Day 1

Saturday, 9 December 2006

8:pm

Hello again friends,

I’m sitting in our plush hotel room in Wellington, at the end of our first full day in New Zealand. What’s up with the lack of jetlag when we come in this direction? All day we have been almost totally back to normal.

Yesterday after we landed was a delight. Aidan, who had fallen asleep on the flight from Auckland and was so so sick, became chirpy and delightful after seeing our friends Trish and Keith waiting for us at the end of the gate (lovely flowers in hand). It was pouring and windy and cold when we landed, but the hotel (City Life—fantastic) found us a suite that was ready many hours before they had promised it. And we brushed our gritty teeth and changed into suitable clothes and went out to explore the city. After breakfast (our second, the first being hours before when we had eaten on the flight from San Francisco) at the lovely public library, Trish and Keith took the children away so that Michael and I could begin to find our way around this new city and do errands. Only three things are interesting about this part:

1. the children actually WENT with Trish and Keith without complaint. Who’d ever heard of that??
2. Michael and I were so jetlagged and overwhelmed that walking into any store was an experience in total overload
3. the bank story (next)

The bank story. We walked into our new bank—the bank through which we are getting a mortgage and in which we already have a bank account—to pick up our ATM cards. We waited in silence at the information desk for a minute while the Maori (NZ native people—pronounced “mauw-rEE”) fellow helped the guy in front of us. When he was finished, he turned to us and politely asked, “Foreign currency exchange?” We explained to him what we wanted and he went off to make things happen for us and asked us to sit down. I whispered to Michael that it seemed to me we weren’t blending in so much if the first fellow we talk to, before we even open our MOUTHS, knows we might be needing to change our money. Curious, Michael went up and asked him about it. “Well, you’re clearly not from around here, I mean, you’re clearly foreign,” the fellow explained, flustered. “I mean you ARE, aren’t you?” Yes, we are, and the day was an experience in feeling our foreignness—not knowing the streets or the stores, having to sometimes speak slowly when we talked with people, feeling disoriented and confused about everything.

Of course, sometimes feeling foreign is a gift, too, and we had many such gifts. When the weather cleared, Trish and Keith took us up in the cable car to the Botanic Gardens, where we walked among strange and lovely trees and plants (Aidan loves ferns so much!). They led us down steep hills, past ponds of ducklings, to a lovely playground with equipment far too fun (and slightly dangerous) to ever find a home in the US. We sat in a lush rose garden and watched a birthday party where little girls dressed as fairies and princesses ate junkfood with little boys with swords and breastplates. We let the children play outside in the rose garden as we sat with Trish and Keith to have tea—and we didn’t worry (almost at all) about having the kids in a public space out of our sight. Wellington is a magnificent city, with an urban center tightly packed with stores and people and the bustle of city life, and filled with more public artwork and sculpture than I’ve ever seen in a city. It is remarkably clean, with neither graffiti nor panhandlers. And it is nestled between steep hills (a la San Francisco) and a sparkling azure harbour (a la Vancouver), overflowing with the things that make cities wonderful--parks and plazas and open spaces, museums and coffee shops and cafes. A really remarkable city.

We all stayed awake until almost our bedtimes (the kids until 7, the adults until 9) and then slept blissful sleep for the next 11 or 12 hours.

Then there was today (Saturday here), where we had a less wide-eyed and more practical, grounded experience. We got our cell phones (what a total ordeal!) and Michael and Keith went out looking for a car while Trish and I took the kids to find warmer clothes for this very cold weather that seems to be marking the beginning of their summer. (Imagine the cognitive dissonance of walking down a city street, seeing department stores with fancy windows with Santa landing on snowy roofs, and shop windows everywhere displaying the latest bathing suits (togs) and sundresses for “Summer 06/07”), and all the while it’s 45 degrees and windy. Geeze.) These blocks around our hotel are beginning to be familiar now, and we’re getting a feel for the geography of the city—and the unpredictability of the weather. The children have played at parks, gone to museums, and tried on discount sandals and expensive fleeces.

The children continue to do extraordinarily well. Aidan has healed completely, and is as much a goofball as ever. His big news is that after watching 15 minutes of cricket yesterday, he has turned his sights from rugby (which he’s never seen) to cricket (which now he’s seen but still doesn’t understand). He walked in this morning with his Boston Red Sox t-shirt and said, “Mom, we’re going to have to throw this away.” When I asked him why, he explained, “Because we’re in New Zealand and this is not a New Zealand team—or even a New Zealand sport.” I explained to him that just because it’s not from here, doesn’t mean we can’t wear it or have it: “We’re not from here, either, sweetie, but we still can be here, and people might be interested in us because we’ve come so far. We are still us in this new place,” I told him. (He allowed that that might be true and said that he wouldn’t throw it out, but he wouldn’t wear it much, either.)

And maybe that’s the bulk of the task which is before us, anyway—figuring out which of the pieces from home we wear often, and which new pieces (of ourselves, our relationships, our knowledge, etc.) we develop here. Michael and I know that some time in the not-so-distant future, we’ll walk down these streets and know them well, know just where to get children’s clothing off-season, and see people we recognize (maybe even women who get more and more pregnant and then have their babies). We know that this city will become familiar to us, and that we will feel a part of it, as opposed to the strangers-looking-in-at-a-party feel we have now. Right now, though, that day seems very far away, and we seem very far from home. AND we feel quite strongly the excitement and deep pleasure of this great adventure of ours. So, from the last night at this posh hotel (where we are tourists), we’ll sign off. Tomorrow we head to Trish and Keith’s, where we’ll be guests. Friday we’ll close on our new house and somehow find ourselves at home. That’s not a bad progression for our first week in a new land.

Thanks for reading. We’ll let you know what happens next.

Love,

Jennifer