One year in

We've been in New Zealand a year (and some)! Thought we'd share our thoughts about this important anniversary. A bit late, yes, but, well, we've been sorta busy...

Me: I'm blogging about our one-year anniversary in New Zealand. Your thoughts on living here after a year?

Gareth: [two thumbs up]

Gareth is a man of few words. I'll fill in the details.

One year in and we are still very happy with our decision to immigrate. It feels both like we've always been here and like this year has flown by. Where has the time gone?

The fact that I was pregnant for most of our first year really limited our ability to explore our new home. We took a couple small trips during the early months, but have barely been outside Christchurch for ages now (it seems). I for one am getting really antsy to get out and see more of the South Island. Strictly from an exploration perspective, it does feel sometimes that this year has kind of been wasted, but of course, growing a little man and giving birth to him is not wasted time...

One year in, I'm annoyed that books are so expensive. We recently spent $40 for a paperback book. This is insanity. No paperback book should cost $40. Clearly, we need to find a good second hand book store. At this point though, we are still just re-reading our old books rather than buy new ones (the $40 one was a gift), but eventually, one day, we will want to buy a new book. With the arrival of the baby, that day will probably be a long ways off though. Who has time to read? I barely have time to shower.

Although we have adopted some Kiwi sayings and pronunciations, people ask us all the time where we are from. I get asked if I'm American or if I'm Canadian, or like today, simply "You have an accent there...?" Gareth has probably jumped countries one too many times, as people can't tell if he's Welsh, English, Canadian, or American. This is a constant reminder that we don't totally fit in because we talk funny. We don't mind though.

We've now had a chance to experience the healthcare system, and we give it good marks. Although we had a couple complaints with our hospital experience during Quinn's birth (see last post), we are really impressed by the easy access to all the post-natal care we need. For instance, I've had some trouble with breastfeeding. Our midwife continued to visit us at home after Quinn's birth and helped with the breastfeeding by watching and giving tips. When things were still not going great, she referred us to a community lactation consultant, who came to the house to help us with our technique. Both the midwife and the lactation consultant followed up with phone calls. All this was free. I am so grateful for all this support - I never had to struggle alone.

The breastfeeding problems led to problems with Quinn gaining weight so we were referred to a paediatrician. We had an appointment just a couple days after the midwife made the referral, and we saw him for free. We love free stuff. (ok, it's not free; our taxes pay for it. But we're not paying any more in taxes than we did in the States, so it seems free...)

Now that Quinn is 6 weeks old, the midwife care is over, but we'll continue to have visits from a Plunket nurse. She will come to the house to check on us every few months or more often as needed. Healthcare workers coming to us: brilliant.

So anyway, the point is that we're happy with the healthcare system. Hooray for national health care!

We have met some great people who we now call friends. Some are kiwis, some are fellow immigrants. Strangely, we seem to know more people after a year in Christchurch than we knew after 6 years in Phoenix. Maybe because we arrived in town knowing no one we've made more of an effort to make friends than we ever did in Phoenix.

We said this at 6 months and say it again: our work-life balance is way better here. This is still true. And Gareth will be a stay-at-home dad soon. So you could say his life is about to be all work, but the good kind. :-)

One thing we really do not miss from America is the political divide between the Red Staters and Blue Staters. It's crazy to think back now at how things were over there - and still are as far as we know. I'm a little too sleep deprived at the moment to adequately explain why this is a big deal. All I can say is that life is better when politics don't rile people up so much. As time goes on, we're reading news from America less and less. For one, it's just too depressing (the BP oil spill? Don't get us started.) But also, we just don't care anymore. It's so far away. If anything important happens over there, they'll report on it here. And they'll report on it without any left or right bias.

In short, our thoughts one year in: we're staying.