The Kiwi Way

Jet lag is finally starting to wear off, my wake up times have improved each day: 1:30 am; 2:30 am; 4 am; 5:30 am. With her work in the ER, Dana is used to sleeping at all sorts of weird hours of the day so she hasn’t had any problems with sleep adjustment, just problems with me waking her up. We’ve mostly spent the past couple of days trying to get ourselves set up with the essential things like cell phones, housing, and a car. The Kiwi’s do a few things differently than we’re accustomed to. Here’s a little snapshot of the things we’ve found to be interesting:

-          Internet access is normally capped at some set amount of data usage or time whether you are at your hotel, a coffee shop, or sign up for a monthly plan to your house. Exceeding whatever benchmark is set, you normally would have to pay additional to continue. For example, in our hotel you receive an internet code daily, and that provides wifi internet access of 200 MB or 24 hours (whichever comes first). The coffee shops are normally pay by use at $3 per 60 MB, and the monthly plan at your house you could choose from plans from 10 to 45 GB at escalating costs. 200 MB isn’t all that much in the way of browsing time, so we’ve had to prioritize our internet usage at the hotel (which unfortunately for now means no picture uploads to blog!)

-          Car shopping is fun. There are no slimy used car salesmen. With a few questions, the car salesmen will just blurt out all the risks with buying their used car, even how much they plan to make on the car you are buying! Auctions are a popular way to purchase a vehicle, and from our research, this appears to be the best deal. We’re going to a car fair this morning (people bring cars to one location and buyers show up to review and buy), so we’ll give that a try as well. Since there are no car manufacturing plants in New Zealand, most of the used cars are shipped in from Japan.

-          Kiwis are crazy about sports. It seems like about half of their news shows are dedicated to sporting feats around the world. Their national teams all have nicknames that revolve around the color they wear: womens handball- The Silver Ferns; soccer- The All Whites; basketball- The Tall Blacks; softball- The Black Sox, and of course the world famous rugby team: The All Blacks. If for some reason you have a severe dislike for rugby, don’t visit New Zealand. From the moment we stepped off the plane, we’ve been seeing or hearing about the All Blacks and their chances in the Tri Nations Challenge and the upcoming Rugby World Cup. There is some sort of rugby on TV at all time (note, I just turned on the TV to check at 6:30 am….and yes there is some rugby to watch.) We watched our first All Blacks match last night. It was part of the Tri Nation and against the South Africe Springbots. Next Saturday there is a Tri Nations match against the Australia Wallabies in Auckland…..Go All Blacks!

-          The housing search got off to a comical start. Many of the apartment rentals are listed online, and the first place we visited was advertised to be in Albany, a fairly large suburb with a Westfields mall and nice housing. Should have known something was wrong when the GPS couldn’t recognize the reported address in Albany. On the way there it became more and more obvious that we had moved far away from Auckland’s civilization and into farming country. Pulling into the driveway, we saw a chicken and some sheep. A turkey walked right infront of the car and started to crow at the front grill. The apartment was essentially the garage, right next to the owners farm house. Questioning why the address didn’t pop up in the GPS the owner responded that it ‘sometimes’ is known as Dairy Flats. Dairy Flats??? All was not lost as the owners commented that we should check out Brown’s Bay on the way back to our hotel. It was beautiful, reminded me of Southern California with a beach and steep hills that provide a stunning view of a dormant volcano in the distance.

Pot of Gold

We left Atlanta at 4:30 pm on Monday and landed without any major delays or inconveniences in Auckland at 8:30 am Wednesday. Doing some quick math on the time change, that means it was 24 hours en route. Wow, that sounds like an awfully long time…. Luckily, it didn’t seem that long. We were happy to have video/tv on demand on the planes and good books to read. That made the time move much quicker. Movies: Lincoln Lawyer (Dana recommends), Hall Pass (Horrible, what happened Owen Wilson & Farley Brothers?), Adjustment Bureau (Solid Performance), Just Go With It (Dana suggests predictable but cute). Books: The Big Short by Michael Lewis and Friday Night Lights.

