[dilanium]

We arrived yesterday via Auckland on AirNZ. From San Francisco to Auckland Pacific Economy had good food, great entertainment, and horrible leg room! I suppose for most people it's not bad, but my knees were on the back of the chair in front of me while it was upright, and then the person in front of me leaned back and smashed my knees in. I was in an aisle seat, so I did stretch me legs into the aisle (and ended up tripping loads of people throughout the flight). I'm not sure why, but I really didn't sleep on the flight. So when we arrived in Auckland I was already exhausted.

The flight to Palmy had worse leg room, and I was honestly surprised that all of our packages made it on the plane. It was only and hour long, and we had water and biscuits (cookies) while watching green go by beneath us, so I enjoyed it.

We had boxes checked and they were absolutely beaten up, so if you're planning on taking boxes with you as checked baggage I recommend reinforcing it with loads of tape and making sure it's very thick cardboard. I haven't opened our boxes yet )as we're staying at a fellow vet student's house until we find our own rental, and I don't want all of our possessions littering her house) so I'm not sure how everything survived.

If you are taking loads of checked bags and have a domestic transfer after Auckland I would recommend making sure you have a 3 hour or longer layover. Getting through customs, collecting our baggage and going through MAF while painless for us, took a very long time, and we missed our original flight to Palmy. AirNZ was very nice and put us on the next flight but it was a frustration trying to get in touch with Massey's rep, who was picking us up, to let her know we would be late.

Luckily a representative of Massey was there to pick us up (and fit our 12 checked packages into a van) and take us to where we're staying. One of our packages that we mailed is already here, the other is not. I'm hoping it's just delayed at customs in Auckland.

Then after a quick shower we walked to Massey and got my paperwork sorted. I met with the international liaison of the Vet school who gave us plenty of good information about the town and life in NZ.

We then caught a bus into the Square. I like the square a lot. The store fronts are fun to walk by and look in. There are loads of places to eat. We had lunch at a Thai Express shop. A bowl of duck noodle soup that was huge was $12 NZD, if I paid that much for a bowl in the US it would usually be tiny. We stopped by Westpac and set up our accounts and got our EFTPOS cards. We haven't used them yet but from what I've heard they will be quite useful.

We went to Pak n Sav after that to pick up some food for the next few days. It reminded me of BJ's wholesale club or Costco but without the memberships. I can't comment on the prices as I was overwhelmed by everything. Just realising that I have no idea what a good price is and I kept trying to convert everything from kg to lbs and NZD to USD. It seems that produce is cheaper, seafood is more, meat cost the same, packaged goods seemed the same, beer is more expensive, and wine seems less expensive. We haven't checked out hard liquor yet.

There are loads of US companies here. We've seen Dunkin Donuts, Blockbuster, McDonalds, Burger King, and loads of food products and toys. There's also a store called Kmart that looks the same but is not owned by the same company as the one in the US.

A few interesting things that I've noticed: I look the wrong ways for cars when crossing the road and have to be really careful not to get hit, I have no idea what quite a few of the road signs mean, and when they say the houses are cold, they mean it. The lack of insulation is obvious and the houses are quite quite cold. In fact yesterday when we left the house it was warmer outside than in the house. As I'm sitting here this morning I notice that I can see my breath when I yawn and that my fingers are quite cold. My husband seems to not notice the cold.

I'll keep you updated as things progress.

[Carey]

Glad you arrived safely. Hope the next few days pan out well and you find time to realise where you are and how well you've done to get so far!

[mgbridges]

Delighted that you have FINALLY landed Liz! It will be a major culture shock for a while I expect but sounds like you are settling in well. Good luck with finding a rental.

Anneliese

[marcia]

Glad to see you got here safely - and what about the rain on the tin roofs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (we've been having a LOT of rain over the couple of weeks!)

I've also pm'd you!

[Hackswell]

Glad to see you got here safely - and what about the rain on the tin roofs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (we've been having a LOT of rain over the couple of weeks!)


TIN ROOF!!!! (RUSTED!)

;)

[Mrs Pony]

yeah! congrats! Nice to know that there are somethings there that you are familiar with!

[JasonS]

welcome! yes, it does take a while to get use to some things...i still catch myself sometimes walking to the left side of the car to get in and drive...looks pretty stupid especially when you are by yourself. :o

laurel

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

Yay, here at last. Welcome to Aotearoa.

[urban78]

Welcome to NZ Liz and hubby :)

[JandM]

What a busy day...

PLEASE don't go and ruin everything by getting knocked over. Repeat after me: Stop at the kerb. Look right, look left, look right again.

The way I converted my thinking to metric weights and measures, when I lived in Paris as a student, back when the UK was all pounds and ounces, feet and inches, was to ask people in shops, 'Could you please show me how much 250g is?' (or 1 metre 50, or whatever was appropriate). That got my eye in.

[pieeater]

Haere Mai to Aeoteroa.Your gonna be jangled for a while.Hope it all goes well for you.

[Bruckner]

Here's your mantra as told my to my young uns, "First you look right. Then you look left. And now you cross the street." But of course you're not three years old.

Any way, get settled in then get some sleep!

Emily

[dusk]

An action packed first day! hope things continue to go as smoothly as possible :D

[dilanium]

Liz and I got in line at the ticket counter and steeled ourselves for the bull to come.

The United Air ticket agent spent about 20 minutes just trying to figure out how to bill us for our excess baggage. It turned out to be US$88 for every bag after the fourth one, even though it was listed as only US$80 on New Zealand Air's website. We were happy to eat the extra dollars in this case, however, because United Air's own excess baggage charges were ridiculously high. Bowel clenchingly high. Further bull ensued over the excess weight charge; while the NZ Air site had said that excess weight over 26 kg would be assessed a US$30 charge, United wanted to charge us US$264 per bag.

So there we were, a lengthy line forming behind us at this point, standing there with our 11 boxes and bags, and we decided that we should make those 11 boxes and bags 12 boxes and bags instead, because $88 for one more 35 pound box was a much better deal than $528 for two 70 pound boxes. Really no contest. They sold us a box for $10 (capitalism at its finest, that), and we ripped open two boxes, tossed them on the scales, and gutted them of their contents until they were below that magical 50 pound mark.

It took nearly an hour and a half for us to to get past the ticket counter. I truly wish I was exaggerating.

Step two on our amazing journey: security. Not a problem for two quite young and quite white Americans, yes?

Wrong. For reasons that baffle me, they decided to do a thorough search of both Liz and me. They stopped short of a strip and cavity search, but not by far. They used the little metal-finding wand on both of us, frisked us, and physically inspected every nook and cranny of both of our bags. This process took up another half hour. It was very invasive, extremely irritating, and more than a little humiliating.

That particular episode over at last, we made our way to our gate and waited for the plane to arrive and carry us out of the surrealistic inferno of Las Vegas.

A short flight to San Francisco later, we quickly discovered that we would have to hop terminals to get to our next flight. This meant another (goddamned) trip through security, but thankfully they left the KY and latex gloves in their lockers or something, because they let us through with only the most cursory of looks.

No end to the anxiety, though: apparently Air NZ only lets you have a max of 7 kg in your carryon bags. Liz's weighed 9 kg after unloading everything she could think of into her coat and purse, and my bag plus my computer alone weighs about 5 kg, to say nothing of the three days of clothes, the ziplocked toiletries, the Nintendo DS, the various power adapters, cables, and cords, and probably another 3 or 4 kg worth of pure et cetera.

No amount of weight shifting would bring our bags under the weight allowance, and we knew it. Our only hope at that point was to bluff our way through and hope for the best. This also turned out to work brilliantly. Nobody checked the weight on our bags, and we stepped off of American soil and onto the plane.

On board the plane, we noticed immediately a slight problem: Liz's knees impacted the back of the seat in front of her, even though the seat was in its full, upright position. This spelled trouble for a 12 hour flight.

The seat backs all had small televisions built into them with more on-demand video options than you could shake a stick at, especially in the cramped confines of the 777. They also had an option where you could monitor the plane's progress over the 11,000 km trip. This often turned out to be the most entertaining part of the trip.

