I woke up this morning unaccountably depressed. It was a bone deep feeling coming off a restless night and punctuated by a low grade headache.
I suspect two causes. The first resulted from of all things an earthquake nearly 3, 000 miles away. Yesterday was a full day of drama for our boating friends. The tsunami generated by the Chilean earthquake rolled out from the coastline and echoed across the Pacific from Japan to New Zealand, Mexico to Australia. While it fortunately wasn't a destructive tsunami as these things go, it was not a non-deal for those in the boating community along Pacific Mexico. If you need to see just how you can be screwed by something as "small" as a meter tidal wave, visit my good friend Behan's blog. Another fellow cruiser, Dennis of Dulci Vida, touched bottom in Barra Navidad where cleats were sprung left and right at the marina. Folks all up and down the coast were chattering on email, news groups, and Facebook.
I can only imagine the VHF traffic on nets in La Paz, Puerto Vallarta, and Manzanillo… but I can imagine. I know the voices and the types of raging arguments that must have taken place regarding where to put the boats and what to do. There would be gloom and doomers and naysayers. The whole day would have been full of chit chat, smart aleck comments and updates from those with 3G access to the news services. And it hurt a little to be land bound, eleven stories up in the middle of an urban center out of sight and out of touch with the cruising community.
The second probable cause of my dreary mood this morning was that today was DrC's first day of work. He was hired as a general ophthalmologist for a county health system in Manukau. Manukau is just south of Auckland. The clinic is shiny new with great, modern equipment, a friendly staff, and more advanced pathology than a doctor in training could possibly desire. We're making money finally. DrC is getting his medical credentials all spiffied up while simultaneously expanding his knowledge in key, growing medical areas. It's all good, right?
But it isn't really. We're coming off of years of spending all day every day with each other. As wrong as it is to say so, today felt like an epic fail... like somehow I'd managed to fail my husband and the girls by letting things get to this point where we had to feed Daddy toast and yogurt, make him a sack lunch, and send him to an office.
So I didn't get off to the greatest start today. However, I made a vow -- quite literally months ago -- that when DrC started working, the girls and I started working even if school and my own job were weeks or even months in our future. We had a long list of tasks to complete by end of day. School, of course, as well as errands consumed most of our time. We also cleaned house and exercise. DrC actually only worked till 2 so he joined us for our afternoon adventure to look at possible places to live. The day got easier as we got moving. By spending every minute following DrC's axiom to "Use your time wisely", I pushed through the heavy sense of loss and wrongness and worked to find a new balance in our new life.
This is only a foreshadow of the dip I'll no doubt experience the Monday morning I wake up and send the entire lot of them off to school and work. I absolutely refuse to cry at just typing it. While there is simply no sense or bandwidth or purpose in trying to find a job before I've got the family settled, work is going to have to be part of my day as soon thereafter as I can possibly arrange. My family is growing up and excited with their new roles. I want new toys and new people, too, if only to serve as distraction.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Step 3 - Open a Bank Account
I believe I mentioned that there is a bit of an evil Catch 22 here: You can't open a bank account until you have a place to live. You can't get a place to live until you have a local bank account. So we lied.
This is what good cruisers do when asked questions for which there is no correct -- and perhaps more importantly -- useful answer.
What about pirates? -- There really aren't any in the seas we'll be sailing through.
What about socialization? -- We will seek out other kid boats and spend all our time ensuring our children have others to play with.
What about drug runners? -- We've never seen any.
What about big storms? -- Never seen any of those either.
Heh. After nearly four years routinely lying to our loved ones, the New Zealand banking system stands little chance.We told them we lived at our hotel. Technically, I suppose this isn't a lie so much as a stretching of the truth tantamount to fitting a 280 pound Samoan mama into a size 4 lycra jumpsuit. And it did the trick.
Who is going to be hurt in any case? We immediately moved a bunch of U.S. cash into our account. Then we promptly spent it all. It seems like the bank is winning from all this churn… they are certainly charging us for it. Seems like the New Zealand economy benefits since spending is the Engine of Commerce, or some such economic clap trap. And while our finances are reeling, the fast movement of dollars to dollars converts into a rental home, furniture, and school uniforms which we can actually use. So it's all good.
I love sophistry.
What's great is that with a bank account, suddenly a whole world of To Do's is now open. We can rent property. We can buy groceries. We can … we can buy ANYTHING. The starved crew of Congers are now sitting at a banquet of bourgeois delights ready to indulge in the biggest feast of our lives. We want… we want…
We WANT. Oh my god do we want.
