Farmers are not allowed to water most of their land. Cattle is being brought to the slaughterhouse sooner than expected because there is not enough food for all of them.
Here in Christchurch it finally started to rain last Tuesday and it lasted for 5 days. So I guess the Canterbury plains are being replenished.
These last two weeks, we are filling in paperwork for the New Zealand Immigration Service. We need to do this so we can get a work permit so we can work over here. The forms are sometimes a bit confusing so it takes longer than we anticipated. (One wants to get it right in the first attempt)
You are only allowed to live here if you are healthy. That means another form for the medical exam, blood test and X-ray of your chest. We have been measured, weighted, pulse taken, urine sample, eye test, the listened to our heart and lungs, etc. The doctor asked questions for about half an hour and filled in the 12 pages of the form. The astonishing thing here in NZ is that you walk by a doctors office and you get an appointment the same day if you want to. No problem if you are not registered by this practice...try to do that in the Netherlands. The same thing at the Lab for the blood test and X-ray. Walk in and leave again 1.5 hours later, all taken care of. Amazing!Both of us were declared healthy. Always nice to know!!
Talking about efficiency: Being Swiss, I needed to get a police certificate of good behavior, proofing that I am a good person and haven't done anything illegal. You can do that online, pay by credit card, send the form and a copy of your passport by mail and it will be sent to you within 2 weeks. I think that is really quick. For the Dutch, Immigration will apply for one in our behalf. Why they get the special treatment... I don't know. At least it is one thing we do not have to organize ourselves!!
We also need to prove we are in a genuine and stable relationship :-). They do accept the international version of our marriage certificate, but it is not enough, we need to have far more compelling evidence :-(. Among them a letter of support from relatives or other people who can confirm our partnership, power and phone bills, tenancy agreement, joint bank account statements showing transactions and photographs of us together, especially with family or at significant events.We understand they want to be sure it is not a fake marriage just for getting a permit, but it takes some time to get all those papers together. Look at the forms and pile of paper in the picture.
The moment we get the work permit, George can start his job at Foodstuffs. It will be difficult to get used to a work rhythm again, after a sabbatical of 7 months.
We are also looking for a bigger house; now that it looks like we will be allowed to stay, we can ship our container with our belongings towards NZ. But the apartment we are in now is too small to accommodate all our stuff.
So for the last 2 weeks, we are looking on the internet for houses to rent. There are a lot of houses being offered, but choosing one is not so easy. We have begun to understand that most pictures taken of the properties were taken when the house/garden were being refurbished, so what looks a nice house on the internet is sometimes a very poor excuse of a house. We Dutch (and surely the Swiss) have better houses for our pets!
And even if the house is ok, there are more people interested than just us. So the landlord decides who gets to rent the place.
As said before, we started to look about two weeks ago, but that is really not the kiwi way; they start about 2 weeks before their current lease ends! We should have known, organizing a place to rent is also short-term business...
The next couple of weeks will be interesting: work permit, moving to a bigger house, shipping our container, etc.
We'll keep you posted!
No comments:
Post a Comment