Things were going fairly well, if a bit cramped and uncomfortable, until the guy in front of Liz decided to slam his seat back - directly into Liz's knees. This is one of the few times I've seen Liz react with pain that didn't seem wholly out of proportion to the situation; I've often kind of thought that Liz is a bit of a wuss when it comes to pain, but this time I think she earned a bit of a wince and hiss.

We watched a couple of films, Smart People and Run, Fatboy, Run. Well, I watched them, and Liz watched a third to half of them, sleeping through the rest. Other than that, we spent time either sleeping or trying to sleep.

While the seating on the plane was incredibly uncomfortable, nearly panic-inducingly so, the food was easily the best airline food I've ever had. I would have gladly paid good money in a restaurant for the quality of food I got on the flight, which is a few orders of magnitude above the cardboard concoctions I've had on U.S. flights.

More often than not, the flight progress display would show our plane in a vast, seemingly planet-wide expanse of pure nothingness. We'd see some random Polynesian island we'd never heard of hover on the horizon of the display, and it would turn out that this closest outcropping of land was over 1000 miles away at best. It was 12 hours and 11,000 km of desolation like nothing you can imagine until you've flown over it, or better yet, sailed over it as I have.

We landed in Auckland at 4:30 in the morning on July 3 after leaving San Francisco at 8:00 P.M. on July 1. This was the first time below the equator for both of us. We stepped off the plane into an entirely new world.

[dilanium]

First thing I noticed was the smell. New Zealand has a peculiar smell to it, which I can only describe as clean. New Zealand simply smells clean. Not antiseptically clean like a hospital, but clean like something that never got dirty in the first place.

Going through customs was less confusing and involved less ass-pounding than I'd expected, but it still took long enough that we missed our flight to Palmy. Though security was very gracious in assisting us with our twelve boxes and bags (more than half of which had been ripped open and inspected by the T.S.A.), and while everyone tried their heroic best to get us on the flight, we simply couldn't make it in time. Instead, we waited around for another 90 minutes and caught the next flight out. Meanwhile, we sat around and tried to absorb the very surreal reality that we were, quite literally, not in Kansas anymore.

The most obvious thing that let us know we weren't in the U.S. was the Kiwi accents all over the place. Second was the prices. NZ$2.50 for a Coke, for instance.

The domestic half of Auckland's airport is basically like all small- to medium-sized airports in the United States were circa 1985 or earlier: a single large waiting area, a joke of a security counter, and a chain-link fence passageway leading to the tarmac itself, with a short walk to the plane. In this case the plane was a roughly 80-seat turboprop.

We boarded the plane, another exercise in shoving too many humans into too small a space, and left Auckland. Then, we got our first view of New Zealand from the air.

This country is indescribably green. It's a green that doesn't even seem real when you look at it. You look at the ground below you and think it's been Photoshopped or something. And this is in the dead of winter, too. I can only imagine what it looks like in the spring.

Coming in for a landing at Palmy, we saw green, rolling fields, banks of windmills on the mountains encircling the city… and, yes, a shitload of sheep.

We met with an official from Massey University, and she helped us load our nearly 600 pounds of crap into her Toyota van. She nearly drove off with the back hatch open, but no worries otherwise.

On a drive through Palmy to our temporary lodgings, we got our first look at our new home.

For the most part, Palmy kind of looks like any moderately upscale community in California, right down to the palm trees and the shotgun approach to architecture - here a Spanish villa, there a Victorian, now a more modern style done in glass and aluminium, and next to that a timber shack with a tin roof.

After unloading our stuff and a quick shower, we walked through town toward Massey. It turned out to be a significantly longer walk than we anticipated, and it rained on us a bit, but in all it was a rather enjoyable walk. It takes extra care on our part to not get run over when we cross the street, and it's going to be a long time before people driving on the left doesn't set off every possible alarm bell inside my skull.

Massey itself seems just as cosmopolitan as any decent college campus, and it looks as though Liz definitely picked the right place to bash out her brains over the next 4.5 years. It's not a concrete ghetto like CSUSB was, which is nice, and the people at the university seem genuinely willing to help.

