Week 6 - Birthday Week, Presentations & Bar Hopping!

Hello Everybody...
It's certainly been an emotional old week. People have gone out of their way to make my birthday celebrations very memorable, but being away from family & friends during this time has been pretty tough too. I certainly feel like work is now in full swing, and it's been another week of meeting new people and finding funky little places to go for a dink / brew!

I'll talk a little 'business' before pleasure, as I'm feeling well and truly settled into my work role. I'm still meeting new clients, and still have plenty to learn about how many aspects of the service works. I have however met some very fascinating people with some difficult issues, which will provide many interesting and difficult challenges in the time ahead. I haven't seen too much difference in the presentation of mental health symptoms between New Zealand and my experiences in the UK. From my current understanding Wellington has a transient population, with many students coming through the 2 large universities here, and a steady number of New Zealanders who were born outside of Wellington living here. The City has a real artistic and creative side, which may also be a factor for the kind of people that use out service. I'm getting used to driving about it here too, though it seems many more clients are able to attend our work base than I experienced in similar services. I am keen of course to start doing more community therapy, and some group work, which I know happen in time. I'm presenting to my team this week, about my perceptions of what Occupational Therapy can achieve in this field of work. This will be my second presentation this week, after being the Lunch speaker for one of the local Rotary clubs last Friday. I talked about the cultural issues when trying to use OT across other cultures, and how we need to adapt our approaches to be culturally competent! (I'm still available for hire to do these talks - for conferences, lectures, birthdays, barmitzva's and weddings... ;) )

Birthday Cake at work!

My birthday weekend has been one of fun, food and drinks, all staring on Friday, when my colleagues helped me celebrate my birthday on Friday )Birthday was on Sat), with cake, see below...

The afternoon cake, was followed by a brilliant evening out straight from work, at the 'Bangalore Polo Club', for drinks and food. This place is known for it's peanuts - let me explain!  They give you free peanuts in shells, but they expect you to throw the shells on the floor, so you have to wade through lots of peanuts on the floor! Sounds strange I know. The food was totally delicious, have a look at some of the dishes!

Delicious!

My Roast Pork Hock!

Ella's Pizza

And here's a few of the pictures from the evening!

The work crowd!

Out with Work

Unusual bag stand!

My 'pod' mates Jen & Belinda

Jen & Bob with "Dan" (long story)

Anthony & Louisa 

Me with Derek & Steph

After the Friday celebrations, I spent Saturday morning speaking with the folks, and nana on the phone, before heading to the gym. I then had a nice surprise that I wasn't expecting when I got a get from Jessica (a member of the OT Board of NZ) who helped me get registration. I met her 2 weeks earlier to say thanks for all her help. On realizing it was my birthday, Jessica had not only got me a nice card but baked some very yummy biscuits (see picture), and gave them to me in another funky little cafe (Fidels on Cuba Street)!

Jess' present for me! 

As I was saying, there has been a really social week, with drinks with people from my apartment block on Thursday at the Bangalore Polo Club & the Library, Saturday Drinks at the Bruhaus to watch the rugby where I met a whole new lot of English friends! I even managed to go the Mac's Brewery bar this evening with my colleague Louisa. I can't wait for my mates Mark & Jenny to arrive in a few weeks to show them some of these funky little places. I even did a Sushi bar today!

Sushi Bar

Despite all the new places to socialize, nothing can really be compared to the natural scenery around the pace, and just today I went to 'Eastbourne' (no not the home of the pre-Wimbledn tennis tournament), but a little town just 20 mins drive from Wellington. I always enjoy a good scenes picture! Those of you that have been away with me, now I love a good sunset picture too, so enjoy these pictures!

Sunday Stroll

Sunday Stroll

Sunday Stroll

Sunday's Sunset from Eastbourne

Regards from New Zealand
Dan

Week 5 – 4 a.m. football matches, General work rules in NZ, & Chinese beatings!

Hello everybody! I’m guessing you’re all as impressed with England’s comeback against Sweden, as the 150 people in the pub at 06:45 on Saturday morning here were. Believe me, if you were feeling frustrated at the English teams defending in that first 15 mins of the second half, imagine how we all felt having gone to the pub for a 06:45 kick off! Still, as we all know the English team are pretty good at raising hopes before eventually snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. We’ll see on Tues/Weds or whenever the final group game is.

