Med med med med

Hi guys!
This is going to be a short one today. This was a really busy week! Lot's happened, we finally got our car, we had our first snow of the season that actually shut the city down, buses were cancelled, schools closed, uni classes were cancelled and we were really cold... yeah if 5 degrees is cold. Matt was a goal judge for the Dunedin Thunder.

Matt's view of the game

Wombel playing in the snow

I gave two presentations and today was my final day of semester 1. Yeah! So now I only have two papers to hand in and then I will be finished. 2 days ago Matt and I drove out to Brighton in our Beetle. Brighton is a village south of Dunedin which is a small beach community. Its really nice to go down there to relax. The car performed nicely and we had a nice day at the beach. Our next projects include finding a nice place to stay while we go skiing in Queenstown and spending quality time together. 

Wombel and I in Brighton

It's time for more ...

Well, lots has happened since our last post. We bought a red 1971 VW Beetle, well not quite yet. We saw it and test drove it, now we're waiting for its warrant of fitness to be done, so we can pick it up!!!! YIPEEEEE! Lots of pictures will follow once little Wombel makes it home. The name Wombel was chosen because my mom used to own the same little red car called Wombel. It took her reliably through the "hills" between her home and my dad's home 600 km away. I guess I have to thank Wombel for being here :) So that's were the name comes from and if you're wondering what it means ... no idea, but who cares, it sounds cute.

The second cool thing happening were TWO awesome packages from Germany. My godmother Andrea and her husband Axel must have heard how desperate we are for proper chocolate and licorice, because they sent us heaps! Such a great surprise. You can be sure it won't be sitting in the cupboard for long, in fact it may never make it into the cupboard. So thanks guys, we really appreciate your gifts!

Finally, I submitted my first paper today. Tomorrow the second one will follow, which thanks to Matt and Susan professionally proofreading it, actually sounds pretty darn good if I may say so. Please professor, think the same :)

Oh, and Matty made it to the final gold medal game with his Dunedin Ducks hockey team. The result and maybe a hangover from celebrations will follow Monday morning!

And just because I LOVE my food, here another picture from our kitchen. Homemade pasta, yum. Thanks Paula for the pasta machine, we sure love it.

A Long-expected Party... uh update.

Well it has been a little while since we've updated you on our life here, Christina is working very hard on all things university and I am still job searching. Things are always harder than you expect them to be. They always go so smoothly in your mind, while you are imagining finding the perfect job or that exquisite chunk of property to invest in.
The latter of which is always fun to search for! There is a great place to look at land and housing here at www.realestate.co.nz. You can choose a region and then click on the map icon to zoom into the area you want to look at. Once there, you can choose from all the real estate that is on the market (there are some other real estate companies that are not consolidated here) and have a peek through pictures.
There are so many options when looking for a place. Do we buy a small house near the university to rent out to students? Dunedin has high rent, while expectations for quality is low; meaning the return is pretty good.
One of the other options is buying a piece of land that can sit and appreciate. Perhaps eventually we would build our home on that land, or maybe when the market is right, subdivide and sell it off.
First things first though, we need a house of our own to live in. A duplex? We'll see.

As mentioned, Christina is working hellishly hard on her studies. She has work ethics to die for. Currently a lot of her time is taken up by a project covering Disney and the way in which they went international, from Tokyo to Paris, Hong Kong to their new venture in Shanghai. Very interesting!

Matt in yellow socks winning a face-off :)

I am still enthralled in my hockey. Generally I've got a game each Sunday and practices once or twice per week. After living in Germany, where it was hard to get out and be active, I'm loving having an outlet for pent up energy!

Things are beginning to cool off this far south. The summer was dismal and very wet and now we are working our way into a damp autumn. Our house, unlike many houses here in NZ, has at least an insulated roof cavity. Our floor and walls on the other hand are in no way helping keep the cool weather outside. Under our hardwood floors there is literally nothing, the house is on short stilts, which allows cool circulating air to convect the heat away from inside. Not so happy about that, but hey, can't complain when we are this close to the beach everyday.

Excitingly, both of our families are already planning trips to come and get to know our new home. Christina's parents, Roland and Uta, and her sister Mareike are hoping to come in December to spend Christmas with us here. We'll have to do up a turkey and all the fixings to show them how much we appreciate it.
My mom and dad, Roger and Susan, are planning on breaking up the long flight to NZ by spending a few days in Hawaii before continuing on to Dunedin. They are planning on getting here sometime either in the end of January or beginning of February. We are very fortunate to be able to have our families come see us and we are looking forward to spoiling them a little when they get here.

