We have now been in the country for almost a week, and we have accomplished quite a few things already. We managed to buy a car, a washer and a dryer, a new TV, and other miscellaneous items. We finalized everything for our house, so we will be picking up the keys on Thursday morning! Very very exciting!
On Friday we drove our new car for the first time (1999 VW Passat), which meant of course we needed to get car insurance. We went into the bank, and I marched up to the counter and said, "Hi, we need to get some car insurance." And yes we knew for a fact the bank does sell car insurance, but the lady just looked at me like I was an alien. She said, "Pardon?", so I just repeated myself without a second thought. And then received another alien-like stare. Then she goes, "ok, you got me, what's that?" as if I was playing some kind of joke on her. So now I gave her this look as if she was the alien from another planet, as I was thoroughly confused. Then 30 seconds later the light flashed in her eyes as she realized I had an accent, but really was still speaking english. Apparently "CAR" is pronounced like "cahhh" so she had absolutely no idea what I said. Apparently there is a bit of a language barrier...
Anyway, we got the insurance, and I drove for the first time on the left side of the road. I did not crash, although it will definitely take some getting used to. I almost side swiped a huge truck (oops) and I think I gave Mark a heart attack as I drove through my first round-about (not as easy as you might imagine), but no accidents. One huge shocking fact... You all complain about gas prices... our car costs $120 to fill up the tank!!! And it is a small sedan. Uhhhhh. Even when you convert that to US dollars, that's still about $80!!!
We also had our New Zealand family get together on Saturday to celebrate our wedding and move to New Zealand, which was a big success. We rented out this big house, which had some awesome views of the ocean (and was littered with sheep, standard New Zealand). There were about 40 of Mark's family members that came, which means that about 20 bottles of wine and 100 beers were had. OH. MAN. But it was fun to see everyone! Check out some pics in the pictures section.
On Friday we drove our new car for the first time (1999 VW Passat), which meant of course we needed to get car insurance. We went into the bank, and I marched up to the counter and said, "Hi, we need to get some car insurance." And yes we knew for a fact the bank does sell car insurance, but the lady just looked at me like I was an alien. She said, "Pardon?", so I just repeated myself without a second thought. And then received another alien-like stare. Then she goes, "ok, you got me, what's that?" as if I was playing some kind of joke on her. So now I gave her this look as if she was the alien from another planet, as I was thoroughly confused. Then 30 seconds later the light flashed in her eyes as she realized I had an accent, but really was still speaking english. Apparently "CAR" is pronounced like "cahhh" so she had absolutely no idea what I said. Apparently there is a bit of a language barrier...
Anyway, we got the insurance, and I drove for the first time on the left side of the road. I did not crash, although it will definitely take some getting used to. I almost side swiped a huge truck (oops) and I think I gave Mark a heart attack as I drove through my first round-about (not as easy as you might imagine), but no accidents. One huge shocking fact... You all complain about gas prices... our car costs $120 to fill up the tank!!! And it is a small sedan. Uhhhhh. Even when you convert that to US dollars, that's still about $80!!!
We also had our New Zealand family get together on Saturday to celebrate our wedding and move to New Zealand, which was a big success. We rented out this big house, which had some awesome views of the ocean (and was littered with sheep, standard New Zealand). There were about 40 of Mark's family members that came, which means that about 20 bottles of wine and 100 beers were had. OH. MAN. But it was fun to see everyone! Check out some pics in the pictures section.
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