prefer and I suppose you can also pay monthly, but that seems to be an exception. As one of the rental agents said, does it matter if its a week or a month if someone isn't paying their rent?
• Quality of housing is... variable... I felt a little prepared for this as everything I read mentioned how cold NZ homes can be, that a lot of rentals aren't well insulated and the cost of electricity is high. That said, I was still surprised by the variability of quality within the same price point. We looked at a little new construction home on top of a hill with a lovely view about 12-15 minutes from work for $500 a week and then a dreadful inner city flat with a view of warehouses and the road for $480 a week. The photos below were for a lovely but rather expensive place with incredible views over the bay.

• Listing photos are... entertaining... When we listed our house in Alexandria for rent, we removed a ton of stuff, staged some of the rooms and had a professional photographer come and take pictures. Now maybe we went a little overboard, but we wanted to find a good renter and we were asking a fair bit of money. In comparison, the listing photos in NZ often have unmade beds, almost ALL of the toilet seats are up, dirty dishes are in the sink, clothing may be draped on chairs or the floor and there is just a huge amount of 'stuff' around.  
• Security deposit is called a 'bond'. It seems around 2-3 weeks rent is the norm for the bond and it is held in what we would called escrow - or an independent account. Same as in the US, this is returned at the end of the rental period.
• Lease periods are variable. We came across lots of six month leases, a few one year leases and even some 2-3 month leases. A lot of people go over seas for a month or two and lease out their home while they are gone. 
• Background checks and credit checks are... optional... We came prepared with copies of our visas, employment offer letters, bank statements from the US, letter from our mortgage company showing we had paid every month on time but no one asked for a single thing. When we asked the realtor about back ground checks two separate guys told us "we don't really do that here, you two don't seem like axe murders so you'll be fine..." and I guess that was the approval process!

We looked in a lot of different parts of the city and surrounding areas. From Seatoun, Miramar and Mount Vic on the East of the City, to Te Aro, Thorndon and Brooklyn in the middle and Karori, Kelburn and Crofton Downs on the West. We were concerned about commute time and traffic but after testing out the runs during 'rush hour' in the morning, we discovered that google map's version of red on the traffic map here generally means 'slow down a bit for this corner' or 'there's a traffic light'. We also found, like in England, one continuous street (admittedly a twisty turny one) can have as many as half a dozen names depending on which bit of it you're on. Nothing is straight, the streets are super narrow in places and people park on the road all over the place making it a bit like a terrifying video game to navigate around the city. Fortunately I learned to drive in the UK, so its been a bit more natural for me than Chris. 

In the end we settled for a cute little duplex flat in Crofton Downs. Partially furnished and just up the hill from the train station in to town. Its not the most exciting part of town, but its a nice place, pretty view, easy and cheap and will give us six months to get our feet under ourselves until we either decide to stay there or find somewhere closer into town. We do have an extra room, so we're ready for you to come visit!

And So it Begins...

This move has had so many different stages that it feels like it has been happening for months. This week however was when the rubber met the road. We had been staying with our immensely generous and patient friends Tammy and Chris, who in the midst of their own new home purchase and move offered us not only a bed but also loaned us their car so we could get the final few bits and pieces sorted. We owe them big time!

Wednesday, July 13, we handed over our beautiful home to the property management company, a process which included the 11th hour drama of a plumbing issue requiring cutting through a wall to replace pipes and finding someone to replace drywall, all in less than 24 hours... super fun and not at all stressful...

Thursday was Chris' last day of work, and finally a chance for him to gain some freedom from email and work deadlines. We also met the people who will be renting our house for the next three years. The seem great and are experiencing what we are just a few weeks ahead of us - they landed on Wednesday, did a walk through of the house on Thursday and are moving on Friday.

Friday was my last day at work which started with some last minute logistics, and ended with a happy hour on the roof of our offices which was fantastic.

Saturday we finished our packing, did a final weigh of all of our bags (340lb of checked luggage plus about another 80lbs or so of carry on each....) and found an Uber big enough to take us down to a hotel next to the airport so we would have less to stress about on the morning of our flight.

The hotel was a great idea in theory, and had an incredible view over the Pentagon and most of down town DC, however we were woken up at 2am with a fire alarm which required the entire hotel to evacuate into the parking lot in our pajamas.

At this point it occurs to me that if the hotel really does go up in flames, all Chris and I are going to NZ with is our back packs full of laptops and technology items, passport and the clothes on our backs. Fortunately it was a false alarm and we were all back in bed for an hour or so before my alarm at 4am.

Sunday we somehow managed to make it to DCA will all of our luggage, get it all checked in, made sure it met all the weight requirements and headed to the Admirals club for a very early mimosa. The bunting on the way to the airplane was a nice touch - reminding us, as if we needed it, that we were leaving America.

Our flight to LAX was uneventful until we deplaned and were accosted at the gate by my brother! He had flown down that morning from Seattle to surprise us and boy, did he! We then spent a wonderful day with Chris' sister Sabrina and my brother (also Chris). Sab took us to a very cool winery in Malibu where she had prepared an incredible picnic lunch and we sat under the olive trees drinking wine, munching on stuff and listening to the band in the glorious California sunshine.

Eventually we made our way back down to Santa Monica where we walked along the beach and brother Chris took some fun pics to remind us of the day.

 Late Sunday night we boarded our 787 Dreamliner, settled into the rather wonderful business class seats we had managed to upgrade to thanks to all the points collected due to my weekly flights to Dallas for the last six months, and slept much of the way to Auckland.

Monday didn't exist due to vagaries of the international dateline and transpacific flights.

Tuesday we landed in Auckland at 7am, slightly delayed but feeling remarkably refreshed thanks to the awesome flight we had.

Everyone lined up to deplane only to be met with a team from New Zealand's Department of Spraying Down Foreigners (I don't know the real name of this department, obv...) . These guys protect against nasty insects and bugs that we could bring into this pristine country, by walking up and down the aisles of the plane spraying aerosols over all of the passengers and  luggage.

Much to the amusement of many of us, the spray smelled of... kiwi fruit... I guess I should have seen that one coming....

Immigration was beyond simple - Chris and I both have E-passports which basically meant we could scan our passports at a kiosk similar to the self check in booths at the airport, collect a ticket, get photographed and never speak to a single person. Once we collected our bags - all six of which arrived together in less than five minutes, we progressed to the customs and biosecurity stations where I had to declare my duty free chocolate purchases and our feather duvet (as an animal product). Fortunately neither of these were an issue, our bags were swiftly scanned for any other biosecurity contraband, returned to us and we were done!

Welcome to New Zealand!