So far we have bought a whole lot of bread and cheese. It appears that what we really want is toast. It is not an exaggeration to say that we have consumed roughly a loaf of toast a day since our arrival. One day we had toast for breakfast, toasted tuna melts for lunch, and toasted cheese with tomato soup for dinner. We toast bagels and english muffins, crumpets, and white bread. We slice up sour dough, crumple croissants into hot cocoa, and sip tea with our scones. I can't help but think we're going carbo crazy.
After toast, our biggest purchases have been personal care items. We got our hairs cut, picked up a few changes of clothing, and invested in some skin care products to protect us from the wildly insane U.V. down here. So far we have exercised restraint on furniture and other worldly goods, primarily because we have no place to put them.*
But just you wait, Hen-ree, Hig-ins. Just you wait.
BTW, they pronounce all those H's down here. Of all places to be teased about our accents, we had a matronly woman at the Auckland Botanical Gardens spend no small amount of effort and emotional energy trying to get us to say hhhhhirb, correctly. Hhhhhirb. Erb. Hrm.
Editor's Note: Hahaha! Okay, I love editing this article a few weeks later. We've now spent oodles on mattresses and bedding. After toast, our priority was to get a good night's sleep for the first time in four years.
This is what good cruisers do when asked questions for which there is no correct -- and perhaps more importantly -- useful answer.
What about pirates? -- There really aren't any in the seas we'll be sailing through.
What about socialization? -- We will seek out other kid boats and spend all our time ensuring our children have others to play with.
What about drug runners? -- We've never seen any.
What about big storms? -- Never seen any of those either.
Heh. After nearly four years routinely lying to our loved ones, the New Zealand banking system stands little chance.We told them we lived at our hotel. Technically, I suppose this isn't a lie so much as a stretching of the truth tantamount to fitting a 280 pound Samoan mama into a size 4 lycra jumpsuit. And it did the trick.
Who is going to be hurt in any case? We immediately moved a bunch of U.S. cash into our account. Then we promptly spent it all. It seems like the bank is winning from all this churn… they are certainly charging us for it. Seems like the New Zealand economy benefits since spending is the Engine of Commerce, or some such economic clap trap. And while our finances are reeling, the fast movement of dollars to dollars converts into a rental home, furniture, and school uniforms which we can actually use. So it's all good.
I love sophistry.
What's great is that with a bank account, suddenly a whole world of To Do's is now open. We can rent property. We can buy groceries. We can … we can buy ANYTHING. The starved crew of Congers are now sitting at a banquet of bourgeois delights ready to indulge in the biggest feast of our lives. We want… we want…
We WANT. Oh my god do we want.
So far we have bought a whole lot of bread and cheese. It appears that what we really want is toast. It is not an exaggeration to say that we have consumed roughly a loaf of toast a day since our arrival. One day we had toast for breakfast, toasted tuna melts for lunch, and toasted cheese with tomato soup for dinner. We toast bagels and english muffins, crumpets, and white bread. We slice up sour dough, crumple croissants into hot cocoa, and sip tea with our scones. I can't help but think we're going carbo crazy.
After toast, our biggest purchases have been personal care items. We got our hairs cut, picked up a few changes of clothing, and invested in some skin care products to protect us from the wildly insane U.V. down here. So far we have exercised restraint on furniture and other worldly goods, primarily because we have no place to put them.*
But just you wait, Hen-ree, Hig-ins. Just you wait.
BTW, they pronounce all those H's down here. Of all places to be teased about our accents, we had a matronly woman at the Auckland Botanical Gardens spend no small amount of effort and emotional energy trying to get us to say hhhhhirb, correctly. Hhhhhirb. Erb. Hrm.
Editor's Note: Hahaha! Okay, I love editing this article a few weeks later. We've now spent oodles on mattresses and bedding. After toast, our priority was to get a good night's sleep for the first time in four years.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Step 2 - Buy a Car
Today, we bought a car. Actually, we bought a Toyota diesel minivan. We had to get something large enough for the family on a tramp as well as to shuttle around the visitors we anticipate. It's a six-seater, seven in a pinch, with room in the back for gear. Having said that, I've never seen such a small van. I think this van would fit in the corner of our old van. Welcome to Euro-world.
New Zealanders in general and Aucklanders in particular like to drive. Everything is very West Coast U.S.-ish with suburban sprawl, geographic water and mountain challenges, and very few, low quality and expensive public transit options. Folks have repeatedly told us that you can't live in Auckland without a car. Even our short time here supports this conclusion. While pavements (which is what they call sidewalks…no I don't understand it either…) are abundant, drivers are oblivious to pedestrians and downright hostile to cyclists. There are almost no dedicated bike and pedestrian corridors. With the widespread enthusiasm for the outdoors and sport, it is inevitable that this attitude while shift over time, but today it really sucks to be non-motorized in New Zealand.