We then caught a bus into the centre of Palmerston North and experienced the strangeness of the city proper for the first time. The centre of the city is a square of shops and restaurants, almost none of them identifiably American (hooray!). On the whole, the city and its retail experience are reminiscent of any mid-sized American city before Wal-Mart moves in and mows over everything original or soulful about the place.

There's even a mall of a sort, which doesn't even look like a proper mall from the outside. We went through the door expecting to find only a K-mart (but not the same K-mart as in the U.S., thank Dog), and found a whole mall buried in the building instead.

We had dinner at a Thai place, where I drank L&P for the first time. A good beverage overall, but I don't see it displacing Mountain Dew as the American beverage of choice any time soon.

After some more confused wandering through the city, we found a grocery store. Here we ran into some severe sticker shock in places.

Overall, after comparing prices at the grocery stores and K-mart, here's the initial impressions of the cost of Kiwi goods versus American:

Produce: much cheaper
Beef and lamb: about the same
Chicken: much more expensive
Fish: much more expensive (this is both very surprising and extremely disappointing)
Packaged food: about the same
Beer: twice as expensive as in the U.S., which makes me wonder how the hell Kiwis can afford to drink as much as they do
Wine: about half as expensive as in the U.S., which possibly answers my question above
Milk: insanely, unreasonably expensive

Clothing: about the same
Bedding and linens: anywhere from two to five times as expensive
Books: five times as expensive (!) - it's like they just don't want you to read here
Electronics: two to three times as expensive - NZ$120 for PlayStation 3 games and NZ$100 for Wii games ensures that my video game well will run dry before too long

Gasoline: the equivalent of US$8 per gallon - and yet everybody drives everywhere anyway.


Some weird foods we've eaten so far:

L&P: a beverage that's named for Lemon and something else that starts with P, which basically tastes like Sprite, only better, as in actually drinkable on a regular basis

ANZAC biscuits: quite hard to chew, but very tasty cookies with honey and coconut bits

Level +: this drink must be pretty popular, because I see it everywhere - it basically tastes like carbonated Red Bull, I suppose, but much less undrinkably foul in comparison

Chicken-flavoured potato chips: about a thousand times tastier than they sound, these are totally the bomb. I'm looking forward to mixing them up with the bacon and cheese flavoured variety.

We've purchased a tiny jar of marmite out of sheer, morbid curiosity. We have yet to actually consume any of it. We've been warned that it's unspeakably foul, but we're going to give it a go anyway.


Other random observations as I start to lose coherency:

People here are just as friendly, open, and helpful as rumoured. It's quite refreshing not to have to cover your ass with one hand while you shake hands with the other.

50 degrees F is indeed pretty cold when your house has no insulation whatsoever - what the Kiwi builders were thinking when they erected these places sans basic insulation is anybody's guess

There's very little original television here - the majority is imported shows from the U.S. or Britain

Young people here appear every bit as dazed and self-absorbed as those in America

Old people here are surprisingly fit

Everything is pretty damned expensive, which makes me wonder how people afford to live here at all, what with relatively low median incomes, high taxes, and so on

I have yet to find any foods containing high fructose corn syrup (hooray for actual SUGAR for a change!), and I've only found partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in one product so far


So far, I like it here a lot.

Chris

[BkyMonster]

Great post :nice1

[Bruckner]

Love your post Chris. And loved your observations! I'm so with you on the housing one.

Emily

[kanatakiwi]

well done Mr and Mrs. Dilanium!!

sounds like the biggest ordeal was the baggage. I well remember your posts before leaving about this baggage issue and how strict would they be etc, so glad to see at least the carry one baggage did not turn out to be problematic as it could have been.

One tip for future flights and for anyone booking flights to and from North america. Although LA is pretty much a hell hole of an airport, if you are going to be on a flight for 12 or 13 hours it may be important to you to know that the 777's that fly from San Francisco and Vancouver (Air NZ) hjave seats that are at least one inch smaller in width than the 747s that fly in and out of LA. I take the direct Akl to Vancouver flight (777) but man that inch makes a huge difference to your comfort. there are websites where you can check each seat on a plane to see which are the best for pitch, width and space between you and the guy in front who backs his seat back on you.
anyway thats all behind you. good luck with everything in Palmy. Massey has a great reputation.
Gloria

[KerryS]

Fabulous post - I hope you both enjoy your new lives in Palmy.

