On Beaches, and How They All Look the Same

Our batch of non-fried refried beans

4 September: On Thursday, we had another off day where there was nothing in particular planned. Kara wanted to check out the local Salvation Army thrift store, so we ventured down to Riccarton Road, the main drive through the area, and visited not only the thrift store, but a few books stores, a game store, and the New World grocery store. I've been working on my Santa Cruz Trains book every day since last Sunday and its getting pretty intense. Kara edited most of the material I had so far—the first three chapters—and then I corrected the edits. We also cooked our first batch of refried beans for burritos. It took eight hours, but they came out very tasty in the end. Perhaps a bit too spicy, but that's not a problem for me. It ended up being quite a long day despite the relaxation.

5 September: Friday was yet another day of wondering 10 miles to preview two apartments for rent. This time, the first house was near where the second was on Wednesday. It was a long hike and the house was terribly unimpressive despite a small stream with ducks immediately adjacent to it. It literally looked like nothing had been repaired since the earthquake. The garage was even leaning sideways! That evening, we marched another five miles there and back to a home even further away than the first house on Wednesday. It was the best we'd seen yet, which isn't saying much. But it was a zoo with people checking it out and we discovered on Sunday that we didn't get it anyway. So our search continues.

Friday morning, our homestay host returned right in the a.m. It was a bit earlier than we were expecting since she was flying in from Invercargill, a city at the very bottom of the South Island. When we weren't marching around the city, I was working on my book, starting one of the most headache-prone sections, Santa Cruz Union Depot & Freight Yard. Progress was fitful and unfulfilling.

Kara lounging on Sunny Saturday on a beanbag beside Ambrose the cat (also lounging)

6 September: Saturday was another mostly relaxation day, though I took it as a work day. The depot article became the bane of my existence this day and I worked on it for hours, neglecting my Medieval studies and Kara in the process. It wasn't a fun day. In the evening, at least, we went to a special presentation at the Uni put on by the FemSoc (pronounced "fem-sock"and meaning Feminist Society). A panel of nine local politicians and party activists were on board to discuss feminist issues and their party's perspectives. New Zealand has a national parliamentary election coming up in two weeks so the politicians are taking every opportunity they can. I did feel sorry for the guy from the Concervative Party because he was neither a politician nor a woman nor young and none of his politics matched those of the eight women who sat there beside him. I think he felt left out but when he stated his position on homosexuality, well, let's just say things were just barely saved from becoming a riot.

Containers near the city center, marking places where
buildings are at risk of falling into the road. Four stories of
containers don't seem any safer to me, honestly.

7 September: Sunday saw our first adventure on the metro transit system in Christchurch. It wasn't terrible, which is good, though the bus fares aren't overly cheap. We visited the local racetrack where a weekly market is held. It's pretty much a swap meet/flea market kind of thing but it was fun checking it out and we'll probably go back. There's no entrance fee, which is extra nice. From there, we hopped on the bus and headed to New Brighton...no, not the one in Santa Cruz and definitely not OLD Brighton in England. This one does bare some resemblance to Manhattan Beach, though. The main street and pedestrian mall was rather run down, unfortunately. Part of it was caused by the earthquake but part was just a lack of care, with graffiti on walls and other visible problems with the commercial district. The beach itself was beautiful, though, and we discovered that we're actually at the bottom end of a large bay which looks remarkably like Monterey Bay. Very strange. A short concrete pier jutted out into the ocean so naturally we had to go to the end. Not much more to see from there than from the beach, but we did watch some sorry surfers try to catch non-existent waves. That was fun. Our trip back let us pick up some more food from Pak 'n Save, so we're stocked up for the next few days. Lastly, I finally finished the article I'd been struggling with all week, and this one gets to go to reviewers afterwards because I still need some fact checking. Ugh. The trials of being a historian.

A panoramic view of Christchurch Bay.