Wind & Rain shelters on many a street corner!

 04:00 FOOTBALL:

This leads me to share a little event on Monday morning, where having contemplated if getting up for England’s first game of the tournament was a good idea or not, I decided that I would get up and set my alarm for Monday morning at 03:30 – time to wake up, put some clothes on and get to the pub. I not only managed to wake up at 03:30, but dressed myself in some half-decent clothes and arrived at the pub at 03:55 to be greeted by a strange sight…

The sight was that of 10 people sat in front of a big screen, it took a moment to realise why one of the guys was wearing a Barcelona shirt – The Spanish team appeared from the tunnel, followed by the Italians… IT WAS THE WRONG DAY! England were playing on Monday evening, = Tuesday morning here!  I had no choice but to stay and watch the game, then returned to bed for 90 mins before work. I arrived the next morning at 0400 knowing I had the right day as I could hear the English national anthem blasting from the pub as I approached. The pub had about 200 people (see video below) 

GENERAL WORK RULES:

I have learned a about some quite different work practices here over the last couple of weeks which may seem a little strict or odd to some of you. For example:

1)   You only get a total of 14 weeks maternity pay here, you can have the 12 month period off, but you better have saved up for it! Don’t worry folks, it’s not something that’s going to affect me for a long time yet!

2)   Whilst I have heard from people that arranging some unpaid leave is not so difficult here, you are ONLY ALLOWED 10 SICK DAYS EACH YEAR, after that, its unpaid leave! Quite a few of my ex colleagues would not be so quick to have the odd sick day off under these rules! 

3)   You have to pay to see a doctor here – it seems to range between $30-$60 per consultation – that’s 15-30 pounds! You also have to pay for your prescriptions (normal for most places), including if you need the medications to be put in a blister pack – though I have been told there is a yearly limit that once you reach (depending on your income) then allows you reduced rates.

4)   Annual leave – I have a set number of days of leave, though instead of starting the year with that time and then using the days up - I have to earn the time before having the holiday (again I have been told you can take a little more time than you have earned depending on circumstances). 

I wonder what other rules are here that I am yet to find out!

Love the name of this shop!

Modern shops eh! 

CHINESE BEATINGS:

Now throughout my travels and time overseas, I have experienced all kind of strange massage practices, and have experienced paying good money to experience pain in many forms (massage related).  Just this Saturday, and also two weeks ago, I went a Chinese massage place on Cuba Street (see picture below).

The  Massage place on Cuba Street!

The first visit I paid $40 for a back, neck, shoulders & foot massage. A small Chinese woman then appeared and took me into a partitioned ‘room’. I was asked to take off my shirt, and then place my feet in into a steaming hot bowl filled with water and flowers. All seemed well, until I suddenly felt a sharp knee in my back. I thought hey hey, must have been a mistake, then ow! Another knee to the back, and soon enough I was having my head twisted whilst my shoulders were pinned! Clearly liking such treatment I went back for more yesterday… I went for the full body massage this time $60 for 60 mins, and found myself in a proper room this time. When I looked up, the ceiling was quite high, and there was were metal bars above the massage table – what could they be for? I quickly thought it’s best not to know, and lay back for 60 mins of mild-moderate pain… feels great now! And just incase you were wondering about the metal bars… they were so the masseur had something to hold onto whilst walking on your back above the massage table!

See - the strange use of the word 'Manchester'

On a final note, I just wanted to say I met so many nice new people this week, especially a Steph’s birthday at the Shed 5 restaurant! So thanks for the invite, and also if anyone was thinking of going to watch the movie ‘Prometheus’ – don’t do it! It’s so ridiculous it’s almost a comedy! A brilliant line at the end whilst the female heroine is talking to the decapitated head of a robot:

Robot – “ I don’t understand that feeling”

Female character – “that’s because you are a robot and I am a human being” –classic!

Regards from New Zealand

Dan

Week 4 – Orientation, 6 degrees of separation, the first ‘All Blacks’ experience and more earthquake instructions:

My walk to work!

