Giedre tyttö Ozista

Home Improvement

I'm sorry about surfing pictures overload. These days I take out the camera only on the weekends and so far we've been going to have a look at the beach every weekend... I was hoping to take pictures around our home (especially because everything is in bloom here - apple trees, cherry trees, all kinds of trees!), but it was raining non-stop the whole weekend... Who wants to look at grey foggy and soggy pictures?

Most of last week we were engaged in the massive project of replacing the ugly curtains made out of potato-sack material with a better looking (but also dirt cheap) curtains. It involved driving for hours all over the town, getting kilometers of super-discounted material, buying a sewing machine from online auction (we're buying quite a bit of stuff from this online auction, its full of good stuff, the trade is very fast and you can get fantastic value for money!!), breaking at least 5 needles, plus some 5-6hrs non-stop sewing. At the end off the day, it was really worth it. In the middle you can see the result of our labour. We're happy about them!

You can see that our house is still completely empty. Luckily we got this tiny set of outdoor furniture (that is waiting for a sunny day to be taken out for breakfast on our tiny sunny porch), so we can eat our dinner seated (not in the bed anymore). We actually bought a carpet, a dining set and a sofa that were supposed to be delivered by this weekend. However, on Thursday we heard that we'd have to wait for stuff till the end of the month. After several times of serious talking and fist waving (involving 2 hours of driving to the furthest East side of town to the shop from the West side of town where we live), we were promised that our stuff will be shipped from Wellington and be here by next Friday. We'll see... I really hope so. Furniture hunting here is extremely time consuming, just as almost everything else. The town is really spread out and the traffic can be maddening.

We chickened out this time and didn't go surfing (partially because it was raining the whole day). Piha looks really scary from the shore, but its full of surfers and there are ways to enter the water from the side, so that you don't need to struggle too much swimming through whitewater. As Kaj says, you have to go there to find out how it is, there's no point to stand on the beach watching and thinking. So I guess, this is what we'll do at the next possible ocassion... :) Go and find out how Piha is...:)

I hope things will start getting somewhat sorted soon. So far we're just figuring out everything and, as starting life in a new place always is, its very confusing. I've been trying to get my Internet banking to work for almost 3 weeks now. Its not straightforward at all - I had to apply for a special secure code 2 times (1st time the application was lost and I waited 8 days in vain), then they send you a letter via snail mail (it took 8+5=13 days) with the code. Then you have to find out what are the bank account numbers of the various service providers that send you the bills (the bills contain only address where the cheques schould be sent!!!) Once you call up everyone and get their account numbers, you can go and login to the Internet banking system and apply to "add a biller". Then at the other end someone reads the email and replies that there's some information missing. Then you provide that missing information and then 1 biller is set up for you (maybe). You have to do the same for your phone connection, your electricity, your internet provider, etc... They really need to hire someone to look at their processes...

Many of services that we take for granted are kinda "latest trends" here. For example, there's only one bank in the market that offers an account that charges a flat fee for all services. All the others charge each time you take money from ATM, have a transaction at the shop with your bank card, even pay via Internet!!! Broadband connection is also sort of a luxury - Telecom has a monopoly on phone lines and charges outrageous sums for "line rental", plus you have to get broadband connection from somewhere (double the price!) that has, listen to this, a DATA CAP!!!!!! There's no broadband connection in the market that wouldn't have a data cap!!!! I couldn't believe it first when I heard it! NZ has a long way to go before it comes somewhat closer to Information Society. Not surprisingly it drags somewhere at the very bottom of OECD countries rankings for broadband takeup... Most of my colleagues have dialup connection at home, if any at all!!!

It kind of reiterates the point that moving to New Zealand, is like moving at least some 10 years back in time (some say 30 years back!) with all the good things and the bad things.. In many ocassions I just want to cry out to the people here - look, we've been doing this for years! It works! Just take it and copy it! It will be good for you! aaaargh..... :)