Bedfellows

When I started work at Whangarei Hospital in July, we were in the midst of the wettest NZ winter in forever.  It was cold--damp, bone cold--that this desert dweller did not understand.  Kiwis are tough and stoic about lots, including the cold.  It took me a long time to realize that a large white panel against the wall in my office was a heater.  I just hadn't considered it, really.  It was a radiator type thing, dangerous to touch and not terribly effective.  If you stood right next to it you might get warm. But I took the desk nearer the window (with a disappointing view of the next building) than the heater, which kept me cold for many weeks.  Our first home rental worked the same way--no insulation, ineffective heating.

A week after I started, my office mate arrived to start his stint as a respiratory physician.  Dr. Sherif, also originally from the desert, had been in New Zealand for 17 years.  He had started his career in his native Iraq as a urologist.  He left with his family for better horizons and landed here, where there was a need.  He had to start his training all over again.  So as an older man, he became a house officer and then registrar, ultimately settling on medicine and then respiratory medicine.

Within the first days of our sharing space, the US sent troops into Iraq and then began bombing ISIS targets.  Dr. Sherif exclaimed to me with a slight laugh, "Oh, and now your country is invading my country!!"  This stopped me in my tracks.  There were a few other comments about me being American (and the only American in my department).  I could not tell if he was serious or joking with me.

As time has gone by, my office mate has become a bit my BFF.  He is very funny--and was decidedly joking with me.  Maybe even testing me.  Of course, the Iraqi-American office mates could not let the national relationship go by unmentioned.  It was good of him to break the ice.  Coming in as an American to NZ--or anywhere as an expat I would assume--can be a little tricky. And for a somewhat introverted me, definitely challenging.  But given the circumstances, he was sizing me up politically and socially.

It turns out he agreed with the recent bombings and generally felt that the US had done some good in Iraq.  He doesn't hate Americans.  But we agreed that it was a mess and felt horrible about the situation as it is.  He is an observant Muslim, praying dutifully throughout the day.  But not in the office--he usually walks across the road to his home and his prayer mat.

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My first permanent registrar on my acute team was Zai.  She was away, back home in Malaysia when I first arrived and so didn't meet her for a few weeks.  I finally met her and was slightly surprised at her hijab.  She also covered all body parts except for her face and hands with draped and flowing fabrics.  Sometimes a long skirt, sometimes long pants, sometimes a long dress.  She was petite and soft spoken, but committed and worked hard.  Turns out she was struggling with her one year-old son's care, given her husband's long absences at sea as a marine engineer and her long days and night shifts as a medicine registrar.  When she returned from Malaysia, she brought with her a cousin to help with her baby.  She also was soon pregnant again.

I was surprised, too, at my initial reaction to Zai.  This is difficult to describe and I'm embarrassed a bit now but in all honesty, I felt resentment at her outward expression and assumed that she would judge me--a Western woman, with my bare ankles and arms.  Something about the hijab, the effort it would take to physically express one's religious beliefs, took it to the next level.  After working with her for a week or two, my initial reaction softened.  No, I'm not as open-minded as I think I am.  No, I'm not as non-judgmental as I would like to be.  Ugh.

My fear, and possible assumption that her hijab meant "militant," soon turned to curiosity.  One lovely and civilized aspect to work here has been tea time.  After rounds, unless the work load is crushing, the team heads down to the cafe for shared warm drinks.  Zai liked a hot chocolate or chai latte.  Our other team mate, Heidi, also avoided coffee and shared the same drink preference.  Heidi was originally from Hong Kong but had lived in NZ since she was 10 and had the most adorable Chinese/Kiwi accent.  In October, our chats went political, toward Heidi and Hong Kong, where student protests were heating up.  Turns out her mother was there working, and so we got some inside scoop.  Heidi felt hopeless that the conflict would actually have any effect on relationships with China.  She looked a little anxious about it.  Her mom was safe.