[SarahEDH]

Try a thin smear of Marmite on buttered toast, or on a cheese sandwich -- and then if you don't care for it, try a product called "Our Mate" before you give up -- it tastes closer to the real thing. As others have said here, Marmite sold in NZ does not taste the same as what is sold in other countries under that name. I love the Marmite sold in California --

[peebles16]

Great post both Liz and Mr Liz :)
Good to hear you are settling in well and long may it continue :D

Karenx

[NZAussieGirl]

Welcome to NZ!!

The trick with the marmite - it is definitely an acquired taste - is to spread it as thinly as possible on buttered toast. Just a hint of flavour is what you want. Do not cover it thickly or it will taste horrid... :)

[migratory birds]

SOunds like just the welcome everyone needs - the one you rec'd from Massey reps. Glad you're finally there.

Wondered what the winter would feel like to another midwesterner...I was hoping those not accustomed to cold were reporting on the miserable cold houses...but to a seasoned US midwesterner or North American central plains immigrant it might just feel like a Portland winter. Alas...

[urban78]

Welcome to NZ!!

The trick with the marmite - it is definitely an acquired taste - is to spread it as thinly as possible on buttered toast. Just a hint of flavour is what you want. Do not cover it thickly or it will taste horrid... :)

Kiwi OH tried the thin layer trick with me...still didn't work though :laugh

Thanks for the update Chris, I hope you and Liz get your head round things soon, being on the other side of the world can take a bit to get used to :)

[Kiwi-In-Texas]

Thanks for the interesting post. Glad to hear you are settling in at Palmerston North.

Lemon and Paeroa (L&P) was invented in 1904. After tasting some mineral water near the town of Paeroa and mixing it with lemon it's inventor found it to be a very refreshing drink. It was so popular that a business was established to market it using the name Paeroa and Lemon. The name was later changed to Lemon & Paeroa and is now commonly known as L & P. It is a very popular carbonated drink in New Zealand.




Suzanne.

[marcia]

Loved reading your posts! What do you think of the weather!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:uhoh

[dilanium]

We walked past some "snow"men today made from the hail. Crazy! I went to a 4th of July party with some other American Vet students and we decided that the hail was our fireworks.

[JandM]

Great posts, Chris! Nice to 'meet' you, as well as Liz. You must both be SO glad the journey is over.

New Zealand-sold Our Mate is the same as original UK Marmite. Your jar of Marmite will be the NZ version, which is sweeter and not so good to British taste - somebody started making it in NZ, copying the UK product, before the original manufacturer began trying to export, and found their name had been taken before they got there. Vegemite is a fairly similar spread, made in Australia. I like that, whereas I don't much like NZ Marmite.

With all of these, as people have already said, the trick is to apply a THIN smear. (Just thinking about this is making my mouth water!)

[dusk]

A couple of excellent posts there Chris, thanks for those :D

The flavoured crisps part made me smile, in the UK you can get a massive variety of flavours as standard (chicken, beef, marmite, prawn cocktail....)

be careful with the marmite, spread it very thin and even then either you will love it or spit it out in disgust :D

[Mels]

Glad to hear you have arrived safely and it's all going well, but PLEASE be careful crossing the road.

Mels

[tea drinker]

thanks for the detailed posts

marmite...you either love or hate it, there is even a TV advert in the UK (for the UK version) with Paddington bear who feeds a marmite sandwich to a gull who spits it out with disgust!

careful on those roads

Just thought... do those in/from USA know about a certain bear from Peru?

[Oregonkiwi]

Glad to hear you made it safe & sound.:clap


I have yet to find any foods containing high fructose corn syrup (hooray for actual SUGAR for a change!), and I've only found partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in one product so far

Unfortunately, this is probably only because NZ food labels are less specific than in the US and often just say something vague like "vegetable fat".

