Friday, April 21, 2006

Our good news for the day...

We found out this morning that our container has finally arrived! Aaron is down at the port right now to sort out all the paperwork necessary for it to be released, and if all goes well, it might be delivered to our house this afternoon. I'm so excited to be able to unpack and get settled here. Yeah!
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm known most often as "Esther's husband" if you're trying to figure out where this is coming from.

We are in our 10th year here, moving from Wichita, KS.

Congratulations on your container arriving. I remember when ours arrived. In our case it was before we had a place to live - so sat in storage for a while.

Over the past weeks Esther has made a number of comments about you coming to grips with the shift to New Zealand. I was hoping to have some time to talk to you about it when we were over there for the JOCO thingy - but alas, no time.

As I scan through your blogs I read a lot more positive that negative. This is good.

There are some basic things I may or may not be able to shed some light on. For example, how long does it take to really be settled here? I thought I was settled immediately. As I reflect back over the past 10 years, I would have to say realistically it was really about 3 years.

Everytime I have been back to the USA, I have always looked forward to my return to New Zealand as soon as I walk off the plane up there. Last year when I was in the States for my Son and oldest Daughter's weddings I really felt strongly that I didn't belong there - in terms of living there.

In fact I can't even imagine living there any more. I would only return, kicking and screaming, if the Lord told me I had to go back.

Being born in the USA and growing up there at the time I did was a tremendous blessing. I served my country for 4 years in the Navy during an unpopular conflict - Vietnam. I'm proud of that service.

But now I live here. This is my home. I'm a kiwi.

During the 1980s I travelled internationally extensively for a company in Wichita, KS. It was during this time that I realized that we are all really citizens of this world - really. We just happen to be born in a certain place and eventually we die - somewhere. But at the end of the day, we are citizens of the planet.

When I arrived in New Zealand for the first time in December of 1984 I was in love with this country within the first 2 hours. Later, after we had shifted here, the Lord reminded who put that passion for this country in my heart. He did.

I now have dual citizenship, which gives me potentially an even wider ability to serve Him different places if He calls on me to do so.

But I degress . . . from making the shift to another country.

Having travelled here many times prior to shifting here, I thought I had a pretty good idea about the culture here. I knew it was different tha America - but "not that much different." After shifting here, I discovered it is quite different - much more than I thought. But every chance I get, I try to embrace it - but I still have my accent :-)

We missed things at first. Ben & Jerry's - then we discovered regular run of the mill ice creame here really wasn't much different than Ben & Jerry's without the chunks. Have you tried Cookies and Creame? It even has chunks. The ice creame here uses real creame - they don't in the States. In the States they can also legally add a very large percentage of "air". Notice they sell ice creame by volume, not weight. (I researched this once when I was trying to get the franchise for Ben & Jerry's for Wichita before it came to Kansas)

10 years ago food was lots cheaper than in the States, with the exception of meat. There are still lots of food items here less expensive and the quality over all is sooooooo much better. I remember going back to the States and biting into a lushish looking strawberry, only to discover it didn't taste like a strawberry. It didn't taste like anything. Carrots are even worse - and I could go on an on. Also, when you put 500g of mince in the the pan, how much grease and water do you pour out afterwards? Usually about nothing. If you do that with a pound of hamburger in the State you throw away a cup of grease and water at the end of cooking. You may have paid less for the pound of meat - but, how much did you fry away and throw away?

Last year when I was over for the weddings, once again I was faced with very expensive eating out meals - and that was when our dollar was worth 12% more than it is now. By the time you added tax and tip (now they seem to expect 20%) - Wow, eating out is expensive there! And to compound this, the food was pretty much franchise after franchise which basically looked and tasted the same - just different names. And the taste - well there isn't much taste to it. AAUUGHUAGH!! and it's full of FAT!!

I missed Miracle Whip. So we had a few CARE packages with that, Arts 7 Mary's Chips and Oreo cookies. But now you can get Oreo cookies here and there is a version of mayonnise we found that tastes similar. So, I don't care about it anymore and don't bring it back anymore.

I could go into quite a long ditribe on taxes - but will wait for another time. Even with our current tax-'em-'till-they-bleed Labour Government, we are ahead of the game here I think.

Over the first couple of years we made an effort to get out on weekends to tour around. As you have already found, there is such a wide variety of things to do and places to go. There is no other country in the world that has this variety in such a compact geographic area.

We still do it a little and should get back in the habit to doing it again. There is soooooooooo much to see and experience here. It's mind boogling really.

When Americans tell me they are coming over for 2 weeks and wonder what they should see - I just sort of become tongue-tied. You can't even "taste" New Zealand in 2 weeks, let alone see what the country has to offer. I tell them a minimum of 3 weeks is required. Period.

Hey, this is way too long and I could keep going for a long time. We need to spend an evening having a natter - for sure.

Terry B.

April 22, 2006 11:20 AM
Kristi Walsh said...

Terry - wow. thanks for taking the time to share your insights and experiences about moving to NZ. It was interesting to read your stories - I could identify with a lot. Thanks for your encouragement - it does help to read someone else's 'success story'. Maybe someday we'll have the opportunity to talk more in person.......

April 22, 2006 10:36 PM

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