As time went by, I felt more and more comfortable and close to Zai.  We were both mothers--an immediate common thread in the fabric of humanity.  We bonded over long work hours.  We bonded over stories of humanity, those kind of truths that are stranger than fiction, over sadness and family drama that is medicine.  She had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh.  She was smart.  She was older than I thought (in her early 30's), and mature.  Then came a day with a very light patient load and little work so our morning tea was extra long.  It was that day that I asked her every question I had always wondered about Islam.

Again--I don't consider myself ignorant.  In my defense, I lived in Taos where religion is either Catholic or not, and I've just never had access to Islam as a religion or a person. It's only what I've read about it, and unfortunately seen on the news.  But I felt like such an idiot when I told Zai that I'd never known a Muslim.  I sounded so stereotypically American.  Which it turns out, I am.

The hijab and clothing is to cover the female form so as to keep men from becoming distracted by the desirable bodily curves.  I wondered if taking away all of that stuff about how you look would in some way keep people focused on you, the real you.  Especially as a professional woman, and someone who started in science, I have to say that I grappled with my appearance a lot.  How do you look professional?  Feminine without over-sexualized?  How tight is too tight?  How do you keep the focus on the content of your character and not the composition of your clothing?

And yet the feminist in me saw the victim-blaming inherent in this approach: if a man can't control himself it's clearly the woman's fault.  It also turns out that I have no chance of going to heaven in the Islam world.  Zai brought her mat to faithfully pray in the registrar office, and I now know that there is a smartphone app that tells you when to pray depending on where you are in the world and will also point you toward Mecca.  Ingenious.  It's notable that during winter hours and short days, you can combine prayer sessions--so maybe three instead of five.  It's all based on the sun.

Zai's family is muslim, along with 70% of Malaysians which  I did not know.  It's all she's known, really.  And Zai is not judgmental in the least, of me or any of her patients.  She believes everyone should choose their own path.  She clearly loved her colleagues, she took excellent care of her patients.  She had put herself into the Anglosphere on purpose, she couldn't have hated it.  And she had no other agenda.  She never talked about her religion, she was not interested in converting anyone.  It was just her.  What I didn't ask her was how she reconciled the expectation of women in her religion and her culture, with being a professional herself.  There is a cognitive dissonance in it.

It's funny that I've had a baptism into Islam, culturally speaking, here where I am.  Especially because there aren't all that many muslims here.  Zai told me that their mosque was very small, and that she and Dr. Sherif made up a significant contribution.  It's something I've learned that I truly did not expect to, here in NZ.  I know it shouldn't take having to personally know someone to change one's opinion about something.  I didn't know it would.  I didn't know what I thought about non-extremist, non-militant muslims--I was never confronted with it.  Which is kind of outrageous as an American.

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Zai is returning to Malaysia, her last day was this past week.  We said goodbye and I hugged her and rubbed her sweet growing belly.  I wished her well.  I can guarantee that she taught me far more than I taught her.  And surrounded by colleagues from the world over--literally--I know they enrich me as a physician and human far more than any of my fancy American medical knowledge enriches them.  This is NOT me being anti-American, really friends.   I had the freedom to choose to come here.  I had the opportunities to get my education and do so much in the US.  I'm just amazed at the lessons I'm learning out here in the bush.  Over and over, lessons I did not anticipate.

I like my colleagues, the united nations delegation that we are.  I'm glad Dr. Sherif is my office mate.  He has all kinds of information about NZ and medicine that he is very enthusiastic in sharing.  Most of all, I was happy that Dr. Sherif actually had the same temperature comfort zone that I did.  I suppose as a fellow desert dweller we both needed the heater on 24/7 through the winter and early spring.  And thank goodness--the warm weather has arrived!

