Book Nooks and Bug Hunts

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After 10 days of blustery, gloomy weather, the sun is finally back and Wellington looks like the beautiful city we landed in again. Our house is ringed with windows which means that when it's cold and windy, it's drafty and chilly inside if we don't have the space heaters running. But on sunny days, the entire house is warmed instantly and every room is bright and happy.

While Bruce is off making money and curing people, the kids and I are spending our days exploring our new neighborhood and finding new adventures to be had. Unfortunately, the weather has been so terrible that we've had to stay close to home, but even so, we've found plenty to explore.

Amelia has discovered her new favorite reading spot, as you can see above. "This is my book nook, Mommy. You have to tell your body to balance, balance, and lean against this pole. " It's also one of the few places that Quinn can't climb to yet, so she's safe from her little brother eating her reading material.

We've also been on the search for bugs since we arrived as this is one of Amelia's and Quinn's favorite pastimes (Amelia finds them and gently picks them up, builds them homes, feeds them etc. Quinn pounces on them and unless I act quickly enough, devours them.). You can see Quinn in action below. Oddly enough, we haven't found a single bug anywhere....no ants, no flies, no bees, no roly polys, no beetles....nothing. It's winter here but even so, lots of flowers are in bloom, leaves are on trees, birds are singing...but no bugs. I have yet to spot a squirrel either, Anne and Sarah!

Our most exciting accomplishment of last week (aside from my pride in getting both children home from each of our outings without either one of them being blown away) was Amelia's first day of school. We tried out the neighborhood Playcentre which is a parent co-op preschool held in the mornings from 9:15-11:45 and is just a short walk down the street. Amelia was so delighted about the prospect of going to "real school" that she spent a full 20 minutes packing and repacking her backpack the night before we went.

When we set off the next morning, she was very sad to realize that a yellow school bus wasn't going to pick us up. And frankly, I was also quite sad when we stepped out into the pouring rain and gale force winds whipping through the neighborhood. But, we trudged on with Quinn strapped to my back and Amelia in the stroller. It's about a 10 minute walk door to door, and luckily, the rain slowed to a heavy drizzle by the time we got close to the playcentre. Still, we were soaked, and Amelia kept drying off her face b/c our hoods can't stop the wind from blowing the rain right under them. I was so proud of us for sticking it out and kept telling the kids that we were almost there and we'd be dry and cozy in no time. We arrived and I opened the gate, expecting to see all the little ones inside reading a book around a circle, or having a warm snack in the little kitchen - but, no, in fact, they were all OUTSIDE playing on the playground. Seriously. Moms, kids, and even a granddad are all standing around in the rain (the playground is not covered), playing on the playground as if there's nothing unusual about it at all. So, we pulled our hoods down tighter and pretended like we were Kiwis who like playing in the frigid rain. :) Even so, we loved our morning there and both Quinn and Amelia made themselves right at home. It was a very welcoming group of moms and children and we're hoping to enroll for 2 days a week for this term.

If the sunshine holds till after nap today, we're going to try out the Botanical Gardens this afternoon.

Food

As we explore our new city, food is a top priority for us, and we've discovered some interesting differences between our US food staples and those here in NZ. The grocery stores are full of interesting new produce, odd snacks, and quirky variations of things we took for granted at home. For instance, grape jelly and black beans do not exist here, lettuce is sold brown and wilted (After 4 different grocery stores, I have yet to see a head of lettuce that I'd eat), and yet an entire 3/4 of the grocery aisle is dedicated to baked beans - spicy baked beans, baked beans with franks, baked beans in brine, baked beans in fruit sauce, baked beans in plum sauce.........and speaking of plum sauce/plum jelly. It is used without caution or warning here - I ordered a veggie burger while out and about and it was fantastic....aside from the slathering of plum jelly that it was coated in. The plum sauce/jelly seems to make it's way into everything - taco sauce, salsa, even pizza. Like most Americans, pizza is one of our most beloved go-to foods. So, after a particularly busy day, I called the pizza place just down the block:

Me: I'd like to place an order for delivery, please. One medium cheese pizza and one large pepperoni pizza please.

Pizza Place: Ok, that's one pizza with cheese and one pizza with only pepperoni?

Me: Yes, thank you.

Pizza Place: Only pepperoni on the large pizza?

Me: Yes.

