Moving is hard ...

or "Moving is more difficult than you'd expect or remembered"

I've moved a fair amount of times in my life, but i have never remembered it to be so hard or taxing. I suspect having kids and the added responsibilities makes it that much harder. Trying to restart your life in a new place reminds you of all the things you took for granted. We were in a pretty good groove in San Francisco and are busy trying to get into a groove in Nelson. In all fairness, mari, maya and PJ have been awesome troopers and our spirit and energy levels are quite high.

Here are some of the things that have been keeping us busy over the past few days

• We visited the Nelson Montessori school at Founders Park yesterday. I was never a fan of school visits, primarily because I think you cannot make a reasonable decision based on a 1-15. hour visit, some of which are planned and coordinated. However, we did stay at this school for 2+ hours in a largely unplanned event. Maya and PJ were participants and were part of the classroom for that period. It was quite interesting to see the differences between this school and their old school in SF. More on this later when we make a decision
• We rented a car today and are mobile :) Makes quite a big difference. We also paid a visit to the nearby town of Richmond (12 km away) and visited the Montessori there. It was an after lunch visit with much fewer kids and much more mellower. We'll go back tomorrow in the morning and visit them again. Both schools were not as diverse as we'd have liked them to be. We kinda expected it though.
  
• Getting a new SIM card for the cellphone was easy. However only one of our phones worked, even though both were supposed to, and were unlocked, tri-band etc. Interestingly enough the local Telecom Company (Telecom NZ) uses CDMA rather than GSM (i thought CDMA was restricted only to US and Japan)
• Opening a bank account was quite easy. I had faxed most of the paperwork from the US and the account was already created which was awesome. However figuring out how to transfer money was quite a difficult task. The local folks had no idea how to do it, and insisted that the wiring instructions were sufficient. They did not have intermediary bank information and did not know they needed it for US transfer
• The coffee is surprisingly good here. Also quite a few ethnic restaurants in the town.
  
• Finding things you like and choosing grocery stores is an interesting exercise. You have to kinda visit all of them to figure out where to get things from etc.
• Renting a car - Easy
• Our landlady, Deidre, is just awesome and has been super helpful with many things, including activities for the kids. Shakespeare Cottage in Nelson, NZ is definitely highly recommended :)
• Health insurance, relatively easy. We did most of the work for this in the US and needed to sort out just a few details. Basically, you only get emergency health insurance, and the rest you pay as you go.
• For a small town Nelson (and i think most NZ towns) has a LOT of car dealers, banks, medical offices / pharmacists and lawyers. Way more than a place in the US. Surprisingly some of the bank have a sign: "Not a registered bank in New Zealand". Why would anyone deal with these entities?

Mari is getting the ingredients and getting ready to make Lemon Bars from Tartine. So off to the beach with the kids while the sun is still out. Awesome to have long summer days again, though the weather has been kinda fickle

lobo