FAQ’s of Our Recent News

If you haven’t yet heard, Erin and I are expecting a child due February 20, 2012.  We are very excited for the addition, but we have come to realize that many of our US friends and family have a lot of logistical questions on how the process will work in NZ, as well as the child’s citizenship status.  In order to help answer everyone’s questions (and decrease the number of times we have to answer the aforementioned questions), here are some answer to your frequently asked questions about our reproductive lives.

1.  Will the baby be a US citizen?

Yes.  Erin and I are both US citizens, so any children we have, regardless of place of birth, will be 100% US citizens.

2.  Will the baby be a NZ citizen?

No.  New Zealand does not offer citizenship to children born inside its borders to citizens of other countries.  Since neither Erin nor I are Kiwi citizens (nor permanent residents), the child will not be a NZ citizen.

3.  Is it a boy or a girl?

It is one or the other.  We do not know.

4.  Will you find out the sex before the birth?

Yes.

5.  Will you be telling people the sex prior to the birth?

Only if you are intending to buy us a gender-specific present.

6.  How will you possibly raise the child while living in a foreign country, with both of you having responsibilities to church and school?

Very carefully, and as best as we can.  How does anyone raise a child?  We will do the best we can with what we can do, and work together to figure it out.  Erin and I are both firm believers in not thinking of our child(ren) as porcelain doll(s) nor demigod(s).  The kid will join our family and will be a blessed addition to our lives, not the only focus of it.  I know that what we are going to do may sound impossible to some of you.  That is fine, but just trust us.  We will figure it out as we go along.  We have a great marriage, and we love our kid like crazy.  He or she will be fine.

7.  Are you excited?

Unbelievably.

8.  Are you thankful to God?

Extraordinarily.

There.  That should cover most of the questions that you might have.  We will let people know more about the pregnancy and child as we deem appropriate.  Thanks for all your encouragement and support.  We are entirely thrilled with the news!

The Invisible Labour: My Musings on PhD Study

I’ve been asked a few times by a few people about what it’s like to study at the University of Otago, so here are some of my thoughts on the matter…

First, let me say what an incredible privilege it is to be able to spend all of my time (or at least all of my “school time”) reading, writing, and thinking (I spend a lot of time just thinking) about the things that interest me the most.  When I was applying for PhD programs and considering schools with a UK model, the “openness” of the time seemed really intimidating to me.  I wondered if I’d be able to be productive without someone else imposing a structure on my time.  Fortunately, it turns out that I’m quite productive when I’m left to my own devices.  To those in North America who wonder what it would be like to earn a PhD where no coursework is involved, picture yourself spending eight or so hours a day reading, writing, and thinking — and that’s what it’s like.  No one is going to hold your hand to make sure you’re reading the right books, and no one is going to check up on you to make sure you didn’t spend your day playing X-box or watching movies.  However, the university doesn’t see a problem with kicking you out if you prove to be an unproductive candidate.  Thus, if you value your education (which you probably do if you’re earning a PhD), you use your time —time that they’re actually paying you to use — to study.

I suppose I could add that my time is actually quite structured, it’s just that I’ve structured it myself.  I spend my mornings doing translation and exegesis of my primary sources, and right now I split my afternoons between reading about metaphor theory and boning up on my extra-biblical sources.  I set goals for every day, every week, and every month.  I have a formal six-month review coming up and I have certain goals I have to meet for that.  The lack of structure doesn’t mean that there aren’t mechanisms in place to make sure you’re using the University’s time and money wisely, it just means that they aren’t going to define “wisely” in a very precise way.  Postgrads are expected to do what they need to do in order to be where they need to be.

