Holiday 2011, part 1

Long before the February 22nd earthquake struck, we had planned a road trip holiday around the bottom of the South Island. After the earthquake struck, we were more eager than ever to get out of town. So we did.

A few general observations from our travels:

1. Otago and Southland are incredibly beautiful. So, so, so beautiful. I probably said "stunning" about 800 times in 18 days. I took hundreds of photos. I took so many photos that by the end of the holiday I had camera fatigue and had to stop taking photos.

2. You can never see too many waterfalls.

3. You can never see too many lighthouses.

4. Camping with a 10-month old is maybe not a very good idea if you like to sleep. If, on the other hand, you think it's fun to stay up all night trying to settle a crying baby, or if you like to drive the baby around the Otago peninsula all night long, then camping with a 10-month old baby might be just the thing for you.

5. A good way to let travellers know what your town is all about is to build a giant sculpture of the thing that your town is all about.

Cromwell: we're all about fruit.

Rakaia: we're all about salmon.

6. Getting caught in a sheep jam is pretty cool.

The good, the bad

In some ways, it was tough coming back to Christchurch. The airport was filled with salvation army, red cross, and search and rescue personnel again. On the way home, we drove over broken and bumpy roads that used to be smooth, past heaps of bricks that used to be buildings. And the aftershocks keep coming. We just had a doozy a moment ago. Even though we've felt thousands of them now, they still make my heart stop.

We went for a walk and looked at all the damage in our neighbourhood. Cracked streets, a polluted river (they're dumping raw sewage into it... yuk).

There is a gorgeous old brick house on the corner of Centaurus and Aynsley Terrace. I've been told that it used to be a restaurant. It's huge and stately and has beautiful gardens. It took a hit after the first earthquake but looked repairable. Now I think we can fairly say... it's munted.

fallen roof

red stickered

This is just one old brick building in a city that had hundreds of them. Virtually all of them are damaged, it seems. It's such a shame that the earthquake has taken all the character buildings, leaving the strong boring ones.

I'm trying to always remember that the story of Christchurch's earthquake is not all death and destruction. There has definitely been some good news too. For one, Christchurch's prostitutes are experiencing a boom in business. (Best line from this story: "sex worker Candice, 24, said she has been run off her feet ...")

There's been an amazing outpouring of love and generosity. From Auckland to Chicago, people are collecting money for Cantabrians. Closer to home, Quinn's daycare has offered 4 free weeks of care to Christchurch families. This is a huge savings to us - about $800. Amazing. According to their website, they're making the offer just because "it's the right thing to do." Good on them.

The newspaper is filled with stories about volunteers - the student volunteer army, the "farmy army", and others. It seems everyone is doing something to make someone else's life a little easier. In many ways, it's a great time to be a member of this community. Even if the streets are cracked and lined with port-a-loos.

Recovering

We just weren't sure that our house would not fall down with every new aftershock, so we spent the first few days after Tuesday's quake staying with friends up the road. It turns out that the construction of your house can really affect your experience of aftershocks. When an aftershock hit while sitting in our house, it felt like Armageddon. When an aftershock hit while sitting in Emma's house, it felt like someone had bumped your chair. If money were no object, we'd build ourselves a nice concrete house right now.

A few months ago we had booked flights to Auckland to visit Gareth's sister and brother-in-law for the B-I-L's 40th birthday party. We had planned to only come up for the weekend, but as the weekend neared and we still had no power or water at home, we decided to extend that a bit. Thankfully, JetStar did not give us any grief about changing our tickets. I'm pretty certain the call centre lady would not have wanted to meet the can of whoop ass that Gareth was ready to deliver if she had given us any trouble.

So we went to Auckland. On the one hand, it was really, really good to be on solid ground. It was so good to hug our niece and nephew and be with family. We are so grateful for their hospitality.

On the other hand, it's hard to be away from home. Our friends and neighbours are suffering through hard times right now, and we've skipped out of town to be more comfortable. Granted, about 20% of the city has skipped town, so we're by no means unique. But there was this strange part of us that wanted to be there through this time and be a part of what's happening. And of course, no matter how gracious the hosts (and our hosts are as gracious as they come), there's no place like home. I kind of miss my bed.

I think Christchurch's earthquake has been New Zealand's 9/11. The outpouring of love and support from the rest of the country has been extraordinary. We are just 2 displaced people in Auckland, but have experienced heaps of warm fuzzies. For one, everywhere you go, there are collection boxes for Christchurch. And these boxes don't just have spare change in them. I've seen twenties.

