First Day of Work

Well, one and a half weeks later than initially planned, I started my first day of work today. I was super nervous but once I got there we had a staff meeting to get things figured out for the rest of the term now that we've lost two weeks due to the earthquake. Speaking of earthquakes, we got two aftershocks over 4 today, which feel really different in the 3rd floor of a big building compared to the second floor of a small hotel. Much less rattle, much more swaying. Interesting. I have no office to myself yet, since I'm still officially just a visitor, but I get to use the department head's office in his absence. Sweet! I'm all plugged in, working on lectures and tutorials for next week. I don't think I'll do much that's research related until I come back in December.

It's nice to be back at work. I certainly prefer that to spending all day chasing up houses to visit and real estate agents and mortgage brokers... ugh. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just go to Target and pick out the house you want and put it in the neighbourhood you like? Sheesh.

We had a nice afternoon here. It was really sunny and warm, and then at 4ish the wind changed and the cold antarctic air swept in and cooled us right down. Brrr. I keep forgetting that it's winter here. Or should I say "winter". Cold and rain is the order of the day and sunny and warm is just a random bonus.

Should be a fun couple of days as I get set up at work before we head on a field trip to the south and west parts of the island. We're really looking forward to that! Should be lots of great pictures then!

What Marlene Forgot to Mention

Marlene forgot to mention some of the greatest tragedies of the quake... Two of the mexican restaurants in Christchurch (probably the only 2) were destroyed in the earthquake. In fact one of the most famous pictures from the quake is of one of the restaurants completely void of its external walls. This far from Mexico though, one can't expect the Mexican food in restaurants to be that great, so we'll probably make our own Mexican food....maybe... So far we've been to 1 Asian grocery store, 1 international grocery store (the largest in NZ), and several regular grocery stores, and we haven't found a single chile aside from bell peppers. No thai chiles, no jalapenos, no nothing. No heat at all.... There is a specialty store that sells such things, but it too has been damaged in the quake. Hmph!

Shaketown

So for those of you who haven't heard Christchurch was rocked by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake last Saturday morning at 4:35.

http://maps.google.co.nz/maps/ms?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=114215793670404019839.00048f8b8d6da4188d66e&ll=-43.520672%2C172.265625&spn=0.697066%2C1.167297&z=9&source=embed

Luckily no-one died and only a few people were injured. Most houses, although some are very damaged, made it through the quake and protected the occupants while they slept.

We took the risk and flew out here and arrived Sunday morning to a city still in shock. For the most part, the town is functioning, except that the CBD (downtown) is still cordoned off because of the brick historic buildings that did not do so well in the quake. We didn't actually feel a shake until Monday evening, but since then we have been feeling them every few hours. Luckily we weren't around for the main quake so we aren't nearly as nervous when an aftershock hits as the locals are. Everyone here is pretty much on tender-hooks, scared of the next shake.

We spent Tuesday driving up and down the rural roads west of CHCH mapping the fault rupture. Joel took a picture of a church that got knocked down in Hororata: http://flickr.com/photos/jpeterb/ We'll put some more photos of shifted roads and hedgerows soon. Pretty impressive stuff!

Our hotel suffered no damage so we feel very safe here even during the aftershocks. The University is closed so we have been spending our time getting to know CHCH, looking for a house to buy and getting important immigrant stuff taken care of. Pretty busy times.

We are looking forward to having the CBD opened up, although it will be a sad sight all those demolished historic buildings.

SFO-CHCH... via YVR?

The passport has been obtained. I have to say, all the people at the Canadian Consulate in SFO and the passport office in Vancouver did a great job at getting me my urgent passport replacement. I am now at YVR waiting for my return flight to SFO so we can take off for CHCH tomorrow. Four days later than expected, but all in all, we will have made relatively good time. It was fun hanging out in Vancouver yesterday and I managed to pick up a pair of my favourite sunglasses at MEC, the original of which I broke some time ago in Brisbane. Two pairs later and I still wasn't satisfied, but the second I put on the pair from MEC, tadaaa! I also had a chance to re-appreciate what a great city Vancouver is. Definitely on the list of cities I would live in.

Well, we look forward to updating the blog once we arrive in CHCH!

Take off! Or not.

I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something: When I tried to cross the border to the US for my job in San Francisco over two years ago I was rejected. On Monday when I was packing up to take my flight to my new job in New Zealand I lost my passport. Maybe I'm not meant to work and live internationally? Hum. I hope not, cause I really think this New Zealand thing is going to be good.

Well, now I'm cooling my heels in Vancouver. It could be worse. Vancouver is nice. Pretty soon I'm going to head out and walk along the waterfront or something. I had a poutine at New York fries for brunch today. So fatty. So salty. So good. All the same, I think I can go another 10 years + without needing another one of those.

Joel is busy trying to make himself useful at Rick and Rosalind's in Berkeley while I'm here. They've been kind enough to let us continue to stay at their place until my passport woes are over and we are good and gone, flying over the Pacific to our new home.


Fingers crossed the next post is one about passport success!