The Land Down Underer: At least 30 years behind...

It's been a while since I updated. Things have been absolutely crazy the last few weeks. First off there was a 5.7 and 6.3 magnitude earthquake which shut the city down for a few days. The local library only just reopened again. Meanwhile we'd asked before this to get out of our lease and there was a family who was supposed to take it over. They ended up bailing but I'm assuming because of the earthquake decided to change their minds. So we ended up being given 1.5 weeks notice to find a new place to live. This was difficult because so many more homes were destroyed and became unliveable and Andrew had no idea what was going on with his exams. The university was extremely late in giving answers about student's exams. Then a few days later there was a 5.4 aftershock which was quite strong and had us evacuated from our residences...at 10:30pm at night. Great! We drove around for a few hours, the kids were cold and miserable and we ended up stopping at an open Mcdonalds for some fries and a hot chocolate (but they weren't serving hot drinks because of the aftershocks). It was a long long night which really made us think what on earth are we doing here?

However God came through for us and provided a flat way beyond our expectations right across from the beach. It's a great apartment and you can open the doors and hear the Ocean waves. We feel extremely blessed although bummed we can't surf and the water likely won't be safe by summer they are saying.

However we can't ignore some of the difficulties we have been faced with in New Zealand. Much of which have made us want to go back to Toronto. The first Feb 22 earthquake shut down the city for months. I wouldn't even say the city has fully recovered. We had to boil water for a couple months which was annoying but the least of anyone's worries. Things started to look a bit better, and you start to think "ok this was a one-off and we can get on with our lives" which is what we thought about the first September earthquake. But then when another one hits and another and another and they are all on different unknown undiscovered fault lines, you start to wonder when it will end and if it will ever end? It's difficult for us because we don't have many friends here and no family. We don't have established lives here so every time another aftershock hits, it disrupts our whole lives and our chances of staying here. Andrew is having difficulty with school and never knowing when his classes/breaks/exams etc will be. A lot of people stay in Christchurch because they have friends and family here or grew up here etc. We just don't have that same attachment. What we are finding very difficult at the moment is finances. We saved for this move but nobody could prepare us for the high cost of living. We expected it to be high but also counted on Andrew getting a part-time job during the school year and full-time work during the summer to help offset the cost. This is proving next to impossible and the frustration is setting in on what do we do? First off the earthquake caused a lot of unemployment due to the CBD being closed and also businesses being unable to survive after the initial quake. So there are already so many unemployed looking for a job. On top of that add that Kiwi's have this thing against hiring immigrants for jobs. At first I didn't think this was the case but the more jobs I've seen Andrew apply for and get rejected from I think this has to be the case. He's been overqualified for almost everything he's applied for and he's gone for so many and nothing. Thirdly throw in that most businesses want to hire people as independent contractors (a violation of Andrew's visa terms) is making it next to impossible for Andrew to find a job. I'm not hopeful for him finding a summer job only...which makes us wonder what to do. I won't even get into why I can't get a job right now. So yes we are frustrated. Sometimes it feels like an investment that just didn't pan out.

However New Zealand is beautiful. The people (for the most part) are lovely, and the scenery is stunning. We definitely feel like we fit in here.

Let's see...so we moved and then we were supposed to go to Auckland. We were all geared up to go and got to the airport only to find out our flight was delayed until 8:50pm (2 hours late). Logan and Fox were miserable and then Logan started to get sick, and just about everything that could go wrong went wrong and we decided to just go home. Sometimes things just happen and you just have to roll with it. We lost our money on the flight but luckily it wasn't much. A few days later we ended up driving to Hanmer Springs for the day just to get out of the city. It's a 90 minute drive and was worth it! We enjoyed the day looking at snow-capped mountains while sitting in the thermal pool which we had gotten coupons for. Logan got used to being in a pool again which was great. Since all the pools were closed for so long after the earthquake, she had to be reacquainted with them. It was a relaxing day and we just sat there not having to worry about aftershocks. I can't even describe how nice it was to get out of the city even if only for a day.

Other than that not much else is new. I titled this Blogpost 30 years behind to explain my disbelief at some NZ trends but I will save that for another entry. I will leave you with some recent pictures of the kids. In the next few days I will post about the kids and post a few videos of the kids as well.

My beautiful Logan walking on the dunes and clutching of course the rubber duckie her daddy bought her. She is so attached to her rubber duckies. She brings them everywhere and sometimes insists on sleeping with them.