Two colleagues from the Auckland branch of my company have offered us their houses. Friends of Gareth's sister have also offered us accommodation. The Auckland zoo gave us special discounted admission rates just because we're from Christchurch. I'm a sap at the best of times, but you know these last 9 days have been especially trying when a $4 discount reduces me to tears. Thankfully, stress relief is available: the neighbour's friend is a masseuse offering free massages to Christchurch refugees. oh yes, I'm feeling the love.

I blogged some time ago about the neighbours' cat dying on our driveway. It was awkward, and perhaps understandably, our relationship with those neighbours never got very friendly. The earthquake has completely changed all that. Karen has been calling Gareth almost daily with updates. They're holding our keys to let the EQC in, managing a contractor to remove loose bricks and weatherproof the house while we're gone, and really, just being all-around awesome. Nothing like a tragedy to bring people together.

The newspapers and other media coverage imply that there will be mass migration from Christchurch, but we don't know anyone who plans to move permanently. We certainly have no plans to leave. We're really excited to be a part of Christchurch's comeback. Strange how connected we feel to the place having only lived there for less than two years. But we've bought a home there and our son was born there, and we're not leaving.

6.3 my ass.

I was at work on Tuesday afternoon, on the 8th floor of my building on Cathedral Square. I was writing an e-mail when suddenly everything started shaking. I'm used to this - we still get aftershocks all the time. I waited for it to stop. It didn't stop. Bookcases started falling over. I dove under my desk and held on.

Gareth was at home with Quinn. He had just put him down for his afternoon nap and was tucking into his lunch. Everything started shaking. Gareth tried to get to Quinn's room but was thrown around and couldn't get there before the shaking stopped.

When I came out from under my desk, every single shelving unit in our office was on its side, files everywhere. People were screaming and wailing. I looked out the window and saw that the top of the Cathedral was missing. The fire alarm was going off. Everyone was looking around in a daze. Someone said we need to get out. Someone else said no, we need to stay.

Gareth got to Quinn and saw that the bookshelf in his room had fallen over, hitting the edge of his cot, which had also moved over about a foot. Somehow, baby Quinn was still sleeping. Gareth picked him up.

There were three of us left in the office. While we had stood there in a stupor, everyone else had evacuated! We suddenly realised we were the last three there and headed for the stairwell. On our way down, we stepped over the broken glass from windows that had blown out. Eight stories is a lot of stairs. I ran down as fast as I could and tried very hard not to think about what would happen if an aftershock hit right now.

Gareth heard our neighbour calling for him and went outside with Quinn. Other neighbours were wobbling out of their houses, getting their bearings. Windows were broken, stone cladding had been shaken loose.

I got to the bottom of the stairwell (finally!) and ran out into the street. There was broken glass everywhere. Someone was shouting at me but it took a second to register. It was one of my co-workers and she was saying, "Lindsay GET AWAY FROM THE BUILDING!" Ahh, right, yes. I jogged over to her and joined everyone from my work. Lots of hugging, crying, frantic dialling of cell phones that would not connect. I kind of just stood there and stared. Someone said I looked really pale.

Gareth helped the neighbour get her car keys out of her house (she didn't want to go in alone, get stuck under falling debris, and never be found again). Then he spoke with the neighbours on the other side, and eventually joined a group that was forming across the street. They were setting up camp. It was some time before he was able to retrieve his phone from the mess in the kitchen and find that I had been trying to call and text him. He had no idea the earthquake had been as big as it was or caused so much damage until he saw my text, "the top of the cathedral fell off."

I was walking home with 2 of my workmates who also live on the south side of town. I needed to get to Gareth and Quinn. My workmate's 13 year old had gotten out of school early and she had no idea where he was. It was a very nervous time. We walked quickly. We saw liquifaction and rubble and rips in the ground where the earth had broken open.

I thought about taking photos with my phone, but couldn't do it. It was weird - I knew I'd want to remember this, and that I'd want to show Gareth what I was seeing, but I could not snap any photos. It would have been like taking a photo of a corpse or something. Too wrong. I took no photos.

I finally got a text from Gareth saying he and Quinn were ok. It didn't make my need to see them any less urgent though.