Golden Birthday

"

Uprooting is a devastating blow because you have to separate yourself overnight from something that, for as long as you can remember, has been an important part of your identity. In a sense, you are your culture, customs, language, country, your family, your lovers. Yet exile, should you survive it, can be the greatest of philosophical gifts, a blessing in disguise. In fact, philosophers, too, should be uprooted. At least once in their lives. They should be exiled, displaced, deported — that should be part of their training. For when your old world goes down it also takes with it all your assumptions, commonplaces, prejudices and preconceived ideas. To live is to envelop yourself in an increasingly thicker veil of familiarity that blinds you to what’s under your nose. The more comfortable you feel in the world, the blunter the instruments with which you approach it. Because everything has become so evident, you’ve stopped seeing anything. Exile gives you a chance to break free. All that heavy luggage of old “truths,” which seemed so only because they were so familiar, is to be left behind. Exiles always travel light.

The redeeming thing about exile is that when your “old world” has vanished you are suddenly given the chance to experience another. At the very moment when you lose everything, you gain something else: new eyes. Indeed, what you eventually get is not just a “new world,” but something philosophically more consequential: the insight that the world does not simply exist, but it is something you can dismantle and piece together again, something you can play with, construct, reconstruct and deconstruct. As an exile you learn that the world is a story that can be told in many different ways. Certainly you can find that in books, but there is no deeper knowledge than the one that comes mixed with blood and tears, the knowledge that comes from uprooting.

"

-Costica Braditan, NYT Editorial 16 August 2014

Mike turned 50 years old on the first of October, and we took our first tiki-tour to celebrate.  We went up to a place called the Bay of Islands, famous for fishing, sailing, diving, Zane Gray, and the location where New Zealand as a nation was born.  Follow below....

Here's a panorama view of the whole Bay of Islands from a town called Russell.  The bay contains hundreds of little islands.  The pole in the near is famous for being chopped down x 4 by the Maori chief Hone Heke when the Brittish flew their flag instead of the flag designed by the Maori.  Directly across there from the bay is the Waitangi Treaty Grounds--"The Birthplace of New Zealand."

This massive lawn is where tents were set up for multitudes of Maori chiefs and people, along with all who had an interest in colonization, to meet and hammer out the Treaty of Waitangi in February 1840.

This is a waka taua, or war canoe, hand carved from the massive, beautiful and strong Kauri tree.  No synthetic material, no nails.  Prince Charles and Princess Diana where given a ride in this back in the 1980's to the Hole in the Rock (see pics below).

Anyhow, we went to a Powhiri (welcoming ceremony) here in front of the Marae, which is a traditional meeting house.  It is built in the image of humans--a protector on top, legs on which it stands, arms coming down to encircle, ribs to support.  The inside is a safe and nurturing place--the womb.  The inside is decorated with carvings and weavings, in honor of all those before.  The birthday boy was chosen to be the "chief" for the visitors.  In we went:

So that was fun.

It may look like a weird Hawaiian-luau/contrived performance.  But the Kiwi culture is more than tokenism;  it is part Pakeha (white European Brittish Commonwealth Immigrant which I can totally relate to as a descendant of the Irish potato starvation) and part Maori (aboriginal South Pacific warrior explorer).  It's a crazy amalgam of shared resilience from remote island living, farming and fishing culture, and warrior nature.  But there is little violence here.  Maori language is actively preserved and included (like all the signage at the hospital and everywhere else, and at spoken every introduction to any public event).  The Haka is performed--really occupied--by the All Blacks national rugby team before any competition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Hb632BCCw) and it unites a masculine energy--it is really powerful.  All boys of adolescent age also learn the Haka at school (like my 12 year old).  He's also learning how to use a warrior stick.  The Maori legends are taught, the art and images are ubiquitous, and the correction of social disparity is a national priority and something I was interviewed on prior to obtaining a job here.  It is very, very different to the Native American relationship to the USA. 

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We also went on a fun boat ride to the Hole in the Rock, but it was so windy and wavy we couldn't drive the boat through the hole.  And we didn't see dolphins...so we got a voucher for another trip.  Which was nice.  

We also went fishing right off of the dock in Russell.  Seamus caught 2 Schnappa which were smallish so we threw back.  Then Fionn got a Kowahi (aka sea salmon) which the chef at our hotel prepared into sashimi and fish and chips for us.  