So welcome everybody! The pictures from the Queen’s Jubilee party looked amazing, and I was definitely sorry to have missed all the celebrations – especially the extra bank holiday! Ah well!I’m sat here in my studio flat this Sunday morning, almost finished my book ‘Charlotte Street’ by Danny Wallace, with a ‘passable’ cup of tea thinking about the past week. It’s been full of social stuff, which has really made me feel a little more like a local, and less like a visitor. That’s probably been the biggest change for me this week.

Friday night sunset, Wellington

So I had the 3^rd day of orientation this week on Tuesday – ‘General Orientation’. As with the previous week’s cultural orientation session, the day began with the appointed Maori Elder (speaking in Maori) as a welcome. The cultural day had begun with a ‘haka’ and Powhiri (formal greeting to a group of visitors) – where a ‘Karanga’ (call to welcome) by local Maori female allows us entry onto the premises.  During both days, Maori songs ‘waiata’ followed Whaikōrero (formal speeches), which gave a sense importance and respect to the culture here. Something else that definitely struck me was the sense of welcome, where not only the chief executive welcomed us all, but then everyone in the room (50+ people including us) were asked to say a little something about themselves. Not as many of you know, I don’t need much of an invitation to talk to a crowd, but I kept it reasonably short! I just really wanted to put across the sense of tradition and personal welcome that I felt was evident. I spoke with a few non-NZ people in the room that day, and we all had the same impressions.

Back towards Wellington

Now normally in almost all of the UK Health trusts I have worked for, the ‘Health & Safety / fire’ session is the one that will send you to sleep, and makes you wonder why you ever applied for the job – but here, they have some attention grabbing things to say! – EARTHQUAKES! He had my full attention!  This guy started showing ‘fault lines’ that ran right through the heart of Wellington, and basically showed that in the event of a major earthquake, we’d most likely have all transport routes cut off, and how the civil defence and police headquarters would most likely be taken out. He then went on to mention how many supplies we should have at home – put it this way – I need to clear my wardrobes out and start filling them with water containers (50 Litres)! (I’m going to leave out the details of  ‘double bagging’ the toilet –it’s not pleasant). I know I have previously mentioned the ‘E’ word, but I started to realise that I need to have some stuff prepared: with water, batteries and a torch top of the priority list!

Seals

Ok, onto more social matters, having been getting a little frustrated at the lack of fun and social outings, I had a surprisingly busy social calendar this week. On TUESDAY night, with strong winds and heavy rain making me think twice about heading out, I got a text from Hannah, (the barmaid from the big football pub), and so we met up for a bite to eat and then went to have a few games of pool,  (free I might add. oh it’s good to have contacts). Whilst neither of us covered ourselves in glory it the game count finished 2-2 , with a decider game yet to be arranged. Hannah being originally from Didsbury, and a ‘proper’ football fan, made it pretty easy to get on, and she’s got lots of contacts around the place, so I have to say a big thanks to her for a fun night.

WEDNESDAY turned into quite a surprise. You need to follow this next sentence carefully:- I had agreed to meet up with a couple called Derek & Steph, who had quite recently moved over here. (Derek is a former colleague, of my mate’s (Neil) wife, (Zoe) …..) did that make sense? Now by random chance Steph is an Occupational Therapist like me, but what was really bizarre was that after a few minutes of the conversation, I began to feel like I’d met Steph before. Then it hit me, I did know Steph, because Steph worked at Oldham Hospital when I during my first Job as a newly qualified OT…. A totally random event! Clearly proving the ‘you might know anyone in the world through the 6 degrees of separation’ rule…

THURSDAY evening led to an opportunity to have my first houseguest – my colleague Louisa, who is very shortly on her way to London, and wanted to ask a few questions about life there. So I had reason to get a few beers in, and we were able to swap stories and tips regarding both NZ & the UK. Yes I did show here my spectacular folding bed, but I stopped short of asking her if I could try and fold it up with her on it!