Observations & Interesting Facts:

• New Zealand has at least eight major political parties. The two big ones are the National and Labour Parties. National is in control of the government right now and is slightly right while Labour is slightly left. Also on the left are the Green and Mana-Internet Parties. On the right, the Conservative and ACT Parties represent traditional morality and hard-line capitalism respectively. There are also two parties that are relatively neutral, focusing on specific issues: those are the Māori Party (native-focused) and the New Zealand First Party (nativist-focused).
• The term "Zealandia" refers to items specifically unique to New Zealand.
• L&P (Lemon & Paeroa) is a Zealandia soda manufactured by Coca-Cola that tastes like a hard lemon candy in soda form. Quite tasty actually.
• "Afghans" are not just peoples and blankets, they are also a type of cookie! This Zealandia treasure is a crunched up frosted flakes mixed with chocolate with a soft chocolate center and a walnut on top.
• All New Zealand paper money has a drawing of an indigenous bird on the reverse and some of the coins do too.

Housing Problems Down Under

31 August: The last day of August and our homestay host abandoned us to a sports tournament in Dunedin (pronounced done-EE-din). We didn't mind. Pretty much since we got here, our one goal has been to find affordable and adequate housing. Little did we know, those two things don't go hand-in-hand. The earthquake devastated the city in February 2011 and housing is at a premium. Sunday, though, was our day off. Our host hung around until around 3:00 as we searched online for places for rent. I've also been working every day on writing my book, Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It hasn't been an entirely fun endeavor since we have so little free time, so Sunday was a good day to start since nothing was planned. Still, despite a full free day, we hardly got to watch TV or relax. Business as usual.

This is the History building at University of Christchurch. Kinda concrete blocky but its nice enough inside.

1 September: On Monday, I finally got to meet my PhD supervisor, Dr. Chris Jones. He is a remarkably nice Welsh man who has lived in Christchurch for nine years. I'm apparently his seventh postgraduate student he's supervising, which puts him quite a bit over the limit, but he doesn't seem to mind much. We met and went down to the "Shillings Club", a ritzy bar and restaurant on campus mostly patronized by lecturers and professors. There is a reason for that: the cheapest meal on the menu is around $22 (roughly $19 US). Did I say things are expensive in New Zealand? Still, he gave me my first assignment: write a topic question that you will be answering for your thesis. Now those not familiar with the British system may find this assignment a bit strange. In the US, thesis statements are defended, but in the UK system (and, by extension, the NZ), topic questions are answered, though a thesis is still required in the actual essay. I got used to it back in Swansea over the years, but it still was a bit of a shock that even 100,000 word thesis papers have these rather crude topic questions. But I digress... Kara and I also got the keycode pin for access to our very own office cubical-type things. Okay, they're desks separated by cubical walls, but close enough. We have access to other rooms in the Locke building (the one in the picture at right), as well, though they aren't nearly as interesting.

Chris and I chatted for two hours and then Kara and I went to the local real estate office to inquire about renting. Once again we were let down. The demand is so high that realtors aren't really working with renters. They simply don't have to. Thus our housing search continued.

On a more positive note, the homestay host's
cat, Ambrose, has befriended us since she left,
even sneaking into our room one night to
make noise. He follows us around, meowing,
all the time, but he also purrs incessantly.

2 September: Tuesday ushered in a whole new day of housing disappointment, mostly while Kara met with her advisor. The Accommodations Department person that met with me was quite nice but not overly sympathetic or helpful. Apparently if you have a cat, they aren't willing to help you. Go figure. Honestly, bringing Niko along was a precondition for coming to New Zealand, but we are suffering for it both financially and housing-wise. The rest of Tuesday went relatively smoothly with even a little time to ourselves.

3 September: Ah, apartment viewing day. If you really want to get disappointed, try getting your hopes up first, walking three miles, and then being entirely let down. Then, on top of that, you have to walk all the way back those three miles depressed. Yeah, we did that twice on Wednesday. It was a 10-mile day, give or take a mile. On the plus side, I'm already losing the calories (or should I say kilojules) that I gained in Arizona. Pretty soon, I'll be onto my post-Tech Museum excess weight and back down to a manageable level.

To be honest, though, Wednesday really showed us what we're up against. Somebody last week told us that we can either set our demands and wait for them to be fulfilled or settle for less. The first apartment we visited was in the slightly seedier side of west Christchurch. It had rather sad qualities to it including a crappy oven, small refrigerator, minimal counter space in the kitchen, old washing machine, small bedrooms, unkempt garden, and single-panned windows. They were repainting the house, but they really should have been rebuilding it. The kitchen was down a hallway from the living room and that was the only room that was truly livable in the house. It looked too close to our place in Swansea for comfort, so we walked out.

