Photos of Wellington, Nz

Harbor facing the south island

Buying A Car

Buying a car in New Zealand turned out to be easier than I thought. We were told to go to Max Motors in Lower Hutt for our search. I had heard of them before in my research before getting here and they seem fairly priced. The car lot is tiny and only holds @ 40 used cars but almost everyone from the Embassy buys from them, so we figured they had to be good.

We needed a good, reliable cheap-ish car to get us started until we were comfortable driving on the left side. And it also had to be big enough to accommodate Morgan's extra long legs. We settled on an adorable Honda Minivan (sorry, Adrian but it's functinal) with 7 seats and all wheel drive. Perfect. And it was cheap enough to buy with our credit card, since we didn't have enough Kiwi money yet to buy it. It takes a few days to get money transferred to our new account and we didn't want to wait. Plus we get the airline miles. The whole process was incredibly easy and we were even able to get an insurance policy set up on the spot until we could get our own permanent one. Max Motors is awesome. They even filled up the tank for free before we left.

Food in Wellington

We are still onour hotel which limits the meals I can actually cook (I'm totally heartbroken) but, since we are in the middle of a big city, the options are limitless. We were given the impression that the food here was bland and tasteless but I've found that to be totally false. The food here is fantastic.
They have these little cafes all over the city that serve take out sandwiches and gourmet pastas and cakes. Yummy. I've pretty much been going there every day. I have yet to go to an actual restaurant here since we all fall asleep @ 7pm Kiwi time. Maybe tonight we will stay awake long enough to venture out of the hotel for a nice sit down dinner.

G'Day Wellington

We finally arrived in Wellington after a straight 24 hours of travelling. We thought it would be better to travel straight through and avoid dragging our 8 bags around LA. The flights were smooth and I have to say that Air New Zealand has some of the cleanest aircraft I've ever seen. they were friendly and professional and served you real food at no extra cost and at dinner time, they walked up and down the aisles with bottles of wine-also free. Lovely. Unfortunately I was unable to sleep a wink on any of the flights (3). One poor toddler was not having a good time and screamed the entire 12 hours. I am not exaggerating. He screamed, passed out for 1/2 hour, woke up and screamed some more. Poor baby. I felt so bad for the Mom who did everything in her power to calm him.

Anyway, New Zealand is beautiful. Wellington, in particular, is very pretty with great architecture, culture and the feel of a modern city without all of the garbage that usaully accompanies larger cities.

We have great sponsors here ( folks frm the Embassy who make us feel welcome and help us transition) who picked us up, shleped all of our luggage and stocked our hotel fridge with homemade goodies. What a lifesaver. I think we hit the jackpot with them.

We've been in a hotel since arriving since our house is unexpectedly undergoing some improvements and though my two boys are about to kill each other, it is nice to have a lull before all the hard work begins. Adrian has had to jump right into his new position. We arrived at 9am and he was at the embassy by 1pm and back to work bright and early the next day. Luckily he got a bit of sleep on the plane.

We have been tryong our best to adjust to the 16 hour time difference, staying up until almost 8pm and waking @ 3 or 4. Every day we shave off another hour which is about average. The boys will start school next week. Morgan will take public transportation and Ewan gets to ride a school bus.

The cost of groceries is shocking to say the least. As govt employees, we are allowed a small cost of living adjustment to offset some of the price differences. How that works is, whatever you receive after taxes and deductions on your pay check, the govt will give us an additional percentage of "discretionary" income to buy food, etc. I think they need to revisit the COLA. It is currently at 35%. Well, I just got cell phone servie and am paying 89 cents per minute for all calls (that was the cheapest I could find-no texting, no internet, just good old fashioned phone calls). A medium sized tube of Colgate was $6.97 NZ ( $5.11 US). 4 AA Lithium Energizer batteries were $25.99 Kiwi ( $19.05 US). I was at the local grocery store, not a 7 Eleven where everything is marked up. So, we will have to shop smarter.

On the upside, there is very little crime, the people are incredibly nice and very fit and the weather, while dismal at the moment, (it's winter here) isn't as bad as in South Dakota which still ranks # 1 in quality of life for me.

More to come as I explore this wonderful country and I promise to post more photos shortly.

Last Day, what am I forgetting?

With a little more than 24 hours to go I am beginning to wonder if I have forgotten anything.

Not so young anymore

It's not that I think I'm old, I'm only 41 but I am realizing that I am not young anymore. Lately I've been relying on my 13 year old son to do all of my heavy lifting and I've sent my 10 year old to the convenience store a mere 100 feet away more times than I can count. But the number one reason I've noticed I'm not young anymore is going away parties. We've attended a lot of them recently as members of the 152nd make their way to their posts. Remember when we wouldn't even get ready to go out until 11 ? Now I'm home way before then. And, if it's not at happy hour (early) I'm not going. Anyway, I was speaking to one of the youngins at our party and for some reason we were talking about my high school prom. I mentioned that my high school prom was 25 years ago and he said "really ? I was born 25 years ago". Ouch.

3 Days and counting

We are getting down to the wire now. Our UAB and additional HHE have been packed and shipped. Drove to Roanoke to meet in laws halfway for one final goodbye. Sold the beloved Audi to a family friend and Mom is coming tomorrow for her farewells. I've copied every report card and award that the boys have received since kindergarten for their new school and updated the immunizatiojn records.
What did I forget ? Snacks for plane, one last load of laundry, ride to airport, passport, cash. I can't shake the nagging feeling that I am forgetting something.