big south trip: day 1

Day 1: Christchurch to Dunedin

How wonderful it feels to be travelling again! This experience is notably different from our nomadic lifestyle from Aug-Jan for a few reasons:
1) I'm travelling not with my boy, but with our German friend, Ann-Kristin, who's been in Chch and at City Church just about as long as we have. She's also here on a work-holiday visa, and this is a bit of a last hurrah for her before she returns to Berlin in September. We packed the car with lots of chocolate and enjoyed hours of boy talk, which was not standard when Bryan was my travelling buddy :)
2) We have a home to return to! It's a completely different mindset when you know that you have a place of your own and a community of friends at the end of your journey. This evening, when we were asked at the hostel where we were from, both of us immediately answered "Christchurch", though undoubtedly the person asking expected to hear "Germany" and "America".
3) We're travelling by car, not on foot or by bus, as with all but 5 days of our earlier wandering. Having a car (it's Ann's, and has no heating - this will figure centrally in later updates) means that we can take detours and stop in every small town and stay in hostels that aren't within walking distance of a bus stop. It's glorious.

We took our time heading south, as a friend of ours (who's not known to be a particularly early riser), Phil, happened to be travelling the same route, and we'd hoped to meet up with him for lunch if he could catch up with us. We stopped to buy cheap 1 kg bags of broken cookies from the CookieTime factory, paused again in Timaru to record in daylight our late-night trip of last week, and crossed the railroad tracks to sit high on the rocks overlooking the ocean in Oamaru before discovering that Phil had not received some of our texts and had already passed us by. In the end we just met up for dinner in Dunedin at a crappy (but within budget) Chinese restaurant, one of many Asian eateries squeezed in shoulder-to-shoulder in this university city.

One of the highlights of the day was our short walk along the beach and barefoot across a frigid stream (remember, it's the heart of winter here) to reach the photogenic Moeraki boulders, as round as bowling balls and clustered oddly along this 50m stretch of coast.

Our hostel, Hogwartz, is one of the nicer hostels we've stayed in to date, through (as with most everything in Dunedin) it's perched atop a steep hill, where our car is squeezed along the side of a skinny one-way street with the handbrake fully engaged.

-Rachel

Pictures:
1) the seashore at Caroline Bay, in Timaru
2) a building made of local Oamaru white stone
3) Moeraki boulders

visa/permit update

Here's a brief update on the visa for those of you who have been wondering:

While I was gone this week, Bryan received a letter from Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and has been in contact with them over the phone sorting out further documentation that we need to submit. The letter states that it appears that Bryan is ineligible for a work permit (and, as I'm applying solely as his partner, I would therefore be ineligible as well) because the denomination that City Church belongs to is not listed as an approved religious movement. This is because the denomination recently changed their name from Apostolic Churches to Acts Churches, so while Apostolic Churches is on the list, Acts Churches isn't yet. Should be a minor issue, but I'm kicking myself for not recognizing and addressing this potential hangup earlier. Sounds like it's easily sorted out with a formal letter.

We also have yet to credibly prove to the government that we are in a genuine and stable relationship, which is not essential to Bryan's permit but is essential to mine. I'm picking up a package from FedEx today that I believe to be our certificate of marriage, which will help our case, but we also need to submit photos and dated letters in both of our names.

Overall, though we have yet to receive our police checks, we feel very hopeful about our prospects, as the communication we've received from INZ does not suggest any insurmountable reasons why we'd be declined for a visa. It would be nice to be able to apply for jobs and buy a car and decorate our home with the knowledge that we'll be around for a while...otherwise, it's T-minus 21 days until we have to leave New Zealand.

-Rachel

Another wonderful trip

I've only got a minute before we begin our staff planning day at church, which is just enough time to say that I returned safely from an incredible 6-day trip down south with my friend Ann-Kristin. The weather was unbelievable (especially for winter!), the driving was beautiful as usual, and we were blessed by some warm hostels and comfortable beds. Can't wait to tell you all about it - I'll post a day-by-day account in separate installations while I upload pictures and sift through my journal. This picture is from Nugget Point, in the Catlins, halfway between Dunedin and Invercargill.