To those who are wondering what Otago Theology is like, I can only say how blessed I am to be studying here.  The scholarly community here is wonderful.  Our faculty is wonderful and our postgrads are wonderful.  It’s a community that engages in rigorous scholarship, but it’s also a community that supports the individual scholars both inside and outside of their academic endeavors.  And I love, love, LOVE my supervisors.  If anyone reading this is considering applying for PhD study, my advice would be to find an advisor who will be a good match for your research interests, and then do everything you can to study with that person.  I cannot overstate how much my supervisors have already helped to sharpen my thinking and focus my argument.  Plus, they’re both really great people — and that helps, too.

Lastly, It’s great to have leisure time.  I know that leisure time doesn’t specifically relate to studying, but it’s nice to have a life outside of school.  When Peter and I were doing our master’s degrees, we didn’t have a lot of that.  Now I still have time, tons of time, after I finish my schoolwork to spend doing activities that have nothing to do with school.  And how do I spend that time?  Reading.  But non-school books, I promise!  I find that the more I find time to read books that are just great pieces of literature, the more I’m able to engage with the literary part of my thesis.  In the last three months I’ve read seven or so non-school books, and it is probably not surprising that reading great writers like Dickens (I’m currently reading Bleak House) helps me to understand metaphors and figurative uses language a little bit better.  So leisure time is important not only for my sanity (and my spouse’s sanity), but it also helps me see things I might not otherwise see when it’s time to work.  Next on my reading list: Sherlock Holmes.

So that’s what it’s like to study here.  I find that I spend a lot of time lost in my own thoughts and that my brain is tired by the end of the day.  In fact, I’ll leave you with an insightful quotation from Victor Hugo because I think it is a particularly apt characterization of how I spend my time.

“A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour. To meditate is to labour; to think is to act.” ~ Hugo

Suitcases & Standing Stones

Here is an article that I wrote for our church’s quarterly magazine.  For our readers in the US, I had to convert all of the measurements to the metric system.  Don’t get bogged down in the math.

Suitcases & Standing Stones

By: Peter Heim

            Sometimes the distance between here and there feels small.  Other times it feels unreachable.  If you asked me ten years ago, on my 21^st birthday, where I would be living in 2011 or what my life would look like at age 31, I can assure you I would have never described it the way that it is.  My assumptions about life at that time where simple: I would be married to Erin, have a “normal” job, a mortgage, and maybe a kid or two.  Erin and I would live in the same city as the rest of our families – the city of all of our births – and allow ourselves to slide into a life of familial normality.  This is the unstated expectation for young people growing up in what is known as the “Midwestern” region of my birth.  While I come from the United States of America, the vast, proud country that it is, I was born and grew up in an unassuming, regional culture with deep generational roots and a heritage all its own.  The priorities of my people in the state of Minnesota are, in order: family, friends, church, and summers.  A good Midwestern boy or girl learns early, and learns well, that these four elements of life are good, and all four are also considered holy.  One may dabble in the outside world for a time, but just to explore.  Holidays and educational opportunities are allowable, so long as one returns “home” when they are done.  A person can hope and dream all they want, so long as you are home for dinner and you join the rest of the family at the cabin (or crib) for the 4^th of July.

Fight as we might, imagine what happened when Erin and I felt the tug and the desire to leave Minnesota and move to Denver, Colorado for at least four years to attend seminary.  Denver, Colorado is in not just an entirely different state than the Family, but is in an entirely different region of the country.  Denver is not part of the small, homespun family-farm mentality of Minnesota.  Rather, Denver is cowboy country; it is the Wild West, a city with mountains, not lakes.  And, most importantly, it is a city that is 1,500km away, far too great a distance to drive home each Sunday for dinner.  However, when the day of our departure came, Erin and I tearfully, yet willingly, broke free of the gravitational pull of Home and moved our small portion of the family out West.