It took almost 2 hours to walk home I think, although I'm not really sure. When I had about a kilometre to go, it occurred to me that I could hitchhike. I stuck my thumb out and someone stopped, like, instantly. She drove me up the road a ways until she had to turn, and I got out and walked the rest of the way.

Gareth and Quinn were in the neighbours' yard. They were putting a tent up. Our family hug at that moment ranks in the top 5 of All Time Best Hugs.

The house looked pretty bad.

How bad do things have to move to shake sliding doors out of their frame?

We're going to have to buy some new glasses.

We have a lot of cracks like these.

These bricks should be on our house.

This is not good.

You can break our photo frame, but you can't break our love!!

One thing I've taken from this is that the Richter Scale is total bullshit. When I heard on the radio that this one was a 6.3, I thought it was a mistake. If the September earthquake was a 7.1, this one should have been an 8 or more. There was so much more damage. People died. Gareth points out that this earthquake was much more shallow and much closer to town than the September one, and that is why 6.3 was so much more tragic than 7.1.

If I had gone for a walk at lunchtime or if Gareth had come to town a little later for Quinn's lunchtime feed, things might have ended very differently for us. When we finally got power again, we were very touched to find how many friends had sent us messages on facebook and that friends we haven't even met yet had posted on our blog. Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. We are doing fine.

Blog update

Freshening things up around here...

We decided that the plain green header could use some livening up. So we added a lovely photo that I took from the top of the Port Hills, looking over Lyttelton Harbour on a sunny morning. Ahh, love that view. That's better than plain green, I'd say.

I've also updated the links on the side of the page. The longer we're here, the more great things we're finding. So I thought we should link you to them. Lindreth: keeping you linked.

We just discovered yesterday that Blogger keeps track of 'stats' for the blog, and we can see how many people have visited, where they've come from, and what they're reading. Yeah, that's right, we're watching you, loyal reader from Denmark. (Halløj!)

We heard this really hilarious/awesome song yesterday and I really, really wanted to upload a sound file to the blog to share it with you. So I did some research and discovered that it is possible to do this, but it just seemed too complicated. Maybe it's not complicated at all, and maybe I'm just a bit feeble-minded. But the bottom line is there will be no sound uploads at this time.

So do this: go to iTunes and spend 99 cents to download Coco Solid's 'Girl From Where?' We think it's worth at least this much to hear this kiwi woman rap, "the best rapper in the world's a girl from New Zealand." Also this line: "I told you I'm the boss, man I'm Angela and Tony." There just aren't enough Who's the Boss? references in music these days, don't you agree?

All things bloggy

Been quiet on the blog front for the last few weeks... let me catch you up.

1. Picnics.

The weather has been so nice, we've headed out for a picnic or two. We're picnicking kind of people. I suppose we probably had the picnicking spirit inside of us all along, but it seems it didn't really bubble to the surface until we moved to New Zealand. We love a picnic. Got time for that.

2. Taxation frustration.

As a U.S. citizen, I'm supposed to lodge a federal tax return no matter where I live and no matter that I've earned no money in the United States. Although foreign income is subject to U.S. taxation, it won't matter for us because our income does not reach that level that requires sharing with Uncle Sam. That's what I gather from reading the very riveting "Publication 54 (2010)" (link to IRS website). But the information available on the IRS website is incredibly dense and difficult to wade through, so it's entirely possible that I've misunderstood a key point.

Even though we won't owe any tax (I think), I'm obliged to file anyway (I think). As a former green-card-holder, Gareth has no such obligation. He technically abandoned his legal resident status once he was out of the country for 1 year.

Last year we were very keen to file a tax return because we were expecting a big refund. We had worked only the first three months of 2009, and were entitled to refunds of virtually all the tax that had been withheld. So that was nice.

For 2010, I received one late payment from my former employer in the form of a retirement account payout. The feds kept $750 of it, and we think we should be getting that back. So we're kind of keen to file again. It seems like such a pain this time around though. Maybe it seemed easier to me last year because Gareth took care of it. Now I'm in charge (how did this happen?!) and feeling rather daunted by the whole thing. It doesn't help that the IRS website contains so much information that you could just hold your finger on the scroll down button for an hour and not get through it all. And I'm not talking about the whole website; I'm just talking about the page(s) relating to U.S. citizens living abroad. Insane. There is a form I'm supposed to file called TD F 90-22.1 "Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts." Seriously. How many forms does the IRS publish that they have to call one of them TD F 90-22.1?!

