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.