Well, that was fast...

While at work on Monday we missed a mail parcel. There was a note to come pick up a package at the post office. I hadn't ordered anything recently, and Scott's birthday is coming up- so I figured it was an early birthday arrival.

A side note about the post shops in New Zealand. They are everywhere. In a complete contradiction to my California hometown where there was one official post office, there is a post shop in almost every suburb of Christchurch. I'm sure that some of the larger 'burbs have two. There are four post shops within a 10 minute drive of our house. There are two types: the one is a post shop in the mall or as a part of another business- and there you can send your mail, buy lotto tickets, etc. At the larger post office though, the options are endless! Here you can have your PO Box, pay your cellphone bill, do your banking (if you belong to KiwiBank), get your passport photos taken, exchange your foreign currency, get travel insurance, register your car, apply for your tax number …oh, and send and receive mail. If you can't tell, I'm really impressed by the post shop services. And at mine, there's rarely even a line.

Ok, back to our parcel. Since I figured it was an early birthday gift for Scott I was a bit slack on getting down to the post shop. His birthday isn't for another 13 days (not that he's counting), so what's the rush?

Then on Wednesday morning I got an email from the Immigration Office New Zealand. It began like this, "Dear Kristen, Congratulations on your recent acceptance for a work visa…"

Right then it clicked what the parcel at the post shop was! Our visas got processed! The immigration website states an average of 24 days for processing so I wasn't even beginning to worry yet about our applications since it had only been 12 days. Needless to say I rushed down to pick up the package, and there they were:

P.S.: Scott is still annoyed this was not a birthday package

Ok, I know… they're not much to look at. But what a relief! And they got processed on November 6. A one week turn around. Impressive, guys!

So here's the one thing. As I explained before, we applied for 5 year work visas. Basically, we wanted the maximum time allowance to figure out a plan. But as it turns out, we were granted 3-year work visas. Good to go 'til November 6, 2016.

Although it wasn't our goal, I feel really good about it. By then we will have been in New Zealand just a month shy of 4 years. That's nearly double our original intentions. We can, of course, come home earlier than then. We still have time to figure things out. Actually… our goal was to get work visas. So the goal has been accomplished. And we got a year longer than the majority of folks get.

I'd like to think that by 2016 we'll be ready to put some roots down somewhere.

But no promises.

Halloween, and other news...

So thankfully Halloween isn't really a favorite holiday of mine, because it doesn't really exist in New Zealand. There's no pumpkins (it's springtime), no costumes, and definitely no ridiculously over-spiderwebbed porches. Actually, they don't have that fake spiderweb stuff here at all. One of the doctors I work with just returned from a conference in California, and was so amused by Halloween-mania that he bought himself some fake spiderwebs, a few severed fingers, and a big 'ol bag of mixed candy. And it was all only $22!!, he said. Ahhh…. New Zealand.

Halloween here looks like sunshine (but rain this afternoon apparently) and life as normal. Oh, and one minor little milestone I accomplished this morning…

Our applications for our 5-year work visas are submitted.

I just re-read my post from almost exactly this time last year (50 weeks ago, to be exact) when I submitted the paperwork for our one year work visas. The feeling is the same now as it was then: thank god that's done, it's out of my control now, and I deserve a drink!

The process of applying for our visas was complicated this time by the good 'ol USA and it's ridiculous shut down. My fingerprints should have been cleared by the FBI back in late September, and all of this should have been submitted with plenty of time to spare in the early days of October. Instead, my FBI clearance came in the mail yesterday (3 months after being initially submitted, pretty pathetic) and all of this got submitted today. Halloween.

In regards to the 5 year work visa- we are applying for a work visa and the NZ Immigration office will decide on the duration. This amount of time will be at least 2, and up to 5 years. Although we don't foresee living here through 2018, we are hoping for the maximum 5 year visa. Because really, we have no idea what we are doing.