Pizza Place: So, no cheese?

Me: Oh, yes, cheese and pepperoni, please.

Pizza Place: Ok - cheese and pepperoni, only?

Me: Well, yes, just cheese and pepperoni on the large pizza.

Pizza Place: So, no tomato sauce?

Me: oh - yes, I'd like tomato sauce too please.

Clearly, this was an uncommon request. And after checking out the grocery store aisles and not finding a single cheese or pepperoni pizza, it's clear that we have to expand our toppings repertoire. Perhaps ham, pineapple, and plum jelly isn't so bad after all..............

The Hottest Meal of My Life

I'm kind of a hot food junkie. You know the type; I slather hot sauce over everything I eat, my wife gets upset when I'm in charge of the cooking, and I once ate the Three Mile Island buffalo wings at Hooters. I'm toning things down a bit in my old age but I'm still not afraid of a hot dish here and there.

The other day I found myself strolling through a mall around lunchtime and I thought I'd grab a quick bite to eat. The Indian food is really pretty good around here, so I opted for a nice looking Indian place and ordered the lamb vindaloo, thinking to myself that it is often a spicy dish and this improved my chances of avoiding a bland lunch.

After putting the first bite in my mouth, my brain got the following telegram from my taste buds: "Jesus Christ, Sir, there's something in your mouth that really should not be there. I can't tell if it's battery acid or molten lava, but please spit it out."

Bull, I thought, I'm committed at this point because I paid for it and I've never backed down from a meal. I carried on, and soon found that it was too painful to stop for breaks. My only choice was to pound it as fast as I could. Predictably, I was soon sweating and found myself nearly out of water. The thought actually occurred to me that I might be on the New Zealand version of Candid Camera because 1)it would have been really funny to watch me struggle through that land mine of a dish, and 2)I couldn't believe that anyone would ever serve anything half that spicy to the general public without having them sign a hold-harmless form first.

It was sort of a neat experiment because I really wasn't sure what would happen to me if I ate it all. I've had hiccups from spicy meals before, but I wouldn't have been surprised if this had caused bleeding.

I'm staying the hell away from that particular place in the future, but all this talk of Indian food makes for a nice segue into telling you a little about our suburb. Wellington is organized into suburbs, to the point that they are included in our address while a zip code is optional. Our house is about three minute's walk from the Kelburn shops (follow the link for an unimpressive but accurate panoramic view of our suburb's center). There are two Indian places that are amazing and we have budgeted 48% of our income towards dining out as a result of this.

Kelburn is located on top of a pretty serious hill, which may be more accurately desrcribed as a mountain. The views from up here are quite nice as a result. I've been meaning to do a write-up about the house, but this seems as good a time as any to show you what the views are like. Here's a pic from our kitchen window:


With that, I'm heading to bed. My stomach kinda hurts.

When in Rome

So, I had my first experience with a hongi last Thursday.

First, a little background; like many western cultures, modern day New Zealand consists primarily of people of European descent who took over the native culture in not-so-subtle fashion within the last few hundred years (the Maori learned quickly; after northern tribes acquired muskets, their initial instinct was to shoot the hell out of their southern neighbors, who then acquired muskets and shot the hell out of their southern neighbors and so on, in an interesting bit of history called the Musket Wars). Unlike any other western culture I've seen, though, the Europeans (called pakeha) have since made a truly impressive effort to live alongside the native culture instead of taking it over. They really take this seriously, and Maori culture is therefore ubiquitous around here.

For example, I'm working at an inpatient unit now called the Rangatahi (youth) unit, and they have a Maori elder as part of the staff to help the Maori families acclimate to the Westernized style of medicine. There's also a Pacific Islander elder on staff for the same purpose. They bust out the guitar on a daily basis and all of the patients on the unit join in traditional Maori songs, complete with the accompanying dances. When someone is discharged from the unit, they have a traditional Maori farewell.

I happen to be working for one of the Pakeha outpatient teams, but they have teams who specialize in Maori and Pacific Islanders. They have their own set of challenges to deal with; apparently mental illness is so stigmatized in PI culture that an entire family will be shunned if people find out that a single member of a family was hospitalized. As a result, we don't see to many PI's in the inpatient unit.