At first, the move was very difficult.  We lived in a new home in a new city with a new climate and new culture.  We knew absolutely no one, and had no money.  We needed to settle in as quickly as possible, and we wanted so badly to find friends to fill the void of loneliness. I went to Denver Seminary while Erin taught school for a year.  The first year we lived in Denver, Erin and I went home seven times in twelve months.  Our parents came out to visit at least twice each, meaning that we saw members of our family at least once out of every month that we lived there. But, as the years went on, our visits became more infrequent as our comfort level and identities away from home increased for the better.  In good time, we found what we needed. After that first year, Erin actually joined me at school, and we both found great joy studying together.  God led us to an amazing church with great friends.  He provided jobs for us and a place to live. We still had frequent contact with our families, but we did not need the same level of comfort and care as we did the first few years; just a few annual visits would do.  We had a great life in Denver.  We lived there for five years, just long enough to establish some roots.  We learned the city and the people well, and made incredible friendships that are, in many ways, as significant as family bonds.  Even though we could not have imagined when we arrived, Denver became our home.  When we would visit Minnesota, we would “go home” to see friends and family, but we would always “go home” to Denver when our time “at home” in Minnesota was finished.

The Bible teaches us that it is actually very common for people to be on the move, for people to leave one place and live in another, and that God always goes with them.  The book of Joshua, for instance, tells the story of the fulfillment of God’s promise to the people of Israel that they leave their lives of slavery in Egypt and receive the land that He had promised them, the land that they could call “home.” At the beginning of the book, all the Israelites have to do is cross the Jordan River to enter the Holy Land (Joshua 3-4).  The trouble is, the river was at flood stage and the crossing seemed far too dangerous and impossible.  Joshua tells the people to trust God, and the moment the Israelites set foot in the river to cross it, the water stopped flowing and the Israelites cross over on dry ground!  When they all made it safely across, God tells the Israelites to get twelve stones out of the dry river bed and set them up as a monument and a reminder to anyone who sees them that God dried up the river, allowing the Israelites to cross over safely.  God did this “so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” (Joshua 4:24)

So, today I find myself in another new land, another new place away from home.  Dunedin, New Zealand is about as far away geographically from Minnesota as one can possibly get.  It is so far away it is tomorrow here!  It is very easy to get discouraged with the change and the great distance that is separating me from the country I know and in which I belong.  But, that is not the way that Erin and I choose to live.  We choose to live by faith, and we choose to remember God’s faithfulness and His calling in our lives.  God has already provided for us here in Dunedin, and we know that He will continue to bless us during our time here.  Although we are living a life so completely unlike anything that we could have imagined as we were growing up, God has provided a clear path for us to follow, and we are stepping out on a journey of faith into whatever it is that God has planned for us.  My personal “standing stone” is my suitcase.  My suitcase represents to me and to the world the faithfulness of God, and the fact that God is leading me somewhere.  God caused me to be born to a wonderful family in my dearly beloved homeland, but He has also called me to leave it.  Looking back, the tearful, heart-wrenching decision to leave Minnesota for Colorado seemed at the time to be like stepping off the edge of the earth.  Now look where we are!  Erin and I have followed His call and we are so glad that we did.  He is the one to whom we look to give us direction and purpose; He is the one who leads us “home.”

Squirmy Little Wormies

Kiwis are an extremely frugal and ecologically conscious people.  Recycling is very highly expected here, as is the expectation that individual people will do what they can to decrease the amount of waste that our city produces.  To some, that may sound a little fluffy and “liberal,” but that’s not the point of the mindset.  The basis for the cultural emphasis on living simply stems from both our region’s Scottish heritage, as well as the communal spirit gained from the reality of living together on the finite physical space of an isolated island.  One of the most common ways that people express their desire to cut back on waste is through the symbiotic tasks of family gardening and meticulous composting of organic materials.  In our quest to be “tidy kiwis,” Erin and I have undertaken both of these endeavors.  Truth be told, our garden is very paltry compared to most.  Many people grow their own extensive vegetable patches and plant numerous fruit trees in their very hospitable and nurturing soil.  We are more limited in our own living arrangement.  We are renting a small flat from a wonderful woman, but the yard is very small, and the landlady already has a mature flower garden growing.  Since we do not have our own terrestrial plot of ground in which to grow what we might desire, we have settled for growing fresh herbs in two large flower pots beside our door.  About six weeks ago, we planted starter plants of parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (yes, cue the music), tarragon, and cilantro.  We heard that plants love it here in Dunedin, but we had no idea how much our little herbs would love it.  They have completely taken over the pot and are now fighting with each other for space and nutrients.  What we thought would just be an annual summer project has turned into quite the farming operation!  We have herbs literally growing out of places where they shouldn’t, with fresh sprigs growing each time we cut them to use for cooking.  We are looking into our options for creating room for future growth.