Looking at the South Island

SATURDAY was a fun day as after going to the gym for the first time, and buying yet another bag/rucksack (after my second one broke yesterday), I headed to the ‘Four Kings’ pub, which has almost as many TV screens as people – and there were lots and lots of people. This was because the ‘All Blacks’ (Rugby team) were playing the first of 3 games against the Irish. I was running a little late, and grabbed the first jacket/jumper I could before leaving the flat. I only realised my mistake when I entered a packed pub, in a scene that looked liked a funeral (with a sea of black jerseys), though sounded nothing like a funeral, with excited cries every time NZ looked like scoring.  My mistake had been to pick up a green top with bits of white on it, very similar colours to the Irish team! Still, the atmosphere was very friendly, and NZ gave Ireland a good beating… after grabbing a burger at half time, I decided to head over the road to ‘Molly Malones’ Iris bar, for the second half, with a more subdued atmosphere. I can’t wait for a really big game and the 8^th of September when the All Blacks will be playing here in Wellington! People love their rugby here. Oh and a quick note for dad – on the Maori channel every Saturday night they have a UK ‘Superleague’ game on.

Me @ Devil' Staircase

family day out - see the little one?

now 'roll over'

I did try getting up for the Euro 2012 Germany vs Portugal game this morning at 0645…I failed! I will get up for the England game tomorrow! 

on the rocks!

Sitting in the sun with the seals

Ok, off to the gym again now and to take a stroll in the sunshine!.... (that was my intention, I ended up going for a little drive/walk with my colleague Louisa - and these pictures were from today's walk - look at the cheeky seals!)

Oh and Liv/Jess – Glee is on normal TV here! Game on!

Regards from New Zealand

Dan

Week 3 - Earthquake rooms, A Salsa ball, The Queens Birthday, & EXPENSIVE shopping!

My 1st personalized stamp!

So this week might be a bit of a mish-mash of different topics, but as my new life here slowly reveals itself, there are lots of little things that make keep taking me by surprise!  The picture (left) is of my own work Stamp! I have my own work stamp for signing off documents! Maybe not exciting to many of you, but I have never had my own stamp so I got very excited about it!

I also had some more training at work, and just to make up for missing on the hot weather in the UK, I thought I’d show you the background scenery to the training session!

Training at Porirua

Keeping on the work theme, I forgot to mention last week that during my induction I was being shown around the office building, and was taken into a small room at the back of the building. Inside the room were several big containers of water, tinned food, and some other supplies. I though that maybe some of my colleagues were just big camping fans. Apparently I was wrong – this was the EARTHQUAKE SURVIVAL /SUPPLIES ROOM! I was also told to bring some spare clothes in to the office and store them under my desk. His got me thinking what else should I bring – my Glee Cd’s? Liverpool Shirt? And then I thought, bloody hell, I’m lucky that my new work colleagues are all nice and a good laugh, because if I was stuck with them in the building for a few days, as least we’d keep each other entertained!

I’ll start by saying that we have a long weekend to celebrate the Queen’s Birthday – nothing unusual about that you might think, because the whole UK is celebrating that right now! The unusual part is that they celebrate it here with a public holiday every year!  

I’m still living most of my life in Starbucks after work, to use the free internet, I even know the staff by name, I just need to remember that the people at the bus queue can see through the window what I’m doing on my computer and I often catch them seeing what I am looking at! So I was determined to do something social this week and set off to join a gym (something I still haven’t managed to do), and find a Salsa class. This I managed to achieve, and not only did I end up going to two Salsa classes, and met people form all over the place including Bolton! I was told that randomly this weekend was the NZ Pacific Salsa Congress, and so having a pretty empty social calendar, I thought it’d be good to go and dance and meet a few people on the Saturday night for the Salsa Ball. So here are a few pictures (and videos) if the internet lets me upload them!

I'll be learning this move next week ! lol...

The Band

 Now I don’t want to get into the habit if comparing everything with the UK, but some things I have saw on Sunday’s shopping trip were totally crazy expensive! After having bought lots of house things last week, I now needed to buy the extra bits of clothing for the upcoming Winter and a few extra bits and pieces for work, seeing as I don’t have a uniform in this job. I have spent most of Sunday shopping, because they have lots of discounts & sales this weekend. I have bought 3 shirts, 3 pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, 2 jumpers, 4 books and a mobile internet device that doesn’t seem to work! Some things are sooooo expensive to the point I was GOBSMACKED to see prices like:

1)   A book (normal paper back) = $26 (13 pounds) - (7 pounds in UK)

2)   English Football shirts $139 (70 pounds) – (normally 40 pounds in UK)

3)   Football boots/trainers $100 minimum (50 pounds)

4)   Underwear / boxers $25 (12 pounds) for just 2 pairs!