On our way home, we saw river eels--which are crazy cool!!!!!!  They come out of the rocks if they think you will feed them, and they make eel balls.  There was a PBS Nova special on them (watch if you can) which shows how amazing they are:  they reproduce infrequently in a big mass in the pacific ocean, they can climb up walls, they are big in Maori culture.  

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For the rest of the boys' spring break, they did surf camp.  We can all stand up on a surf board now, which is a lot like skiing...on a moving slope...which=nirvana-ish.

I'm too emotionally and mentally tired to be profound and reflective, though it's been churning over the past 3 1/2 months.  There have been days I ache with the love I feel for my friends and my family in the US.  It can be overwhelming and sneaky, the way grief is.  And yet I know there is no where else I would want to be, and that I have the support of my posse.  And I have moments of profound gratitude for all we have, the opportunities, the beauty, the adventure.  I've also been working really hard at my new job, and trying to be a good parent and also trying to enjoy the present moment.  We have arrived into a neighborhood community of like-spirited souls, which has made for a soft landing.  I just wanted to share some of our joy with my friends and family. The really nice thing was that when we rounded the bend at Sandy Bay, I saw familiar sights and I thought, "oh good we're almost home."

The Work

Work.  Oh yeah...that thing.  It's how we got here: work visas.  So we've been working now in a single payor system for several weeks. New Zealand has had 'universal' health care since 1938, one of the earliest countries ever to provide this.  And yes, things aren't fancy, but they are clean and good.  Things are 'rationed.'  Patients are triaged for urgency, and if the acuity increases from routine to semi-urgent to urgent to acute they should move up the list.  This post isn't a political argument about the medical system in the states, by the way.  This is just my experience here.

There is no death panel.  In fact, in my short time here, the Kiwis have an incredibly practical approach to their medical care...along with everything else.  I suppose that living isolated here on an island selects for this trait, or breeds it.  Patient preference is taken into account for most all decisions, but some things just don't happen.  If you are old and have kidney failure, then you don't go on dialysis.  If you can't decide your resus status yourself then the medical team may decide for you;  I assure you that it is well thought out, debated and considered.  The system here has a vast supply of GPs.  They are out everywhere in the community, and by and large, provide thoughtful, thorough, amazing care.  Primary care is hands down the most difficult thing in medicine...if you do it well (and if you don't then what is the point?).

The GPs are in the trenches, and in remote places operate with minimal resources.  They can maybe do an X-ray, check a urine dip and spun hematocrit, maybe other point of care testing.  They have to be able to think on their feet, because they aren't allowed to order higher level radiologic tests including CT scans and MRIs.  They can't order certain blood tests, such as genetic tests or BNPs without a 'consultant' approval.  They have to get a consultant's blessing to send a patient to the ER.  Partly, that's because the ERs are free.  Primary care has a cost, though quite nominal, to the patient.  I took my six year old in just this afternoon after he languished with a sore throat and then spiked a temp to 39 C after an appropriate dose of ibuprofen.  The GP five minutes down the road fit him in on a Friday afternoon no problem, thoroughly examined him, swabbed his throat for strep, talked at length with me about treatment, gave me a script AND bottles of amoxicillin and paracetamol to start us on the weekend if he got worse.  The charge was $20 NZ (about $16 US).

That is how New Zealand keeps costs down.  There are true gate keepers.  There is a national drug formulary for medications based on expert evaluation of the literature and consensus amongst specialists.  The gate keepers aren't the GPs, they are the consultants--the specialists.  I'm a consultant, in both medicine and cardiology.  So I get calls about ordering tests, sending patients into the hospital, as well as just simple advice.  And on every single one of my 32 days working in the hospital answering calls, I have been completely humbled.  As a consultant and as a gate keeper with limited data, I have to think.