Relatedly, kiwis cook far more seasonally than Americans do.  Most of the same vegetables that one would find in the US are available here, but at far more inflated prices.  This makes cooking whatever-we-desire whenever-we-want-it to be quite expensive.  Thankfully, there is a very high quality farmer’s market here in Dunedin that sells impeccably grown seasonal produce at far less expensive prices than the supermarkets.  Erin and I get up early every Saturday and head straight to the farmer’s market for our weekly vegetable supply.  While it is truly a joy cooking with some of the best ingredients we have ever found, we accumulate quite a bit of vegetable trimmings that would usually go in the wastebasket in the US.  (We also lack a garbage disposal in our sink, making the tried and true method of “shoving it down the drain” impossible.)  So, awhile back we purchased an extra 50-Liter (13 gallon) can that we converted into a composting bin.  The bin sits in an unused corner of our yard, and is the receptacle of unwanted organic waste that is produced in our house.  We intended to use the compost our bin created to fill another pot for our herbs, but the food wasn’t breaking down fast enough.  After a little Google research, we found a solution to our problem.  WORMS!  (Eisenia fetida, or Tiger Worms, to be exact.)  It turns out that selling said worms is actually an industry in New Zealand, so, after finding a seller on Trade Me–the NZ equivalent of EBay–and placing the successful bid, we expected our new bundle(s?) of joy in the mail in just a few short days.

And today, all 2000 of the composting worms have arrived! They came into our lives as a gooey ball of worm flesh that seeped into the shipping box. I tried to name them all individually, but I realized that, since they are all hermaphrodites, I had a very small sample of names from which to choose. I ran out of ideas after naming a few: “Pat, Chris, Sam, Les, Lindsay, Ashleigh, Stacy, and Kim.” Plus, a few of them got cut in half in the process of tucking them into their new wormbed, and I got overwhelmed with the notion that I was creating new worms by severing existing ones, so I decided to give up on the desire of fostering individuality and will now refer to them as the collective, “Worms.”

I checked in on them just a few minutes ago, and Worms are doing what they do best.  They are squirming and eating and probably making worm babies.  I don’t really want to think about that part.  I hope they like their new compost bin and that they don’t miss their other friends and family at the worm farm too much.  Like any parent, I have high hopes for Worms, but I know that they are their own creature(s) and I will have to accept that they are doing the best that they can do with what they have been given.  If I were a stage father, I would be outside right now training Worms to perform a skill in the hopes of securing our financial future, but I decided long ago that I will never be that kind of worm father.  I would post pictures, but I also know that I am partial to my worms, but that you probably don’t think they are anything special.  You might even think our Worms are ugly.  That’s OK, I think yours are, too.

So, to Erin’s and my respective parents, we did it, and you are now grandparents in a way that you had never dreamed of.  We are sorry that the grandkid(s) are so far away, but you can visit them anytime you want.  For that matter, anyone who wants to see them can pay them a visit, as well.  Please, just don’t ever mention fishing.

The Silence after the Earthquake

Psalm 60:1-5

¹ You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us;
you have been angry—now restore us!
² You have shaken the land and torn it open;
mend its fractures, for it is quaking.
³ You have shown your people desperate times;
you have given us wine that makes us stagger.
⁴ But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
to be unfurled against the bow.