Basically, some things are just very expensive! There are also a couple of weird things I noticed too:

1)   Most jeans have a ‘standard’ leg length, so you have to get the leg altered (at extra cost)

2)   Sizes are different – it’s the first place where I had to find ‘XS” extra small shirts in one particular shop.

On food related matters, I must say that I am yet to find the following important items:

1)   Decent tea (Twinnings ‘English Breakfast’ is not the same!)

2)   A good biscuit for tea dunking – closest are replica ‘ginger nuts’

3)   Cadbury’s chocolate – any!

So all in all, will any UK visitors please bring as much of those last three items, and Carl, please bring me a Liverpool Shirt – I can’t bring myself to pay 70 quid for it! I just can’t!

The story of my first (Chinese) massage will have to wait to next week, it was almost like paying to be assaulted!

P.S. LATEST NEWS FLASH - I have internet at home! not much (it's done on usage, but enough to get by and not pay rent at Starbucks), I must go say goodbye to my Starbucks room mates, whom I've grown fond of.

Regards from New Zealand

DAN

Week 2 - Welcome to work & WIND!

Hello Everybody, and welcome to week 2 in Wellington, New Zealand. Firstly thanks to all of you that are looking at the blog, and those who said nice things about last week’s post …. Even if I “do go on a bit” eh Julia! ;)

This week, has basically consisted of two parts:

1) Starting work which has included meeting my new colleagues understanding kiwi slang/ accent, driving a car over here for the first time, and learning lots of things about New Zealand and it’s Mental Health set up.

2) Moving into my new place, which has included some serious bargain hunting, learning of a new use of the word ‘Manchester’, scouting out the local cafes & restaurants, and adding some homely touches! 

Oh I should add whilst all of my mates in the UK take great pleasure in telling me how hot and sunny it is, I have been experiencing my first real exposure to “WINDY” Wellington with a fair bit of rain today!

Firstly as promised from last week’s entry, Just before writing last week’s entry I went for a walk up Mount Victoria and down into Oriental Bay (no comment please Mr Lane!), with some stunning views! Have a look at these…..

Walk up Mount Vic

Walk up Mount Vic

Views from Mount Vic

Views from Mount Vic

Orietnal Bay

Wellington City & Harbour

Up Mount Vic

Ok, so onto the major events of the week. I walked into work Monday morning feeling a little apprehensive and well, let’s face it ‘pretty scared’ as I would soon find out what I was really letting myself in for by moving here for work, and in hope that my new colleagues expectations would match up with what I was confident in being able to do! I was soon put at ease by my Team Leader Helen, and the rest of the team, with humour, character and a cheery disposition. I soon learned that many people had connections to the UK, including some colleagues who had lived in the UK, and one who despite growing up in South Africa, had actually been born in my hometown and had got married in Bury! (Just a few miles from Manchester). So what would be the biggest challenge? – learning the system? Dealing with cultural differences? Getting over the time difference? (I was still waking up at 5am). Answer = none of these, my biggest challenge seemed to be understanding any word my NZ colleagues said that had the letters E/I in. The NZ have a habit of saying the letter ‘E’ as an ‘I’. So the word ‘Ten’ sounds like ‘tin’, and ‘sex’ sounds like ‘six’. I have had lots of fun asking my colleague Jen what the time is if I know her response will include ‘tin to tin’.  This issue is a two way thing though, because with my Northern English flat vowels (especially ‘A’) no New Zealander seems able to recognise my name when I say ‘Dan’ – it seems to them I am saying ‘Darn’… just gonna have to wear a name badge to overcome the issue I think.

Work highlights have included visiting the in-patient unit in a place about 20 minute drive from Wellington, in some seriously lush mountains – and I have to drive myself there tomorrow morning for a 2 day induction. Fortunately, I was taken out by a colleague to visit a client, which gave me the opportunity to have a little drive. I was nervous enough, but then realised the bloody car was automatic! My left foot felt very redundant, and kept pushing against the floor. We made it back in one piece and my driving skills will be put to the test properly tomorrow! I Must remember the indicators and the windscreen wipers are switched round here… I might end up crashing through not indicating, but I’ll have the cleanest windows in the city!

