1 year ago today....

One year ago today John and I stepped on the plane to move to New Zealand. We left Des Moines on Monday Oct 27, 2008. Some of our friends saw us off at the airport that morning (and watched us argue to get all the luggage on the plane) and from there we moved into the next phase of the journey. John and I have had many great experiences in our year down here. We have met a lot of great people, have had new experiences, made new friends and have visited a bunch of wonderful places. While we continue to miss our friends and family, we are overall glad that we made the move. It has been a good experience and one that everyone should try for at least a little while (yes, there is life outside of Iowa). Auckland is starting to feel a little bit more like home every day.

Holidays are Coming....

We have been keeping very busy the last couple weeks with work. John has been on the road a number of days to various places in New Zealand. I have also been doing some traveling for work with a new project in Hamilton. I am currently in Christchurch for a project management conference.

Holidays are coming though. This coming Monday is Labour Day here and is a public holiday. Labour Day is a good sign of summer as the ocean surf rescue patrols start this weekend.


Next Friday friends start to arrive from the US. We will be showing 9 people around the country for 2 weeks. The Auckland Marathon is Sunday Nov 1. Three friends are running the full marathon and one is doing the half. From Auckland, we will be going north to Bay of Islands, Cape Reinga, and the Kauri forest area. We will also be going to Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka and Franz Joeseph glacier on the South Island.

For fun the other night we attended a wine club night. A representative from Duval-Leroy Champagne house was presenting. Four bottles of high end champagne were included in the show, whith one bottle being NZ $214 a bottle! All to pricey for our budget.....

Other big news in NZ is the exchange rate. The NZ dollar is becoming very strong and is up to US $1 = NZ $.76. The exporters are becoming concerned about the rate but the importers are loving it.

Weekend Sailing Races

John here. I thought that some of you may be interested in hearing about my sailing experience here. About every other weekend I crew for a member of the RNZAF Base Auckland Yacht Club during a race.
Stewart has a Whiting, I believe about 28'. The hull is made of Kauri (like LOTS of older sailboats here) and glassed over. Her name is Stinger.
Crew often consists of Stewart's brother in law Gary and I with Stewart at the helm. A typical race is limited to about 3.5 hours. We race rain or shine, as long as there is not a gale warning.
Start and finish is at the club. The channel is fairly narrow there and there are LOTS of moored boats, so the start is usually rather interesting. I'm glad it is not me at the helm.
After the race we her back to the marina a couple blocks from my house, then drive back to the club house to hear the results and tip a couple.

View Typical sailing race in a larger map

Samoa Tsunami

There has been a lot of news in NZ about the Samoa tsunami last week. NZ had a tsunami warning issued for a couple hours last Wednesday morning. There were a number of people waiting for a big wave to hit, but by the time it got here there wasn't anything left in the surge. NZ has a large Somoa population. A lot of people come from the Islands to find jobs in NZ. I heard somewhere there as many people in NZ from Somoa as people living in Somoa. Not sure if that is 100% accurate, but it gives you a sense of the population here. There have been many articles on people in NZ losing large portions of their families to the tsunami. The tv news also had coverage the other night on the difference in assistance between American Somoa and Western Somoa. America Somoa has the US military showing up along with ships and planes, big government funding, and everything they need to recover. Western Somoa has few resources and are relying on international aid to recover. It will be interesting to watch how this aspect plays out in world politics.

It has rained for the last 5 days here and we got a southernly winter blast. The road from Napier to Lake Taupo has been closed for two days due to a late spring snow storm. A couple hundred people got trapped on the road overnight and it has been labeled the worst storm in the area in 25 years. We actually had to start the fireplace last night for the first time in a couple months.

John's been published

John has been published in the magazine Reseller News. It is a technical magazine focused on resellers of software and hardware. Someone interviewed him for the article/advertisement and wrote it up.

We changed to Daylight Savings on Sunday so we are getting an hour more daylight after work. Only one day into Daylight Savings and I am loving it!

The weather has been 'unsettled' for the last few days. We have had a couple spells of torrential rains. All the trees are in full bloom and asparagus is everywhere. I actually got my bike out for the first time in 4 months on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to a clothes swap party. There were around 12 girls that brought stuff they no longer wanted and you swapped for stuff that you liked. I came home with much better stuff then I went with!

We are counting down the days until our visitors get here from the US..... only 1 month to go! We are on the final push to get things done around the house before they arrive.

Kerikeri

One thing you will quickly notice in NZ is that there are a lot of towns with Mauri names and they like to repeat words when forming a name- Kerikeri, Matamata, Meremere...... The slogan for Kerikeri is 'It's so nice they named it twice". Kerikeri is in the Bay of Islands area. The town is becoming known for its art and food. The area is also known for being one of the early European settlement areas.

The picture with the buildings includes the Stone Store and Mission House. The stone house is the oldest stone building in NZ. The Mission House is oldest still standing wooden structure in NZ. Both are from the 1830's--- which should remind you that NZ is a young country for European settlements.

The waterfall picture is at Rainbow Falls. The house picture is a Mauri meeting house on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, which is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The Treaty of Waitangi is the agreement signed between the British Crown and the Mauri.

From Wikipedia - "The Treaty established a British governor in New Zealand, recognised Māori ownership of their lands and other properties, and gave Māori the rights of British subjects. However the English and Māori language versions of the Treaty differ significantly, and so there is no consensus as to exactly what was agreed. From the British point of view, the Treaty gave Britain sovereignty over New Zealand, and gave the Governor the right to run the country; Māori seem to have had a range of understandings, many of which conflicted with the British understanding. After the initial signing at Waitangi, copies of the Treaty were taken around New Zealand and over the following months many other chiefs signed." The Treaty of Waitangi is generally considered the founding document of New Zealand as a nation.

There is still much debate around the true meaning of the Treaty. The Mauri have filed many claims against the Crown for breach of the contract and have received significant sums of money to compensate for the breaches. There are still claims and reviews going on today.

Set Your Tivo

John Key, the New Zealand Prime Minister (kind of like the US President)will be on Letterman Thursday night, US time. We don't get the show here until Monday. Key is also the tourism minister, in addition to the Prime Minister, and is trying to attract more people to New Zealand. He is supposed to be giving the Top 10 for the night. Someone will have to give us a preview on how it goes.