We have 6 weeks until our one year visas expire, so in regards to the delayed submission, it should all be fine. But leaving it down to the wire like this is not my style, and I'm very unimpressed- can you tell?- by the reasons for the delay.

Once again we had to submit:

Four different meticulously filled out application forms (28 pages total)
Official job offers (we're both staying at our current positions)
Proof of prior experience in job field including hours worked
Proof of registration in job field
Letters of recommendation from current and past employers
FBI clearance
Proof of our relationship including:
  Letters from friends and family verifying the validity of our marriage (thank you again mom, dad, Ashley and Jade for printing and signing several copies!)
  Photos from throughout our relationship
  Proof of joint bank accounts
  Proof of owning property together
  Marriage Certificate

And this time around we each had to submit in addition:

Medical Certificates (at a cost of $600) including:
  Full physical
  Full set of blood work and urine samples
  Chest X-rays

Ahhhhh…. so when it's all done, this is what you have:

And what you should also have is a cold beer on a hot spring day. But for me, I'm off to work.

Arrived!

We have been in New Zealand for less than 48 hours, but none the less have had 2 full days of life here. Its truly amazing how much you can get done when you don't really have any other choice in the matter.We flew our of San Francisco on Tuesday evening at 7:30. From checking in our baggage to security, everything went super smoothly. I remembered the excellent service provided by Air NZ last time we travelled, so I wasn't really shocked, but I was really relieved that everything happened as smoothly as I had hoped.

Despite a bumpy ride (for at least 3 of the 12 hours) the flight was pretty painless. Dinner and several glasses of wine were included, and by the time those were enjoyed we settled in to watch our choice of movies and fall asleep. I watched Ted with Mark Wahlberg, which is a great movie for those who watch Family Guy, and probably not for any other single person. Anyways, the flight went great, and amazingly, so did customs in Aukland. From getting our luggage from baggage claim, to finding the domestic terminal, all was a breeze. Auckland also had a ridiculous amount of beautiful New Zealand cultural touches throughout the terminals. I kind of felt like I was in line at Disneyland for a sweet ride.

I mean, live ferns in the airport? Cool!

I guess I do have a slight complaint with the Air NZ domestic flights though: I paid a ridiculous amount of money to fly our luggage from SFO to Christchurch. On the connecting flight from Auckland to Christchurch, the carry on bag size limit is drastically reduced to 7kg and the size of a large briefcase. Being that we were moving and not on a business trip, we had massive carry on bags that were no problem on our main flight. A super rude woman physically grabbed my arm and pulled me out of line while simultaneously reprimanding me for the size of my bag. By the way, there was one sign with these rules posted on it, in the terminal. When we re-checked in our luggage in Auckland, none of the ladies mentioned, "Oh hey, we're the domestic terminal... you can't bring that bag on the airplane... I'll check it for you." $120 and no explanation later, however, we were on our way!

We arrived in Christchurch at 9:10 yesterday morning. We are staying with a super sweet lady named Annette, and her husband, son, and dog, Sally. She was born and raised in Christchurch, left for a decade or so, met her husband who was a Brit living in South America, and eventually they migrated back to New Zealand.

Annette's beautiful house

Yesterday we managed to secure our bank accounts and get cell phones. They're laughable cell phones- so far from iPhones or even the questionably designed HTC Evos that we used to have. We got the severely entry level phones, with a funny plan that only has 100 minutes (yes, 1 hour, 40 minutes) per month of talk time, but has 1000 texts per month, plus 1000 additional texts to your "best mate". So... Scott and I mated, and we have 2000 texts each to use between each other, since we don't know another soul on the island. (Everyone texts here because mobile service is so expensive. It's normal to not use your cellphone at all for talk, as it can cost $0.25/minute, or more.)

