Closed for Christmas

New Zealand pretty much shuts down for Christmas. Both of our offices are closed from tomorrow until the 5th of January. Even our local fish 'n' chip shop is shut until January 14th. Some people in my office are going away til February. Yes, it's the good life...

We're going up to Auckland to spend the holidays with Gareth's sister & family. It really doesn't feel like Christmas to us at all though. The days are too long, the air too warm. A Christmas Story has not been on tv even once. If anyone in our neighborhood has decorated their houses with lights, we have no idea -- it doesn't get dark until 10pm. Who's out that late?

Maybe by next year we'll be more in the groove for a summertime Christmas... We see a future involving Christmas camping trips, maybe a holiday bach by the beach. It won't be anything like the Christmases we grew up with, but it could be a good thing in its own right.

Okains Bay

We drove an hour and a half to Okains Bay on the Banks Peninsula for the weekend. Okains is one of many bays that circle the outside of Banks Peninsula. Here's a map (Okains Bay is in the northeast corner of the peninsula):It's a gorgeous drive. This is a photo from Summit Road, looking down onto the Bay. It's a pretty crazy windy road out on the Peninsula with lots of dips and turns - it's not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. Sheep or cows would sometimes charmingly wander into the road. But they get out of the way pretty quick...

This photo was taken looking down from Summit Road toward Akaroa. The valleys are populatd by sheep and some cows. When you stop to take photos, you hear "baaa baaa" echoing from the hills. In other words, exactly what you'd expect from New Zealand's south island.

Here we are at the beach on Okains Bay. It was nearly empty. We set up some chairs and read books until Gareth fell asleep in his chair. Ahh, the serenity!!

Here's "the city." The town centre of Okains bay had a dairy, a school, a church, and a teeny tiny library. There was also a Maori and Colonial museum, but they were charging $7 per person to get in. I think the Chicago Art Institute charges less than that... We skipped it.
This was probably our last camping trip until after the baby is born. I'm getting to be a bit too big to sleep comfortably in a sleeping bag on an air mattress. We have so much more to explore - as soon as the boy is big enough, we'll be back out there!

We don't need no stinkin' shoes

There are barefoot people everywhere here.

In the grocery store...
In the food court at the mall ...
At the home improvement store ...
They're barefoot in the street, in the airport, sometimes in restaurants (we've actually only seen little kids barefoot in restaurants, but still). These photos happen to all be of men, but women and children do it equally. This was pretty surprising at first, but we're getting used to it. Kiwis just prefer to go natural, I guess. Or maybe the high price of shoes here has something to do with it. But don't they worry about stepping on glass? Or catching some kind of foot disease? We don't know. We just know there are barefoot people everywhere.

Gareth gave it a go today. We went to the mall and to the grocery store. Gareth left his flip-flops in the car. Look at him, all fancy-free in the mall.
He reports that it's good fun, except in the freezer aisle. Brrrr!

Lake Tekapo

We took a trip south to Lake Tekapo over the weekend. (FYI, "Tekapo" is pronounced with the emphasis on TEK.) Lake Tekapo and nearby Lake Pukaki are a crazy turquoise blue color. We learned this is created by 'rock flour.' The campground gave us a sheet of Quick Facts, which tells us:

The turquoise blue of the lake is created by rock flour. The glaciers in the headwaters of Tekapo grind rock into fine dust on their journey down towards the lake. This rock flour is suspended in the water and when combined with sunlight creates this unique water colour.

It really has to be seen to be believed.

This is Lake Tekapo.

These purple and pink flowers were all over the area. They're called foxglove.
And here's Lake Pukaki. We were lucky to see it on a clear day - we understand that usually Mt Cook in the background there is shrouded in clouds. Mt Cook is the tallest mountain in New Zealand (3754 metres/12316 feet). Imagine driving along the highway and then turning a corner to see this.


On the shores of Lake Tekapo is the Church of the Good Shepherd, an itty bitty church built from stone in the early 1900s. It was a sweet little church with a nice view out over the lake.

Anniversary

Today is a special day. Today is our 6 year wedding anniversary and also marks 6 months since we landed in New Zealand. Happy day, happy day.

We can't believe 6 months have gone by in NZ already. On the one hand, it's flown by and feels like we just got here. On the other hand, we feel so settled in our lives and our jobs that it kind of feels like we've always been here.