At last, Hokey-Pokey is an ice cream flavor! We finally
know what it's all about. That's a load off my mind.

After a trip to the university on the way back to pick up some books, we ventured to our second apartment viewing to be equally unenthused. Though in a nice neighborhood, the interior of the house was perhaps the strangest layout we've ever seen. You know the term "bathroom"? Yeah, it's literal here. "Toilet"? Yup, that's its own room as well. No sink either. Oh, and just in case you want to take a shower, that's in another room, which it shares with the ancient washing machine. In the kitchen, a crappy oven sits beside what can only be described as a beer fridge serving as the main fridge. No freezer in sight. It did include a dishwasher, but at the expense of counter and cabinet space since it stuck out nearly 8 inches, blocking access to both. Once again, the owner was painting rather than remodeling. It seems to be an unfortunate trend here. But in this case, the painting was haphazard and poorly implemented since mold was collecting on high windowsills and most other windows were surrounded by old  crackling paint that was not on the agenda to repaint. Again, we were unimpressed and severely disappointed since the description for this place made it sound so reasonable.

On the plus side, we finally were able to watch TV after returning from our long, sad trek back. Always a silver lining...even around sharknadoes.

The Tale of the Tailess Cows

28 August: Our first full day in Christchurch was filled with a lot of walking. Perhaps an excessive amount. We returned to Vodafone first thing in the morning to get our phones properly working on the network. After that was successful, we went to K-Mart where Kara bought a hairdryer for $24. Yeah, that's expensive! For lunch, after deciding against the food court, we went to a frozen yoghurt bar outside the mall called SoYo. It was decent, though the range of both flavors and toppings was less than impressive. We got a donut-flavored yoghurt mixed with an intense chocolate.

From there, we went to the university where we finally got our Canterbury Cards and our on-campus internet working...mostly. We now have email addresses (two!) for the school as well as access to various places on campus. Kara got all her scholarship stuff worked out, though the scholarship lady must be one of the most awkward people we've ever met. The smile never left her face even as she proclaimed her utter lack of knowledge regarding anything.

On the way home, we decided to get Pizza Hut. Yeah, judge us. We wanted something cheap and tasty. Pepperoni Lovers was the only option with pepperonis (extra toppings cost $3, which is the same price as the special pizzas. Dumb.). We'll probably stick with extra large cheese pizzas from now on, though, since everything else is quite expensive and large pizzas are somewhere between small- and medium-sized US pizzas. We're hoping extra larges are decent upgrades. The pizza was excellent but they didn't provide napkins and parmesan topping was considered a topping (peppers not an option). We got home and our host made some additional food from leftovers, which wasn't at all tasty (chicken bits in a vegetable stew) but supplemented the small-sized pizza dinner.

29 August: Friday involved us finally being able to have bank accounts, two shared checking and savings accounts. That means we can finally actually get monies! Before we took care of that, Kara went to Subway to pick up a sandwich. We then ventured to Pak 'N Save, the bulk grocery chain that has the lowest prices in town. We picked up quite a bit of food to last us a few days including some pre-packaged pasta, some Mexican food ingredients (they have everything we need to make our own refried beans. Mmmm.), and some other bits. Overall it was quite a bit of food for a decent price, though we certainly don't have much variety in our diet right now. It's too expensive to diversify and we don't really need to make meals currently since our host covers that more or less. I went to KFC for my (late) lunch and was happy to find that the chicken tastes just the same as in the US. The mashed potatoes are a bit more flavorless but the more disappointing thing is that it always comes with gravy, which I don't really enjoy, and that there is at least as much gravy as potatoes served in rather small portion containers.

From there we went to the university where Kara failed to meet her advisor. His office was open but nobody was at home! We did pass a bloke on the way out who we decided not to follow to see where he went. We got Metro passes and a few other items from the Student Association then ventured back home after picking up milk from the New World. Overall, Thursday was a pretty straightforward day, though not as successful as we had hoped.

Niko at the Canterbury Quarantine Center.

