Hello from New Zealand Dear Friends,

We are so excited! Both of us feel like we’ve found our dream place in the world!

It is incredibly beautiful. It’s winter here – equivalent to February in the US. Part of our timing for the trip was to see if winter would be too cold here for Jack. It seems to be a good year to check – this is one of the worst winters in history here. Lots of storms and pretty cold – at least in the mornings and evenings. The temperature then is probably in the high 40’s. Where we are staying, the only heat is a small fireplace, so we use that and are also often bundled up in the house. However, when we live here in our own house, we will have actual heating – so we can wake up to a warm house in the mornings. Jack is actually enjoying it – except when his fingers are too cold to tie fishing line.

Our trip over was easy. Our flights were uneventful, and we slept most of the way. The seats were so close to the ones in front of us I couldn’t imagine that Jack could move, never mind sleep, but he did. It was 9 hours from Honolulu to Auckland.

We arrived at 6am on a Sunday and slept most of the day.
The next day was my birthday and it was quite fun. I opened all the cards that people had sent early and that I brought with me. We had a fabulous Indian birthday dinner.
That morning, we met our friends Mike and Judy and went out and bought a car. Mike knows all about cars and how to buy them here. We found a used car dealer we really liked and he took us to a huge car lot. There must have been 1000 cars there. They come into NZ directly from Japan. Apparently Japan doesn’t have room for used cars, so they send them here. We had decided we wanted a Toyota (because we love the ones we have now) and that we wanted a station wagon. We plan to have just one car here and figured a station wagon could be used for hauling some things (since we won’t have a truck) and would also be big enough for taking visitors around. We looked at about 10 of these and chose one that turned out to be (so far!) perfect. It is a 1997 with 50,000 miles (91,000 kilometers). Silver. Automatic (I don’t drive standards except in emergencies). Has a sun roof and a very nice interior. Each day we found new goodies on it – the outside mirrors fold in at the touch of a button in case you are too close to something – when you lift the floor latch in the back, there are all these little compartments to keep things in (like an umbrella, a first aid kit, flares, etc). There is a working radio, CD player. Lots of space in the passenger seat. Etc. We are very happy with it.

The day after buying the car, we went into Auckland to take care of some banking issues – including getting a cashier’s check for the car. We picked up the car and drove to the Bay of Islands where we are staying. It is a 3 hour drive from Auckland. Jack and Mike (now our driving teacher) drove together and Jack drove part of the way. The next couple of days he drove some more with Mike. Now he is quite comfortable driving on the left hand side of the road. I have now started driving as well, with Jack as my teacher, and am feeling pretty confident myself. Right now I would only want to drive alone on routes I already know – but we pretty much go everywhere together and consider driving as a “team sport” now and take turns.

We are staying in Judy and Mike’s summer home in the Bay of Islands. It is at the top of a huge hill with a 180% view of the bay. We can see fishing boats, ferry boats, the weather coming in, sparkling water in the sunshine, the little town of Russell nestled in a corner of the bay. When we first got here, we spent time morning and evening out on the porch – just enjoying. As the rains came, we have spent less time doing that! But we can see just fine since there are sliding glass doors and windows on the whole front of the house. We are actually on an island here and have to bring the car over and back on a ferry each time we go out. The exception is Russell. It is on the same island, so we can just drive there. That is where we go to use the internet – there is no connection here. The other night as Jack was walking back from fishing, he met two young (20 & 16) German girls who were totally lost, just as it was starting to get dark. They were trying to get to a ferry that went to Paihia (not the car ferry we take). That ferry was about 10 miles from where they were. So we drove them into Russell, then we stopped off at a pub for a short while. We are looking forward to going to a rowdy pub when the next NZ rugby game happens.

Judy and Mike left here on Monday the 10th, and although we had a great time with them, it is great being just the two of us.

We have been exhausted almost every night since we got here, even though we are getting plenty of sleep. I think it is the constant new mental input!
Of course there is the driving.
Then there is the phone. We got one cell phone (thinking we will always be together), but have decided to get another one so we can contact each other when Jack is off fishing. Using the phone is fairly complicated at first – sometimes you use the area code, sometimes you don’t. It depends on where you are and if you are on a cell phone or a land line).
And I learned to text! And am quite proud of myself. Judy taught me. I didn’t understand the concept – thought you had to write everything out, but it is called “predictive spelling” and is fun. Unfortunately, I don’t really know anyone who uses texting! I taught Jack to do it too.
And the language – Jack always says we are a people separated by a common language. We have to listen hard to catch the words and meanings from people. For example “Do you have a flyby?” - a card to earn air miles with. Takeaways are food to go. Eftpos (how do you even pronounce that?) is the machine to use at stores for credit or debit.
Most banking and money transactions are done electronically. If you pay your gardener, you get their bank account # and electronically transfer money into their account. If you write a check to someone, your bank charges you $3. If you make a deposit to your account (except electronically) you get charged $3. To get cash, you use Eftpos or an ATM. If you go into the bank and take out cash, you get charged $3.
Judy and Mike are constantly answering our questions about how things work or are called here.
Laundry – almost no one uses dryers. So here I am hanging things on the line (in the rain sometimes). Jack was teasing me about remembering how to do that. I actually think the only time I used a clothes line was when I was 8 or 9, helping my grandmother.

We got car insurance and AA membership (just like AAA). We pick up mail (car registration, AA cards) at the little post office/stationary store in Russell. It is all so personal and lovely.

Our realtor is a guy named Robin. He is a friend of a friend of mine from Hawaii. The other day, we spent about 6 hours driving around and looking for property. We saw several places we loved and could afford. We have also been exploring the north island by ourselves - and we keep coming back to the same conclusion – that we love the KeriKeri area. This is the original place we saw and fell in love with in 2003.
The problem is that we don’t think we can afford a house as well as land. Tenting is not really an option! We will look into “kit homes”. It is all very much up in the air and we’ll need some time (after we get home) to evaluate, to figure out our finances etc. Things are generally less expensive here (food, electricity, car insurance), and right now the US dollar is strong against the NZ dollar which is very good for us. For example – a piece of land that costs $200,000 NZ is really only about $142,000 US.

Jack has been fishing several times – he’s in heaven. He has caught quite a lot – but all of them have been too small to keep. He has only been to nearby places that are pretty well fished out. He’ll be moving on to bigger and better sites soon.

We are trying all sorts of cool foods – and eating at home most of the time. We are drinking “lemon, lime, and bitters” and “LP” – both lemony soft drinks. We’ve had crumpets (like English muffins, but they don’t get crispy on the hole-y side), meat pies (lovely for a lunch).
We did take Judy and Mike out one night to a little place at the ferry landing on the “mainland”. The food was exquisite – SF quality. Wow! On the way back, we were the only ones on the ferry – so we were waltzing on the ferry under the Southern Cross and the brightest stars I have ever seen! Magical!!!!

On one of our day trips, we saw a sign for “Historic Site”. No explanation for what it was, where it was exactly, or why it was historic.

One of the towns had a nice welcome sign as we drove in. Then as we left, another sign said “We Farewell You”. It is just so nice here – every person we meet is lovely!

More later – Lily and Jack