-Rachel

Our Big Maccas Adventure

4:30 am this morning found us, to our own surprise, just returning to Christchurch from the town of Timaru, 2 hours to the south. It was a spontaneous road trip to the Timaru McDonalds ("Maccas") with 3 other members of our Disney sing-a-long club (we watch a Disney movie after our young adults small group every Tuesday), the kind of thing we didn't think we'd do again after college but are plenty happy to be proven wrong about. We might have to grow up a little when we have kids, but as that's still years away...

Timaru is quite a nice little town of about 30,000, snuggled cozily up against the ocean roughly halfway between the cities of Christchurch and Dunedin, and was much cuter even in our nighttime escapade than we had remembered it from the time we passed through on the bus in December. What you don't realize from the bus is that the main road, following along the top of a cliff, bypasses what's arguably the city's most beautiful spot, Caroline Bay, which stretches from the base of the cliff down to the sea and is bordered on the south side by the Port of Timaru. We took a long stroll through the bayside park in the early morning darkness, wandering through the rose garden and searching for the outdoor roller rink which, unfortunately, remained inaccessible behind a large fence.

The timing for this little late-night trip is pretty amusing, as I haven't really been out of the city in the last six months but on Saturday will be embarking on a 5-day road trip that will take me back through Timaru on my way down to Dunedin and Invercargill with Ann-Kristin, who's preparing to return to her native Berlin in September. Bryan's got to work, so it will be just the two of us on a girls-only road trip. It's been suggested that we also make it a German-only week so that I can improve my decaying language abilities, but my vocabulary is so limited that I'm sure she'd get sick of "there is a cow" and "that house is red" long before we reach our first pit stop.

If I can only get my camera to recognize my memory card, I'll have pictures up for you around this time next week...

-Rachel

An alarming discovery

Despite our ideas of it being the perfect little city, Christchurch is not immune to crime, as illustrated by a recent shooting of two policemen and a police dog during an attempted drug bust. The dog's dead, the policemen are recovering from their injuries, but the gunman doesn't have a scratch on him...because New Zealand police don't carry guns. What kind of country issues their law enforcement agents pepper spray and tasers instead of a real weapon? It seems both beautifully innocent and frighteningly naive...

-Rachel

And now we wait.

Our visa applications have officially been submitted, thanks to the tireless efforts of my husband despite a busy week of work and internship and my inability to be of assistance until I returned home around 5 pm, when most government offices were already closed. We've discovered that notary publics are not a very common thing in Christchurch, so while one bit of paperwork could be signed off on by a judge at the courthouse at no cost, another bit required Bryan to run around to law offices in search of a notary public who was immediately available, at a cost of $85. And that's on top of the fee that we already paid to process the actual form, a certified copy of our certificate of marriage, which will delay the processing of our visa applications until its arrival about 2 weeks from now. The costs aren't actually an issue, as we planned for this to be fairly pricey, but it's frustrating to feel such a constant lack of control over this process. We're also still waiting on our background checks, and are not sure what will happen if they don't arrive in time.

But the bottom line is that we have placed the bulk of our forms in INZ's hands, which relieves the stress that's been looming over us this last month, so we'll take the rest as it comes. This is still part of the adventure :)

-Rachel

Job and visa updates

Day three of my job with Outaskool is now complete, and I'm so happy to be working with this program and with these kids. Each morning I take the most incredibly scenic 40-minute bus ride through farmland with the morning sun glowing on the snowy Southern Alps just in view, arriving shortly before 9 am at Rangiora's Southbrook School, where all 40 kids are usually already playing basketball and board games with the staff who arrive as early as 7:30.
On Monday I took an early bus with the idea of wandering around Rangiora for a while before work, not realizing just how far the school is from the town center, and had to sheepishly ask the bus driver if he would allow me to ride back part of the return trip so that I wouldn't be late. Fortunately, I discovered the original Rangiora Bakery (I'm a frequent customer at the Christchurch outpost) during the few minutes that I was in town and was able to purchase one of their delicious and outrageously cheap baked goods to hold me over until morning tea.
On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays we have excursions with the other 3 or 4 Outaskool programs in the Christchurch area, which so far has involved a Market Day (kids bring old toys to exchange) at the St Paul school and a trip to the Air Force Museum, and tomorrow will entail the other programs joining us up in Rangiora for Outaskool's Next Top Model and Outaskool's Got Talent competitions. I expected these field trip days to be my favorites, but I've discovered that taking 40 kids anywhere is an extremely exhausting ordeal and our facilities are so nice that I'd almost rather stay there all week.