So into our microdot of a minivan we wedge ourselves.
Of course, then we run into the most obvious delta between our world and mirror world: right-hand drive. Driving on the wrong side of the road is tricky and confusing. DrC took to it immediately, of course. Remember, this is the man whose surgical environment is both backwards and bent. He drives in reverse by looking in the rear view mirror and stepping hard on the gas petal. And he does it really really well. So after a day or so, the good doc mastered mirror world. It's taking me longer.
Actually, it's not driving that give me fits. I can do that. Just think LEFT LEFT LEFT LEFT. That works. There are occasional moments of disorientation when I'm making wide right turns, and I still find parking strange. However, the real problem is the subtle influence our driving patterns have on the rest of our movements through the world. Yesterday, I almost slammed into a runner at the park. It was early in the morning with the sun only thinking about rising. There was almost no lighting under the trees, and I could just barely make out the trail. Head phones on, head down, I'm slogging out a couple of laps in an earnest attempt to keep off the nearly two stone (20 pounds?) I lost on the boat. Suddenly I hear a muffled shout and sense movement directly in front of me. Primed for a mugger, I leap to the side ready to chop and kick only to find an irate business man in togs, muftie, and trainers (shorts, t-shirt, and running shoes) glaring and gesticulating as he continued on the path. Silly me. I was on the right side of the track. Or the wrong side. Or some side where I didn't belong.
Next time you are running on a trail, walking up a busy staircase, or pushing your trolley (shopping cart) down an aisle, pause for a moment to reflect on your position relative to those around you. More often than not, you'll find yourself automatically 'driving yourself' on the same side of the road as your native country's car. Even going in and out of doors at the broker, I find myself opening the wrong door and banging my nose on the glass. How many things are like that in our lives? We take for granted these patterns that are so ingrained we don't have rules about them. Why would you? You don't need a rule to tell you which side of the staircase to walk up. And then when we go to a new country, we're forced to reexamine these patterns, change existing ones and develop new ones, or face the consequences.
It's only taken us two weeks to stop putting our toilet tissue in the bathroom rubbish bin (trash can). I am certain the hotel housecleaning staff is grateful we're adapting.
New Zealanders in general and Aucklanders in particular like to drive. Everything is very West Coast U.S.-ish with suburban sprawl, geographic water and mountain challenges, and very few, low quality and expensive public transit options. Folks have repeatedly told us that you can't live in Auckland without a car. Even our short time here supports this conclusion. While pavements (which is what they call sidewalks…no I don't understand it either…) are abundant, drivers are oblivious to pedestrians and downright hostile to cyclists. There are almost no dedicated bike and pedestrian corridors. With the widespread enthusiasm for the outdoors and sport, it is inevitable that this attitude while shift over time, but today it really sucks to be non-motorized in New Zealand.
So into our microdot of a minivan we wedge ourselves.
Of course, then we run into the most obvious delta between our world and mirror world: right-hand drive. Driving on the wrong side of the road is tricky and confusing. DrC took to it immediately, of course. Remember, this is the man whose surgical environment is both backwards and bent. He drives in reverse by looking in the rear view mirror and stepping hard on the gas petal. And he does it really really well. So after a day or so, the good doc mastered mirror world. It's taking me longer.
Actually, it's not driving that give me fits. I can do that. Just think LEFT LEFT LEFT LEFT. That works. There are occasional moments of disorientation when I'm making wide right turns, and I still find parking strange. However, the real problem is the subtle influence our driving patterns have on the rest of our movements through the world. Yesterday, I almost slammed into a runner at the park. It was early in the morning with the sun only thinking about rising. There was almost no lighting under the trees, and I could just barely make out the trail. Head phones on, head down, I'm slogging out a couple of laps in an earnest attempt to keep off the nearly two stone (20 pounds?) I lost on the boat. Suddenly I hear a muffled shout and sense movement directly in front of me. Primed for a mugger, I leap to the side ready to chop and kick only to find an irate business man in togs, muftie, and trainers (shorts, t-shirt, and running shoes) glaring and gesticulating as he continued on the path. Silly me. I was on the right side of the track. Or the wrong side. Or some side where I didn't belong.
