Ted recently sent me a new article called “25 Things We Wish Someone Had Told Us Before We Moved Overseas” (Nice tidy title don’t you think?) penned by Kathleen Peddicord and published in the May issue of the International Living Newsletter. It’s a great article and really hit home on several points. The author says that she and her family have been “ex-pats” for 25 years and have learned some hard lessons. We’ve only been at it a year, but can easily identify with what she has to say.  I don’t subscribe to the publication it came from so I’m not sure about a website link, but if I find it, I’ll be sure to pass it along. 

Now I’m not in the habit of plagiarizing other’s materials and certainly don’t plan on starting now so you’ll have to track down the article yourselves to read it. But I thought that Kathleen wouldn’t mind if I used her topics to relate our experiences with the universal truths she captured so well. Since I’ve also promised to give you some more insight into the day-to-day life here in New Zealand, I thought both of these ideas married up nicely. So with full credit to Ms. Peddicord, I’ll begin to cover some of the finer points of moving to a foreign land and how we’ve managed to cope, succeed or in some cases, just given up or given in!

• Point Number 1: Don’t buy a house the moment (or worse, before) you arrive in a new country. We hardily agree. Before we first moved to New Zealand we were fortunate enough to have found a “holiday home” for rent in the town of Rotorua where Worklinx is located. Holiday homes are just what they sound like; homes you can rent for short periods of time while on vacation or “holiday” as they say here. Since we were arriving during the New Zealand winter (June through September or so) we thought someone might be interested in renting out their holiday home for a more extended period during the slow season. We contacted several owners by e-mail with our proposition. Almost all responded positively and we settled on one, not so much based on the accommodations but more on the manner in which the owners, Lindsay and Adele, corresponded. We’ve since come to find that they were typical Kiwis; laid back, very friendly and good people. The full story about our experiences with these now life-long friends can be found in a couple of my early articles.  But to the point, we stayed there for about three months while we became established. After that Sandy was able to work from home, so we had the opportunity to move to somewhere more to our liking. Not that Rotorua is not a great place to live. But we thought that as long as we’re here on an island, it might make sense to have a house by the ocean which is where we ended up. We needed to be within driving distance as Sandy wanted to go into the office once a week or so and now it takes us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. It’s a very scenic drive that we never tire of. Sorry, I digress yet again. 

• Point Number 2: When you do decide to purchase a home, beware of the local real estate agents. Kathleen’s experiences have been less than satisfactory it seems but her recommendation is appropriate. In our case we believe we made good choices. The real estate agents here are similar in some ways to those in the U.S. but different in others. In New Zealand real estate agents represent the sellers only. They are happy to find you properties for sale if they are selling them. In general they do not sell properties not listed with the agency they work for. There are no multiple listings services in New Zealand. We ended up talking to almost as many agents as houses we looked at. In a previous article I covered our experience with buying property in New Zealand so I won’t go over it again here, but we can say it was very easy. Just be sure you do your homework and get recommendations before you get your check book out. New Zealand is a small country with small towns for the most part. Everyone tends to know everyone and it’s not hard to find out what you need to know if you just ask. That being said, we found buying property in New Zealand was a breeze and much less expensive (fees-wise) than in the U.S. We haven’t heard of any bad real estate agents here. All those we met were very friendly and mostly knowledgeable about their particular sales area (and sometimes a few others). Since there are no disclosure laws and generally no title insurance, it pays to ask a lot of questions is all. And as with a lot of other matters here, Kiwis usually do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. 

• Point number 3: Don’t ship your belongings with you. Kathleen recommends that you move to wherever it is you’re planning on moving and get the lay of the land so to speak. She found that some of the things she shipped could have been purchased in her adopted country for less than it cost to ship them. We can understand that as some things we brought with us probably should have been sold back home. Although we sold or donated a LOT of our things before we moved, we did have a sizable amount of belongings shipped overseas. One example of something we brought that should have stayed is our refrigerator. It turned out to be too big for the house we bought, or for most houses in New Zealand. It wasn’t one of those great big, double door models, it was just a nice, normal-sized refrigerator, at least by U.S. standards. Kiwi houses are small for the most part and that means everything that fits inside is generally smaller than Americans are used to. Our queen-sized bed and associated furniture takes up most of our master bedroom. Our living room suite covers all of the “lounge” or family room. So we’d agree that getting a feel for not only pricing, but space would be a good idea. It will take a bit more planning (packing, storage, unpacking, etc.), but it will be worth it in the long run.  Anyone care to buy a nice American refrigerator?  We’ll throw in the electrical transformer!

• Point Number 4: Don’t make a move overseas (or even plan for one) without the full participation of the loved ones involved. Again, we agree! Even those that are only marginally involved will be affected and often have no qualms about telling you that you must be a couple of bricks shy of a full load. In a sense, you have lost your mind a bit. After all, “normal” people don’t just up and move to another country…or do they? From your viewpoint, it may not appear to be that big a deal. It is a BIG deal and needs the support of everyone around you (even if you have to give them large sums of money and sell your car to them for half of what it’s worth)!  A move of this magnitude will put enormous stress on your relationships. Your husband or wife has to buy in on the concept 110%. Even better, make them think it was their idea in the first place!  It worked for me…oh, hi Honey! Just kidding, ha, ha. Seriously though, you won’t believe what a rollercoaster ride it will be and you’ll need to have that special someone beside you to hold the paper bag when you begin to hyperventilate (and you will).  If this is a company transfer of some nature, and you plan on returning home one day it will still be difficult, but not nearly so much as one that you’ve taken on your own initiative. The best thing to do is visit before you move.  We can’t stress that enough. And leave your rose-tinted glasses on the dresser. Don’t be a wide-eyed tourist.  Bring anyone that might move with you along. Stay for as long as you can and be sure everyone is on your team.  You might even find that suddenly military school doesn’t look so bad to that teenage boy of yours!  If you thought moving your wife away from her parent’s home town was a trial, you’re going to love explaining to them why you’re moving their favourite daughter to the other side of the planet! Be prepared and do your research so you can answer the logical questions that will arise such as “Do they have malls there?”  (Someone dear to us actually asked us that…bless her heart…always worried about our welfare.) Even after you arrive your significant other will be looking at you one day with that “Why on earth did I marry you and let you talk me into this?” look. Kiss them gently and remind them what a wonderful person you (or they) are and what a wonderful country you’re in. Then make sure their best friend calls to remind them that they’ll be coming for a visit soon.

