No scrambling in jandals!

Campground Chaos at the World Buskers Festival

We made it to the World Buskers Festival and saw two great shows.  The one above, "Campground Chaos," takes a comical look at the classic Kiwi holiday: summer camping.  It was fabulous for me since it combined a few of my favorite things: camping, circus tricks, and aerial performance.  The finale not only included this flying trapeze stunt, but also a live BBQ onstage where a guy on a unicycle delivered flaming sausages to campers dangling upside down from a picnic table suspended above the stage. Wow! We brought our own picnic of cheese from the Cheesemongers, local cider, treats from She Chocolate, olives and summer fruit from the farmers market.  The Buskers Burlesque was also quite a show: world-class performers had us laughing out loud and shouting for more.  It was the best burlesque show I've ever seen!  Sorry, no photos.

Probably the biggest news from this week is that we found a place to live.  Phew!

Marshall relaxing in the "lounge"

breidi watering the yard

It's a great 2-story townhouse right in the ChCh City Centre.  That means it's also in the heart of the construction zone, but it's walk-able to many places and only two blocks from Hagley Park.  We feel so lucky to have found this place and immediately started to make it feel like home. Incidentally we also picked up some new household terms like "secateurs" and "rubbish bin" (see sidebar).   Last weekend we bought plants and made a little patio herb garden for cooking.  It feels so nice to have home-cooked meals again!

Our little herb garden

M's steak, potatoes and broccoli

Speaking of meals, the Kiwi palate is sweeter than ours and definitely not spicy.  So we stocked up the cupboard with everything hot we could find: chili flakes, red chili pepper sauce, Tabasco, and Cholula.  Sometimes I'm thankful for the globalization of supermarkets.

We continue to make friends with Marshall's co-workers and had a blast with everyone last Saturday at a backyard birthday party, complete with whiskey and a pinata.  Plus we got out for a few more tramps. 

Some new (to me) plant we saw on a tramp

 One of those was on the Banks Peninsula that showcased unique flora, a view of the turquoise French Bay and the Pacific.  It's amazing to think that it's the same ocean we have at home!  Suddenly I feel like busting out Fivel's Somewhere Out There song (imagine me singing) "...it helps to know we're sleeping underneath the same big sky!"  Hee hee, I bet it gets stuck in your head today.

The Pacific Ocean

Jandals

On yesterday's hike we walked through the "bush," across a pretty field and ended by scrambling up the Rock of Gibraltar.  There was no path at this point, just rocky crags that required the use of both feet and hands.  Though it was short, it was a tramp that definitely called for hiking boots - no jandals!  That's a fun new word.  I hear it came from when Kiwis were first introduced to Japanese sandals, hence the name "jandals."  I used to call them 'thongs' when I was little.  Then I started wearing the other kind so I switched to 'flip flops' instead, but I might have to start calling them 'jandals' at home too.

Marshall is getting assigned to new projects at work including one that might require a flight to Aukland this Friday (fingers crossed so I can fly up and meet him for the weekend!)  I signed up to volunteer with an organization that activates vacant sites in ChCh with temporary creative projects.  More on that to come...

Searching for a home and drip coffee

Welcome to the blog for all of our adventures down under!  Why am I calling it Fernland? 

NZ ferns

Well,  a) I love ferns  b) there are ferns all over New Zealand  c) the national rugby team, the All Blacks, hold a silver & black fern as their logo and d) it's a really patriotic symbol for this country.

We've been here just about a week and we're adjusting to living in a new country.  Part of that is learning a new language.  You thought they spoke English in NZ? (pronounced "en zed") They do- in addition to Maori- it's just a different kind.  As we learn new NZ vocabulary words you will too.  On the left side bar you'll see some of our favorites.  Excuse me, I mean "favourites."

Fern sculpture, Christchurch Botanic Gardens

The other part of moving to a new country is doing all of those terribly exciting things like getting a local cell phone, learning which way to look first before crossing the street, opening a bank account, finding out where to buy Q-tips, etc... And you thought this was going to be a blog about our adventures...

One of the biggest adventures so far has been learning how to drive on the left-hand side of the road.  It's actually not too hard.  Probably the most challenging part for me has been to remember that the driver sits on the right side of the car.  Pretty much every day when I drive somewhere I invariably open the passenger's side door first.  Marshall's co-workers tell me that will go away in a month or so.  The first time we took our car out (a shiny red Corolla- yeah baby!) Marshall said, "I'll drive."  I said OK and proceeded to the right.  Marshall headed to the left.  We both opened the doors and I found the steering wheel and he the glove box.  We looked at each other, smiled, and had a hearty laugh over that one.  Then switched places.

Marshall in the driver's seat

Finding things has been a theme for the week.  We spent a good portion of our first weekend here looking for drip coffee and a place to live (in case you were wondering, you can buy 'cotton tips' in the supermarket).  They drink only espresso here, which is fine by me since my morning beverage is English Breakfast Tea with milk and sugar (like the "poms" drink) and an occasional latte.  Marshall, on the other hand, is a huge fan of Peet's drip coffee.  The first day we were here we went all over our neighborhood to see if anyone served drip coffee.  The American breakfast joint did but almost didn't seat us since we didn't have a booking (see sidebar).  I guess they require reservations all the time here, even for breakfast!  Anyway, their drip coffee wasn't that good, and we had to find out how Marshall was going to be able to have his morning coffee.  

After going to 4-5 different places we decided he was going to have to make coffee in the French press

A "plunger"

in our hotel room instead of by drip/filter like he does at home.  We went to a coffee place and asked them to grind a bag for a French press.  The young barista, not quite understanding the term, said softly to his co-worker, "is that a coarse grind?"  We overheard.  "Yes, coarse!" exclaimed Marshall. His co-worker confirmed that it was coarse, "like for a plunger."  Having just seen that word in a department store near the coffee supplies we concluded we were talking about the same thing (see photo).  We got the ground coffee and Marshall says that while it's no Major Dickenson's drip, it's actually pretty good.

Marshall started work on January 14th (that's 14/1/13 here) and his co-workers gave us a very friendly welcome by bringing us out to dinner and taking us tramping (see NZ Vocab, it doesn't mean what you think).  

A view from our first tramp

 Christchurch City Center Red Zone

He also obtained a super star pass to enter the "Central Business District Red Zone" in the city center, or the CBD, as they stay instead of downtown.  That's where most of the 2010-11 earthquake damage happened and it's still pretty wrecked and also off-limits to laypeople like me, just open to VIP engineers like Marshall.
  

Our closet

Our stuff

I've spent most of the week looking for a place to call our own.  The rental market is super impacted due to all the de- and re-construction.  We're in fierce competition for a furnished two bedroom with many others who have had to move out while their houses get repaired.  I've found a few really nice ones but so far it hasn't worked out.  Wish us luck in housing search week two! As you can see, the stuff from our four suitcases and three backpacks don't quite fit in our hotel room closet.

Overall our ChCh experience has been grand, though.  Most unpredictable?  The weather.  Best meal so far?  Marshall says at Burgers And Beer.  Biggest surprise?  They all know how to pronounce my name here!  No one seems the slightest bit phased when I say 'breidi.'  The only questions I've gotten is why I spell it that way.  I might just have to give up my customer service name - the one I give at places like Starbucks to avoid repeating my name over and over - which is "Heidi."  I can actually use the real deal!  Now that's got to make a girl feel at home.  

This weekend I think we'll take a break from work and the housing search and check out the World Buskers Festival in Hagley Park, plus take an outing to the Banks Peninsula.  Hopefully we'll have bigger adventures to report in the next post.  Stay tuned!