Next time you are running on a trail, walking up a busy staircase, or pushing your trolley (shopping cart) down an aisle, pause for a moment to reflect on your position relative to those around you. More often than not, you'll find yourself automatically 'driving yourself' on the same side of the road as your native country's car. Even going in and out of doors at the broker, I find myself opening the wrong door and banging my nose on the glass. How many things are like that in our lives? We take for granted these patterns that are so ingrained we don't have rules about them. Why would you? You don't need a rule to tell you which side of the staircase to walk up. And then when we go to a new country, we're forced to reexamine these patterns, change existing ones and develop new ones, or face the consequences.
It's only taken us two weeks to stop putting our toilet tissue in the bathroom rubbish bin (trash can). I am certain the hotel housecleaning staff is grateful we're adapting.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Step 1 - Get a Phone
[Editor's Note] Better late than never... I'm finally going to post our "Moving to New Zealand" series. It's 8 or 9 steps which I'll publish more or less in sequence over the next month or two though the events that inspired them were smushed more like into three weeks. I'll probably intersperse these with more interesting and personal stuff since the series is rather drier and more practical than is truly my nature. If you want to read the series all together, I'll give them a single "moving" tag.
When we dismantled our lives in Seattle, we were forever astonished by how many strings we left trailing behind. It seemed that for months random charges, irate emails, and miscellaneous to do's appeared out of nowhere like urbanized black magic sprinkled through our days. For those considering dropping out, going for a walk about, or otherwise escaping the Real World, I'd like you to first adventure with me on a little thought exercise.
I want you to pretend for a moment that the companies with whom you routinely do business are actually toddlers -- strong willed, very healthy, robust toddlers dressed in company colors with appropriately logo'd baseball caps. Each company more or less only reaches to your waist. Since very few can jump high enough to grab you in a stranglehold, abandoning them to the wolves in the forest merely requires a hard heart and pair of ear plugs. Sometimes, it's easier if you leave a basket of food behind. For example, you could simply pay a small discontinuation fee on an account or forego getting your money back on a security deposit which distracts the toddler-company long enough for you to get offshore and out of reach.
A few of these toddlers have big brothers who can and will turn you upside and shake until the gold in your fillings drops out of your mouth. To escape, you need to identify these lien holders early on and get them paid off. Make sure you have their assurance in writing that your presence is no longer necessary for their happiness and well being. While we were bobbing on the hook in a wild anchorage of northern Vancouver Island, we had one bank chase us down and try to foreclose on a piece of commercial real estate for the sin of not being physically where they expected us. These people you do not want to screw with. Best to make them go away in advance.
But with persistence and a long knife, you can and will be able to cut nearly all strings that tie you to the daily world of bills, mortgages, payments, subscriptions, auto-transfers, annual fees and the lot. The rest you give to your mommy and say, "Take care of it."
Then you leave.
Great, but now we're trying to reenter the regular world and are finding it takes nearly as much work to get yourself reestablished as it did to cut the ties to begin with. First, while we have grown and matured during the intervening years, the companies with whom we do business are still whiney, spoiled toddlers. Those who actually remember us from the good ole days are whiney, spoiled, vengeful toddlers. The rest are merely annoying and petulant.
As we reengage with civilization, we discover the world is full of Catch 22 loops such as the following:
* At most New Zealand banks, you can not open a bank account unless you have a permanent address.
* Most New Zealand rental properties will only accept a draft on a New Zealand bank account for your bond and first week rental payment.
Like that? How about this one:
* You can't get a visa until you have a job.
* You can't apply for a job until you have a visa.
Hmm.
Okay, not good enough? Try this one:
In New Zealand, they assume you have -- at some point in your life -- purchased electricity. So when you wish to turn on the lights at your new home, the first question in the online form is your account number without which the form literally will not progress. And what happens when in desperation you call the company... because gee... you don't have an account number? The automated friendly phone voice also prompts you for this same account number without which she dooms you to a virtually unending purgatory of musak until one of the electrical company's three live customer representatives gets back from tea.
The trick is the work around. The work around inevitably costs more money. Budget for your reentry to the world on the assumption that it is going to take more time and cost more than you currently anticipate by at least 10% in both cases.
We discovered that when all is said and done, the first thing you must do to get reintegrated into the regular world is to buy a phone. Without a phone number, you can literally do nothing. There is something about those mystical audio digits that confers "realness" in a way that bank drafts, passports, and work contracts do not. It also turns out that getting a phone number these days is about as dramatic a process as picking up a pair of new shoes. Wander the mall, look at the various models, select one, buy a SIM card, load it up with some money. They don't ask for your phone number (don't laugh! … By the time we arrived at the "buy phone" conclusion, we fully expected the store to require a phone number for us to get a phone number…). They don't even require that you give them your name. Drug dealers must love this.