• Point Number 5: Don’t move overseas in search of comfort or convenience. “Here, here!” as they say in parliament. America has a lock on convenience. Most of the time you can get whatever you want 24/7 and it just ain’t so here. (Apologies to the English majors…it just seemed appropriate.) Only recently have some stores started opening all day on Saturdays in New Zealand.  A majority of shops still close by 5:30 weekdays and around noon or one, possibly two in the afternoon on Saturday. The larger chains and supermarkets are open on Sundays, but that’s about it. We have to plan our shopping well in advance or we just do it the next day, if the next day is a weekday anyway. It’s not as bad as it sounds, but it can be a pain when you suddenly realise that your printer’s black ink cartridge has finally given up on a Sunday afternoon. Yes, the little screen told you it was getting empty last month, but you know very well that the ink people want you to buy more right away and that it will last another thousand pages right? You can usually find a dairy (that’s what they call convenience stores here) open where you can pick up a bit of milk and bread, oh, and of course hokey pokey ice cream. But if you need something more specialised, you’ll probably have to wait until normal business hours. We’ve gotten used to it, but it did some time to get used to and we’d still rather have the shops open at our convenience than that of the owners.  But then again, we know a few shop owners and we’re happy they can spend Saturday afternoons with us over a barbeque, so it’s a trade-off of sorts. 

• Point Number 6: Get your financial affairs in order. I mentioned this as being very important in a previous article, but I think it needs mentioning again as no one said a word to us about it. After a year we’re still working through our entire financial situation. And compared to some, it’s not that complicated. With only four or five percent of the immigrants in New Zealand being American, the knowledge base for such matters is thin at best.  We hired a local account that though he could help us and then in turn hired an Auckland firm that he thought could help us. In the end we spent several thousand dollars and little more information than when we started. We finally found (on the Internet) a firm that specialises in NZ/U.S. accounting. Woo hoo! But as you can guess, their expertise costs a bit of money. 

• Point Number 7: Don’t underestimate learning a new language. True. Learning Kiwi was a bit of a challenge for us. We were told that they speak English in New Zealand. But we found out that that’s really a matter of one’s point of view. We could guess what a “postie” was (lots of Kiwi words have an “i.e.” added to the end) and we had an idea what someone meant when they said “bugger!” But we were confounded when someone asked us if we had any…what sounded like “petral”. Now that I look at the word, it makes sense, but when you’re standing in line at a busy gas station trying to buy a bag of crisps (potato chips) and an L?P (weird but tasty carbonated beverage which is “World Famous in New Zealand…that’s their slogan), it’s hard to understand. What the nice girl wanted to know was if I had purchased any “petrol”, being that I was in a petrol station as they call them here, not an unusual question for someone standing on the other side of the counter. Finally she blurted out “Gas!  Did you get gas?” Now when she said it that way, I knew what she meant, but it did sound kind of silly. Since New Zealand was more recently settled by the English (long after the native Maori were here) the language they speak is, um, well, English.  But not like that spoken in the United States, or really like what I’ve heard when visiting England. (It’s actually much easier to understand most of the time.) It’s kind of like Australian (think Steve Irwin) but different. They have their own way of saying and doing things and are rightly proud of it. After telling someone about a recent successful bid on a job the reply might be “Good on ‘ya mate. Now we’re keen on having you and the missus pop over Sunday next for a barbie and a catch up.” Translation (which you’ve probably already figured out): “Good for you. We’d like you and the wife to come over a week from Sunday for a barbeque and we can talk about how things are going.” Personally, I like their way of speaking. It’s more relaxed and once you start picking up on the local jargon (and they speak slowly enough), easy to understand.  (Just remember a fillet of fish is “a ‘fill-it’ of fish” with a hard “T” here!) 

So that’s a little more insight into becoming a Kiwi. We’re doing our best to make that happen. We’re still proud to be Americans and say our prayers that things will change for the better back home (and with regard to the rest of the world). Because quite honestly we like it here and we’d just as soon it wasn’t over run by too many Yanks!!

Cheerz until next time mate! 

The following are Rick's previous articles for the magazine:

• A Day In The Life - Thoughts From New Zealand
• Chapter 9 ~ Getting Ready For The Big Move 
• Living in New Zealand - Chapter 8
• Chapter 7 - New Zealand ~ So What's The Big Deal
• New Zealand ~ Some Not-So Important Answers To Some Important Questions!
• Life In New Zealand ~ Six Months Later
• We Did It! ~ Escaping To New Zealand
• We Did It! - Part Deux ~ Moving To New Zealand 
• We Did It! - Chapter Three ~ The Magic Of New Zealand
• Life In New Zealand...So Far ~ Cars And Fish

• http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/
• http://www.emigratenz.org/
• http://benz1.com/forum/index.php?s=2b5a621987b160a0bac291321e62297d

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