Lets Go Fly A Kite...

I love wind sports. I've been sailing for years, Paul and I raced last summer in Laura's Tanzer 22. Buying a boat here however is currently not in the plans. I've also been looking for something a little more... adrenaline based. Two options have popped up. Windsurfing and Kite Surfing. Of the two, I've always been more interested in Kite Surfing... Seems like a much more dynamic way of riding the waves. Also, the gear's a lot easier to carry around.

I've been getting advice from my friend Nick in Canada who's been doing it for years and I decided recently to buy my own first kite. Following his advice, I bought a 4 line, 3 square meter land kite from Peter Lynn. The kite I bought was actually an end of line, called the Pepper II. It's been replaced by

Anyway, I managed to get a nice day (about 10-15 knots) and Carly had the day off, so we headed out to Berhampore Park to get a first flight in. Here's the results:



End result? I've got a sore back, shoulders, blisters on my feet and a giant grin on my face :)

The plan is to get good enough at flying this that I'd feel comfortable on the water. Kite surfing requires a kite 3 to 4 times the size of what I'm using, with proportionally more power as well. That's a lot of lift!

Ssssh. Don't Tell Carly....

I bought her a table yesterday while I was wandering through downtown Wellington. I wandered into a second hand store that we'd bought some chairs from previously, and lo and behold his newer acquisition was staring me in the face waiting to be purchased. A little negotiation and 120$ later, the table was on it's way to being delivered. It only came with 3 chairs, but they are fairly common style so it shouldn't be too hard to find an approximate match. I'll be refinishing the center top to match the extensions and hopefully Carly can recover the chairs (they are currently done up in vinyl).



My faith in buying used in New Zealand is slowly being rebuilt.

Home Sickness

Over the last two weeks I've been hit with a little bit of home sickness. My weekly routine seemed a little empty, something was lacking. Part of the issue I think was a general level of dissatisfaction with work; the crises and the difficulty communicating had been building and I felt fairly useless most days. Overall though, now that the challenge of figuring out the basics of living here were more or less cleared up, I felt bored and restless. Without many of my usual distractions (most of our hobby stuff / sports stuff is still in our container somewhere on the pacific) I was playing video games, re-watching old TV episodes, reading (not a bad thing) but generally moping around the house. There's only so much exploring and walking you can do in one day...

So yesterday Carly and I got off our duffs (well, I got off mine, she's been very active with work) and we went climbing. We hadn't been in about 2 weeks, in part because I had to fix my shoes. We had a great climb, pushing ourselves more then usual, then decided to try the only Lebanese restaurant in town.

About half way through the excellent meal, I realized that we had subconsciously mimicked one of our favorite traditions in Ottawa. Climbing followed by Shawarma. What I didn't expect was how good it felt, not only to have such great food, but also to integrate an old tradition into the new life. It felt comfortable but foreign at the same time and it really cheered me up!

So there you have it, my first revelation about living in a foreign land. It's not about tossing the old habits out, its about figuring out how to fit them into the new life.

Rememberance Day

New Zealand doesn't mark Remembrance day on November 11th like Canada does, theirs is April 18th. However, what I find interesting is that it's called (informally at least) Poppy Day, in memory of John McCrae's poem that's given Canada its remembrance day symbol.

Carly and I are both thinking of our family in the military. Those who are still with us (John, Jesse and Jeremy) and those who are not.

Thank you.

The Two Month Report.

Well, we've been here 2 months and I believe it's safe to say we are settled in as well as can be expected. We have all the basics out of the way: we have all the essential "stuff" we need to live our daily lives, we have settled into our daily routine, we know the city well enough not to get frustrated going about our lives and we've met a few very friendly people so far.

The good

• The people. Overwhelmingly, everyone we've met has bent over backwards to help us out, feel welcome and comfortable. A couple of great examples so far have been all the people I've met through the Warlords Wargaming Club, the people we've met at Ferg's Climbing gym and some of the friends we've made along the way.
  
• Living on the ocean. I didn't think it would make that big a difference, but being a 10 minute bus ride from the beach really is something special.
  
• The lifestyle. People really do seem more laid back. Not to the point of getting frustrating to deal with, but overall there's less tension in the air, less fighting and more helping hands. This extends surprisingly into government services and the like. Getting our drivers licenses and other administrative tasks was easy and the people friendly and helpful.
  
• The City. Wellington is quite unique. Not much urban sprawl, you can easily get around without a car, lots of fun nooks to discover.
  

The bad

• Convenience or the lack thereof. You start to see just how much of a convenience culture North America has developped. If you want something Right Now! and it happens to be 8pm, you can find it. Here, not so much. Stores close early, bus service is sparce on weekends and you have to make plans to shop / pick up stuff / get stuff delivered. I hope employers are as understanding here as in Canada.
• Cost of setting up. Obviously, this was going to be a big one. Everyone espoused the virtues of buying second hand, so we naturally expected it to be trivial. Not so. My friend Allison pointed out that shopping thrift stores is about the hunt and she was completely right. Now that we've got the essentials (some new, some used) we're enjoying searching for good second hand deals a lot more.
  
• The work situation. I'll be honest, working remotely, 18 hours off from my co-workers is not easy. At least now, I get up at a reasonable hour and work goes smoothly, but the smallest technical glitches mean tons of lost time.
  

The ugly

• None so far.
  

So there you have it, in a nutshell, what the overall feel is after 2 months. I've blogged about most of these already, so not too many detials required, but overall I think it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience.