Author: Marsha S.

            There are two problems with shopping here in New Zealand.  First, there is no Amazon.  Second, there are no mega-retailers like Walmart or Target.  We have traveled back in time to the pre-online days when shopping means going from store to store picking up what you need and being stuck with whatever selection or lack of selection they have.  If anything good can be said of Amazon, if you can think of it, you can find it and someone will ship it to you.  Here, we have to shop Amazon Australia where the selection is very limited and the shipping takes weeks.  We often end up ordering from the US Amazon but that can get expensive.  

            Worse, we cannot rely on one stop superstores to fill the Amazon void.  There is no one place where you can shop for clothes and sporting goods and housewares and groceries and whatever else you can think of.  If I want something for the cats, I have to go to the pet store.  If I need gym equipment, I have to go to the fitness store.  If I want home stuff like small appliances, sheets, that sort of thing, I go to the home store.  If I want a book, I go to the book store.  Office supplies, well, good luck to you.  Groceries are found at the grocery store.  Some grocery stores are large, most are small, and each chain has its own niche.  There are mega-building stores similar to Lowe’s and Home Depot, so that is a relief.  There is no giant pharmacy chain.  They are trying, but mostly a pharmacy, or the chemist, is a small store with not much selection.  There is a Macy’s-like department store called Farmer’s that I have yet to visit but is still not anything akin to a superstore.  

            I know that folks in the U.S. do still shop store-to-store as I am describing.  That is fine. My issue with store shopping is the limited and limiting selections.  There might be two colors, not six.  Items may or may not be in stock.  It is a total crap shoot.  Give me the ability to choose.  To me, that is what online shopping is all about. As a consequence, I have not shopped at a mall or done anything like going store-to-store for years.  

       We had pretty much everything delivered.  We knew all of the online retail sites.  Pet supplies, groceries, office, home and garden, and whatever else we could think of, we would get from Amazon or some other on-line store.  With those kinds of options, we never had to settle for what was in stock and we did not have to leave the house.   

            Here, we are trying to get stuff delivered so we don’t have to run from store to store.  But not all stores deliver, there is usually a charge, and the selection is often limited to what they sell.  Just as an example, I wanted to buy something as simple as bathroom rugs.  I tried three home stores, and the selection was just terrible.  Gray, black, tan.  Gray black, tan.   It was maddening.  I did not want to just settle for what they had—sad colors and cheap materials.  I finally turned to Amazon AU and I found a few better choices.  In the U.S. I could think of probably half a dozen online retailers who I could buy from and more than a few stores that I could have gone to that would have had better choices.  

            Then there is food shopping.  If I want to have any chance of choices in ingredients, I will have to wander from small store to small store.  Today I found a tiny deli that stocked Middle Eastern ingredients and Peruvian ingredients.  I was filled with joy.  But it is going to take up a lot of time to pursue what I want.  

            And that is what it is really all about—I am used to having choices at hand.  The way it is here, sometimes you just have to take what they have or spend an enormous amount of time searching.   I am sure I will learn to make do but going from so many choices it was hard to chose to lack of any choices at all is sad.

          

           I decided that in order to convert into something less than a wimp, I would walk the “tracks” around Wellington.  I do not usually walk or hike.  I am more of a pool person.  But here, walking is the thing.  A track is a hiking or walking trail and there are a lot of them.  New Zealanders like to get out and walk.  One of the oldest parks in Wellington, Khandallah Park, is very near our house.  It has a track that goes to Mount Kaukau which, at 445 meters (about 1500 feet), is the highest summit in Wellington.  I did not know this when I decided to give it a go.  Remember, they refer to these as “hills.”

 I gingerly set off up the trail, not knowing what to expect.  I soon realized that for me this was going to be a stiff uphill climb.  For the people of Wellington, this track is considered an easy walk up a hill, fun for the whole family.  It is rated as easy/intermediate by the local trail group.  

The track consists of a trail built out with steps where needed, mostly where it becomes so steep the trail becomes vertical.  You would think steps would make it easier.  No.  This was not one or two steps to make a transition but eight or ten steps with very high risers.  The ascent was 245 meters (about 800 feet up) and about half of that distance was stair climbing.  

Along the way, I ran into casual walkers, runners, and even a woman with her young kids.  Everyone seemed fresh.  I was breaking a sweat and breathing fairly hard.  There were moments when I had to argue with myself to keep going.  When was this trail going to end?  But I was not going to wimp out and turn around.  My hips were screaming by the end, (stupid piriformis) but I made it to the summit.  There I found the woman with her three boys enjoying the view. Wellington harbor was spread out in front of us.  It was so clear I could even see the South Island.  One of the boys told me he was seven.  He asked me how old I was.  I said too old to be climbing this damn hill.  

The entire loop is 4.9 km, (about 3 miles).  I only went up and back, a mere 1.5 miles.  I covered the ground in the allotted 30 minutes to the top and about 45 minutes down.  Those steps are tough on the old knees.  By the time I got back home, I was hurting.  My poor hips.  So much stretching to do.  But I did it.  My first track—the easy Mount Kaukau summit.  

          

           

 I told Matt that in retirement, I had to live next to water.  I have promised myself my entire life that I would live at the beach.  This may be my chance.  Wellington is on the southern end of the North Island.  There are beach towns arrayed along the Kapiti Coast, the west coast north of town.  These towns are not as expensive as living in the city and they have a great view.  Even better, their weather is not as harsh as Wellington for reasons that have to do with wind patterns.

            Most people in Wellington consider the Kapiti Coast very far away. The drive is 40 minutes.  As people who lived in D.C. and dealt with traffic from an outer suburb, a 40-minute drive is a piece of cake.  So we are thinking we might live on the Kapiti Coast.  We visited this past weekend.  Here are some pics.  

            Wellington is a port city surrounded by hills.  I say “hills,” but these are HILLS.  Actually, they are at the end of the Remutaka and Tararua mountain ranges.  To the people of Wellington they are just some hills.  We live in those hills, in a village called Khandallah.  The hills are full of steep, winding, narrow roads.  Everything seems like it is uphill.  Think backroads of West Virginia.  

            What is amazing is the number of cyclist and runners who make their way up those hills every day.  Just yesterday I saw a woman around my age powering her bicycle up Ngaio Gorge Road.  Yes, it is a gorge.  This road had what the Kiwis euphemistically call “a slip” after an earthquake.  We would call it a rock slide.  It will take years to fix and it has reduced part of the road to one lane. Today we saw two other older folks, heavy set but obviously with better leg muscles and lungs than I have, pumping along in the rain.  I just cannot imagine taking that on.  Setting aside the power needed to get up the hills, the bike lane is narrow and not very well protected from cars.  It is about a half a shoulder.  There is no room for error.  No matter to the bicyclists.  They manage it.

            Wellington is also known for its wild winter weather—rain and strong winds.  Despite the weather, people are out running or walking.  They just get wet.  Sometimes a person might be wearing a rain jacket, but more often than not, they are in shorts and soaking wet tees, hair sticking to their heads.  I suppose you learn that you have to live with the weather. There is no calling the game because it is raining.  We saw kids outside in the rain playing soccer and rugby.  I saw a young man on the waterfront at what appeared to be the end of his run.  He was wearing shorts but no shirt in a driving rain.  (Okay, that seemed like a bit much.).  The lesson is that you can’t let the weather stop you because you would be locked inside all winter.  I guess I am destined to do the same.  If I don’t, I will have wimped out.  I just can’t do that.

       Since I arrived, part of my mission has been to fill the larder. Matt has been living like a bachelor and the freezer is full of dumplings–Chinese, Japanese, Nepali, Thai. The guy clearly can’t resist a dumpling. I’ve done what I can to cook them for dinner but there is a point at which I say, I’ve had enough dumplings.

So I have gone gathering at the grocery stores. Americans are spoiled in a lot of ways but one of the biggest is food.  We take for granted the dozens and dozens of options we have of everything from yogurt to fruit to ice cream.  It is hard for us to remember the days when blueberries were not available year-round, when asparagus was a spring treat, or when there was no such thing as chicken sausage.  

            Here in Wellington, I am living those days again.  They don’t seem to be a stop on the South American fruit and vegetable train. Even though winter strawberries taste like cardboard, it is comforting to know they are there. I have not seen a strawberry except in the frozen food aisle. I have seen some very expensive blueberries. But it is autumn here and we are looking at apples and the beginning of citrus season.

