nz now has one more permanent resident.
gromit landed in auckland at 0605 local time.
no official update until he arrives at quarantine at approx 1300.
Tag Archive for 'moving'
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we knew this would be by far the hardest part of our move – and so far it has lived up to expectations.
today at 6:30 pm pacific time jackie dropped gromit off for his flight to nz.
it is now 10:42 pm pacific time and gromit is on board nz 1 just off the california coast.
he is due to arrive in auckland in about 11 hours – 0552 local time. he then has a 5 hour layover before his flight to wellington. shado-lans will then pick him up and drive him to their quarantine facility. after a local maf vet has signed off he is allowed out of the shipping crate. that should be about 1 pm local time. 18 hours from now.
that is going to be a very long 18 for me and the jboss.
i would give anything to be able to explain to him what is happening and that it will ok.
i feel sick.
we’ve been going back and forward between looking for a place to rent and place to buy.
if we could find the right house in the right neighborhood at the right price that would be ideal, but a home search here in wellington is much harder than any place i’ve bought previously. there are dramatic differences from one street to the next. sun & wind exposure, age & condition of house, amount (if any) of insulation and heating (most houses have neither), type of street (some are narrow twisty routes up mountainsides), local amenities, distance to the cbd, dog friendliness, etc.
we had looked at probably 20 houses or so over the span of a month but it became clear that we wouldn’t have time to feel confident about any decision, and it was logistically challenging with the jboss in the states and me here, so we switched to focusing on finding a rental.
the initial week of the rental search was very depressing with few places that would consider dogs, and few of those that would were places that i would want to live it. the small number that passed those 2 tests were all very pricey and were gone almost immediately. there was a bit of stress since we needed to have something lined up by the time that gromit returned from his holiday in quarantine in mid november. i had seen a few places that weren’t horrible, but i was really hoping that that wouldn’t be the benchmark.
jackie passed along a new posting of a nice looking place in island bay, but it said no pets. so i wrote my nicest possible email explaining that we had a well behaved dog, and that we would put down additional bond (deposit) & have the house professionally cleaned when we left if they would consider waving their no pets criteria. i wasn’t optimistic that i would get a yes so i went off to look at other potential places.
fortunately they called me and said we wouldn’t have to give gromit away, so i rushed over to confirm the place measured up to the listing. it was actually better than the listing so i told them that i was very interested but would like to confirm with my partner back in the states. the owner was very generous and said that she would consider us first in line and allow me get back to her the next day. fortunately i was able to connect with the jboss soon after and was able to call back the owner and said we would like to take it. another bonus here was that the owner then said the place was ours pending a deposit, a lease and employment verification. most rentals here just accept applications and then pick the best from the stack.
after an exchange of paperwork (and money – once again all electronic, no dirty cheques here) we had a place to live as of october 27th.
small bonus. the owner sent me an email asking if it was ok if they left the fridge and washing machine. nice to avoid that expense for a while.
gardens (yards) are surprisingly uncommon. many of the island bay sections (lots) have been subdivided surrendering all their green space. gromit’s bedroom (with a guest bed for slumber parties with his new friends from the neighborhood). great views.
southerly view of the ocean (island bay) out the bedroom window.
25 Tiber Street, Island Bay
3 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms.
Simply stunning family home.
Be welcomed into the famous Island Bay community!
Luxurious yet practical and comfortable. Super sunny, light and warm. All day sun with french doors opening front and back, and gas central heating to warm you cheaply through the winter.
Stunning polished floors downstairs, stylish new carpet upstairs. Kitchen with modern European appliances and stunning concrete bench. Open plan kitchen/dining/living, with additional separate lounge.
Two double bedrooms, one single bedroom and office/kids’ playroom. All with internet/phone connection points etc, sunny, seaviews and open outlook. Also floor to ceiling wardrobes/shelving.
Upstairs bathroom has luxurious family sized bath/shower.
Flat, sunny and sheltered backyard with swing set, sand pit and herb garden. Entertainment deck, amazing indoor-outdoor flow and wonderful entertainment options indoors and out.
Fully fenced and child friendly, located in a quiet cul de sac 200m from two good schools and 400m from kindy.
Enormous storage options throughout house.
i was having a few issues getting mail delivered (all mail gets delivered to a sister hotel and they didn’t know who i was and were returning it), and realizing that i’m likely to have several addresses in the next year i decided it would be best to get a po box and have a stable address that was all mine. there is a post office half way between the apartment and work so it’s easy to stop off for a quick check. 5 minutes and $190 later i’ve got a new home for my mail.
my address:
antony foster
po box 11377
te aro, wellington 6142
new zealand
i haven’t yet seen any postal vehicles other than bicycles and motobikes. in upper hutt i saw these 2 posties – one having an ice cream with his family and another zooming by on their bike.
now to answer some questions / concerns on how much it costs to send something to nz. details from usps.com below but 1lb will cost between $10.10 and $55.00 depending on if you have some time or “absolutely positively need it there overnight” (can’t happen actually given the dateline – minimum is 2 days).
an important restriction to keep in mind to avoid customs duties is that any “gift” under NZ$100 is allowed duty free.
in the facts & figures category i can set the record straight on some other numbers i’ve heard:
- flight from los angeles to auckland, new zealand is 12 hours and 45 minutes. the return journey (with the wind at your back) is under 12 hours. the flights between auckland and wellington are 45 minutes and take off every hour.
