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?