I wanted to get some breakfast sausage to have on hand.  I had no idea how important breakfast sausage is to me until I could not find it.  They don’t have breakfast sausage here.  Well, that is too categorical.  You will find beef sausage, lamb sausage, and pork sausage, but none are “breakfast” sausage as we know it. They do have something called pork sausage that kind of looks like breakfast sausage, but it certainly does not look appetizing.  Matt says it is terrible and I don’t want to try it.   I figured they would at least have Irish breakfast sausage, something we could not avoid in our trip around Ireland. Nope.

            I had a very long chat about sausage with the meat guy in the supermarket.  He assured me that there is a breakfast sausage. They were just out of it. When I asked what it was made from he hesitated. He seemed to suggest that they eat the other sausages for breakfast. I was not clear on that.  I had a hard time imagining beef sausage and then thinking of it for breakfast. Yeah, I’m not down with that. Some of their sausage looks like hot dogs and it is meant for grilling not as a side to eggs.

            Nor is there Italian sausage as we know it—sweet or spicy. I have been told that I may need to go to an Italian specialty store for Italian sausage. (This topic will get its own blog post. There is no one-stop shopping. You have to go to individual stores to fill your needs.)

  I am used to eating Italian chicken sausage that I would get at Whole Foods.  There is absolutely no option for chicken or turkey sausage here.  Lamb, on the other hand, is ubiquitous.  If you can think of a dish that has a meat in it, there will be some version of it made with lamb.  I don’t think that is a bad thing.  I love lamb and we have had lamb sausage that was delicious.  I made a pasta sauce with lamb sausage, mushrooms and tomatoes that was plate-licking good.

But someone needs to work on the breakfast sausage problem preferably with a chicken or turkey option. And no folks, you can’t ship it to me. It will not get through customs. We just have to soldier on.  

            Matt’s focus is the cereal aisle.  In an American store, there is usually one aisle devoted to breakfast foods, with so many cereal choices it can be hard to even pick.  Everything from Cheerios to granola to breakfast bars to oatmeal. And don’t forget the frozen foods breakfast section–frozen waffles and baked goods and breads.  Not here.  There is no breakfast section in the frozen food aisle. No Eggo waffles. The cereal aisle is limited. They sell Special K and a version of Raisin Bran.  There is muesli and granola.  That is pretty much it.  The granola can be hit or miss.  Some of it is pretty darn good.  Some of it is like eating cardboard flakes.  

            Matt loves his cereal for breakfast, so this makes him very sad.  Should he ship it here through Amazon?  That would be some expensive cereal if he did.  So he has to find what works.  

            None of this makes New Zealand a bad place.  It just makes us aware of how spoiled we are in the U.S.  We have choices that are unimaginable to others.

          

            They made it.  Both a little freaked out and sick with colds from being in the same place as a lot of other animals, but they made it.  

            The house we are staying in has huge patio doors and we thought this would be great for the cats—they could watch nature in 3D.  Alas, there is nothing to watch.  We went from herds of squirrels and birds, birds, birds, to nothing. There is nothing outside of any interest to the cats.  There are a few birds, usually the tui, but there are no squirrels in New Zealand.  In fact, there are no native mammals of any kind.  A few neighborhood cats come by, but just passing and not long enough to get our cats’ attention.  It really is odd not seeing squirrels.  You forget how used you can get to having a yard full of wildlife.  Here are the facts about native animals and plants:

• Apart from two bat species, there are no native land mammals.
• There are no snakes.
• Many species are long-lived: kiwi can live for 30 years, and kauri trees for 1,700.
• Many birds and insects are flightless – they did not need to fly as there were few predators.
• Some species are giants, including kākāpō (the world’s biggest parrot), snails, buttercups and daisies.
• Several trees when young have small, narrow leaves. These only become large when the tree reaches over 2–3 metres. This pattern may have evolved to prevent the giant moa (a bird, now extinct) from eating young plants.

  Excerpted from https://teara.govt.nz/en/native-plants-and-animals-overview

            Given the lack of back yard wildlife, I am not sure how the cats will amuse themselves.  Most New Zealanders who own cats let them roam free.  We have not yet decided if we want JoJo out and about.  One thing I do not want is a cat with fleas. Nor do I want to wonder if JoJo is okay. He was feral and I worry that he will go on walk about and stay out for days. He is also prone to saying hi to strangers and he would be very willing to be friends with anyone who gives him food. We will see.

Off to Houston we flew to get to our connecting Air New Zealand flight   The Houston Airport is huge and crowded.  A disability assistant pushed Matt to the gate while I dealt with the carry-ons.  We had a lot of time to kill so we decided to try for entry into an Airline Club.  I could not find it and I stopped an airport worker to ask if she knew where the club was located.  When she saw I had Matt and the carry-ons, she offered to help us.  She would handle my luggage while I pushed Matt.  I insisted that we did not need help, but she was determined.  She walked us to the Club and then said goodbye.  

People ask us all the time whether it is hard to fly to New Zealand.  The flight is 14 hours and you think, that is just too much.  But honestly, it is a really good amount of time.  You watch a movie, have dinner and then pop some sleeping aid of your choice and go to sleep.  Unlike flights to Europe, you actually have time to sleep.  You can get in a good seven hours if you try.  You wake up feeling refreshed and you arrive in New Zealand in their morning.  So it all works out.  

What did not work out was the next part of the trip—our luggage in Aukland, where we had to go through New Zealand customs.  When you are moving to a country for a few years, you kind of overpack.  As I said, we had six very large and very, very heavy pieces of luggage in addition to our two carry-ons and two backpacks.  When we arrived at the baggage check we had expected to find a porter to help us.  There were none.  There were only luggage carts that might hold three pieces of luggage.  That meant I would have two carts plus Matt in a wheelchair.  I am good, but not that good.  

I went to find help.  What I got from the guys at the baggage carousel was an excuse.  While they could load the cart for me, helping us push carts through customs was not in their job description.  I then tried to get help from the baggage services desk, being manned by two women.  One woman seemed pretty cranky and mad that the person pushing Matt’s wheelchair had bailed out and left me there to handle the task.  She felt they should be helping us.

The other women listened to me explain the situation and she said there are no porters at the airport.  You have to book ahead with third party services.  I did not know that of course since in America, we do things a little differently.  They asked why the guys at the baggage carousel did not help.  I told her their response was they could not do it.  

This woman, who was about my age and whose name I never did get, put on her orange neon vest and said she would help me even though it was not in her job description.  At this moment, the can-do spirit of New Zealand women came to our rescue.  She marched over to the luggage carts and started to push one toward the customs door.  I pushed Matt.  Then she went back and got the other cart and pushed it.  She decided she could handle both carts, pushing one and pulling the other.  I was protesting that she should not be handling so much luggage, but she shushed me and said luggage was what she dealt with.  She kept on going.  We got to customs and we found—ready?  X-ray machines.  You want us to put six 70 pound bags through an x-ray machine?  There was no sympathy there.  The Good Samaritan and I hefted the bags onto the luggage belt and then hefted them back onto the carts.  More pushing and going back and pushing another in a relay.  A young girl came up and said she had been watching us and figured she could help.  She took over pushing Matt while I pushed one of the carts.  

We made it out of customs but now we had to transfer to a domestic flight to Wellington.  The domestic flights are in an entirely different building, that can only be reached by a bus.  We and our luggage needed to be transferred to the domestic flight.  At this point, we were so late, we were surely going to miss our flight, so we needed to be rebooked. 

Another Air New Zealand employee, a woman of course, asked if we needed help.  I explained the situation.  We were joined by the Good Samaritan and both of them went off determined to get us to Wellington with all of our luggage.  This would require rebooking our flight and getting our luggage checked in the international terminal, a real no-no.  We waited.  About fifteen minutes later they came with tickets and bag tags.  

As we were checking the bags, I handed the Good Samaritan a wad of American money.  I told her to take it and buy herself a nice dinner.  She protested but I insisted.  Then I did the American thing and gave her a hug.  Twice.  They escorted us to the bus to transfer to the domestic terminal and we bid them both farewell.  