Update on the visas: applications still not in yet, as we have to finalize the paperwork with the church, who are sponsoring our stay. I'm at the church now (at 8 pm) to draft the documents so that they can be edited and hopefully signed off on tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to the city by 5 pm tomorrow so that we can get a couple of papers regarding our marital status notarized before the courthouse closes.
I had a quivering stomach for most the morning and afternoon today, because when Bryan went to the medical center to pick up our exam paperwork yesterday, they would only release his and needed to speak with me about some of my test results before releasing mine. They'd warned us in advance that this might happen and that it would generally signal a very minor issue, but I still worried that there would be something to give NZ Immigration cause to reject us. It turned out to be, of course, no big deal - slightly high results in my cholesterol readings that shouldn't affect our applications. Whew.

-Rachel

moving in

Our church has got to be the most generous community that either of us have ever been connected with. During morning church service, Raewyn and Ian, a couple who have been a part of the church for years, exhorted the community to help us furnish our new home, as we had planned to move into our new place with virtually no furniture, linens, kitchenware, or other basic household needs, and by the end of the afternoon we had practically furnished the entire house with the generous donations from about a dozen families and individuals. Here's a little look at our kitchen (can you believe that red countertop?) and living room:

For some reason, we thought it would be fun to invite friends over on the evening that we moved, and discovered that our living room can fit 20 people if necessary. Here are just a few of the lovely people who stopped in after the evening church service. Left to right, starting at the top: Karl and his son Mason (whom I was watching when he had his first accident two weeks ago - a decent amount of blood, but no stitches required), Sarah (sitting on the lap of her British fiance, Simon), Francinne (Karl's wife), me (apparently in 80s-style leggings and wool socks), Sarah and Chris (mentioned in a previous blog), then Anna (Phil's roommate), Phil (one of our best friends here),  Hannah (our soon-to-be Family Ministries intern!), Paulina (one of the awesome youth girls), Josh (an avid tramper), Dave (expert on all things American culture), and Shelom (bass player and the youth pastor's daughter).

They were treated to the ugliest cupcakes ever, which were supposed to be red, white, and blue, but I accidentally bought chocolate icing instead. Oops. Also, I learned that I have zero cupcake decorating skills. Should have left that to the experts. Look at the one on the bottom left that looks like it has a blue slug draped across it. Disgusting.

The bedrooms still have much to be desired, so I'll post pictures once they're in viewable condition.

-Rachel

our superfun trip to the doctor!

It seems like every time we work on our immigration paperwork, we find more things that we have to do. I filled out forms for about an hour last night, making barely a dent in the pile, and discovered towards the end that we'll have to prove that we're in a genuine and stable relationship by providing a certificate of marriage, bank statements, and a notarized statement about our relationship. We keep pushing back our timeline for submitting the applications, but soon we'll run out of time should they be declined. Our new goal is to have at least most of the application in this coming Tuesday, as that leaves us 2 weeks after the month that it takes to process the forms to pack up and buy plane tickets if necessary.

This afternoon we signed away the greater part of a thousand dollars to take care of our medical paperwork, which included a medical exam, urine samples, blood samples, and a chest x-ray (to prove we don't have tuberculosis). We had to fast for 12 hours for the bloodwork to be accurate, but couldn't get an appointment in the morning because of work, and so spent a very long day lusting after everything edible that crossed our path until we left the doctors' office at 4 pm. What a good exercise in self-discipline. The medical evaluation process wasn't actually all that bad - the staff was friendly and incredibly efficient and I barely had time to pick up a magazine in the sunny lobby before being called back to the x-ray room. No matter what happens with our visas, at least at the end we'll have a pretty accurate picture of our current state of health. They're incredibly thorough, as is understandable when approving us for a visa also means approving us for government-funded healthcare.

Today was my last day of work for my landlord, which is more than a little exciting, although for the next two weeks I'll have to get acquainted with the early(ish) morning again as I'll be caching the 8 am bus up to Rangiora for my job with Outaskool. I secretly love commuting on the bus, as it means plenty of reading time, and I'm currently flying (pun totally intended) through C.S. Lewis'  Space Trilogy series. Wish me luck!

-Rachel