You can understand my frustration. This segues nicely to our next topic:

3. Beer.

You know what's really yummy? Three Boys IPA. We wish this stuff did not cost $7.50 a bottle. Because it's delicious. And it's brewed locally. Like really, really locally - less than a kilometre from our house.

Gareth is enjoying one right now. It's his little reward for running 50K this morning. Go Gareth, it's your birthday.

If you would like to do something nice for us, you can send us some of this beer.

4. He's off!

Big news on the parenting front: our little man is crawling! There must be very few things cuter than a little baby bum crab-walking across the grass, or the living room carpet, or anywhere really. So. Freaking. Cute. If it is even possible, we adore him even more.

Pigeon Bay

This weekend we took the little man on his first overnight camping trip. Just in case it all went pear-shaped, we stayed fairly close to home. Just an hour and fifteen minutes' drive from Christchurch is Pigeon Bay, on the Banks Peninsula.

Pigeon Bay is right at the top in the 12 o'clock position.

There is virtually no information online about the campground at Pigeon Bay. We found a couple of blog posts by people who had visited, and not much else. All we knew before going was that there was in fact a campground there, that it charged $8 per site at one point in the past, and that there were toilets there.

The weather forecast was iffy - gale force winds predicted for saturday night. But no need to worry, Gareth said. We'll be sheltered in the bay! Ok, let's go!

We pulled in to the campground and did a drive round to check it out. What we saw was: caravan, caravan, caravan, caravan. Almost every campsite had a caravan parked in it! And these caravans were not passing through. Most had clearly been parked for a long time and would not be moving for the foreseeable future. Several had decking built up out front. One had a satellite dish. A few had "additions" built on in the form of canvas tenting. I peeked inside one and saw a fridge in there.

Kiwis take their camping very seriously.

We found a spot in between two caravans that did not appear to be occupied this weekend. We, ... er, Gareth pitched our tent.

I have tried to be positive about our camping experiences in New Zealand but the truth is that I have been a bit disappointed. Before we moved here, I imagined camping here would involve untouched wilderness with very few people nearby. So far, it's been quite the opposite in our experience. The campgrounds we've been to have been really developed with flush toilets, kitchens, and showers. Tents, campervans, and caravans are all generally parked up in one field, side by side. It's really not a wilderness experience so much as an outdoor experience... with many indoor things within reach.

To be fair, most of the people we see camping in these situations seem to be set up for long term holidaying. These people aren't just getting out for a night or two of fresh air - they often seem positioned to stay for the whole season. So you can't really blame them for wanting some of the comforts of home with them.

I'm sure the kind of camping I crave can be found in New Zealand. But maybe that kind of camping is really not practical with a 7-month baby in tow.

So Pigeon Bay's campground was ok. The sites were small and close together, with neighbors right on top of each other. It wasn't too bad though since most people were not actually there - they had just left their caravans there. There was a playground and a toilet block.

The really nice thing about the campground was that it was right on the bay. Our campsite was on water's edge. That part was really nice.

Pigeon Bay

Kicking back at camp

And it would have been even better if the wind hadn't picked up. You may note that the car is parked between our tent and the bay. This was strategic - just in case the winds were as strong as predicted, the car would give us some shelter. I should probably mention that this was Gareth's cunning plan. If it had been up to me, I would have put the tent right on the water's edge so that we could look out the tent window and see the beautiful bay. But that's me, putting the view before trivial things like shelter.

The best news was that Quinn went to sleep fairly easily in his travelcot in the tent. This meant we could sit back and enjoy the sunset with a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

Then the winds kicked in. Think Dorothy's house spiraling through the Kansas sky. That's where we thought our tent was headed - Oz. We laid awake all night listening the the THWAP THWAP THWAP of the fly against the tent. Miraculously, the tent stayed moored to the ground (maybe because Gareth had thought to park the car where he did!). Even more miraculously, Quinn slept through it. I guess it's easy to sleep when you're not worried about blowing away.

After a refreshing 25 minutes of sleep, it was time to get up. The wind was still blowing. Too windy to go for the walk along the bay as we had planned. Too windy even to set up the stove and boil some water for tea. Forget it, we said. We packed up and headed home.

Kind of a bummer. But at least we know that Quinn can sleep in the tent (at least, during a wind storm...) which will mean more camping for this little family.