⁵ Save us and help us with your right hand,
that those you love may be delivered.

(New International Version, ©2010)

I like long walks on the beach…

If I’ve learned anything about Dunedin so far, it’s that the weather here is totally unpredictable.  It seems like people tend to say that wherever they live, but here it’s really true.  It’s been cool and rainy almost every day since we arrived two weeks ago (even when the morning starts with beautiful sunshine), and we’ve noticed that when it rains people pull out their rain gear and continue with life as normal.  Running, walking, biking, surfing (which seems really cold given that it’s about 55 degrees most days), cricket-playing — all of that continues whether or not the weather is cooperating.  We’ve started to embrace this mentality too, and now we bring our raincoats with us whenever we go out walking.

Which brings me to my new favorite pastime — walking along the beach.  The beach here is beautiful, and while it’s much too cold (and too shark infested) for swimming to be a temptation, walking along the beach has now become part of our daily routine.  Dunedin sits in a valley, and there are sharp banks along the beach down to the sea on St. Kilda beach, and most of the rest of the coast along where we live is lined with steep cliffs.  The ocean swells are equally dramatic, as there isn’t much to block the Pacific between here and….well, there isn’t much between here and anywhere else.  Actually, the beach is the one place in Dunedin that I feel the sense of isolation that people talk about who have lived here awhile.  The beach is desolate, and it gives you a sense of how small you are, how small this island is, and how far away it is from everywhere else.  Sometimes it feels like you’re walking along the edge of the world.

Since walking along the beach has become our new favorite thing to do, we decided that that’s what we would do to celebrate our first Valentine’s Day in this new place.  Peter and I have never been ones to get into Valentine’s Day celebrations.  Our celebration usually involves Peter cooking a fantastic meal (which he does frequently anyway) and us spending the evening at home avoiding all of the other people celebrating Valentine’s Day.  This year wasn’t much different.  Peter made homemade chicken noodle soup (which was delicious) and we ate it while watching episodes from The Office.  Then we decided to go explore another beach about 5 km south of our house.  It was such a fun way to spend our Valentine’s evening, and the view was breathtaking.  The beach is called “Tunnel Beach” and it’s only accessible at low tide.  Peter’s pictures describe it way better than I could, so I’ve posted a few of our favorites for you all.

Evidence of Kiwi Culture

For some reason, many of our new kiwi friends have referred to classic kiwi commercials when discussing anything cultural.  Erin and I were over at a friend’s house for a youth group meeting last night, and Barry (our friend) showed us a few hilarious kiwi “ads” or “adverts,” as they call them here.  They are extremely funny, so I thought I would share them with you all.

1.  “Togs or Undies?”

2. “Lift Plus [Energy Drink] Wooden Spoon Game”

 

Enjoy:)!

“Normal” Life

It has now been a week since we moved to Dunedin.  It feels like it has been far longer than that.  Our life the past few days has been such a whirlwind, we haven’t had much time to simply stop and reflect on all the changes that have occurred in the past seven days.  To help us do that, and to bring you all up to speed on our lives, here is a day-by-day synopsis of what we have been up to.

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

We arrived in Dunedin at 12:30pm and moved into our house.  We spent all of 2 hours unpacking our 10 suitcases (mostly clothes) and then quickly went shopping for anything we didn’t have.  We were able to stay up until around 8pm, and slept all through our first night, waking up the next morning feeling quite refreshed and ready to go.

Wednesday, 2 February 2011

Our first full day in Dunedin was spent by going to the bank to open our new bank account, calling all of the utility companies to set-up our new accounts, and calling the broadband internet company no fewer than three times to get our extremely vital-to-survival internet up to speed.  After we did this, we took our first walk along the beach.  You can read about that experience in a previous post.