The patients here are sick.  I've become a bit complacent, working in a small town where we referred very sick patients out to the big city.  We could order tests without much second thought most of the time and often did so more for the patient's peace of mind (which is important) than my true concern.  I feel rusty.  I feel challenged.  And of course, that was the point.  The city where we work is a referral center for the whole north of the North Island.  We are in "Northland," literally.  So things get funneled here, and then off to Auckland if needed for the really big stuff, like cardiac caths, bypass and valve surgery.  But generally speaking, the patients here have access to basic care, they can get what they need and move up the acuity ladder if appropriate.

I've seen things this past several weeks that I've never seen in my 17 years of practice:  acute rheumatic fever; an ascending aortic aneurism 10 cm in diameter (yes 10!) with horrific aortic regurgitation and a true "washing machine murmur;"  I diagnosed a new Marfan's syndrome patient, and 2 Wolffe-Parkinson-White's in one day!!  There has been a measles outbreak and there is a constant threat of meningococcus.  Mike took care of a septic woman 36 weeks pregnant with twins.   We live in the "poor" part of New Zealand, and it feels somewhat familiar.  I am, however, overtrained here for opioid and alcohol addiction treatment.

There is limited access to diagnostic tests--there are 3 month long waits for routine tests, like an echocardiogram.  It's debatable whether limiting something like a CT scan for a patient will save money:  once you have the scanner, the cost of operating it is minimal, really.  And if you end up watching a patient in the hospital for days in lieu of a CT scan...well, that will cost you real money.  So no...not perfect.  And as I triage the "Chest Pain" referrals according to severity...well, is there any such thing as 'routine' chest pain?  Not in my previous life.  Learning a new normal.  There is stable chest pain...and then there are people having a heart attack and hopefully they end up in the ER like they should.

The other cost control is with salaries.  All doctors are unionized and everyone essentially gets the same pay scale, with some variation from district to district.  The doctors are paid fairly, based on your years of experience and whether your are a specialist or GP.  That's it.  Period.  There is no incentive for specialists to "do," especially do unnecessarily.   You do not get paid based on productivity.   And the GPs are paid well--better than in the US, for the most part;  and the specialists don't make exorbitant amounts of money. There is good incentive to become a GP.  And you work to do the right thing...you can't really hide out in the system and not work.  There is a parallel "private" system where patients can pay out of pocket for more immediate access to specialists and tests and surgeries.  Those doctors can charge whatever they want.  I don't know much about that side of things....  Will let you know.

We have an army of absolutely lovely, smart and earnest Registrars and House Officers from all over the British Empire and beyond who work incredibly hard doing everything to care for patients.  I mean everything.  Starting IVs, mixing medications.  And then of course, sometimes I have to do that.  And I know well how to put in a central line but those tiny little peripheral veins scare me.  Though, I've managed to put several in now for the dobutamine stress echoes I'm doing.

Starting over in my career (and I'll say the same for my husband) has not been easy.  It is incredibly hard to pluck oneself out of normal.  Especially as a professional, where you go in and people around you--nurses, clerks, trainees--expect you to know WTF you are doing.  And you don't.  You don't even know where the bathroom is.  You don't know what form to fill out (or even that you have to fill out a form) for the CT scan...and it's different than the regular Xray form...and different from the MRI form.  And don't even get me started on the medications here...different names, different dosages and I can't find the online formulary and I can't think of the name of that ancient diuretic....  It's humbling.  It's exhausting.  It's at times depressing, especially if one thinks oneself competent and is hypersensitive to criticism.

But...everything is in sharp relief.  Moving out of complacency was what we needed.  Being challenged by our patients and by our colleagues was the point.  Working in an academic environment was desired.  Moving away from small town politics and into a bigger system was necessary.  It hasn't all been beaches and flowers...although that's here too (yay!).  Nothing feels sure-footed.  Nothing feels normal.  I'm intimidated and I'm in awe.  And every day feels like a milestone.