We've been reflecting on the move and the ways in which life is better, worse, or just different now. We made this list of pros and cons:

Pros

1. The work:life ratio for us in NZ is definitely more favorable. We work fewer hours per week, and the hours when we are at work are pretty freaking laid back. We have no doubt that both of our companies could do more work faster, but what's the need, really?

2. The outdoors are a bigger part of our lives. This is not only because we are outside more, but also because everyone around us is outside too. People spend a lot of time outside. No matter what the weather, outdoor tables at cafes are full. Heaps of people are always walking in the parks and on the beaches. Even when they're inside, Kiwis have their doors and windows open. And open means open - there are no screen doors or screens on the windows. You open the door and let outside come right in.

3. Food is better in NZ. Generally speaking, our produce is fresher because it didn't have to travel very far to get here. Packaged foods have very few additives. High fructose corn syrup, an ingredient in just about everything in America, does not seem to exist here. Cows are raised on pastures, not in "confined animal feeding operations," and they eat grass, not antibiotics and cornmeal/other cows.

4. Politics are not so ... political. There are two main political parties here: Labour (left) and National (right). But they're really not that far apart in ideology. Power changed from Labour to National shortly before we arrived, but as far as we can tell, no one really noticed much of a difference. Most people seem pretty happy with John Key (the prime minister). America's incredible political divide, and all the hysteria and rhetoric that was the norm -- that just doesn't happen here.

5. Smaller is better. There are some clear advantages to living in a small, relatively powerless and non-influential country. For one, things get done. New Zealand is not paralyzed by an unmanageable bureaucracy. When there's outcry about a law or system that isn't working, it's really easy to fix it. It usually just takes a few days. And no one wants to bomb the Kiwis, so airport security is almost nonexistent. Also, there are fewer signs in public places telling you what you can't do. The smaller population here makes it possible to manage with a lot fewer rules and restrictions.

6. Gareth can watch rugby and cricket, and he can use British English like "ta" for thank you and "mate" for friend. This makes Gareth happy, and in turn, Lindsay is happy too.

Cons

1. Many of the people we love are really, really far away. We've been far away from them for a long time, but now they're a lot further away. Like a day's travel away or more. It's difficult to arrange phone/skype calls, and we probably won't see most of them in person more than once every few years.

2. Our house and our car are not as nice as what we had in America. We have a small, economical (i.e., slow) car. We're renting a small townhouse with gross blue carpet now. When we move into our new house, we'll have to cope with a pretty hideous peach bathroom. Our place in America was modern and beautiful. We will eventually be able to bring our new house up to our standards, but it will be some years before we save enough to do everything we'd like to do.

3. The cost of living relative to wages is more beneficial in America (at least, in Phoenix. Maybe not everywhere in America). We took pay cuts to move here. In New Zealand, we make less money but spend more for shelter and utilities.

4. Mexican food. We miss it. New Zealand would be better if it were closer to Mexico.

It's weird, but even as we make this list of cons, we're talking about how these cons really aren't all bad. Except maybe the one about loved ones being so far away. But a small house is easy to keep clean. We make less money, but we have everything we need. We pay almost nothing to fuel our little car. And let's face it: Mexican food is not that good for you.

Overall, things have gone incredibly well for us down here. We can both say without hesitation that we are very happy we made the move.

Kiwiana

We were recently invited to a Quiz Night with some of my co-workers. The theme was "Kiwiana" - so you might be wondering why we were invited. We certainly wondered. We thought as new immigrants we'd be pretty useless on the team, but it turned out that we were able to answer a few questions. We almost even carried our weight.

So what's New Zealand's equivalent of baseball and apple pie (or for our English friends, football and a pint)? Here's a few things we learned about Kiwiana.

1. Pineapple lumps.

These are chewy candies covered in chocolate. I guess there must be some pineapple juice in them, but trust us when we tell you, they taste nothing like pineapple. They are a National Treasure. A little bit too sticky sweet for my taste, but Gareth ate nearly a whole bag at Quiz Night.

2. Flight of the Conchords

New Zealand's "fourth most popular comedy folk duo." You may have seen their show on HBO. It seems the show was actually more popular in America than it is in New Zealand though. One of the quiz questions was "Give the complete names of both Flight of the Conchords members" - Gareth and I were the only ones on our team who knew the answer (Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie). We're big fans.