For confidentiality reasons I can’t go into too much detail regarding my work, though I’ll just say I visited lots of community based projects here in Wellington, which gave me lots of optimism as an Occupational Therapist, that there are lots of community support groups, and many mainstream groups to help with social inclusion agendas!

Ok, onto ‘THE MOVE’. Yesterday (Saturday) at 11:30 I lugged my 3.5 Large bags into a taxi and headed for my new place in the city centre. I was met by the little whirlwind that is Sheila, - a Hungarian lady who works on site for the letting company. I was soon keen to check everything that was already here worked ok (tv, pull down ‘James Bond’ bed, dvd/cd/docking station player, shower, toilet, sink etc.. I even have a washing machine & dishwasher in here) and it’s a small studio flat. I soon headed off at the suggestion of my work mates to ‘Farmers’, ‘Briscoes’, and ‘The Warehouse’ where it seemed they lived in a perpetual state of sales…. 30%-60% of most things which meant I‘ve done four big trips (walking), to these places to buy bedding, towels, food, cleaning stuff, an iron, hangers etc…. Things may not be necessarily cheap here, but with these stores having sales every weekend, and the large number of charity / discount stores in this city, you can seriously do things cheaply. This also extends to food! I have seen so many $10-$12 dollar lunch offers, outside bars/cafes/bistros it’s untrue! Just last night, (having almost nothing in my fridge) I trudged off down Cuba Street (no more than 500 yards from my flat) and I walked past the following food outlets: Chinese, Malaysian, Italian, Indian, Pizza place, French, Caribbean, Lebanese, a Bistro, Japanese, and good old ‘Fish place’ doing fish & chips! There’s a bakery, down the road, and a pie shop too!  Visitors will not go hungry here!   

I do have to mention a strange little thing I noticed yesterday: - When I was looking for bedding stuff, there were lots of signs with the words ‘Manchester/Manchesters’ all around the place, and they seem to use the word to refer to bedding and linen. Nobody has been able to explain this to me yet, though the best suggestion I had was that as Manchester was the birth place of the industrial revolution and famous for cotton production, maybe that’s where the name came from to describe cotton like goods? Answers on a postcard please!

Here’s a few pic of my flat now, with the ‘James Bond’ bed as it has now been christened… not in that sense of the word, (for those filthy minded people, I won’t name you here!)

My New Place

'James Bond' Bed

I could go on about the wind and how it almost blew me over yesterday, or the ridiculously slow internet but that seems to have been a blip! So lets end on a positive note and say roll on week three, as now I have sorted started work and found somewhere to live; I can concentrate on getting a social life going! 

Regards from New Zealand! 

Week 1 – ‘Starting Up’ & the things we do for a free meal!

Hello everybody! Well here we are again 6 months on from the last entry, but a very different reason for continuing the blog. – A permanent move to New Zealand!

So this blog will be used as a catch up for friends and family, as well as a little diary of the fun, bizarre and random things that happen along the way. It’s already been a bit of a random week, none more so than Friday when a house viewing turned into a lush free lunch at the ‘Courtney Place’ Rotary Club, courtesy of the enigmatic and colourful character that is Patricia. More of that later…

The week has been made up of the following events:

1)   ‘the journey’ – 26 crazy long hours of flying – this was an epic journey even by my own standards, though the 3 day bus journey from Colombia – Peru still tops the list (see www.otdaninchile.blogspot.com). After a long drive from Manchester to London with the folks, and one or two tears at the airport my trip began. First with a 12/13hr flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong. (Heathrow is such a crap airport and not just because it has no massage facility!) Fortunately my carrier (Air New Zealand) were great, with excellent food choices, both Eastern & Western dishes, and more importantly on the long legs of my journey I had 3 seats to myself, and actually slept on the plane! Full marks Air New Zealand. I also met some nice passengers who were sharing the journey, and one (Emma) who was doing the full leg to Wellington. I have to share some of the safety video from the flight as it was hysterical and I thought it was a wind up at first!

The views into Hong Kong were pretty nice, and the 2 hour stop over was much need to freshen up, toilet and use the free internet at the airport to find out that Ashley & the dog had won Britain’s Got Talent! The next flight (10 hours) was equally good, and the sunrise allowed some great photos from the window.