Another notable thing that happened on 2 February is I (Peter ) got a call from Barry C., an elder at Mosgiel-North Taieri Presbyterian Church, telling me that I was unanimously accepted as M-NT’s new youth pastor!  That was wonderful news to hear!  I had spent that last two months interviewing for the position and corresponding with the pastor numerous times.  I was the church’s desired candidate, and I just had to be approved by the Session.  On Wednesday evening, it became official.  Erin and I were very excited and relieved to get the news so soon after moving.

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Today was car purchasing day.  Erin and I spent a good chunk of time in the morning look at various cars-for-sale websites and calling dealerships to see what they had in stock.  After striking out on most fronts and not seeing anything that would be in our budget, we decided to walk down the street to the dealerships and see what they had parked in their lots.  (We live about two blocks away from one of the main commercial areas in our city.  It gets a little busy sometimes, but it is very convenient to be so close.)  Although I am not supposed to admit this to my father or father-in-law, we bought the first car we saw in the very first dealership we went into.  We asked the salesman for a car that cost between NZD$2000-3000, and he suggested a car that had just come in on a trade for NZD$2000.  We looked at it and were very impressed with both its price as well as its upkeep.  After giving it a test drive, we decided to buy the first car we looked at.  I know that we should have looked at more, but this car was a good deal.  I have had enough junkers in the past to know what to look for in a budget car, and I think we made a good decision to purchase this one.

For those who are interested, we bought a 1997 Toyota Corona.  No, they don’t have that model in the US.  It is a Japanese and Asian-market model.  It is a four-door manual transmission car with around 195,000 K(ilometers) on it and no other creature features.  It runs well and has no visible fluid leaks.  Compared to any other car we saw online in the NZD$2,000-3,000 price range, I thought it was in great condition and a great price.  Our Australian friend, Geoff, told us a funny story behind the model name of the car.  I think you will get a kick out of it, too.  Apparently, the original name of the base model Corona was the Colt.  It was an early-90’s hatchback, so it only had 2 doors.  When it became a successful model for Toyota, they decided to make a four-door model.  And what animal name is a natural choice for a larger version of a Colt?  How about “Starion?”  How does that work for you?  You are probably just as confused at the name “Starion” as the Japanese car executives who intended the car to be called the “Stallion.”  Yes, I am making light of a stereotypical foible of Japanese-English pronunciation.  We call that slip-up as something being lost in translation:).  Anyways, the Starion model apparently was a success, so they renamed it the Corona.  I hope it is a reliable car for us.  All indications point to it being so.

Friday, 4 February 2011

Having purchased a car, Erin and I were in the unique dilemma of having two cars (a rental car and a purchased car) with only one driver comfortable with driving on the left (not wrong!) side of the road and the rental needing to be returned later that afternoon.  Additionally, our main objective for the day was to get Erin officially enrolled at the University of Otago and meet her professor.  We decided that the best solution to the problem was to just drop the car off at the rental place and walk from there.  So we did.  The university is about three miles (5K) from our house one way, but it was a good opportunity to see the city and get some exercise.  We found the International Student office on campus and began filling out the nightmarish amount of paperwork for a person to be enrolled in a university.  Three offices and one advisor meeting later, she was all set.  We turned in the last of the papers, and Erin was officially a student at “Uni (as the kiwis call it)!”  We went out to lunch to celebrate, just to walk into a pub filled with American cruise ship passengers in town for the day.  It had only been a few days since we heard American accents, but their typically rude and boorish manners caused us both to wish they had never inflicted themselves on the rest of the world.  Why can’t Texans just stay in Texas?  Y’all are an enigma to the rest of the world.

Later that night, we went out for coffee and desserts with Barry and his wife Trudie (elders from the church), as well as Helen, the church pastor.  We had a delightful evening talking with them and getting to know the church better, but also making new friends with members of our new church family.  It was a very nice evening, all around.