After a great night's sleep we woke up this morning to another beautiful day (more on this in another post), and got back to it. The housing market is a challenge in Christchurch due to the earthquake and subsequent rebuild (ie: influx of workers), so we need to be quick and efficient about things. We spent the whole entire day researching neighborhoods and possible rentals, and have a couple of options now that we're super excited about. I'll update about those when one becomes reality. The main conundrum was: close to city center, Kristen's job, small and expensive? or: 15-30 minute drive to Kristen's job and city center, more space, less traffic, more for your money. Kind of the usual debate in most house hunts I think. We may not be 100% yet, but we're both strongly leaning towards having more space. I know many people also wouldn't even consider 20 minutes to be a commute, so I'll count myself lucky now that it's the longest commute I will have ever had.

On tap for tomorrow is hopefully locking down a house that we both feel SUPER good about, and getting closer to getting a car. We are also meeting a friend of a friend in Sumner for dinner, which will be our first particularly social event, so that's exciting. Tomorrow I promise not to forget to bring my camera everywhere. In other words, I'll babble less and post beautiful New Zealand more.

14

14 days until we get aboard our plane to Christchurch.

The shipping company called yesterday and basically said, "You remember that 72 hour window, Wed-Fri? We can't do that. We'll see you tomorrow at 1pm."

Needless to say, my last two days of work turned into one day. We fueled up on wine and pizza, and nearly pulled an all-nighter last night.

It's now almost 3pm Tuesday.

Look at my car for comparison! So tiny!

This monstrosity just took away all of our belongings, save for 2 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, and 2 bikes.

The moving guy also bought our recliner off of us. 40 bucks!

Scott is selling my car as I write.

Due to the surprise schedule change, these little buggers are staying until tomorrow:

Scramble and Hop, sprinting for treats. I'll miss them!!!

I'm mostly feeling fantastic, and fantastically exhausted.

Is it wrong to open another bottle of wine?

Whew!

This is what it looks like to apply for a work visa in New Zealand, and for your husband's work visa as well:

Passports, birth/marriage certs, pictures of us, our mail, our mortgage statements, our loan statements,
our work history, transcripts, 28 pages of carefully filled out forms...

The envelope that all of these documents (at least 100 pages all said and done) ended up being so heavy that UPS billed me for a package instead of an envelope. $18 in postage, and a days of my life shaved off later...

It's sent! Can't worry about it any more, it's out of my control. If this goes as smoothly as my immigration lawyer Peter promises me it will, we'll get our work visas before the end of the month. Then, no matter the state of the house, our belongings, our finances (eek), our cars, anything... we can go. They'll accept us and our one way tickets.

Thank you SO MUCH to our friends and family that wrote us testimonials... Mom & Dad, Jade, Ashley, Jen, and Mary, you did us such a huge favor. You all deserve wine!

It's time to CELEBRATE!!! PACK!!!

I belong in the circus...

I should join the circus, because I am one hell of a juggler. Projects and documents that I am currently juggling:

Car insurance, re: Subaru broken into last week in SF

Homeowners insurance, re: all of our stuff stolen from Subaru

Homeowners hail insurance, re: had roof estimate done recently (ordered before we knew we were moving!), turns out we have hail damage from last year's storm! Trying to convince insurance company they do indeed owe us for all aforementioned things thus far.

Working full time (both of us) for 2 more weeks

Flying to Arizona for 4 days this weekend for one last girls trip (Yes, Im crazy. Yes, this was booked prior to my knowledge of our departure date!)
Co-planning 2 going away parties

And the big list:

Completing visa paperwork, which includes but is not limited to

     - Letters from 4 friends documenting my relationship with Scott is real and true (for his visa application)

     - Certified copies of birth certificates, marriage licence, all transcripts, diplomas, registrations, etc.

     - Proof we've lived together and own a house including mortgage statements, personal letters, car loan statements, etc.

     - Many photos of us as a couple

     - 28 pages of paperwork filled out perfectly

Visa paperwork will be submitted, and fingers crossed, all processed and done in about 3 weeks, or we cant leave by Dec 11. But it will happen. We're taking the time and doing it perfectly, and we have the best immigration lawyer. So we're good to go!