3. No. 8 wire.

It's apparently used for fencing, but has become a national symbol of Kiwi ingenuity and self-sufficiency. The idea is that Kiwis can fix anything with a bit of No. 8 wire. Kiwis are pretty proud of their DIY attitude. They sometimes call it a "No. 8 wire mentality." As a matter of fact, that very phrase was just mentioned in an ad on TV as I wrote this.

4. Pavlova

This is a meringue and cream dessert usually topped with kiwifruit. It's New Zealand's equivalent of America's apple pie. There's a raging debate over who invented it: the New Zealanders or Australians. Both countries say they made it first. Naturally, we're siding with New Zealand on this one.

NZ thanksgiving turkey

On a whim we decided to have a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner and immediately invited our friends over for the affair. We quickly realized it wouldn't be practical to hold our Kiwi Thanksgiving on actual Thanksgiving - it's a Thursday and we'll have to work. And we'll have to go to work the next day too. Kiwi Thanksgiving will have to be on Saturday. Not a big deal.

Now we're running into more problems. We assumed we'd be able to source a turkey from the supermarket or the butcher. This weekend while doing our weekly shop, we had a quick look. Countdown had no fresh turkeys. It had only frozen turkeys, and in fact, only 2 of them. And it didn't exactly look like the rest had already been bought up. It looked more like these 2 sad looking 5.5kg (12lb)turkeys had been sitting in the cooler since last Christmas. The price tag? $77.00 (SEVENTY SEVEN DOLLARS)!!!! That's each. That's $77 for a measly little frozen turkey.

No worries. The butcher will have turkeys. I stopped into Verkerks, the butcher shop close to my work. I asked if they had any turkeys. Some discussion between the butchers ensued. The final answer: the turkeys don't come in until the 1st of December. "So not in time for Thanksgiving then..." I said. "Well, this being New Zealand..." the butcher said. Right. Not in America anymore. No Thanksgiving turkeys.

No worries. The internet will have turkeys! Yes, the internet does have turkeys. We can buy a frozen 6.5kg turkey online for the bargain price of $91.60. Eek.

Thanksgiving lamb, anyone?

The tadpole is growing

I'm still growing this tadpole in my belly. According to thebump.com, it's about as big as a lemon from head to rump right now. Last week thebump.com said baby was as big as a peach. I would have thought peaches are bigger than lemons. Hopefully baby isn't shrinking.

We never had any babies in America, so we can't really compare maternity care here to maternity care there. But we can share what it's like here.

One thing we're pretty sure is different here is that not everyone has an obstetrician involved. Everyone has a Lead Maternity Carer ("LMC") which can either be your general practitioner, a midwife, or an obstetrician. Most women use a midwife. That's what we're doing. Our midwife is Sheena.

The national health care system pays for all maternity care. As legal residents of New Zealand, we get the free care. We don't even have private insurance and really don't need it. The national health care takes care of all antenatal care, all hospital costs, and for any specialist care if we run into complications. There are only a couple exceptions. One exception is ultrasound scans. I have no idea why these are excepted. It's not a huge fee though - we paid $50 for our 8-week scan. We'll pay $50 again for the 20-week scan. Lots of people do 12-week scans as well (presumably another $50) but we decided not to do that one.

The other exception is if you choose an obstetrician as your LMC. An obstetrician is a "specialist" and the NZ public health system only pays for specialist care where there is a medical need. The view here is that pregnancy is a normal state of being, not a medical emergency. Specialist care is only necessary where complications arise. Normal pregnancies are well within the skill set of a midwife or GP. If there are complications, the midwife or GP will refer the woman to a specialist. In that case, where there's a medical need, the public health system pays for the care. If you have an obstetrician as your LMC just because you want one, you will have to pay out-of-pocket.

So our LMC is Sheena the midwife. We are registered with her and the government pays her to take care of us from the first sign of pregnancy right through until our baby turns 6 weeks old. If for any reason we decide Sheena is no longer da bomb (she's awesome, we can't imagine this happening) then we can fire her and sign up with someone else.

Sheena has visited us at home every 4 weeks for the early part of the pregnancy. Visits will speed up as baby gets bigger and we get closer to D-Day.

It's incredible having the care provider come to see me at home. I've never experienced it before. Whenever I've needed medical care, I've had to go to the doctor, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and wait. And they're never on time, are they? Doctors always make you wait.

But the midwife comes to us. And it's excellent. In week 11 we had a scare - I had some bleeding. I called Sheena on her cell phone and she was here at the house 15 minutes later. Amazing! This alone makes having a midwife better than having a doctor, in my mind. It was so nice not to deal with the hospital or a doctor's office (more likely a hospital, as it was after hours). No waiting room or sick people or hospital forms. I just laid on my couch and put on relaxing music.

