Packing/Arrival

Disclaimer:   I generally dislike the idea of a blog; it seems a touch voyeuristic and up until now unnecessary.  However I have always wanted to keep a record of my Fulbright and now that I’m far enough away from home to make constant contact difficult.  The simplest solution, it seems, is to make that record pseudo-public.  Enough said.

Anyone who wandered by my house in the week or so before I left knew how much I was stressing on packing for this.   I didn’t want to be held back from adventures by the lack of gear, but I also really didn’t want to show up with a major shitload of stuff.   In the end I whittled it down into 3 checked bags (so 150 lbs, just a touch more than my body weight and counting a bike).  Not bad considering that I could be down here for up to 4 years (rationalizing...).   

The trip was about as uneventful as can be expected with a really neat moonset somewhere over the pacific.   The downside is that TSA deciding that my pack didn’t really need two shoulder straps, but I was able to stitch it back together.  When I arrived in Christchurch (CHCH) I was met by a previous Fulbrighter, Tim, who had graciously offered to let me stay at his house while I got settled.    Tim is a non-conventional businessman (meaning that we get along wonderfully), who used to own The Hotel Off the Square before it was red-zoned post earthquake. 

I’m very impressed with CHCH.  It is a very bikable community and if I didn’t have grand plans to head into the mountains every so often I think that you could easily handle it without a car.   Tim showed me around some of the more shook up neighborhoods, which made me think a great deal about home ownership and general placement of homes.

Speaking of homes most of my week was devoted to finding one and trying to enroll in the university, both of which tasks I failed at miserably, so the hunt will go on once I get back to CHCH.    The housing market is really hard with so many people displaced by the earthquake.   Quite frequently a landlord will get 8-10 responses on the first day he posts the property.  It could be tricky, but I’m sure I’ll find someplace to live in time.

I took a break from house searching Saturday night and Sunday to spend some time with the lovely Emily Johnson (Whitman grad for anyone reading who doesn’t know her)  She’s in NZ on an agricultural internship and is placed, luckily, in Kaiapoi about 20 km north of CHCH.   We met up with some of her family friends and went to a standup/bingo feature of the buskers festival.  It was preformed in the Palette Pavilion, which is a really cool open air venue constructed entirely by volunteer efforts and made of wooden pallets painted blue.  It's on the site of one of a torn down building.   It was built to promote more music and arts performances and is just one example of the quirky and cool ideas that are springing up in the recovery. 

Sunday we went up to castle hill, at which the photo speaks for itself, and ended the day walking up the cave stream.  

 The name explains that one--a cave with a stream inside it.   You can hike from one entrance to the other and the water is quite warm from the time it spent on the sun-baked plain.  The day had its mishaps (I lost my glasses in the rushing stream water, props to Emily for not saying ‘I told you so.’)  From there I headed off to Rotorua to join with a group of American exchange students finishing up their field camp.   (more to come as I write it, playing catch up)