 As the plane descended we got our first glimpse of New Zealand and it was spectacular: on the eastern shore line there were green covered mountains that quickly disappeared into the ocean, reminding me of the Na Pali coast on Kauai. However before we go off to explore the natural wonders of New Zealand, we’re going to need to be able to navigate through Auckland to get settled. First challenge: driving. New Zealanders drive on the left side of the road and the driver sits on the right side of the car. Jumping into our rental car felt completely foreign. I currently drive like your 80 year old grandmother. I fear for my life in roundabouts. Too bad for me Auckland is filled with roundabouts, more so than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

So far Dana and I have concluded that Auckland feels like a mix of Seattle (some rain), San Francisco (rolling hills and with dense housing) and Hawaii (very green and tons of beaches). Not a bad combination. It’s also proving to be a hotspot for rainbows, we saw one when we got off the plane and another as we walked into our hotel…..I’m going to take that as a good sign.

Departure Day

After driving 2,000 miles over the past week and a half, we are swapping the car for a plane this afternoon. Our flight is out of Atlanta, stops in LA and then straight over the Pacific to Auckland. Google maps won't give me a distance from Atlanta to Auckland....maybe they don't get that request often. However looking at the map, it looks to be around 6,000 - 7,000 miles away as the crow would theoretically fly. And since LA isn't exactly on that straight line, we're probably going to reach the coveted 10,000 miles traveled in a week barrier. Maybe we'll get some sort of medal after we touch down in Auckland.

So to finish Huckle's trip, from Niagara Falls we stopped in the Thousand Islands area, then moved on to the Adirondacks. Lake Placid was beautiful and we took advantage climbing one of the 46 peaks of the Adirondacks (Cascade Mountain), canoeing on Lake Placid,  and swimming in Cascade Lake. With his three sports (hiking, canoeing and swimming), Huckle completed the Lake Placid dog triathlon challenge. With Ironman Lake Placid taking place on July 24th, Huckle was just setting the pace for big race coming up.

That completed our stay in Upstate New York, and the three of us jumped in the car and drove to Southern New Jersey for Kara and Richie's wedding (Kara is Dana's cousin). On our way through the Hudson valley, we made a few select stops to check off some items in Dana's '1000 Places to See Before You Die' book. Highlights included Franklin Roosevelt's presidential library, childhood home and grave site, Lake George and Rutts Hut for lunch.

Reception for the wedding was at the Rockbridge Carriage House in Wilmington Delaware. Beautiful ceremony, fun reception in a spectacular setting, great food; overall a first class wedding. Something new I hadn't seen before was a candy table for the guests to pick out their preferred candy as the wedding favor. This brought me back to childhood You could choose from rock candy, M&M's, gummy bears, almond joy pieces, mints, mini jaw breakers, etc. all in the blue and purple colors of the wedding.  Kara and Richie are off to Vermont for their Honeymoon. Congrats you two!

Visited with family for another day saying our goodbyes and onto Atlanta yesterday to drop off Huckle and the car with Dana's parents before jumping on the plane.

We are bringing six suitcases and two backpacks. This morning our task is pare down our stuff to ensure it all fits into that limited space. We're able to bring some of these worldly possessions with us, however a big piece of my heart is going to stay here. Huckle isn't making the trip with us due to the strict quarantine requirements of New Zealand. His new home is with Mom and Dad Morris in Atlanta, and I wouldn't want to have him stay anywhere else (no doubt he's going to get plenty of love and attention). However I've been dreading saying goodbye to him for a while now. There may be a trail of tears from Dana and I on the way to the airport. He's been the most loving and loyal dog I could imagine from the moment we picked him up from a rescue center three years ago. 

So long USA.....next post is from New Zealand!

Goodbye Maryland, Hello Upstate New York

This first post is from a tent in Niagara Falls, Canada. Over the past couple of months Dana and I have conspired to uproot everything we have of comfort and stability. We sold our house. Everything we own is located either in our 10x15 storage unit or packed into Dana's Hyundai Sonata. Huckle (our dog) is crammed into the backseat of the car with barely enough room to get comfortable. And the three of us are loving it.