It's pretty neat being exposed to other cultures which still maintain so much of their original identity. My days on the inpatient unit will begin with a hongi with the maori elder followed by our team singing a maori song. It's not what I'm used to but I guess that's why I'm here in the first place.

Break time (or is that afternoon tea?)

We continue to have lots of things to take care of; we now have a high chair for Quinn and a bed rail for Amelia (try living without those for a few days) and I managed to get the computer up and running. I've run out of steam, so hopefully more to come within the next few days.

Oh, and the rain pants came in handy because it rained again today. That's 4 out of 6 days so far.


We're beat. And no, that's not pee on the couch.

PS, pic of all our luggage added below...

"Windy Welly"

So much has transpired since we left home that there's little hope of covering it all adequately in one or two posts. Add to this the fact that jet lag has me waking up every morning at 5:30 and crashing by 7pm and you'll understand why I'm taking one topic at a time.

Tonight's subject: the weather. Normally this is topic is reserved for filling uncomfortable silences in conversation. Wellington's weather deserves mention, though, because it was a major concern of ours prior to moving here and it continues to have quite an impact on our lives.

Wellington is the world's southernmost capital city. It is the only capital city with the distinction of being located within the roaring forties. Sailors cringe when they hear that term, and with good reason. If you want to win a sailing race around the earth, the best way to do it is to sail south until you hit these latitudes, then hold on for dear life as the uninterrupted winds circling Antarctica whip you around the globe.

We had heard it could be windy in Wellington and we fully expected it to be freezing, rainy, and cloudy in addition. The good news is that it's not freezing. The bad news is that it is definitely windy, rainy, and cloudy. The weather really hasn't been terrible; it's just not been very good at all. For winter, it feels pretty mild. It's in the 50's and the wind can indeed be very impressive at times. The weather can change more rapidly than any place I've ever seen in my life. It routinely switches from nasty to beautiful in a span of minutes, then switches right back again.

Someone told Amy that it wasn't humid here, and that person is going to hell. We have two dehumidifiers running full time downstairs. With them, everything is fine. Without them, I'd have moved home already. It has rained everyday except yesterday (which was 75 degrees and sunny) and the wet weather shows no signs of abating though the locals assure me that the summers are quite nice. I'll just have to take their word for it. In the meantime, I'm buying myself a nice pair of rain pants (an umbrella wouldn't stand a chance in this wind).

Alive and Wellington

We made it.

In retrospect, the trip over here was a lot like childbirth (from what I gather, anyway). It wasn't particularly pleasant, but the hard parts seem to fade from memory pretty quickly and we've got something pretty neat to show for it.

I'll spare you all of the details, but the trip really could have been worse. The flight to LAX was the hardest as the kids were wide awake. Quinn got bored, then vocal. Both kids crashed for a long time on the long flight to Auckland. Oh, and the guy who booked our flights was at least two hours off on the travel time; 10 hours and 40 minutes of flying will only get you to Tonga. It was more like 13 or 14 hours, but there were lots of other kids on that flight and the outstanding flight crew really helped out by letting us use a roped-off area of the plane as a nursery. I'll revisit the fact that this country is overflowing with common sense and courtesy which I find quite refreshing.

The low point of the trip occurred when we had to retrieve all of our bags to go through customs in Auckland. That means that Amy and I had to split this between us (plus Quinn, of course):



Anyway, we had very little time to make it through customs before our last flight, and they have a policy that anyone running late for a flight is asked to head straight to their gate with all of their luggage instead of checking in again. The only issue is that the domestic terminal is over half a mile away. I can't say enough about how well my wife and daughter handled this. Amelia ran the entire way hopping like a bunny, never getting the least bit upset (she cried for less than a minute during the entire trip; in return, I will buy her a pony).

From there, it was all downhill. We met one of my future colleagues on the next flight and it turns out that she went to med school with one of my best friends from residency (Kirk, it's Amy Johnson). Small world and all.

I expected Wellington to be pretty. It's gorgeous. Pictures really don't do it justice. The coastline reminds me of Hawaii with beautiful water and waves crashing over steep rocks. The hills around town are indeed very steep and the houses cling precariously to them. In typical Wellington fashion, the houses right next to ours are completely below us so that I see my neighbor's roof when I look down out of my window. The views from our house are really something.

I'm realizing that there is absolutely no way to cram everything I want to say into one post, so I'm calling it a night. Suffice it to say that we are quite happy with everything so far, and we'll tell you more soon.

