MB
9th December 2005, 08:58 AM
Hi again from Glenfield, N.Shore City. As always, everyone, all the very best with your applications and NZ plans. And to new forum members especially, welcome: you have found a wonderful online home.
Thought I'd post with a quick update about our family. First, though, a quick flashback for longer-time forum folks... remember this one, pop pickers?... it was just about exactly a year ago that I posted here on discovering one December morning that the NZIS computer was doing weird and alarming things with some folks' EOI points. They sorted it out in a few days... but I've just had a little lurch of queasiness in the old tum on recalling my dashes up to send faxes from a photocopy outlet to ask NZIS what was happening! The day before our weeks-long trip away from all our application paperwork! Arrgghh! Anyway, things turned out fine. And if you're new to the forum and to NZIS, don't worry: this was at a time of big computer changes for NZIS that are now months old.
Anyway, I find myself typing today's message in a slightly similar context, 'cos I finished work yesterday and we are going to visit Seattle for Christmas, starting Monday!
Vera is still teaching some ballet in downtown Auckland (at a studio, I mean, not in the junction of Customs and Queen Streets!) She also works a regular part-time job at the weekend. I'm still doing production work at a diagnostic market-research company, half-time. Vera's excitement is that she has a very good chance of doing some dance lecturing at a big NZ university starting in Feb.... not certain, but really promising.
What's really on our minds right now is that -- if the LIM (land info) paperwork comes back fine -- we have probably just bought a house. It is in the Waitomo district, an hour's drive from Hamilton, a one-time teacher's house next to a school at the end of a nice cul de sac. It is Huntly brick with sturdy Rimu frame and floors.
The area gives us reasonable access to work and is far less expensive housing-wise than Auckland, which suits our finances very well. We came over from the US so you can imagine that, with that exchange rate, although we have a little nest egg we do not have much margin for many spends either on Auckland housing or on lots and lots of travel to test the water in other NZ cities. Yes, we might have to look round more if this house falls through, but we are trying to target any travel and housing spends very carefully. We simply don't have many extra $$$ beyond our modest housing savings, upon which to draw.
We do like Auckland and N.Shore a great deal. (People continue to be helpful and v.friendly). We came here from a fairly similar city, Seattle, so we are by no means disillusioned by the cost of properties. But we are trying to be decisive about post-Christmas plans because we are not really in the kind of careers which allow us to get easily into the local lifestyle costs. That is definitely NOT to say that Auckland is hopless unless you earn a lot, but is more a comment on our being realistic about the overall scale of our own personal savings, income and expenditure... especially as we have pretty particular ideas about the kind of work-week structure we want to design for ourselves.
We're loving it here. Early summer has arrived and, though we are heading back for 2-3 weeks of Seattle winter, we will hopefully be back in NZ for what is apparently often the best of the summer. If all goes well with the house purchase -- builder's inspection and financing seem sorted well, by the way -- we will probably move at the end of Jan or early Feb.
Happy Holidays, all. Anyone is welcome to PM us for advice or help re. NZ, or Auckland, or if you want to sign up for a ballet class. :laugh
Thought I'd post with a quick update about our family. First, though, a quick flashback for longer-time forum folks... remember this one, pop pickers?... it was just about exactly a year ago that I posted here on discovering one December morning that the NZIS computer was doing weird and alarming things with some folks' EOI points. They sorted it out in a few days... but I've just had a little lurch of queasiness in the old tum on recalling my dashes up to send faxes from a photocopy outlet to ask NZIS what was happening! The day before our weeks-long trip away from all our application paperwork! Arrgghh! Anyway, things turned out fine. And if you're new to the forum and to NZIS, don't worry: this was at a time of big computer changes for NZIS that are now months old.
Anyway, I find myself typing today's message in a slightly similar context, 'cos I finished work yesterday and we are going to visit Seattle for Christmas, starting Monday!
Vera is still teaching some ballet in downtown Auckland (at a studio, I mean, not in the junction of Customs and Queen Streets!) She also works a regular part-time job at the weekend. I'm still doing production work at a diagnostic market-research company, half-time. Vera's excitement is that she has a very good chance of doing some dance lecturing at a big NZ university starting in Feb.... not certain, but really promising.
What's really on our minds right now is that -- if the LIM (land info) paperwork comes back fine -- we have probably just bought a house. It is in the Waitomo district, an hour's drive from Hamilton, a one-time teacher's house next to a school at the end of a nice cul de sac. It is Huntly brick with sturdy Rimu frame and floors.
The area gives us reasonable access to work and is far less expensive housing-wise than Auckland, which suits our finances very well. We came over from the US so you can imagine that, with that exchange rate, although we have a little nest egg we do not have much margin for many spends either on Auckland housing or on lots and lots of travel to test the water in other NZ cities. Yes, we might have to look round more if this house falls through, but we are trying to target any travel and housing spends very carefully. We simply don't have many extra $$$ beyond our modest housing savings, upon which to draw.
We do like Auckland and N.Shore a great deal. (People continue to be helpful and v.friendly). We came here from a fairly similar city, Seattle, so we are by no means disillusioned by the cost of properties. But we are trying to be decisive about post-Christmas plans because we are not really in the kind of careers which allow us to get easily into the local lifestyle costs. That is definitely NOT to say that Auckland is hopless unless you earn a lot, but is more a comment on our being realistic about the overall scale of our own personal savings, income and expenditure... especially as we have pretty particular ideas about the kind of work-week structure we want to design for ourselves.
We're loving it here. Early summer has arrived and, though we are heading back for 2-3 weeks of Seattle winter, we will hopefully be back in NZ for what is apparently often the best of the summer. If all goes well with the house purchase -- builder's inspection and financing seem sorted well, by the way -- we will probably move at the end of Jan or early Feb.
Happy Holidays, all. Anyone is welcome to PM us for advice or help re. NZ, or Auckland, or if you want to sign up for a ballet class. :laugh