At the domestic terminal more fussing started over our carry-ons.  Strict weight limits of 15 pounds for everything you are taking on board.  My purse is that heavy, let alone a backpack and carry-on.  At this point we had no choice.  We checked unlocked bags loaded with cameras and ipads.  It made me sick to do but the airline rep was not letting us go to the gate with the carry-ons.  

The flight was uneventful.  But now we had to face the body bag luggage once again in Wellington.  There are no taxi vans and we were never getting all that luggage in a car trunk.  In anticipation, we rented an SUV to drive all of it to the house.  All we had to do was get the luggage to the car.  Once again, a Good Samaritan from baggage services came to our rescue.  She was not even slightly impressed with our bags.  People move to New Zealand and they bring luggage.  So she had seen this before.  In fact, without prompting, she asked me where we were moving.  She hefted those bags, insisting that I not help and pushed both carts together to the rental counter while I pushed Matt.  I told her not to strain herself and she said, I’ve handled luggage for years.  This is what I do.  Mind you, she was close to my age and wearing a dress and heels.  When I said I had my doubts about getting help from the rental agent, she admonished me.  “You are doing this all wrong.  You need to make them help you.  Don’t lift anything.  Make people do their job.”  That seemed extreme but I got her point.  I was trying to do most of the work and she wanted me to rely on the people there.  

Luckily, the final Good Samaritan we encountered was at the rental counter.  A young woman, she ran to get the car and then helped us load it.  

In all of this I can say that everyone we encountered along the way was as helpful as they could be.  But I was even more impressed with the attitude.  There was no, sorry but we can’t help you.  I’ll take the next in line.  The attitude was a very matter-of-fact “we can get this done if we put our minds to it.  Let’s just give it a go.”  

I am profusely grateful to all of those women.  It might have been all in a day’s work for them, but you won’t always find people who will go above and beyond for a stranger.  We met five women who did.  

  The next morning, the plan was to get breakfast and leave for the airport no later than 12:30.  We had six body bag size suitcases to check.  We needed all of this luggage because our stuff was now in crates to be put on a ship.  We would not see it for months.  We packed as much as we could had to take on the plane.  We also needed to get wheel chair assistance for Matt.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:45 p.m.  I checked my email as part of my morning routine.  I found a Daily Notice from the Post Office alerting me that mail would be delivered that day.  This was odd.  Matt had done a change of address for me.  I shouldn’t be getting mail.  We tried to figure out what went wrong.  We called the local Post Office and they had no record of the change of address request.  I called the national customer service number and all they wanted was a change of address confirmation number, which I did not have.  They could not determine if I had changed my address without that number.  I asked if I could just take care of it over the phone and the answer was a firm “no.”  Their policy is that a change of address has to be done by application in person or by mail. 

Matt and I went through our emails again and there it was.  In my overwhelmed state, I had missed and email from USPS.  They were holding my change of address request until I went to a Post Office and personally verified it.  I have no idea why but we suspect that since Matt took care of it and paid for it, an alarm of some sort was triggered.  

It was 11 a.m.  Our flight was leaving at 2:45.  How could I get to a Post Office?  I called USPS and begged to get it done over the phone.  They insisted that the only way I could change my address was to show up in person at a Post Office to confirm the change.  Customer service said that any Post Office would do.  

We looked on-line and found a Post Office that was a ten-minute walk from the hotel.  I put on my shoes and headed out.  I race walked down the street willing myself to go as fast as I could.  But I could not find this Post Office. The address made no sense.  I turned to Google maps and discovered the office was inside of an old shopping mall.  I finally found it only to be greeted by the 2022 winner of the craziest Post Office employee in the U.S.  She was alone behind a counter that she had rigged up with cardboard in a way that seemed to be intended to serve as protection from the COVID masses.  

When I told her I was there to verify my change of address, she insisted she had never had of such a request and that she did not know what I was talking about.  I asked her to read the email from USPS, but she refused.  I was pissed so I started reading it to her aloud.  She practically stuck her fingers in her ears.  She instructed me to call her supervisor.  I refused. I pleaded.  “I have to catch a plane.  You understand that, don’t you?”  Her response, “So.” I tried every way I could to get her to help me. Finally, I said, “Give me the fucking number.”  At that, she ran away, through an “Authorized Personnel Only” door and locked it.  