30 August: We visited Niko today, which was a happy reunion to be sure. The journey to the kennel took 25 minutes, though we did get to see some of the Canterbury Plain on the trip to the facility. The place was just a bunch of heavily-modified trailers and containers but it was oddly nice. Niko has a two-bunk flat with an access door to the outside, though a single wall of chain-linked fence blocks him from escaping into the wild. He has a piece of tree and an actual scratching post to hone his claws upon while he is treated to a "senior" diet of both kibble and wet cat food (more than he gets from us!). Lots of blankets covered his bunks with the sheets from the top bunk cascading down to the lower bunk. Overall, he is well taken care of. He was quite happy to see us, walking back and forth across our laps, rubbing his head on our feet, and generally purring and enjoying the attention. It was painful to leave him again, but it was necessary. And we probably won't see him again until he is moved to The Catery, a different non-quarantine kennel.

The summer town of Sumner as viewed from atop Port Hills.
Santa Cruz is 6,925mi (11,145km) northeast of here across the Pacific Ocean.

After visiting our kitty, our homestay host took us on an auto tour of Christchurch. We went north of the city where we saw a lot of the devastation from the earthquake in the low income housing areas. Then we went east to the town of Sumner, a former summer resort that now is lined with stacked containers protecting passerby's from falling pieces of hillside and homes that teeter atop the cliffs. The community itself still has life, but the earthquake definitely devastated large swaths of property along the Port Hills. From there, we traveled under the hills to the town of Lyttelton, the original settlement for Canterbury (an older French settlement was only added to Canterbury much later). Lyttelton also suffered a lot of damage with three very old buildings collapsing entirely and being demolished. The Port of Christchurch is located here, and all cruise ships stop here if they visit the city. We found a nice street market while we were there and I was able to purchase New Zealander sourdough bread which, while technically sour, is nowhere near as tasty as San Francisco-style sourdough. Returning to Christchurch proper, we went through the downtown area where our host explained how many tall skyscrapers have been demolished since the earthquake. The city was a hodgepodge of ruins and surviving buildings. A half-demolished theatre was at one end of the town while the ruined Christchurch Cathedral was at the other. The devastation was extensive and somewhat depressing, even though the city has been rebounding well.

Back at the house, Kara and I tried some pre-packaged pasta we had purchased at Pak 'n Save the day before. It was decidedly not as good as Pasta Roni. Kara won't be having hers again while I will have it sparingly. I think we'll have more success making our own mac 'n cheese and other pastas. Too bad tomato-based products cost so much here. In the afternoon, we scurried over to check out an apartment to rent only to discover dozens of people already there. Not only was the place unimpressive, but it was expensive for its unimpressiveness. And people were praising it! That didn't give us much confidence in finding housing. Kara doesn't really want the place at this point while I'd take it but prefer something else. Housing is not looking good.

We went to a local Chinese restaurant for dinner where I got lemon chicken. It's basically orange chicken but yellower. I didn't mind; it tasted great. Everyone else got more traditional Chinese fair. Blah. That pretty much ended Saturday for us. I'm finally working on my book again and have set goals, so let's see how well I keep them. Cheers!

Observations:

• All pre-pay cell phone plans charge 20¢ to check voicemail. This was not told to us in advance because it is so common knowledge here.
• Rental properties must include a washing machine and refrigerator and new tenants are required to sign a federally-backed rental agreement.
• Dinner is often called "Evening Tea", even if they don't serve tea at it.
• Dairy cows have their tails removed to make milking easier.

The Never-ending Canterbury Tales

From this point forward, I think I will try to do this a bit more like a retrospective travelog/Medieval chronicle. I think it will be more fun that way and fit my style more. Plus, it means I get to relive my past days every time I write, which should be interesting. Retrospectives are all the rage in the Year of Our Lord 2014. Let's see how this week has turned out so far...

23 August: Final preparations were made for the journey to Los Angeles and the two-day ordeal that would be the trip to Christchurch, New Zealand. I should note that Christchurch is in Canterbury District of New Zealand on the South Island, roughly midway down the east coast of above Littleton Bay which was once a large volcano.