Exodus

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Amy and I are quite ready because we've spent a very long time preparing for it, but I'll admit that I feel about like I did the first time I went away to summer camp. I'm not talking about the two week version, either- I'm talking about the one that lasted a whole month.

Funny thing is, I'm not really that worried about whether we'll like New Zealand or whether my job will work out or whether we'll like our house. What's got me concerned is the trip there.

Re: logistics, it's a 1.5 hour drive to DC, a 5 hour flight to LA, a 4 hour layover, just under 11 hours to Auckland, and (just to rub it in) 2 hours more to Wellington. This seems pretty manageable to me given that it's a 9000 mile trip, more or less. So, what's on my mind? Why the butterflies? I'll show you:


The Mighty Quinn.

Quinn's a good kid, and he's really blossomed over the past week. You know how kids have those not-so-obvious milestones where they clearly make a rapid change even if it's not crawling/walking/potty training? Well, the boy has started to come into his own, complete with a wonderful belly laugh and a very outgoing personality. Thing is, he's still a baby.

I have very few concerns about Amelia. After months of intense brainwashing, she appears convinced that New Zealand is made entirely of candy and is populated by friendly, talking dolphins. Seriously, she seems to have a reasonable understanding of what's going on and I think she'll be up for the adventure. Aside from the fact that she is excited about the trip, we have an entire bag of loot which should keep her occupied for a while. Quinn, on the other hand, won't give a damn about our bag of goodies if things start to go bad. Oh man, do I not want to be That Guy With the Screaming Kid for the next 2 days.

We may be offline for a while while we travel/recoup/get internet service. Hopefully, we'll be able to post something within the week. Until then, lots of love to all of you. We'll miss you very much.

Departure, Barfing, etc.

That's our to-do list, mostly done.

At this point we are homeless and unemployed and living in Amy's parent's house in West Virginia. They are now helping us out by letting us crash their place, and I do mean crash. We showed up with two carloads of stuff crammed into random bags along with two not-so-well rested kids. I really can't thank our families enough for all of the help they've given us; there's no way we could have pulled this off without them.

We were relieved to find that international passengers on Quantas are allowed two 70-pound bags, so we now own 5 "magnum" sized Cabela's duffel bags. We now need to figure out how much can actually be crammed into these beasts, then ship the remainder. I'm spending a lot of time talking to insurance companies: health insurance in NZ, health insurance in the US, disability insurance, homeowner's insurance, and car insurance. I know the blog takes its name from a Mallory quote, but I'm getting sick of thinking about all of the bad things that could happen to us.

On a brighter note, Quinn has more or less stopped barfing and his personality is really starting to shine. Amy and I are getting excited about the trip during the rare moment of quiet, and so far things seem to be going according to plan. I don't think I've ever had my life and possessions in such good order, and the weather is nice right now. Now, back to the to-do list.

Leaving is Painful

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This week has been interesting. For the most part, it's been better than I expected because we've somehow managed to stay on schedule. It hasn't all been easy, though; we've had to tell a lot of friends and family goodbye. It's been wonderful living in C'ville for the past 6 years and it's sad to leave everyone, even if it's only temporary (we keep telling ourselves that).

I also managed to smack my hand into my cactus while repotting it and drove a few thorns right through my fingernails. Undeterred by my experience, my buddy Shawn of positoid fame agreed to babysit my cactus while I'm gone. Only later did it dawn on us that out of all of my friends, I picked the hemophiliac with AIDS to take care of the cactus. Shawn appreciated the irony.

Mi Casa, Su Casa

Well, the housing saga appears to be over. After encountering several dead ends in our housing search, we got some great news today. We'll be staying in a quirky house (of our own choosing) in the suburb of Kelburn. For those of you who know something about Wellington, that's where the cable car stops. The neighborhood is perched on the mountains surrounding Welly, so while we're only about a mile from the water it would be a pretty serious hike without the cable car. Click here to see some pics.

In addition, my parents came through big time by combining a 72-hour babysitting marathon with a home-improvement weekend. Almost everything we own has been stacked tetris-style into the basement and we'll spend the next week sleeping on a mattress and doing last minute home repairs and errands. Between the termites in our front porch, wasps in the chimney, plumbing repairs and painting, I think we'll fill the week easily.