Lots of ways to get money from the US to NZ, but everyone wants a cut, be it 3.9%, or 1%, or 5% hidden in the exchange rate. Jeremiah has seemingly infinite patience figuring out the fine print and finding the best deal (not via the banks, of course). Molly is agonizing over setting up her paypal account with a NZ address (we don’t have a permanent one), linking it to our bank account here (we didn’t reset our password, so we’re locked out until Monday). Ay-yay-yay…yay-yay, yay-yay. And it’s a cloudy day today, to boot.

It was the first genuinely sunny day we’ve had in Christchurch, which fortunately landed on a Saturday. We took a “tiki tour” to the Port Hills just south of Christchurch and after a bit of bumbling found ourselves some trails up in the grassy highlands where we could eat our lunch and gaze down at the bay by Lyttleton.

It’s a long way down a steep hillside to Lyttleton where the houses perch precariously on the side hill above the port. I think the residents feel particularly precarious after the earthquakes–all the trails that go down to Lyttleton are closed because of the danger of rock slides.

Yay, a familiar plant! Not that I know its name, but it looks just like the yellow blooming bushes in Bariloche (Patagonia, Argentina) that we saw almost 2 years ago. In the pea family I believe, and they have nasty thorns.

After a couple straight days of house hunting we needed a break, so Milo and Molly went to the playground. Milo thinks he can do anything the big kids can do. You can’t tell it by the photo, but we actually had a spot of sun yesterday too.

It’s another cold snivelling rainy day, and I’m mighty thankful for the Christchurch city libraries, they’re sprinkled around the city and suburbs, havens of warmth and wifi. There are often little kids for Milo to watch, there are toys and a colorful kids section. We’re picking up our car today, and going to see a few more rental apartments. Jeremiah starts work tomorrow, so Molly is going to practice driving on the left.

It’s still raining in this confounded city, a cold relentless rain. I feel a ton of sympathy for the refugee families my parents know that move from somewhere in hot Africa to Chicago in the bitter winter, into dreary subsidized housing without cozy furnishings and boiling kettles. Today we replaced all the 40 watt light bulbs (“globes” here) with 100 watt bulbs and bought a cheap lamp…which we need to return because one of its two lights doesn’t work. So at least my wall hangings on the drab brown walls show up better. And I made a really fabulous squash quiche in our camping dishes (no baking pans in this apartment).

The car chugged up narrow windy roads in Lyttelton, a little south of Christchurch. It’s charming. I love the idea of perching a house on a steep hillside, the view unimpeded by the roof of the house below. It wouldn’t matter how tiny the house or how hopelessly outdated the kitchen, when one could look out at that space. There’s still a lot of earthquake damage though, with closed walkways and broken retaining walls, and I imagine living on a steep hillside in an earthquake would be terrifying.

The winter farmers market has a good selection of vegetables, citrus, and prepared foods. I particularly liked the cheery veggie lady, who called me deary and urged me to pick the biggest “pumpkin” (squash pieces, all the same price).

“Protea,” that’s what the vendor called these crazy looking flowers that have a 4 week vase life (foreground). Sounds like a protozoa. When we’ve got a steady income and a permanent place to live, I’m going back to buy a bouquet. All frivolous purchases are curbed for the time being, and peanutbutter & jelly is the standard lunch.

This morning the streets were decorated with “rubbish bins” neatly lined up on the curb. Friday must be pick up day in Merivale. The yellows are recyclables, and the greens are for “organics,” in the chemistry meaning of the word. Compostibles, we’d say.

When I saw this label on the green bin outside our apartment, I realized that somewhere in Christchurch there must be a massive composting facility with mounds of rich black compost….I just have to figure out how to get some, for some future garden which I’m sure I’ll have.

Snazzy compost-pick-up mobile, eh? There’s an automatic arm that comes down, grabs the bin, and quickly dumps it into the truck. The Kiwis seem to really have their act together when it comes to recycling.

We spent yesterday bumming around the city in the pouring rain, waiting for the company-arranged apartment to become available. The cheerful bank tellers informed us that it never rains like this in Christchurch. The apartment is in Merivale, a hoity toity suburb of the city, but there’s nothing high falutin about our digs. It’s “furnished” with sterile grays and blacks, walls are neutral tan, and the outdoor temperature = the indoor temperature….until I figured out how to turn on the heat pump. No internet yet, we’re hoping it’ll be hooked up in a week.

I lugged an assorted collection of colorful wall hangings from home and they came in handy last night. Climbed the fence to cut branches from the neighbor’s tree, hung scarves on the branches using safety pins and fishing line (hurray for Alaska salmon gear). We dressed Milo in cheerful orange and headed out to the thrift shops hoping to find floor lamps to augment the 60 watt ceiling lights. The good news: We had left-over ham soup and hot tea for dinner, since the microwave and water boiler work.

They gave us the rental car keys and assumed we could navigate the world backwards, driving on the left with the steering wheel on the right. Lots of traffic circles, and they’re all clockwise. doing all this in a standard transmission while shifting with your left hand! It startles me when I see a car seat or a dog in the left front seat–where I’m used to seeing a driver. Pedestrians walk on the left of the sidewalk. Speed limit signs are simply numbers in circles, kilometers per hour (we assume). The directionals are on the right side of the steering wheel. There are white diamonds painted on the roads that still mystify us. At least a green light still means go.

Christchurch is like a ghost town. Not in the deserted old westerner sense, but in the memory of our host, Andrew from BECA Engineers (Jeremiah’s employer). He pointed to empty lot after empty lot as he toured us through the city center, remembering that this one was a 10 story office building, or that his friend used to work in that 8 story building but it’s gone now, pancaked in the earthquake, February 2011. The epicenter was directly below the city center. Several cranes are at work eating away at the tall buildings, taking them down piece by piece. Almost none remain, and Andrew says he looses his bearings because all the old landmarks are gone. Buildings that remain often have bracings holding their facades on, or empty windows blinds fluttering in the wind, ready to be torn down. Fencing companies and cone companies have done well–lots of territory to block off. It’s not been easy on the residents. Most people know someone who died in collapsed buildings, and they’re on pins and needles, wary for the next one but without any way to predict if it’ll be tomorrow or when their grandkids are grown.