24 August: Last goodbyes to the Kennedy family. Socko Pocko, the family's oldest and somewhat ailing cat, was given special affection since this will likely be the last time we see him. The oldest dog, Zee, was also lightly praised since he, too, will be an unlikely companion when we return to the States. Kirk, Kara's dad, drove us to Los Angeles where we arrived at around 7:30pm. Niko joined us for this leg of the trip and did remarkably well during the car ride, though he did pant like a wolf for a while early on.

25 August: Niko required a vet appointment early on in the day so we traveled from our humble Motel 6 to the local vet where he was given his last medications for the flight. We then had to get him scanned at the Department of Agriculture center near the airport. His cage left for further fitting, Niko returned with us to the motel where we quickly abandoned him to eat lunch at Denny's. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging in antagonizing wait until 3:00 when we finally had to say goodbye to Niko at the DA office so he could be properly dealt with by the airlines.

Our last meal in the US was a local Mexican restaurant with surprisingly good food and a fun theme, though the service was slow. From there, we packed up everything one last time and Kirk dropped us off at LAX airport. We got a porter to help us out—which was an excellent idea!—and he helped us get everything weighed and and unloaded. Kara's carryon was overweight, but the lady allowed it after we took out 1kg (we returned it to the bag as soon as we made it through security). While waiting to board, I called the relatives and said farewell.

The crowded terminal with people lining up to board the flight to Auckland.

The flight itself was a long 13-hour slog. To make matters worse, we had the very definition of a bloke sitting next to us and a woman who enjoyed her reading light far too much directly in front of us. The bloke grunted whenever we needed to use the restroom and he took up his whole seat and didn't like to share the armrest. The woman only turned off the light at around 5:00 in the morning US time, which was the middle of the night regardless of the time zone. Food was served around midnight (because people are hungry then) and breakfast about 10 hours later. Neither of them were particularly tasty and neither of us ate most of our meals. We had some of our own food with us, but we discovered in Auckland that no food of any type is allowed through customs. Prudes!

Entertainment in the plane was good, at least. Lots of movies, including really new ones, and some TV shows. Neither of us accomplished anything of note—I didn't even use my personal electronics on the plane once! The seats had a bit more leg room than your usual 777s but it was still crammed and there was almost no room in the aisles.

27 August: Tuesday never existed for us. We crossed the International Date Line sometime in the dead of night and any Tuesday we had was fleeting and inconsequential. We arrived at Auckland (pronounced "Oakland" by Kiwis) at 5:45 in the morning and had to answer 20 Questions on a declaration sheet, get told that we answered questions wrong by the customs agent, and then got a bag searched for cat medicine. It was a pain and we were forced to haul all our huge luggage to the domestic terminal, which was only accessible by bus. We almost missed said bus except a nice guy got them to stop and helped us load our baggage. We got rude stares from people, but whatever. Peeps got to catch a plane! We still had some time to spare at the terminal, but they had limited Wifi so I posted our first survival notice on Facebook.

The hopper to Christchurch was fairly full and the iPad finally came out to provide limited entertainment for Kara and me. We got our first view of our home at around 9:00 as we did a fly-over before landing. Fields spread out toward the towering New Zealand Alps in the west, while the city itself is a concentrated mass near the Pacific Ocean just north of Littleton Bay, mentioned above. It wasn't an overly spectacular impression, but the snow-topped mountains were beautiful and something we definitely plan to visit soon.

Out first good view of the plains west of Christchurch. Note the mountains in the distance.

Our homestay lady picked us up at the airport and fortunately had an SUV (she calls it a truck) that was barely able to hold our 350 lbs of luggage. She took us to her home about 10 minutes away where we've been staying ever since. The place is a lovely home with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office, a kitchen/living room, and a parlor plus a garage. None of those British crammed homes—here, they actually have space to stretch. The neighborhood is very nice and within walking distance to the University of Canterbury. She also has another homestay guest from China as well as a pet cat named Ambrose.