Maybe spoiling them will come in the form of something sweet! Check out our Easter baking session.

So all in all, things are look up! Aside from no super crazy job prospects, we are beginning to settle in. Take care everyone, and if you aren't heading over to our Kitchen section, see ya next time!

-Matt

A little bit about us and what the heck we're doing here!

Hi guys,
SO! We moved to Dunedin! Most of you probably know, we met in this beautiful country and spent a lot of time traveling it. You may not know much about New Zealand, so I'll give you the 101. NZ is pretty small at around 2.5 times the size of Newfoundland Island, it has got a population of less than 4.5 million, a little less than 1.5 million of which reside in Auckland. That doesn't leave much in the way of populace for the remaining 3 large-ish cities (Wellington [the capital], Christchurch [the earthquake] and Dunedin [ta-da!]). Dunedin is a similar town to that which Matt grew up in, Kingston Ontario, with a few major differences. Firstly and most obvious, it's a coastal city (Lake Ontario, you're not the ocean -Gord Downey), secondly, it doesn't get nearly as cold, nor as humid. One thing that really correlates with Kingston is the fact that without the University of Otago, Dunedin would fall off the economic map. Have no fear though, it was founded in 1869 making it the oldest higher education institution in NZ; she's here to stay. Thirdly Dunedin is near as south as you can go! It's closest neighbouring city is 360 km north, doesn't leave much room for traffic between cities like Kingstonians enjoy.

A tea towel of New Zealand specialties.

Many people are misled into believing that New Zealand and it's neighbour across "the Ditch" (the Tasman Sea [I'm talking about Australia here, for those who slept through Geography]) are very much alike. In fact, New Zealand doesn't have much in common with Australia at all! There are no poisonous snakes, creepy crawlies (except the white tail spider which hunts other spiders and doesn't make a web, whose nasty bite is normally not dangerous, although it can lead to....complications) or jellyfish! Okay, occassionally you might see a shark here or there, but nothing like in Aussie. It's not just the critters in Australia, but climate is much more harsh than here in NZ too. New Zealand isn't called "The Land of the Long White Cloud" (the translation for the native Maori name for the country Aotearoa) for nothing. When the sun shines through though, it can be very intense indeed. It becomes a daily routine to smear on gobs of SPF30 to keep from getting burned. Even though the wind is generally nippy and can lull you into a false sense of security, that sun is there to crisp you up good! Most of the time though you know you are getting burned because the sun is just so hot on the skin.
NZ has all sorts of cool stuff that you can find all over the world for sure, but there are also heaps of things here that are only found on these islands including native lizards, birds and plants. We've always thought of New Zealand being a mini Canada. If you took the mountains, the tundra, the west coast, the maritimes, the glaciers, the lakes and zipped them up to a fraction of the size you'd have NZ! Though you'd have to add a few more things like rainforests, massive dunes, fiordlands, sub-tropical climate, volcanoes(!), penguins and and and, while never being farther than an hour and a half drive to the ocean.
So as you can see New Zealand is a huge collage of neat and interesting stuffs! We like it here :)

Up to this point, this was less about us and what the heck we are doing here and more about letting you guys know why this crazy country has bewitched us so. Next time around we'll get into what it really is that we are doing here!

  

What we do when we don't have anything to do

Well I'm sure all of you have experienced those days, where you actually have time to do things you want to do. Believe it or not, we have those days as well. Here is what we choose to do :)

Going for drinks around the corner

Of course Matt gets a drink too!

Our weekly visit to the lovely Farmers Market

The BIGGEST ice cream ever - we did share :D

A little fair in one of the suburbs

Haha - King Kong meets T-Rex

Just one of those walks on the beach

THE most frustrating puzzle ever - 1000 pieces and looots of blue sky beat us  ( Just for now, eventually we will continue)

Old style mowing - we are environmentally friendly folks

Building our shed - if you have too much stuff you need to expand

In the ZOO at a Dunedin Highlanders' game (ZOO = lots of crazy students)

Getting ready ...

... for a surf

Matt's first home-brew - pretty impressive don't you think

Do you miss us yet

Our life in NZ is exciting and we want you to be part of it.

So here you will find all there is to know about us and our new home.

PS: To keep it easier, all entries will be posted in English. Sorry Germans, you just have to work a little harder. :D

Oh, one other thing: We've never done this before, so be patient with us. We'll try to make it look as appealing as possible.

Enjoy!
Tina and Matt