On Winter's Term

There is such a simple joy in walking the children to school.  It feels so quaint and familiar.  Before the days of charter schools and fear-based indoor living, we all felt like we grew up in a neighborhood.  We played with, went to school with and were on teams with the kids in the houses around us.  While it could be stifling, it also gave us a secondary family--for better or worse, you had to figure out how to work things out with these ubiquitous mates.  I'm not sure if that model is superior to the present, more isolated model, but we definitely feel some nostalgia about it all.  That is what we pass on our walk to school---->

After living in one kind of paradise, isolated up in the wild of the Rocky Mountains, Mike and I felt like we needed to be in a 'normal' neighborhood.  I loved the folks around us in NM, but there were not really any kids without a significant drive, no way to learn how to ride a bike or a skateboard, hard to kick a ball without it rolling away down the mountain.  We were basically the young folk on the road.  So now, perhaps over-correcting, we have moved to a little sea-side burgh, where the kids can walk/bike/scooter or catch a little bus to and from school.  They play on soccer teams with the same kids that are in their classes.  At their first games, heaps of parents came up and introduced themselves because they knew we were new and that we needed some guidance and help.  There were offers of rides and playdates.  The house we have rented is on a small flat block with 3 cul-de-sacs and, I've heard, 23 other children.  We counted 6 trampolines.  There are open grass lots that a retired guy on the road maintains and mows so that the kids can play on them.  There are sidewalks.  We have a garage.  We can see into other houses' windows.  I think it's going to be great...I'm actually looking forward to the day when I want more privacy for living in a fishbowl.  

Even though that all sounds like suburbia, the town is surrounded by estuary, sea and New Zealand bush.  The community school is set between the water and the trees, both an integrated part of the curriculum.  The boys are all settling in with such ease and resilience, the way children can.  Thank. God.  I'm so enchanted with the littlest things at the school:  the shells set into the cement walkway, the green sports field (not dry brown dirt), the bush classroom.  The first day of the winter term, when we joined the school, there was a welcoming ceremony called a Powhiri (pronounced PO-feary with a rolled 'r').  It is a Maori tradition:  the new people to be welcomed walk in together to the singing of an elder Maori woman--women in front, children in the middle, and men in the back.  You all enter together, sit and a Maori elder welcomes everyone.  This involves acknowledging the past, people who have passed before you and the history of the place.  More singing amongst the welcome-ers.  Others speak.  Then the men of the incoming are invited to speak a bit about their family, their history and give thanks for the welcoming in.   The new folk sing a song.  Then you move along in a reception line and either shake hands, do a european cheek kiss or a Hongi (Maori touching of foreheads and noses to share air).  Then, you are in.  It. Was. Awesome.

The boys went off after that to join their new classes.  Fionn is in Year 2 with Mrs. Tuahaka.  She is a bad-ass middle-age-ish woman descended many generations from the second signer of the Treaty of Waitangi (the founding document of NZ).  She has a sassy asymmetric haircut with streaks of magenta and wears adorable skirts with candy apple red patent leather Doc Martins.  She calls all of the children "lovey" (pronounced LAH-vee) and has incredible classroom control.  At our parent-teacher conference the second week of school she had it all so together, and had each child working at exactly where they were supposed to be working depending on their skill.  It was so reassuring.  

Seamus trotted off with his Year 4 mates in Mr. Ford's class.  His teacher is an energetic 30-ish year old jock and new father.  He loves Ngunguru, grew up here, traveled the world, worked in Auckland, and came back here to buy his grandmother's home and have his family.  He and his wife have an 8 month-old baby.  Cully, now wanting to be called by his full Cuchulainn, blended into the Year 7 class with Mrs. Taylor.  She's a Kiwi, mom, and seems to really like peri-adolescents.  Bless her heart.  Her younger son, Reef, is one of Fionn's new mates.  