Hiring a shipping company to ship all of our personal belongings that wont be packed on the plane, which leads me to...

Packing. a) stuff for plane (including 5 bikes) . b) stuff for boat (including 4 bikes, est. arrival: 8 weeks after our arrival). c) stuff to store in garage. d) stuff to throw/give away

Sell Subaru

Sell 350Z

Be out by Nov 30 so renters can move in Dec 1

Talk to tax person for NZ taxes

Set up US tax appointment

Set up NZ bank account (recommended to do prior to arrival to get better rates on currency conversion)

Buy all new stuff with insurance money before leaving because everything is MUCH more expensive in NZ

WHEW. Is that crazy or what? I'm sure I left out about 20 things... Oh yeah, Scott's birthday and Thanksgiving are in there too... somewhere... I feel some holiday postponment coming on. Maybe we'll deck the halls next year?

That turning point, all sails set for New Zealand... (long post)

"How are you with cannulation?" She asked.

 Does she really want to know how proficient I am with placing a nasal cannula? How hard can it be?

"Do you mean a nasal cannula?" I asked.

"No, no. Cannulation." Well that cleared it up.

"IV cannulation" she said.

"OH! Starting IVs! Haha! Got it. I'm pretty good. I don't really have trouble starting IVs!" I said. Close one.

"OK. Lovely."

And that's how my interview went with Louisa from the Pegasus Health 24-hour surgery clinic. It started off with a plan for her to call me at 9am NZ time on Tuesday (my Monday). All weekend I planned to talk to her at 1pm, the standard 4 hours time difference I'd gotten used to over the last several months. Thank goodness Scott reminded me of daylight savings time. The interview was now at noon. 12'oclock noon while I was on vacation with my husband. I wanted to be somewhere quiet, with good cell reception.

Unfortunately, my parent's house in Benicia has the worst cell reception of all time. Like, worse than in a deep-sea submarine off the coast of Iceland. So their place was out for an interview spot. Coffee shop? Too loud. Library? Not supposed to talk. So oddly, we settled on inside the car, on the top level of a 6-story parking garage in Emeryville. At $2/hr no less. It wasn't until after the decision was made and the interview was underway that I realized the bay area has about 15 flying vehicles in the air at any given time (noisy), you're never less than 5 miles from a freeway of some kind (noisy), and everyone honks at each other (noisy). And if you've ever been part of an overseas phone interview, on a cell phone no less, you know that the reception just isn't the same. And I was on speakerphone with a panel. And they have Kiwi accents. And they're asking me about cannulation. Oh man.

Other highlights of my interview with Louisa, who was truly delightful:

- My fumbling through scenarios at a snail's pace, sweating in the hot car on the HOT November day that it was, sweat dripping from heat stroke and my actual pending stress-induced stroke
- Forgetting the name for Nitroglycerin ("That sub-lingual med. You know the one! N.... Nii... uhh... Nitro! That's it!") Pressure at it's finest...

- Asking the other interviewer to repeat every single question she asked because I couldn't understand her beautiful whispering accent

- Rambling about the benefits of computerized order entry when they don't have it

- Louisa and my other interviewer laughing (at me, I think) quite a bit and saying "lovely" a lot

An hour and a half later ($3) with a nearly dead cell phone and a nearly starved husband, my call ended and I felt good. Confused, but good. And 30 minutes after that... I felt great!

Louisa called my recruiter, Kristin, and confirmed that she would be offering me a position at Pegasus Health's 24-Hour Surgery in Christchurch. Kristin called me immediately, and started gushing about her love for the city and the area (she lives in Christchurch herself) and encouraging me in regards to the state of the city after the earthquake. I also learned that I would be cross-trained in a few different specialties, all which are super interesting to me, AND I would be working four 8-hour shifts per week. And that's considered full time! Talk about a place that understands the work-life balance. I love New Zealand! I told her that Scott and I would take the evening to consider the offer while the official paperwork was being drawn up, but I already knew the answer.