Since it was only about 10:30 in the morning, she dropped us off near the Westfield Mall so we could open our bank account and see about getting phone numbers. The bank account required an address but we worked something out with them so now we can receive Kara's scholarship monies. We decided to go with a Pre-Pay Vodaphone plan but our phones were not actually unlocked yet because T-Mobile stinks at giving proper directions. We went home and fixed that later in the day but had to wait until the next day to get things going again. We stopped at the New World supermarket on the way back and picked up some VERY overpriced foods there. We were told food prices were high, but things are worse than that. Except for dairy products, which are all domestic, most foods are around 50% to 100% higher than in the US, unless they are special imports, in which case they are probably closer to 200% US prices. Oh, and sales are dismally inconsequential.

Weet-Bix! Weet-Bix everywhere!
Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!

We also had to get enroled at the University so we got that taken care of, though it was too late in the day to also get our Canterbury Cards (student IDs). On the way back, we stopped at another supermarket called Countdown which had slightly better prices and where we discovered that bread products are sold at reduced prices late in the day. The rest of the evening was spent eating a lovely Fish 'n' Chips meal provided by our host and getting other things worked out. We've already learned a lot from our host and a few other individuals we've met along the way, so fingers crossed that things improve.

One last note, Niko made it okay and immediately fled his cage to sit in sunbeams near a window at the quarantine facility. He will be enjoying their good graces until 9 September when he will be moved to The Catery, a cat kennel with a good reputation. In the meantime, we'll be looking for housing that will allow him to rejoin us.

Observations:

• The actual New Zealand accent is midway between a British and an American accent and much easier to understand.
• There are a lot of non-New Zealanders in Christchurch, especially Indians, Chinese, and Australians.
• The exchange rate is 0.85 UDS to 1 NZD, so expensive things are actually a bit cheaper than they look, until we start using Kara's scholarship money.
• The big earthquake in 2011 destroyed much of the city, but the suburbs rebounded quickly and everything looks new and beautiful because of it. The city center, though, is still in a state of constant reconstruction.
• There are just as many American things here as British and Australian, so it doesn't feel as far away from home as living in Swansea did in 2008-09.
• Things are still strangely proportioned here. Sinks are small, toilet rooms are separate from bath rooms and they are tiny, but there are large cars, wide roads, decent-sized rooms. Overall, strange contrasts.
• Despite popular belief, people are no more or less polite than anywhere else in the world. They are just normal people doing normal things.

One Last Call for 'Merica

So this is it: NZ-Day. The day we've all been waiting for. The day I leave the United States for at least three years to settle in a place literally on the opposite side of the world. Okay, technically Spain is the exact opposite of Christchurch, but still. Close enough.

Niko traveling to Arizona in Kara's
Ford Explorer Sport-Trac.

The past three weeks have involved two things: shopping and packing. And both have been tedious. As soon as we got to Arizona, we started unpacking the two cars. This took three days all in itself. Then the real work of storing everything in the basement and elsewhere around Kara's house began. A lot of the basement got reorganized so that all of my LEGOs, games, and our other stuff could be stored in a corner. That only got finished three days ago.

The next task was completing our collection of clothing and other materiel that will be needed in our tour-of-duty in New Zealand. The list was long and we spent about a week of shopping off-and-on to get everything, especially trying to get good quality clothes cheaply. It was difficult and in the end, a few new items had to be cut and returned due to space issues.

That bring me to our last task for the past two weeks: packing. We have six 50-pound pieces of luggage and, fortunately, discovered that our carry-ons do not, in fact, include our personal items in their 15-pound weight limit. This was a recent change but something that helped us greatly. We decided to include one large packing box as one of our pieces of luggage. We also decided to buy a new suitcase/carryon combo from Costco. It was expensive but worth it. We now have two free-spinning suitcases that will be easy to move when needed.

Trying to pack these suitcases and keep them under 50-pounds has been one giant game of Musical Chairs. It has taken two weeks just to pack and repack these things. We only finished yesterday. We leave on Sunday. Yeah, cutting it close. We probably spent around 20 hours packing, weighing, and repacking these to get them right.

Free time has not really happened. I've been busily backing up all my DVDs on my external hard drive so we have things to watch in New Zealand while also downloading TV shows. We even broke the Internet in the process. Oops! Things are mostly under control now but the next two days are still going to be busy right until the end. Niko's all prepared for his trip, probably better prepared than us.

Fingers crossed that the remaining items will come together before Sunday. Stay tuned!