Thank goodness it all turned out to be fine. We could hear baby's heartbeat on doppler - what a relief! The little mcnugget seems to be hanging on alright. I'm still getting nausea and I'm definitely getting fatter everyday, so I guess that's a good sign.

We will have to choose where to give birth. There are 5 hospitals in Christchurch, some public and some private. We can pick any of them and the public health system will pay the tab. Just one of them, Christchurch Women's, is a 'tertiary care' hospital, which means it's got all the technology that anyone might need to get baby out. That's where you go if you need a Cesarean section, or if you want an epidural. But anyone can choose to give birth there, say, if you want the technology near by 'just in case.' We are not planning to go to Christchurch Women's but of course, things don't always go according to plan. The other hospitals are secondary care units, I think.

At the other end of the spectrum, we could give birth at home. This option is holding the most appeal for us right now. Home birth is not terribly common here, but not as frowned on here as maybe it is the U.S. There was one woman in our early pregnancy class (out of about 12) who was planning to birth at home. Our midwife is a big advocate for home birth. If a problem arose, we could transfer to hospital pretty quickly (it's probably 15 minutes away by car). But we haven't made any decisions yet. All options are still on the table.

The ducks know something

Recently we were sitting in the lounge when I looked out the window. There were ducks on the neighbors' rooftops. Ducks. On the roof.

What are these ducks doing on the roof? Are they nesting up there? We watched them for some time. This just seemed like very odd behavior for a duck. One of us said, "how did they get up there?" But of course, ducks can fly. They just don't usually decide to land on the chimney.

Are they trying to tell us something? Is there another tsunami coming? Should we all be getting to higher ground??

Ranfurly shield

Gareth recently got his hands on the coveted Ranfurly Shield. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it - it's only famous in New Zealand. Wikipedia says:

The Ranfurly Shield, colloquially known as the Log o' Wood, is perhaps the most prestigious trophy in New Zealand's domestic rugby union competition. First played for in 1904, the Ranfurly Shield is based on a challenge system, rather than a league or knockout competition as with most football trophies. The holding union must defend the Shield in challenge matches, and if a challenger defeats them, they become the new holder of the Shield.

Gareth got to hold the Shield in his hot little hands because his boss's son-in-law is a rugby player for the Canterbury rugby team. Canterbury were the proud holders of the Shield since winning it from Wellington in August. Incredibly, they let the players take the Log O' Wood home and pass it around to their fathers-in-law and, apparently, the in-law's coworkers.

Just days after Gareth got to hold the Shield, Canterbury lost it to Southland. See Southland celebrating. Look how happy they are to have the Shield.

Kiwi as potato chips

How's this for gross?

Tomato sauce and mince pie flavoured potato chips. (American translation: ketchup and beef pot pie flavor.)

Lindsay recoiled in fear at the sight of them. Gareth threw a bag in the shopping cart. The verdict: "tastes like beef pie."

These chips are advertised as being "Kiwi as." The expression "___ as" is a Kiwiism. Popular variations are "sweet as" or "dodgy as." It's a great expression because any adjective fits. You're just saying that something is exceptionally sweet or dodgy or Kiwi. In the case of the beef pie chips, you could say "nasty as" (for example).

Gareth is a big fan of the flavoured chips. Apparently they are popular in Britain too. Here, in addition to pie flavoured, you can get duck & plum sauce flavour, chicken flavour, or lamb and mint flavour. Mmmmmm, doesn't your mouth just water?

Road trip to west coast, pt 2

Carrying on with our journey...

On Sunday morning we drove a short ways north along the coast and then turned off onto this unsealed road into Jurassic Park.
We half expected T-Rex to come out from behind a fern and swallow the Honda Fit. But that didn't happen. We just drove along very slowly, bumping up and down, scraping the crap out of the undercarriage of the little car. At one point we heard something dragging and panicked, but it was only a stick. phew. This drive made us really miss our old Subaru Outback. Oh 'ru, how we loved you. But nevermind.

We made it to the trail head. This is the start of a walk to Cave Creek. DOC (NZ's department of conservation, the poster of the sign) says it will take an hour, which probably means more like 30 minutes. DOC's estimates always seem to be for the slowest, most disabled walkers.
Lots of greenery along the way. We saw a few flowers blooming too, including buttercups and these pretty white flowers growing on a vine.