Christchurch - The Garden City

Christchurch was our favorite city we visited while in New Zealand. Queenstown was of course, amazing, but very touristy, and also prone to major snow during the winter. We also loved a town named Alexandra, but both agreed it would be too small for our settling. Christchurch is on the coast, about 1/3 down the eastern edge of the south island. It is the largest city on the south island, and was the location of the famous 2011 earthquake. The city center suffered the most damage, but as a result, neighborhoods close to the city center have popped up with new restaurants, bars, and shopping. There are huge botanical gardens and parks everywhere, as well as phenomenal mountain biking, most of which we have barely even had a taste of.

Enjoying Christchurch Cathedral, days before it fell. Pegasus is in the square, almost right behind us to the right

Botanical gardens in the city center

Yes, this is a small fraction of our city park

Another small sample from Hagley Park in Christchurch

Tourists punting down the Avon River, in Christchurch city center!!

This is just a suburban green-way, a common "park" across the street from regular neighborhood houses.

What happened to Nelson and Wellington, you may ask? Nelson was always our first choice. It unarguably has the most fantastic mountain biking, and Abel Tasman Park is obviously beautiful. There aren't really drawbacks to Nelson other than it is so attractive to native New Zealanders that they really don't need to hire from outside the country (aka: me). Simple as that. And after our permanent residency is secured (8+ months from now), we could still move there. We will see.

As for Wellington, the more time we spent researching it, the more confounded we became. It is beautiful, on the water, with great mountain biking. But it is on the north island, and we just want to be on the south island- where we fell in love with the country. Of course Welly is a short plane/ferry ride from the south island, but that makes spur of the moment trips almost impossible, and pricey. It's also pretty secluded down there on the southern tip of the north island, so even if we did want to travel out of the region, there's not really anything but countryside for miles. Don't get me wrong, I have no evidence that Wellington isn't one of the greatest places to live, and I still can't wait to check it out. But as for fulfilling our dream of living on New Zealand's south island, we just felt it was important to keep things how we imagined them: Southern.

Some how Dunedin got cut off the bottom of the list, it's the southern most east (right side) heart

Christchurch is on the beach, just over an hour from the south island's premier ski-field (Mount Hutt), an hour from the rainforest, under 2 hours from the hot springs, 5 hours from Nelson, and 6 hours from Queenstown (both destined to be favorite long-weekend getaway destinations). It has a college, plenty of culture, and a median age of 34. The weather is actually quite a bit milder than Wellington- with there being less wind and rain. Christchurch is quite a bit cooler than our hometown of Chico though, with average summer highs in the 70s, and winter days in the 30s and 40s. There's far less rain in Christchurch than in most places in New Zealand (making bike riding particularly attractive) and there is an above average amount of sunshine per year compared to the rest of the country. Lastly, it has the major airport of the south island - so we expect lots of visitors!!!

Enjoying the beaches of Christchurch before flying away (and spending the next 2 years thinking about this place)

Hamner Springs : 1.75 hours north of the city

Mt Hutt (not me- I don't ski!): less than 90 minutes away

Scott riding in Christchurch- see the local spectator on the right?

The bike wife... biking. (aka: yours truly)

A little waterfall in the rainforest, est: 50 minute drive west out of Christchurch

Lake Tekapo: 3 hours (max) south of Christchurch

Mount Cook: 4 hours south of Christchurch

Somewhere on Hwy 73, about 2 hours west of Christchurch... after the rain!

Castle Hill, outside of Cragieburn Natn'l Forest - also about 2 hours west. That's me up there!

One of the many beautiful glacial rivers - this one in southwest NZ

We are super excited, but we have SO much to do. On tap for tomorrow: gathering as much information as possible together for our visas, including several letters verifying that my relationship with my husband is real and true (seriously). If anyone finds themselves with extra time on their hands... feel free to pen us an endorsement!! More on the extensive visa application process next time!