As all you you already know, we're moving to Auckland, New Zealand in about a week. We are starting this blog to chronicle our travels 'Down Under' and hopefully inspire one or two of you to visit us while we're there. But it felt relevant to start the blog before we jumped across the big pond because we've been doing some pre traveling beforehand. We moved out of the house (goodbye 3025 Cascade) Thursday July 14th, have a family wedding on July 22nd, and our flight to New Zealand departs on July 25th. We're leaving Huck with Dana's parents in Atlanta, so to give him a big goodbye we've taken him on vacation. He said he wanted to go to upstate New York. Anyone know what the boundaries of 'Upstate' are? I was under the impression that anything not in New York City or it's surrounding suburbs was 'Upstate'. If that's incorrect, please correct me.


So here's where we've been so far with each stop highlighted by a description and/or fact that we learned, and since this is Huckle's trip, a good Huckle story:


Gettysburg in Pennsylvania - They have a beautiful new LEED Gold visitor's center (sorry, I've left the real estate world for now, but I still need to mention that). We got an audio tour and drove the battlefields that are among the rolling hills. For Huck, this was his Marley moment...we stopped to catch up on the audio CD and put down his backseat window all the way to indulge his intense desire to stick his head out the window. Ten seconds later and the backseat was dogless. A squirrel caught his attention and he was gone. After the squirrel quickly disappeared, he knew he was in trouble and walked back to the car with his tail between his legs.

Rickets Glen State Park in Pennsylvania - If you like waterfalls, visit Rickets Glen. We saw 21 waterfalls on a 4 mile hike. Of course we probably should have thought this one out better. Waterfalls mean steep inclines and wet trails. Huck wanted to lead the way and pull us along, making the hike a little dangerous. Luckily we all made it out with the only injury being rope burn on my hand trying to hold him back from flying down the path. There was a huge smile on Huckle's face at the end and he quickly feel asleep in the car. On to the Corning Glass Museum of Glass and....

Finger Lakes - Keuka Lake, New York - Beautiful lake surrounded by steep inclines, providing spectacular views. We visited a handful of wineries (this region is known for their white wines, especially Rieslings). Huck enjoyed a jump into the lake where he could see kids playing, but he didn't make it in, we were getting hungry....

Buffalo Food - Buffalo, New York - Well the city itself wasn't exactly pleasing on the eyes. However we didn't make this stop to see glamorous sights, we came to eat. We had targets previously picked out: Anchor Bar (where Buffalo Wings were invented) and Charlie the Butcher (Mom & Dad raved about their roast beef sandwiches) We got 10 medium wings from Anchor bar to go and got 'Beef on a Weck' sandwiches at Charlie's. The wings were fantastic, just the right amount of heat and these were meaty wings. The roast beef sandwich was placed on a unique bun called a kummelweck roll, the top coated with caraway seeds and coarse salt. The highlight for me was to watch the butcher cut the massive slab of beef into thin pink slices (sorry for the image vegetarians). This ordeal had its ups and downs for Huck. We gave him a little taste of buffalo sauce to begin with.....well it might have been a little too hot for his liking. He spent a couple minutes smacking his lips trying to get rid of the heat. The roast beef sandwich went better for him. The hungry beast has the eye of the tiger in this picture. Clearly, this was a sports center top 10 highlight for Huck.

Niagara Falls - Canada Side - My best description of the area: A mix between Reno, NV and Las Vegas with two pretty big waterfalls close by. A little touristy for my liking. The falls are no doubt impressive, but perhaps Niagara's reputation is built up a little too much. Apparently Niagara Falls is/was a popular honeymoon destination.

Niagara on the Lake - Canada Side - Just 15-20 miles away from the hectic falls, this town was quiet, beautiful and relaxing. There was another wine trail to follow and we followed it to a few different wineries. Ice wine was the specialty of the area and Inniskillen was our favorite.

And so that brings us up to date on Huckle's trip. We're on to Lake Placid next, then wedding, then New Zealand. We feel like we're a little bit in limbo, can look to the past with slight disbelief that we're done with work/residency, and look forward to the unknown life that awaits us in New Zealand. Thanks for reading the blog, and sorry for the long winded first post!