[M-Squared]

Welcome to Godzone, Liz & Chris! :raebanana Isn't the lack of high fructose corn syrup just brilliant?! :clap Please please please be careful on the roads!!! :eek:

Just thought... do those in/from USA know about a certain bear from Peru?

I can't remember seeing hide nor hair of P-B when in the US. :(

[dilanium]

I knew of Paddington Bear as a child. I didn't know he's from Peru :confused:
Haven't seen him for a long time though.

[migratory birds]

One tip for future flights and for anyone booking flights to and from North america. Although LA is pretty much a hell hole of an airport, if you are going to be on a flight for 12 or 13 hours it may be important to you to know that the 777's that fly from San Francisco and Vancouver (Air NZ) hjave seats that are at least one inch smaller in width than the 747s that fly in and out of LA. I take the direct Akl to Vancouver flight (777) but man that inch makes a huge difference to your comfort.

Gloria is right on this one. We flew out of San Fran for the more laid back exit but the seats were SOOOO tight that, after returning and looking at one of these sites, I decided if we had to fly Air NZ again (over another carrier) we'd fly from LA for that extra inch!

[calixfornia]

So glad you made it safely and thanks for telling us (with such intrepid detail) your stories so far. Please keep us updated as you make yourselves kiwis! I am so happy for both of you! Good luck :cheers

[holland]

Welcome to NZ!!

[mgbridges]

Paddington Bear is from Darkest Peru I'll have you know and it was marmalade sandwiches he kept under his hat not marmite! If anyone wants a reminder have a look here: www.paddingtonbear.co.uk

Yep English Marmite is My Mate over here and its definitely a love it or hate it product. I like it but only in teeny, tiny amounts whereas my Dad likes it spread quite thick! Carrying on from Paddington have a look at this advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaJ154r77EU And if you want another memory from childhood look at this advert; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42waAjfGS1Q

Please, please be careful crossing the road. I remember how many times I almost got myself killed when I lived in America and had the reverse problem!

And for those of you wanting to check out seat configurations on planes this is the website we use; www.seatguru.com

Right I'm now off to look at more Marmite adverts on You Tube, enjoy settling in Liz & hubby.

Anneliese

[IanW99]

...
Yep English Marmite is My Mate over here and its definitely a love it or hate it product.
...


the English version of Marmite is called "Our Mate" in NZ.

Ian

[dilanium]

Well we tried marmite, and I like it on toast with butter (in very small quantities). I took a lick off the knife to see what it was like alone and bleh!!! :uhoh

But we're doing well, and went to look at our first rental today, I liked it but hubby is saying wait until tomorrow when we see a few more and then we can decide.

There are quite a few available in our price range in the neighbourhood we're looking in so we should be okay. I'm starting to get better at crossing the street, but then since we don't have a car and have been walking everywhere (or taking busses) we've had to cross a few roads.

I'm getting more used to the cool in the houses. I'm mostly enjoying the weather, though yesterday was quite unusual from what I've heard. I think the weather from winter in Cleveland followed us.

Oh well. :)

[Hagabel]

Loving your posts, please keep them coming!! As a UK transplant in the US I take it upon myself to not only educate them about Paddington bear, but also (on a regular basis!) about how to make tea and biscuits, and alas proper chocolate. 16 yrs later and my family still send us care packages!! :)

Hopefully we are moving over soon to from the US and it is interesting to hear the perspective of an American arriving in NZ.

:exit

[marcia]

I'm getting more used to the cool in the houses. I'm mostly enjoying the weather, though yesterday was quite unusual from what I've heard. I think the weather from winter in Cleveland followed us.

Oh well. :)

We had excited Kiwi freinds ringing up asking if we'd been up the hills to play in the snow - 'no why??' we asked - they got so excited apparently its four years since they last had any sleet/snow that actually stuck in palmerston north - we just laughed used to see it every winter in Uk can't understand the fuss!!

Good luck Liz and Chris with the rental hunting!

[mgbridges]

the English version of Marmite is called "Our Mate" in NZ.

Ian

You are of course absolutely right Ian, my mistake! :o I was too busy thinking of the My Mate, Marmite adverts and had a certain jingle going around in my head.

Anneliese