So in addition to our preference for fast boats, sunny climates, and the avoidance of real work, cruisers have another thing in common with drug dealers… we like unregistered phones. It took us 72 hours to come to the Buy Phone conclusion during which we were quite literally unable to get anything useful done. Now we have a really dodgy piece of Sony Ericsson crap and a cellular phone number with a weird number of digits that make no sense.
Moving on…
When we dismantled our lives in Seattle, we were forever astonished by how many strings we left trailing behind. It seemed that for months random charges, irate emails, and miscellaneous to do's appeared out of nowhere like urbanized black magic sprinkled through our days. For those considering dropping out, going for a walk about, or otherwise escaping the Real World, I'd like you to first adventure with me on a little thought exercise.
I want you to pretend for a moment that the companies with whom you routinely do business are actually toddlers -- strong willed, very healthy, robust toddlers dressed in company colors with appropriately logo'd baseball caps. Each company more or less only reaches to your waist. Since very few can jump high enough to grab you in a stranglehold, abandoning them to the wolves in the forest merely requires a hard heart and pair of ear plugs. Sometimes, it's easier if you leave a basket of food behind. For example, you could simply pay a small discontinuation fee on an account or forego getting your money back on a security deposit which distracts the toddler-company long enough for you to get offshore and out of reach.
A few of these toddlers have big brothers who can and will turn you upside and shake until the gold in your fillings drops out of your mouth. To escape, you need to identify these lien holders early on and get them paid off. Make sure you have their assurance in writing that your presence is no longer necessary for their happiness and well being. While we were bobbing on the hook in a wild anchorage of northern Vancouver Island, we had one bank chase us down and try to foreclose on a piece of commercial real estate for the sin of not being physically where they expected us. These people you do not want to screw with. Best to make them go away in advance.
But with persistence and a long knife, you can and will be able to cut nearly all strings that tie you to the daily world of bills, mortgages, payments, subscriptions, auto-transfers, annual fees and the lot. The rest you give to your mommy and say, "Take care of it."
Then you leave.
Great, but now we're trying to reenter the regular world and are finding it takes nearly as much work to get yourself reestablished as it did to cut the ties to begin with. First, while we have grown and matured during the intervening years, the companies with whom we do business are still whiney, spoiled toddlers. Those who actually remember us from the good ole days are whiney, spoiled, vengeful toddlers. The rest are merely annoying and petulant.
As we reengage with civilization, we discover the world is full of Catch 22 loops such as the following:
* At most New Zealand banks, you can not open a bank account unless you have a permanent address.
* Most New Zealand rental properties will only accept a draft on a New Zealand bank account for your bond and first week rental payment.
Like that? How about this one:
* You can't get a visa until you have a job.
* You can't apply for a job until you have a visa.
Hmm.
Okay, not good enough? Try this one:
In New Zealand, they assume you have -- at some point in your life -- purchased electricity. So when you wish to turn on the lights at your new home, the first question in the online form is your account number without which the form literally will not progress. And what happens when in desperation you call the company... because gee... you don't have an account number? The automated friendly phone voice also prompts you for this same account number without which she dooms you to a virtually unending purgatory of musak until one of the electrical company's three live customer representatives gets back from tea.
The trick is the work around. The work around inevitably costs more money. Budget for your reentry to the world on the assumption that it is going to take more time and cost more than you currently anticipate by at least 10% in both cases.
We discovered that when all is said and done, the first thing you must do to get reintegrated into the regular world is to buy a phone. Without a phone number, you can literally do nothing. There is something about those mystical audio digits that confers "realness" in a way that bank drafts, passports, and work contracts do not. It also turns out that getting a phone number these days is about as dramatic a process as picking up a pair of new shoes. Wander the mall, look at the various models, select one, buy a SIM card, load it up with some money. They don't ask for your phone number (don't laugh! … By the time we arrived at the "buy phone" conclusion, we fully expected the store to require a phone number for us to get a phone number…). They don't even require that you give them your name. Drug dealers must love this.
So in addition to our preference for fast boats, sunny climates, and the avoidance of real work, cruisers have another thing in common with drug dealers… we like unregistered phones. It took us 72 hours to come to the Buy Phone conclusion during which we were quite literally unable to get anything useful done. Now we have a really dodgy piece of Sony Ericsson crap and a cellular phone number with a weird number of digits that make no sense.
Moving on…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)