New car and new food

We finally bought a car. A 1992 Subaru Legacy Wagon with 180 kms, no AC, a failing CV joint, and an owners manual and service record in Japanese. You can see pictures of it in the slide show to the right. Many used cars are imported to NZ from Japan (imported AFTER being used in Japan), so a strange notice appears in the ads—“NZ new”. Bob just replaced the fuse for the taillights—good thing Japanese uses the same numbers we do because all the other labels were in Japanese!

We thought we were getting a pretty cheap car until one of the staff here at the university told us that $500 was a cheap car. Apparently, at the start of each term they have a Canterbury 500, where everyone who has purchased a car for $500 or less joins in a pub crawl across the South Island. We will not be able to participate.

Last weekend we took the new car to Akaroa, a town on the Banks Peninsula an hour south of Chch. It was first settled by the French, and is proud of that heritage. Of course, it was only French for one year, and no one lived there during that year! It seems that a French settler liked the area and bought land from the local Maori (rhymes with now-ree) chief. He then left to get some friends and family, intending to return the following year. Unfortunately for him, that was also the same year the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Empire and the Maori in the North Island, ceding rights to most of NZ, including the Banks Peninsula, to the English. I don’t know exactly how this worked when the tribe here didn’t sign that treaty…but it’s their history. The French settlers settled there anyway, and named some streets Rue de Whatever and put some wrought iron over some windows. It’s pretty and we got to watch a fireman’s competition in the local park. We counted it as a work day. We ate at French styled ‘Bistro’, but the overwhelming smell was the Fish and Chips joint next door.

Food here has been interesting. The dairy tastes different, but is cheaper. Our refrigerator has a butter keeper (with a soft, medium, firm button) and a butter dish for a WHOLE pound of butter. Ice cream is everywhere. We tried out the fish and chips. You can get 2 ‘fish’ and a scoop for less than 4 bucks and get enough fried food to last a lifetime. If it can be deep fried, you can get it at a fish and chips takeaway. And then you get a plain paper wrapped bundle to take home. The paper does soak up some of the grease. Spring rolls, hot dogs (blech), ‘meat’ patties (don’t try these either) are all batter dipped and fried golden greasy. The fish and chips are good. Greasy and WAY TOO SALTY but good. Cabbage is good and cheap, as are many other vegetables, including some things we didn’t know we liked, like courgettes (zucchini) and capsicum (bell peppers). And then there’s the horse floats! (Just kidding, horse floats are horse TRAILERS).

We have finally figured out three important lessons about eating out in NZ. First, when you are finished ordering, they will almost always say “Eat-in or takeaway?” It’s nice to not feel so stupid every time we order coffee. The second lesson is that they don’t bring the check to your table. At our first restaurant we waited and waited and waited. Then waited some more. Finally, we asked, and we were told to just go to the counter and tell them our table number or what we ate and pay there. Tips in restaurants are not common. The third lesson is about that coffee. Here you order a long black, a short black or a flat white. I just wanted a cup of coffee!! As they also had cappuccino and latte on the menu, we couldn’t figure out what these items were. Again, we finally asked. A short black is an espresso in a small cup. Straight, as it were. A long black is a watered down espresso in a bigger cup. A flat white, well, we think it’s a café au lait, but I like this one best.

Flybys or Flybuys

[November 13]
Well we've been here almost a week and things are finally settling down. This is Abby's second day of school and she's adjusted really well. She's the popular new American girl in the class and she's even OK with their decidedly unglamorous school uniforms. We're in our "flat" near campus. Its really close to campus and Abby's school, but with the weak dollar, it and everything else is more expensive than we expected.

Internet access is weird here, even at the University. We've had to put some cash into our university accounts to pay for internet access and paper for printing. Any access outside the University is charged to your account and international access (like checking NCSU email) costs even more. We've borrowed a TV and its amazing how many U.S. shows are available. This is "free" airwave TV, but includes cable standards like SpongeBob, the Office, etc. Abby's happy. TV also is full of world championships in sports we've never heard of, like "netball". Seems to be like the old girls playground basketball in the U.S. where there were offensive players on one side of the court and defensive players on the other.

Radio seems to be dominated by either U.S. rock or gardening talk shows. Language is generally not a problem, but there are some things we don't quite get. The kids at school didn't know what "jelly" was when Abby described her sandwich; I guess everything is "jam". When I bought Abby's school uniform last night, the clerk asked me if I had any "fly-bys". I said no, but checked my zipper just in case I was causing an international incident. I still don't know what she meant.

So far I'm the designated wrong way driver in our rental car. It took me two days to figure out how to look to my left to see the rear view mirror. Shifting gears (even just from R to D) with my left hand looks takes some real effort, especially since we have to back directly out of our driveway into a busy street. I won't tell you how many times I've casually tried to look like I meant to get into the passenger side to drive. My current strategy is to pretend that I always unlock Karen's door to the car before going over to the "driver's" side. I just act like that's the way we do things in the U.S. and I can't believe that they don't open their wives' door first here in this primitive country. Of course this works better when Karen is actually with me.

It's spring here (see Abby picture attached) and we're going to "the show" this PM: http://www.theshow.co.nz/2007-show/ I guess it’s like the state fair. We arrived when the spring weather here is a bit cooler than the fall weather we left. Its generally in the 50's or 60's during the day and pretty cool at night (30's to 40's). We actually had hail yesterday. By Christmas it's supposed to be consistently warm.

[November 15]
As part of my sabbatical research and by popular demand, I've pursued what the clerk meant which she asked me if I had any “flybys”. At first I thought this must mean flier like you get by junk mail. But then we saw the word on windows around town and that didn't make sense.