The final leg of the journey required me to pick up luggage and head over to the domestic terminal. I was fortunate to have Emma to guide me through the process and she gave me 2 pieces of advice for life in New Zealand. 1) When swimming on the beach swim in the part with the surf, as the calm bits have the undercurrents, 2) Don’t sit on wire fences, they’re probably electric! 

2)   ‘starting up’  My first few days were a whirlwind, as the week went something like this: Monday – arrive at 12pm (a little smelly), meet Gail, run by the office, sign some papers, go to motel and shower! Get info re bank, find supermarket and buy food. Tuesday – Occ Health visit & blood taken, open bank account, buy computer & ‘smart-ass’ phone, get tax number & sleep. Wednesday – Walk around the city in pouring rain looking at different areas to live: find pub for football, and meet helpful barmaid originally from Didsbury (Manchester for those of you that don’t know it). Thursday – Begin the house/flat search and drinks with work colleagues. Friday – more house viewing, free lunch, and movie. Saturday – Sign lease for new place and find watch live footy!

3)   ‘house hunting’ – Just wanted to quickly mention the search for a place to live. I saw 1 bedroom flats from $500 (250 pounds) per week, to $130 (65 pounds) per week, in shared house. The apartments are all pretty nice, mainly unfurnished but pricey as a single person. The internet usage is not unlimited like at home, and you basically pay for amount of usage and they come in quite specific packages! At one of the shared houses I was met by a Brazilian guy called Alex, who was friendly enough, and even offered me a bed in his room for a night until the upcoming spare room became available… hmmm… though this wooden house looked like something that might blow over in the wind, and it also resembled a united nations squat with people of various different nationalities scattered throughout the property. The additional two houses I saw also had up to 8 other tenants, some passing through travelling and some long stay souls. The bottom line – for 6 months I wanted to know who’s hairs were in the plughole!

Here’s a few pictures from around the city to give you a little feel for the place.

(A few pics of Wellington)

(My Motel)

Wacky Wellington / New Zealand

During the past 7 days I have learned a few surprising things about life here in Wellington.:

1)   Wellington is known as ‘Windy Wellington’ – a bloody fair name, those winds from the South and the ocean are a little nippy – My Northern English roots serve me well 

2)   A bizarre unwritten rule that in rented accommodation you are not permitted to hang your clothes out outside on a balcony or patio – not because they might blow away, but because it’s unsightly!

3)   You don’t legally need car insurance here! (I think that’s a New Zealand thing), no road tax either – just an ‘MOT’

4)   New Zealanders struggle to understand my name because their ‘a’ is more an ‘I’ sound so with my accent they hear ‘Don’ rather than ‘Dan’.

5)   Free 30 mins internet around the city – and you can just click on again after 30 mins!

Random Event of the week:

Whilst viewing properties number 6&7, I was met by a colourful and interesting landlady called Patricia, she was showing me a room in one of her properties, when she happened to mention that after showing me the room, she was going to her weekly Rotary Club lunch (Courtney Place Rotary Club), based a nearby hotel. When I mentioned that in 2010 I had been part of an UK Rotary District (1280) international Exchange Programme to Sri Lanka, she immediately suggested I join her at the club for lunch. Wearing just a casual shirt and jeans, with my sunglasses, I felt a little unprepared, though I was quickly put at ease by the club members. The lunch was seriously tasty with a full meal (fish, potatoes, veg & salad, with cheesecake, pavlova and tea/coffee). I pretty soon had made links to people within the property sector (great advice re places to rent), a guy from the only professional football club in New Zealand, and had been invited to come back the club as a guest speaker in a few weeks – that might be another free lunch! The most random element of this story is that the president of this club had received an email by my friend and Rotarian Dave in Manchester, about my arrival, but had not yet had chance to reply to the email. What are the chances, eh??!

Tips of the week:

1)   Don’t sit on a wire fence: (unless you want a free enema) as the fences are probably electric.

2)   Within Maori culture, you do not sit on a table/desk as it’s considered seriously rude ‘you wouldn’t eat from off the toilet would you?

That’s all for now! I’m still recovering from watching last night’s football (well This morning’s football – games at 2am & 6:45am! That’s the only negative I have to say about life here so far – football in the middle of the night!

Regards from New Zealand

PS – I have just been on an amazing walk up mount Victoria and into Oriental Bay, of which I shall try and add pictures to next week’s blog!