We have moved! Again!

In December 2008, we moved out of our house in Phoenix and into a 1-bedroom apartment to wait for our visas. In March 2009, we moved out of our apartment, putting everything onto a ship bound for New Zealand. In June 2009, we moved into our apartment in Christchurch. Now, we've moved into our first house in New Zealand. Hooray!

Hear this: we are done with moving. We don't care if our new neighbors turn out to be gang members or satanists. We're staying.

Moving was actually no big drama though - maybe because we're pros now. But also because we had a really nice moving company. Also our friends loaned us all the boxes and packing materials we needed, and everyone we dealt with to move our utilities was friendly. It was as hassle-free as a move can be, really.

The movers were fantastic. They were just two young guys and a truck. Somehow, when we had two guys and a truck to move us out of our apartment in Phoenix, it took ALL day, from 9 til 5 - and that was just to move stuff out of our apartment and out of my aunt's house where we had things stored. Actually, they did some packing too, but not very much. All they had to do was pack a few things from the small apartment and put it into a truck, and it took them all day. These Kiwi movers moved all the same stuff out of one place and INTO another place in less than half that time. Impressive. Especially considering we were paying them by the hour, so they had every motivation to move slow.

One of the movers was was fascinated with America. You can find out what people think of America by the questions they ask. This guy wanted to know if Christchurch seemed really small to me compared to American cities. I told him no, it seems like a decent sized city to me, and that there were lots of towns in America smaller than Christchurch. "Really??" He seemed to think all Americans live in New York or L.A. I don't think this misconception is common - it may have just been this one guy.

He also wanted to know about guns. Everyone associates America with guns (thanks, NRA). No, I don't have any guns. Yes, I did hear gunfire sometimes. There was a drive-by shooting just a few blocks from our house once. His reaction: "wo!" and then "stuff that!" I think what he meant was, no thank you, I'd rather live in New Zealand where the most dangerous weapon I might be confronted with is a Swiss army knife.

The mover also asked if I'd ever met 50 Cent. In New Zealand, the population is so small that it is entirely possible to meet famous people, so in context his question isn't that bizarre I guess. I suppose you can meet famous people in America too - we ran into Mike Tyson on an airplane once and Gareth shook his hand - but it's by no means commonplace. At least not in my experience. The moving guy seemed to think that he only had to go to America to party with 50 Cent. I let him down gently. "No, I haven't met Kanye or TI either."

The Telecom guy who came to activate our phone line asked me about my pregnancy and told me about his 5 children. Three girls, 2 boys. When I told Gareth about this, he said, "that's so Kiwi!" Of course there are friendly workmen everywhere, but we're finding there is something more genuine in the friendliness of the people we encounter here. It's hard to explain.

So, the move is done, the utilities are connected, the furniture is (mostly) where it needs to go. The grandma smell left by the former owners has pretty much dissipated. We've made a list of all the things in the house that we want to change/update. It's a long list. We spent $400 at Bunnings (like Home Depot) yesterday. Ahh, welcome back to home ownership!

The very best thing about our house is not in the house at all - it's the hill behind the house. When we look out our living room patio doors, or sit out back, we see this:

This morning I was taking the washing off the line and actually heard cows moo in the distance. Gareth is out running in those hills right now. We love being right by the hills. There are actually a few gigantic houses on the hill behind us that you can see if you look from a different angle (blocked by trees in this photo). They take away some of the country charm, but oh well. We'll just have to position our patio furniture - when we get some - to block them out.

We were also pleased to discover that we have fruit trees!

This apple tree was hiding in the back of our yard by the fence. I see apple pie in our futures... We also discovered there were plums all over the ground in one spot, and for a second thought, "where are all these plums coming from??" before the lightbulb went on and we noticed our new plum tree for the first time.

We've also got a fruiting lemon tree in front by the garage. Once Gareth gets our veggie patch going, we will nearly be self-sufficient... nearly.

We've also got lots of flowering plants, including roses and daisies. And we have these things which look like dancing ladies (and might actually be called that)-

And we have this mystery plant. Some in the front and more in the back. Bonus points for anyone who gets in touch with us and tells us what the heck these things are.