Then I looked it up on Google. When I posted: "flyby definition" it sent me to http://sohos.wordpress.com/ where it listed this definition:

FLY BY Definition: The act of scouting out a bathroom before pooping. Walk in, check for other poopers. If there are others in the bathroom, leave and come back again. Be careful not to become a FREQUENT FLYER. People may become suspicious if they catch you constantly going into the bathroom.

Of course I couldn't believe that a clerk would ask me this question, but if she did I certainly wasn't sure whether I should admit to a stranger how may flybys I've done. I tried a different spelling and limited the search to New Zealand and found the link below. It's sortof like green stamps.

I'll let you know as my research progresses. Cheers, Bob

Settling In

Abby is enrolled in school (they spell enroll here with only ONE L) just 2 blocks away. It's like school in the 60's. Open campus, parents in and out of classrooms, administration consists of 3 staff (principal, administrator, and counselor). There is no school district or board, only the federal (limited) rules. Each school is basically a charter school run by a local parents/teacher advisory council. They all wear uniforms, and Abby looks really cute in hers! They have to wear sunhats every time they go outside-they are quite concerned about skin cancer.

Today it is still cool, but sunny, and we are going to the Royal New Zealand Show this afternoon. This is both the provincial and national agricultural show. We expect to see hundreds of kinds of sheep. As far as we can tell, it is a lot like the State Fair, but we'll know more tomorrow.

The people here have been so helpful and kind, and we are very grateful to all of them, but especially to Jeanette Allen at the Forestry School at UC. She has helped us get settled and even found a TV and radio for us to borrow. We actually watched the news this morning and found out that the weather will be...cold. Really cold in Invercargill, pretty cold in Christchurch, and just cool in the North Island. They, however, are supposed to have 130 km winds up there, so maybe cold isn't so bad. We've had sleet today, and some rain and wind of our own.

One of our first cultural and social experiences has been dealing with rubbish. Chch has a pretty cool system of rubbish collection-they charge you a hefty price for each trash bag (which has 'Christchurch Council' written on it in large letters) and they ONLY pick up these bags. So, on Monday night we ventured out in our wrong-hand drive car on these wrong-hand drive roads to find a supermarket that had these special bags.

We finally found the right aisle; only the entire shelf was empty. There was a woman nearby stocking shelves, and she came over and joined us as we stared intently at the empty wire shelf which was labeled "Official Christchurch Rubbish".

"You're looking for the rubbish bags are you?" she asked, as we all continued to look at the empty shelf.

She bent down to get a better look at the empty shelf.

"Um, well, we..." she stood up and looked at us, then back at the shelf.

"I don't know when we'll we getting any more in". Not that it would have mattered to us anyway, as rubbish day is Tuesday and it was Monday evening.

All of us, me, Bob, Abby and the clerk were still standing in a semi-circle around the empty rubbish bag shelf, staring at it. Maybe hoping one would appear if we stared hard enough.

"Well, um..." She bent down to check the empty shelf one more time. The shelf remained empty.

"You could maybe find some at Countdown? It's just across the way there?"

Then she stood looking at us apologetically, as though she were personally responsible for us coming to the store too late to get our rubbish bags.

This type of extra-solicitousness is pretty common here. It seems the Kiwi do not like to disappoint their customers or clients. They are also much chattier than Americans. Even in a business context (such as opening a bank account) there is more conversation, and although it may not be more personal than what we're used to, there seems to be MORE of it. At any rate, it could also be that these kindly clerks are expecting US to end the conversation and move on, and we don't know how they do that here. Yet.

This is in contrast to the no eye contact with strangers on the sidewalk phenomenon. When walking, if you pass someone you don't already know, you look away. Down or to the side, but no eye contact is made. At first this was very disconcerting, as we are used to nodding or even smiling when we encounter another walker, but we are getting used to this as well.

To finish the rubbish bag story, we braved the wrong-ways again to get to the other supermarket. (Aside: shopping carts were labeled as 'trolleys' at the first market, but 'trundlers' at the second.) Alas, they too were out of official rubbish bags. Lesson learned: buy your official rubbish bags before the evening before rubbish day.

Karen.

Kiwi Kountry

The first indication that we were headed someplace really different was when we boarded the aeroplane behind a guy wearing a UtiliKilt. Yep, Carhart’s for the Down Under folks. The first indication that we were headed someplace not really different was when we noticed that the most common restaurant in Christchurch was McDonalds. Although the Kiwi Burger on the menu was a little odd (add a couple beets and a fried egg to a quarter pounder and you have a Kiwi Burger).

It’s cold here. And those teeny wall heaters in our house work really hard to keep it…just cool inside rather than downright frigid. Gardens and landscaping are beautiful in Christchurch, with lots of azaleas and rhododendron in bloom. Campus architecture, however, makes NC State look progressive. Where State looks like overgrown elementary schools, UC looks like overgrown concrete warehouses with mansard roofs.

We’re still struggling with the lack of internet access and electrical connections, but we do have cell phones and phone card to use on our UC landline here at the house, so we are not completely isolated. We’re still reachable by our usual emails, but we will be checking only every couple of days until we figure out the system here.

Love from NZ,
Karen, Bob and Abby

Departure...sort of

We finally left Raleigh, and have made it as far as the foreign country of "Alabama". We got here in time to celebrate Halloween here in the Halloween Capital of the South, Anniston. Bob's mom 'carried' us to a friends house for dinner and then some wild trick or treating on Glenwood Terrace, where we got to see the Headless Horseman, the cow-doing-a-handstand (I'll leave the details to your imagination), and hundreds of trick or treaters. (Note that carried is Alabamanian for 'drove'.) I'm not sure we've recovered from that night, but we had a great time. Next foreign country, California!