The kids are picking up cute things, like calling trash "rubbish."  They run barefoot at school.  They can walk down the road to the local dairy to pick up a snack or some milk and check the "letterbox."  The kids in their school are Kiwi, Canadian, Indian, Irish, Scottish, Brittish, Maori, Chinese....  A woman on our new block, though, is American.  She was born--can't believe it--in Gallup, NM and is an alumni of UNM.  And we can appreciate the interesting parallels between the dry desert and the green sub-tropics:  wild and beautiful land, long-indigenous and displaced peoples.  

Their first weeks, all of the boys had projects around the Commonwealth Games and the countries of the Commonwealth.  Cully made a powerpoint presentation about Gibraltar and Seamus on Scottland.  Fionn colored in pages of books on sports like netball, lawn bowling and field hockey.  I know we are in our honeymoon with NZ, and all the things we lacked before seem so incredible now.  Such a major shift.  Someday things won't be so novel or magical.  Someday.  But we'll all just enjoy not taking anything for granted for the moment.  And now that we have a school and a neighborhood, jobs and schedules, we'll just settle into living in this present.  And walking to school.  

21 Things

There are so many funny little things you notice when you travel out of your comfort zone.  The littlest things.  Fortunately our relocation requires speaking our native tongue or else I would be even more exhausted.  The little things that you take for granted become funny oddities: amusing to note, possibly disconcerting to live with.  You get used to a certain rhythm, a certain dance of roles when you interact with people.  Even the "good" things here can throw me off.  It's been a week...here are some of the things I've noticed:

1.  The landlord gave us a vacuum squeegee to clean the windows every morning.  I didn't even know vacuum squeegees existed.  There is dew inside the windows.  The first thing the middle child exclaimed upon exiting the aircraft into puddles was, "Well, they aren't in a drought!"  I hope it's started to rain in Albuquerque.

2.  Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles.  And the soft "restroom," is The Toilet.

3.  Air New Zealand serves you wine with dinner.  For free.  They have free blankets, free pillows, free individual entertainment systems.  I watched 7 episodes of Orange is the New Black.  The adorable flight attendant sensed our elevated mood on our flight and refilled our "bubbles" til we fell asleep.   All the sparkling wine we could take.

4.  I am terrified of crashing my car or getting hit by a car.  I have been very diligently working on the left side drive thing...but it's terrifying.  The roads are narrow, curvy and everyone seems to drive really fast.  I'm terrified about the kids walking or riding bikes...even though we now live in a place where it's otherwise safe to do both.

5.  It smells really nice here.  Even in Auckland, a large coastal city, it smelled fresh--not briny.  Very fresh.  And there is algae and moss everywhere.  Our driveway is covered.

6.  New Zealand, Mike and I have observed, is like Big Sur meets Kauai...or like secret warm places on the Oregon coast.  Green.  GREEN.  Like I have never lived in.  Like Ireland green.
  

7.  I don't get rugby.  Trying to....  Always a game on the tele. The blokes wear short shorts when they play, and have gargantuan thighs--tree trunks.  That's all I can see when I watch.  No flipping thigh gap here.  And the referees wear pink.  And considering the abuse the players dish out I'm not sure why they bother with referees.  

8.  The coffee culture here is amazing.  These folks like GOOD coffee (yay!  me too!).  You can get a really good, lovely frothy drink anywhere.  See #9.  The stores all have locally roasted organic amazing grinds.  They make a "kid's fluffy" which is a demitasse cup with cocoa and lots of the froth with cocoa powder and marshmallows.  Love it.

9.  The food here is also amazing.  We stopped at a truck stop-like place to pay a toll, and the food there included the aforementioned amazing coffee  (a 'flat white' which is espresso and creamy milk with unbelievable froth--so creamy) and also the following sandwiches:  Brie and frisee with cranberry on gluten-free bread, thai chicken, bacon/lettuce/avocado....and various filos, including spinach and gruyere, salmon and caper, and other savory delights.  At a gas station.  Same thing at the public library.  French toast includes "bacon" on top and fried bananas standard with fluffy brioche type bread.   There's also a full selection of fried food and other fast foods, too.

10.  The people are so nice I feel self-conscious about it.  Ridiculously nice.  And really good service.  I feel like I don't deserve it.  Or that they want something from me.