Saturday 5 February 2011

Our main task for Saturday was to have dinner with our new friend Lynne, her husband Dave, and another ministry couple in Dunedin, James and Jenn.  Lynne is one of the professors at Uni, and she will play a small role in Erin’s work.  But, more significantly, she and her husband are Americans and have been so hospitable to us both before we moved, and now after we arrived.  James (a Brit) and Jenn (an American) have been in Dunedin about a month now, and are working as the TSCF (kiwi version of Intervarsity) campus leaders.  We were introduced to them by Lynne because we are all about the same age, and we all need friends.  They are very nice people, and we hope to get to know them much better in the next few weeks.

Sunday 6 February 2011

Super Bowl Sunday!!!!!?????  Nope.  We are a day ahead.  Instead, we visited our new church and were introduced as the new youth pastor and wife.  This is my first real ministry position, so I have never been on the receiving end of the greetings, questions, and microscope of being the new pastor.  The church is a smaller, slightly more rural church, but they have a great vision and passion for reaching their city.  (Mosgiel is the next town over from Dunedin.  It is still considered part of the city limits, but it is in its own valley, separated from Dunedin by a set of hills/small mountains.  It is about a 15 minute drive to the church from where we live.)  The people of the church are so excited to have a youth pastor, and I am so excited to be joining their church.  I start my formal office hours tomorrow (Wednesday) and start leading the ministry next Sunday.

After church, we were invited to lunch by an older couple in the church, John and Fiona Sutton.  They are in their late-70’s, but are some of the most fun people we have ever met.  It was so comforting to hear their stories and simply be in the presence of older people.  They told us that they can be our adopted kiwi grandparents.  I am sure we will take them up on their offer.

After church and lunch, Erin and I took another walk along the beach.  We walked all the way to one end and back (maybe three miles?).  On the way back it started to POUR DOWN RAIN!  Thankfully, we brought our rain coats so we just plodded along and got wet.  What is one to do in that situation?  It was very warm that day, so the cool rain felt good.

Monday 7 February 2011

Super Bowl Monday!  Yes, there is a following here in NZ of American football fans.  We found a pub that was playing the game and offering American-inspired football food.  The funny thing is that the game started at noon on a Monday.  That’s OK, both the international broadcast of the game and the hot dog and ribs that we ordered were slightly odd, but it was still great to see the last game of the season.  We decided that in the spirit of neighborliness we would be Packers fans for just one day.  It was fun to see the team we were cheering for actually win for a change.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

So, in celebration of our first full week coming to a close, we are beginning “normal life” today.  Erin left about two hours ago to walk to Uni for meetings.  She will get to know the library and do some studying and be home around 5pm.  I have one more day off, and I go into the office tomorrow morning.  I will spend today running a few errands and maybe doing something exotic like cleaning the bathroom.

In many ways, the truly adventurous aspects of moving internationally have begun to wear off.  We have moved to a new place, secured work, and begun the duties which brought us here in the first place.  We know, however, that life will not ever be “normal” while are here; we live in a foreign country, after all.  But we don’t want our lives here to be a constant rush of adrenaline and excitement.  We moved here to live here, and sometimes living is not fascinating nor exciting.  Our goal is to take advantage of every opportunity that we can, while still getting to know the pace of kiwi life.  We are here for at least three years, whatever that means, and today is the first official day of “normal.”

If you would like to, please come visit us.  Maybe together we can have some adventures.  But we will also show you that kiwis live life a little differently than Americans do, but all in all they live a life of work, family, church, friends…you know, normal.