I cussed all the way back to the hotel.  By this time, I had had no breakfast and no caffeine.  It was getting on to noon.  We needed to be at the airport at 12:45 p.m.  I had to get to a Post Office that was staffed by a sane person. 

We checked out and headed for the next closest Post Office.  At that stop, the clerk gave me the address of the “main” Post Office, the only place that could deal with a change of address verification.  So much for “any post office can take care of it.”  Why is customer service so bad?  We drove further away from the airport.  At this point it was 12:45. I walked to the window and told the clerk I was going to miss my flight if she could not help me.  She knew what do and took care of it in one minute.  But it was still another ten minutes gone.  

When I got into the car, I burst into tears.  The pressure was just too much.  I was bawling.  Hysterical or not, we had to get to the airport.  I drove and blew my nose at the same time.  

The next problem was our rental car.  It needed to be returned to an off-site location.  We had planned for me to drop Matt off with the bags, I would return the car and take the shuttle back.  There was absolutely no time for any of that. Matt called Avis and explained that we were running so late, we did not have time to take the car anywhere other than the airport.  We had to off load the luggage and check-in.  We only had an hour.  Avis agreed we could leave the car in a parking garage.  

I pulled up to the departure area and tracked down a porter.  He agreed to help Matt with the six body bags while I went off to park the car.  I thought that perhaps a rental company would let me stow the car there for Avis to fetch.  No way.  More time wasted.  I finally went into the daily parking garage, left the ticket and the keys in the car and ran to the check-in counter.  There was Matt, the porter and the agent waiting for me.  The luggage was way overweight, and we had to pay.  But whatever.  We had 45 minutes to get through security and to the gate.  

Matt was in a wheelchair and we needed an escort to get us through the security checkpoint quickly.  Of course, the escort had forgotten her badge and had to run back to the break room to get it.  More waiting.  Clock ticking.  We finally got through security and went as fast as we could to the gate.  They were holding the door for us.  We made it with 5 minutes to spare.  Whew!

On May 15, our house was the center of a packing frenzy.  A hoard of packers worked to put everything we owned into boxes as fast as they could.  We watched as our entire life was deconstructed and stuffed into boxes.  It was pretty upsetting.  I felt violated. But this was part of the process.  For two days, the packing and box stacking continued.  On day three,  the movers came to fit our stuff into three trucks.  They got it into 12 crates and we were elated.  This meant we would fit into a 40 foot container, a key factor in the cost of moving

While I watched them pack our life and throw the entire house into chaos or worse, Matt was sitting in the ER.  He had been having extreme pain in his lower back for days and he needed two see a doctor. But we had no time to make appointments. The plane was leaving tomorrow. He needed to get diagnosed ASAP. We were worried it might be related to his nerve problems.  He got checked in and they told us it would be hours before he saw a doctor, so I left him sitting in the ER while I dealt with the packers and the last errands.  I admit it was not a great thing to do but we both knew we had no choice.  We were leaving in less than 24 hours and he needed help.  I needed to be at the house to address the questions and stay on top of it.

I picked Matt up late in the afternoon. He had blown discs in his lower back but we had to keep going. But we had to deal with what was in front of us.  Luckily, he was comfortable sitting and we were going to be doing a lot of that in the next two days. Plus, he was loaded with pain meds and a prescription for steroids. The meds allowed him to move albeit, with impatience and anger that comes with steroids. 

We had a lot of clean-up to do after the movers left. We went back to the house to hand out the last of our food to the neighbors and to gather the last items that needed to be tossed.  This took some time and by the time we arrived at the hotel near the airport, it was a little before 10 p.m.  As we checked in, the receptionist let us know that if we wanted food we had to hurry because the restaurant closed at 10, even for room service.  

Seeing as we had to unload the car and make our way to the room, there was no way we were getting a food from the hotel.  By this time, I was so hungry I could have eaten my hand, but we figured we would just order take out.  What we did not anticipate was the fact if you are looking for take out after 10 p.m., the pickings are slim.  Matt searched and searched and finally found a diner that would do carry out.  Club sandwiches and pink lemonade seemed like the thing to eat at midnight. We finally passed out from exhaustion at about 1 a.m.