11.  There is a huge case of sausage-ish products at the supermarket.  They come in all shapes, sizes and colors.  A "hot dog" here is some kind of wiener on a stick dipped in batter and fried.  Sort of like a corn dog meets fish and chips...?

12.  No one cares if you are bare foot anywhere.  Except maybe court.

13.  We've seen a rainbow every single day.  Every day.  For a week.

14.  I am desperately dependent on the internet.  We had no access for a few days and I went into a confused depression.  It might have been compounded by the fact that I was in a city I didn't know and I really needed to find my way around.

15.  Produce.  Amazeballs.  The apples--to die for.  Best carrots I've ever had.  Locally grown, yay.

16.  SEAFOOD.

17.  I have never lived where it rains and I just don't know how the lifelong desert girl will do with this.  Hoping the Irish genes will activate and thrive on a wet island.

18.  Beware travel plans with data service.  Enough said.

19.  The beach is the greatest playground ever.  Temperature is immaterial.  Children are impervious to cold.  

20.  I look around and cannot believe I live here.  It's not mine yet, and still it is so amazing.  I miss my mom and my sister terribly, I miss my friends but only because I know I'm here for a long haul.  I would regularly go for weeks and not see any of my posse--go for months and not see my sister.   But when I imagine myself back in NM I also feel the compulsion to get out.  And this is what it all is: gingerly finding my way to a new normal, not settled anywhere.  Forging different connections in my lifelong relationships. The kids are so, so adaptable.  Amazingly so:  they are great.  The hubs is giddy happy.  And basically I come to: I. Am. So. Lucky.   To be here, to have a job, to have options.  Wow.  So grateful.

21.  Wet cold is super cold.  And uninsulated houses are really hard to keep warm.  Duh.  Spoiled by adobe.  And though I swore I'd never do it again, I'm heating a house with a wood stove.

Arrived

So...our first 36 hours in our new country.  So many impressions under the influence of jet lag, new love, and displacement.  Auckland.   Love it.  Cosmopolitan, beautiful, clean, international.  Just going to post pictures.  We took off on a smooth and painless 13 hour flight from LAX Saturday night (28 June 2014), arriving Monday morning (30 June 2014) and skipped Sunday entirely.  Hope to get that day back sometime.  When we got off the plane it smelled of flowers...literally.  We fetched our 15 pieces of checked luggage and got a shuttle to take us to our hotel--cool vans towing small trailers.  I highly recommend the "serviced apartments" in these parts:  kitchen,  laundry, bedroom, balcony overlooking Auckland harbor.   They checked us in to our room at 9 am. !  We swam, got our rental van, and toured the city in a soft rain, reciting our mantra "LOOK RIGHT, DRIVE LEFT."

We visited an aquarium with actual penguins, sharks, and saw an amazing museum near the university.  We ate delicious Asian food (sorely lacking in our past life) with Korean BBQ, Chinese and Asian all at one "Food Alley," and then fell asleep at 6:30 pm (which was midnight Mountain time).

Everyone slept until a decent hour this morning and then we watched World Cup soccer.  Mike and I ran along the pier drinking in the industrial art, blue (really!) Pacific water, museums, boats, parks, greenery, smartly dressed people, lack of trash, lack of homelessness, and high density of delicious coffee shops.  It rained.  Seamus declared, "Well, at least THEY aren't in a drought," the moment he stepped off the plane.  There are amazing coffee shops and an array of coffee and frothy drinks...did I mention that already?  We met with a legal representative of the Medical Council of New Zealand to make sure we weren't lying criminals.  Then we ascended the Skytower to look over all of Auckland.  Mike and Cully donned special suits and harnesses to take the "Sky Walk" around the perimeter of the tower.  Then we ate a glorious meal at The Depot--3 types of oysters, 2 types of clams, marrow, brussel sprouts, fish sliders, Marlborough sauvignon blanc and pinot noir.  Holy crap.