Ethnicity

We have arrived!  We landed at 12:25pm on Tuesday, February 1 (NZ time, of course).  In case you’re keeping score, that’s right on time!  Our flights went well.  There were no significant travel delays or hassles.  The only thing that really impacted us was a larger than predicted excess baggage bill when we checked-in for our Air New Zealand flights.  We had hoped that the ticket counter staff would turn a blind eye toward our extremely heavy carry-ons-filled-with-books, and budgeted $600 for our extra bags.  But nope, the woman at the counter spotted them straight away, and we ponied up the much dreaded $900 for baggage.  (Our tickets only cost $750.00 per person.)  The ticketing agent offered for us to move some stuff around to try to lower the weight of the smaller suitcases, but we knew from packing them earlier in the week that that would be a lost cause.  Instead, we told her, “We are not simply visiting New Zealand; we are moving there for three years.  Just do what you have to do to get them on the plane.”  She complied, and we were off.

All in all, our first 48 hours in Dunedin have been very fun.  We met our new friends Lynne Baab and Gillian Trebilco (Erin’s secondary advisor and her primary advisor’s wife, respectively) at the airport.  They have to be the two most kind, hospitable women on the planet.  (And since we have virtually traversed the entire planet, we have sufficient authority to make that claim!)  Lynne and Gill drove us home, gave us the keys, and helped us move our bags inside.  They even bought us a few groceries so that we could be able to simply crash when we arrived.  Oh, and let’s not forget the two invitations to come to their houses this Saturday and Sunday.  We are very blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives.  I have no doubt there will be many more saints whom we will meet soon.

After going to bed at 8pm and sleeping all through the night (hooray!) we spent yesterday setting up our bank account, getting library cards (a non-negotiable) and shopping for the remaining furnishings and groceries that we needed to settle in.

One of the most obvious differences between any two countries or cultures is the food.  Just think of all of the travel shows on cable TV that are dedicated to the idiosyncrasies of what people eat and how it is prepared.  Erin and I have experienced this numerous in many different countries, and yesterday’s trip to the grocery store proved no exception.  The funny thing about this trip to the grocery store was not the variety of different looking fruits and vegetables, or the fact that Kiwis apparently mix all of their ground beef with ground lamb (weird, huh?).  No, the most memorable difference at this grocery store was the fact that Spam was shelved in the ethnic food aisle.  No, Erin and I did not buy Spam.  Being native Minnesotans, we have, of course, eaten it in the past, and in doing so we know that Spam is about as humble and midwestern a food as could have possibly been created.  But here in NZ we find it in the ethnic section.  Erin and I chuckled a bit as we saw our home state’s pride and joy shelved next to chili beans, spaghetti noodles, and asian-inspired ingredients.  Yes, we are foreigners in a new country, but we still share the same European heritage and proclivities of our host country folk.  We are not part of a separate ethnic group, are we?

After our shopping spree, we came home to cook a pot of our favorite chili (which actually tasted pretty much like home) and later in the evening decided to take a walk to the beach.  Let me say that the beach here is one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen on God’s green Earth.  We walked the approximate mile from our apartment and arrived at the beach right at sunset.  This is not a swimming beach, nor is it really a beach for sunbathing.  If you look at a map, you will see that the closest landmass in the direction the waves were coming from is Antarctica, so you know the large swells have travelled a loooong way, and they are verrrrry cold.  But the sand is flat and smooth.  There are hardly any shells or rocks, and Erin and I took one of the most enjoyable walks we have ever taken along St. Kilda Beach.  After walking down to a row of pillars (probably the support structure of a now-extinct boardwalk or pier) and back, the distance of maybe another mile, the sun had set and it was time to go home.  As the light of the day came to a close, we walked up and over the sand dunes and back to the street that would lead us home.  As we were walking over the dunes, I had a moment of pure poetic justice that formed a nice bookend on the day.  Since I was wearing only flip-flops, I got tripped up in the deeper sand of the dunes and almost fell down.  In an instant, I said the words, “Uff-da.”  I guess if Spam is ethnic food from Minnesota then Erin and I are part of an ethnic minority here, as well.

Bye!

We’re leaving now.  We’ll let everyone know when (hopefully not if) we get to Dunedin, New Zealand.  Don’t get too anxious, though.  It will take us 28 hours to get there.