- distance from los angeles to auckland is 6,499 miles
- new zealand is part of the oceania, australasia, australia or zealandia continent depending on who you ask.
rest in peace my good friend.
ok – first serious maybe-i-gotta-go-home crisis.
as some know i’ve got a thing about pens. considering how much we use a pen during the day i just don’t want to use some 10¢ ball point. life is too short to use a crappy pen. i always get a kick out of the guy in the fancy suit getting out of the top end car and then using a quckie mart pen.
i don’t want an expensive pen – actually any pen will do as long as it is a uniball micro blue.
i haven’t been able to find them in the stores for quite a while so several years ago i bought 10 dozen. i had mini stockpiles in several strategic places to insure i would never be far from a quick replacement (this led to several discussions about my neuroses with the jboss) and had a full box in my luggage to hold me over. but for some reason i could not find the pens when i arrived (doh! – the lax baggage handlers got me again!). and i can assure you that i checked my luggage thoroughly…
so with the stage set you will now understand my angst as today my pen died. the container (with the rest of my pens) will arrive in 71 days.
i’ve already worked through several options:
- work the broken toe for all it’s worth. attempt to go on disability until the replacement pens arrive.
- look for another job at a company that supplies uniball micro blue’s
- try and find an all night pen repair shop
- pack up and head home. i’ve given it a shot, and nz has a lot going for it, but some things are just not meant to be.
today i called t-mobile and had my us mobile number disconnected.
+1.617.230.2942 is silent
can’t explain it but this was one of the harder things to do. most of the reason was that i’ve given that number out thousand of times. +1.617.230.2942 was just second nature. and now if someone rings it up they will just a disconnected message.
the smaller reason was giving up the one thing that gave me some cred with the boston city crowd. guess i’m back to a expat 508′er.
so make note – i’m now at +64.21.254.6426
well, not technically i guess since we still have the cabin in vt, but the house in the framingham closed today. jackie and gromit will now be moving from shelter to soup kitchen.
sadly the closing was not as smooth as it could have been – but the good news is that we expected as much so were mentally prepared. as i mentioned in an earlier post one of the things that made selling my woodshop kit easy was how grateful and excited everyone was about their items. all the sales were also nice and easy. i’ll just say that the home sale was not the same.
gromit is probably having the toughest time. he has always been nervous, and he really doesn’t like change. unfortunately almost every day for the last month something that was part of his world disappeared. the vermont cabin got all packed up, then the framingham couch & ottoman (his favourite places), then most of the the rest of the house, i disappeared, the movers came back for the bed, and finally they were out on the streets. when gromit was in vt after the house was all packed he just lied on the bedroom floor where the bed used to be (he favourite vt hangout).
i expect he’ll be better once they hit the road and start staying at places with furniture and folks to give him plenty of attention.
here he is at a residence inn post closing.
“i know i’m supposed to lie down and this is my bed, but i’m so nervous i won’t close my eyes…”
day 4, saint louis, mo. 105°F.
it truly feels like you have opened the door to the oven. of course the sad irony is all the air conditioners running full blast just heating up the planet even more.
i had a short list of things i wanted to do in saint louis before i headed off. happy to say that i was able to cross off everything on my list.
white castle.
you either love them or hate them. always a treat for me. with an order of cheese fries and a mix (half and half mix of pepsi and orange drink – even better since it is not listed on the menu and only old hard core patrons know to ask). not quite the classic experience since the women in their 50′s with beehives and blue massacre disappeared from behind the counter.
ted drewes.
a small frozen custard stand in the city on watson road. definitely the best frozen treat and there is always a crowd spilling out into the street. one of the few things that still pulls the escalades and navigators from the burbs back into the city.
steak & shake
*in sight it must be right*. the slogan since they cook the food to order on a grill behind the counter in sight of the diners. when i was growing up they had car hop service with the menu painted on a billboard. my order is for a steakburger platter with fries (the fries are tiny – the size of match sticks) & baked beans and a chocolate shake. hard to beat.
day 3. 3 pm. saint louis, mo. 99°F.
we started early with the goal of unloading the truck into the storage unit before it got unbearably hot. our storage unit is on the third floor so we had to unload an elevator’s worth of items from the truck, wait for our turn with the one shared elevator, load the elevator, slow ride in the hot box, and then walk the items to our unit a bit around the corner. thanks to brother in-law and step-father for helping out on a thankless task we got done before 11.
so one more pile of our stuff that is increasingly getting scattered around the world.
now i started making my rounds dropping off the thank you gifts to my loyal underwriters. no problems and i was done with truck returned by mid afternoon.
man is it hot.
day 2. 10:45 pm. saint louis, mo. 95°F.
we formally started day 2 at 6 am with breakfast at the denny’s next door to our overnight accommodations truck. i felt surprisingly good. just think of all the cash we can save from now on by skipping on the pampered lifestyle of hotel patrons. no sir, the parking lot is just fine for us thank you. “does the hose out back work?”
on the road by 7:30 and a clean shot to saint louis, arriving before 5 pm.
not much of note now that we were pros behind the wheel of our rig. swapping trucker stories with the other drivers at the rest stops. pimping our ride with yosemite sam “back off” mud flaps.
(one big truck)
a quick dinner and i fell asleep watching a movie (had to be a first time for that to happen).
oh – and did i mention that saint louis is an oven? 98°F when we arrived. supposed to be over 100 tomorrow. great moving weather.
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