Today after church we went for a hike in the hills above our house. We were having a nice hike through the “bush” when we were reaching a point when it was time to head back. Claudine suggested we go just a little farther to the top of the next hill. I was so glad she did, because this was the view. The island in the bay, hence, Island Bay, the name of our neighborhood.
When exploring “The Parade” (the main road in Island Bay) in town, we came across several interesting stores. One store seemed fairly normal at first glance but looking closer raised my eyebrows. It’s a small baby store (think Babies R Us) that includes advertisements for “Hot Milk”—which is nursing lingerie. I wonder how that would go over in Provo?!
Finally, we saw “Burger Wisconsin” that sells burgers and Tandori Chicken--there’s a combination you won’t find in La Crosse.
Mark
One of the great parts of the Fulbright NZ Orientation program was our family’s opportunity to attend a Maori Marae. A Marae is both a place and a cultural / religious experience. As a place it includes a meeting house and grounds, all of which are intricately and beautifully decorated. As an experience, it includes a request of entry from outside the walls by the visitors, and then a formal welcome by the owners of the Marae. Once inside we were instructed about Maori culture and history. We ate good food and spent the night in a communal hall. It was quite an experience. I’ll refer you to www.teara.govt.nz for an authoritative multimedia description all things NZ
We also were taken next door to the museum that held their long boats and other cultural artifacts.
One of Claudine’s friends lent us his car for a day and we all went into town to figure out phones and internet. Three hours and much confusion later, it appears Jonathan will be able to use his phone (027 5150 226) after it gets unlocked by a third party, and Claudine and I will share a cell phone (027 5150 227) that we bought here. However, please don’t call our mobiles just to chat. International calls are a couple dollars a minute! We also arranged for a home phone (644 383 7527, which you can call) and the internet which will take 10-15 working days to install. In the mean time, we will periodically visit the public library or Claudine’s office to check in. Consequently, we will not be regular internet users for a while; I think we all are going through withdrawal. Now we just have to figure out which phones to use when—it is most economical to use mobile phones to call mobiles phones, land lines to call land lines, and there isn’t unlimited anything. Everything costs extra.
Mark
We arrived in Wellington and found our home on the hill. It is about 100 years old with fairly modern (though not quite complete) renovations--charming nonetheless. Two of Claudine’s friends were kind enough to help us go into town on our first day to go to the bank and the grocery store. The bank took about an hour to figure out and the grocery store took a couple of hours (and $580!). In New Zealand they use debit cards a lot and I was looking forward to trying mine out at the grocery story. Unfortunately, when we got the cash register with all those groceries, mine didn’t work. Fortunately, Claudine’s friend was generous and covered our bill using his card. We then went back to the bank to ask what was wrong. They told us they had forgotten to tell us that we would have to wait 24 hours until the cards would work—an essential piece of information.
Mark
Traveling to NZ: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Once again we left too much to do in too little time and were up half the night packing, which meant only a few hours sleep before a 24 hour trip.
We left Provo at 12 noon on Tuesday, 31 Jan and arrived in NZ at 8:30 a.m. on 2 Feb. A lot happened along the way.
We piled 10 suitcases and two bike bags into the back of the Davis’ van and went to the airport. We met a great Sky Cap at the curb at the airport who helped us get everything checked in so we didn’t have to carry 12 pieces of luggage into the airport. We also had a couple of carry-ons each, but they were easy to carry.
Checking into Delta and going through security was a breeze! We were off to a great start. As we were walking to the gate I got a call from Delta informing us that the plane was leaving 1:20 late, so we had a long wait. That did mean many of us got a little nap as we waited. The flight to San Francisco was uneventful and short. Unfortunately, because of the delay in SLC, we didn’t get to meet my brother Ron for dinner. Instead, we spent a long time in a long line at the Air NZ counter. We then hurried to the gate where we arrived just in time to board the plane.
The girls were amazed at how big and fancy the 747 was. After checking out all the entertainment options, we settled in for the long flight to Auckland, NZ. Everything went great until about 2 hours outside of Auckland when Julia started to throw up. She is prone to motion sickness and the medicine she took back in Provo had worn off. A long two hours later we arrived in Auckland and went to the customs counter.
The officer was stern and made his way through our passports and visas. Unfortunately, when he got to Julia’s visa it hadn’t been recorded in the computer correctly by the NZ Embassy and so we had to go sit down on the side and wait for the immigration officials to sort things out. We only had two hours between flights so we were watching the clock tick away. After about 20-30 minutes waiting, a friendly official came and told us it was no problem and we were on our way.
We had to pick up all our luggage on five carts and go through biosecurity to make sure we weren’t smuggling any unauthorized plant items. It went fine and then we had to get on a bus (with 12 large items of luggage) to travel to the domestic terminal. The clock was still ticking and we were getting nervous. We got to the domestic terminal and were able to check in the regular luggage but the bikes had to go to a special oversized luggage counter. We went there and were told that the bikes had to go back to the help counter to have new tags created. We ran back and did that and then back to drop off the bikes. When we got back we saw that in all the confusion we had forgotten to bring the cart with our carry-ons with us and a airport security officials was with our bags and not too happy that we had left them unattended. After examining all our passports and other documents and giving us a lecture, we had five minutes to run to the gate and board our plane. We made it with seconds to spare. We settled in for a one hour trip to Wellington. Julia only threw up once during the trip. We arrived to a cool Wellington morning about 8:30. Three of Claudine’s colleagues met us and we managed to get all of us to our house in two cars and a taxi.
Whew, that was probably almost as tiring to read as it was to make the trip.
Mark
