How long does a summer last?

Well, in our case, 6 months and counting! We arrived in Auckland on the 18th October and enjoyed many warm days on our journey through NZ. January was extremely dry. Even Kiwis say that this summer is warmer than average.... must have something to do with Esther...she always has great weather on her vacations! We are in the middle of autumn now, but sitting on the deck in the sun can still be too hot!

George is already working for 6 weeks at Foodstuffs. He got used to the work rhythm quickly.
George: The colleges are really nice and understanding even though I still don't understand some Kiwi-slang. Fortunately, Foodstuffs has a lot of different technologies, so it is very interesting to work there and see their solutions to some processes. (Lekkerland - Henk van Gemert; they have some nice AS/400-machines running here (had to do an IPL today!))
Even if there is an emergency at work, the Kiwis still remain calm; very nice if you're used to the sometimes hectic European way of reacting.
Another nice effect of New Zealand are the traffic jams; there are virtually none! While I still have to drive through the city (8 km), I only have to stop for red lights, not for slow or busy traffic. There are of course busy streets, but you have lots of alternatives to avoid those streets so.
Coincidentally, Frank (a Dutch friend of ours) is also working at the same company.

Esther also had some progress on the job hunting business. Until now she had 3 interviews: 2 at consulting engineering companies and one at the Christchurch City Council. NZ is aware of GIS but they are just beginning to use it and getting to see the advantages of it. As in many things, NZ is a few steps behind comparing to Europe. In this case, it is rather a good thing, meaning Esther's GIS experience can become very handy :-)
Hopefully one will turn out to become a nice employer!

We finally moved into our rental house. It is great to live in a stand alone house, not having neighbors on the other side of the wall, being able to walk around the house and enjoying the garden. Writing this, I am sitting on the deck in the sun, surrounded by green! I can see the sea and I have a view on the Port Hills.
Since we still wait for stuff from the container, it feels a bit like camping in your house. We borrowed two mattresses, some kitchenware and two chairs from Frank and Jessica. At least we can sleep, eat and sit. But it would be nice to have a table again soon. Until then the printer box must do.

On Monday 7th April, our container arrived at Lyttelton, the port of Christchurch. As soon as George got home from work, we drove to the harbour to have a look at the mighty container ship. To our big relieve, It was there and they were busy unloading the containers! Hopefully, our 20 foot container was there too, somewhere. Unfortunately, it was already getting dark, hence the pictures are dark, too.

We had to fill in some forms for customs and the MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) and were told that since a change in law last November, we do have to pay import tax on our own belongings now. Simply too ridiculous for words.
It used to be like this: Customs checks what type of visa one holds at the moment the container arrives in NZ. If you hold a Permanent Residence or a Work Permit longer than 12 months, than you do not have to pay import tax. In all other cases, you do. Now, they only look at the arrival status of the person. We arrived on a Tourist Visa, that is all they see now. Our new '3-years Work Permit'-status has no influence at all....
How do they establish the value of the tax? We had to put a value on each item on the packing list, how much it would be worth selling it here in NZ. Actually impossible to do and therefore a lot of wild guesses. And of course, all our stuff lost a lot of value. :-) Books are not in English, TV, computer, mixer, hairdryer, washing machine etc. all have a European plugs and are not really useful here in NZ, all our furniture is old, used and cheap, kitchenware is used and old, shoes and clothes are old and worn, DVD's have a different region code, just anything one can think of to lower the value. Have a look at our packing list!
Anyway, how on earth should we know exactly what item is in which box, we packed 6 months ago!
Grrr, it is bloody annoying paying for something which wasn't required 6 months earlier.
And NZ keeps complaining about how hard it is to get emigrants! Yeah, make is more difficult and costly doesn't help, eh?


Do you know what Kiwis mean when the say the following: (no prizes to win here, Google makes it to easy)
* rattle your dags
* chilly bin
* sparrows fart
* sweet as
* jandals
* wop wops
* choc-a-block
* dub dub dub