We made it to Cave Creek in about 35 minutes. Cave Creek was a pleasant surprise. It was a gorge full of giant, moss-covered rocks. It was a fantastic place that made you kind of feel like a midget.


On the way here, we had seen a plaque memorialising the death of 14 people. There was no information about how they had died. Gareth investigated when we got home and learned about the Cave Creek Disaster. The 14 people died while standing on a wooden viewing platform that had been negligently constructed by DOC. This was a bit disturbing as we had climbed down wooden stairs to get to Cave Creek. It sounds like they've sorted it now and stopped using nails in place of bolts... But this is an important reminder of the other, darker side of the Kiwi "she'll be right" attitude - sometimes she isn't right.

Moving on...

We then took our packed picnic along with us to Truman's Track. This was a short stroll through the bush to Truman's beach. For me, this was the highlight of the weekend. This beach was just awesome.

We found this great big flat boulder to sit on for lunch. Perfect!
There was a lovely little waterfall trickling down from the cliff above. We explored the area, finding pretty rocks and shells and other, less pretty things. Kirsteen holds up some dead seaweed.


The ocean was pretty rough and crashing against the shore and rocks. Again, probably not a good swimming beach. It was more the kind of beach that you just sit back and look at.
On Monday, we had a nice pancake breakfast (gotta have pancakes at pancake rocks) and then headed back home. We stopped here first though. This place was called "foul wind bay" or something. The wind seemed alright to us though. And apparently it seemed alright to the seals who have set up a colony there.

We were getting a little camera weary by this point and didn't take too many photos of the journey over Lewis Pass. Actually, we didn't take ANY photos of that part of the journey... I can tell you though that it looked a lot like Idaho and that it was gorgeous. We saw some nice areas along the way that deserve further exploration, so we'll definitely be back in those parts. And we'll bring the camera...

Road trip to west coast, pt 1

Monday was Labour Day in New Zealand. We went away for the long holiday weekend with our buds B & K. We drove about 3 hours west to Greymouth, on the west coast, and then a bit north along the coast to Punakaiki, home of the 'Pancake Rocks.' There are 2 routes to Greymouth, so we took one route on the way there and a different route on the way back.

This installment includes photos from the journey to the west coast and the pancake rocks.

On the way there, we drove the Arthur's pass route. The scenery was other-worldly. The low hanging clouds added to the effect.

Our little Honda Fit managed the mountainous journey like a champ! We were packed with 4 adults and a boot full of camping gear, but chugged along just fine.

This is one of many, many whitebait fishermen we saw over the weekend. Whitebait fishing is big business for lots of south island folks. We saw many people sitting by the sides of rivers with their whitebait fishing nets, waiting patiently. Whitebait are tiny white fish, about the size of a little worm. The cafes in Greymouth sell whitebait fritters.
We've made it to camp now! We set up on this grassy spot at the Punakaiki Beach Camp. We couldn't see the ocean from the camp site, but we could hear it. It was about 100 meters away. That's B & K's tent in the front, and our tent (which before this weekend, seemed huge, but after being parked next to B & K's tent, not so much) behind.
These little flightless birds were all over the place. We learned they are called wekas. They are not shy at all. I fed one a cracker. It ran away into the bush with it, and then came back a second later for more. Pretty cute little dudes.
This is the coastline just by our campsite. Not the kind of beach you'd want to swim in - a bit chilly and very wavy. Very nice to listen to and to look at though. And the crazy kiwis probably do swim in it...

And now here we are at the Pancake Rocks. These rocks are some sort of geological mystery. They kind of look like pancakes. They're pleasing to look at, especially on a sunny day.
During high tide, the waves are supposed to crash up with a blow hole effect. We came right after high tide the first day, and then went back right at high tide the second day. Still, not much blow hole action going on. We think the weather was too calm and sunny for the show to really happen. Still, it was pretty.
More pancakey rocks... would you just look at that blue sea?!? Divine. Way, way in the distance is Australia (not shown here).

We walked back along the rocky beach. This is rugged coast. Think stones, not white sand.
B & K found some choice rocks. If we had a rock polisher and cutter, we could make nice green stone jewelry and sell it to tourists.
The men prepare dinner. Note Gareth's newest toy - the yellow gas stove. We're rocking TWO burners when we camp now, not just one. And dinner was twice as good.
Next up: our hike to cave creek and some other nice things you will want to see.