4 Weeks In....

Some geysers off a walking trail, above and below.



You can see some smoke billowing in the distance.

Lizzie's Kindy.

Lizzie with two of her teachers at Kindy.




Lizzie got her face painted at Kindy-butterflies!

So it's been a few weeks since we've posted anything. For over a week it was non-stop rain here, so we haven't been out a lot. Also settling in has kind of warn us out a little. But things are calming down and routines are once again being established.

The girls have done quite well all in all with the adjusting, but Grace definitely needs a routine or she's a mess! She is so used to sleeping in a dark room (and/or closet, bathroom), but we just don't have a room here that is without windows, so we're trying to make do and block out the light for her.

Lizzy is really enjoying her kindy (preschool) here, she goes 3 days a week, which seems to work well for her. She is having a hard time remembering the kids' names though...and she just calls them all 'her cousins'. There are a lot of names here that are rather unusual to Americans, and the Maori names are especially difficult to remember. But they're kids she can play with, and that's all she really cares about.

Today we went on a walk with some other mums with kids on a trail that goes past some geysers and hot springs, I got a few pics, as you can see here, but it's somewhat hard to make out the geysers. Boy it sure stunk! I'm getting used to it though. I usually only notice it early in the morning and late at night if I'm outside.

So after being here a month, we have definitely noticed some differences between here and the states in a variety of ways. One is that goods in general (groceries, clothes, etc). seem to be more expensive, significantly so! Except for kiwifruits, those are dirt cheap. But some things are cheaper, like we don't have a water bill here, nobody does apparently, it's just free, and so is garbage. Cell phones are outrageous, like 70 cents a minute, and they don't do family plans. So, no cell phones for us! We don't really need them anyways. Something cool at the store though is that they seem to have a lot more international items available, various curry sauces and all kinds of pasta and noodles, which isn't really anymore expensive than other items.

Something interesting we've noticed about the way people talk here....they always end there sentences with an upward kind of intonation, instead of a downward kind, like Americans do. Almost like they're asking a question, even though they're just ending a thought. But when you do that, people will nod their heads at you, indicating that they understand what you're saying and/or that they can relate. I guess that's why they do it.

Rotorua itself seems to be a real melting pot. Rob has said that only about a third of the people he has seen in his clinic so far have actually been native New Zealanders. A lot of people here are from some part of England, Australia, continental Europe, southern Africa, or Asia (including India). The Australian, British, and New Zealand accents are all similar, but it's actually pretty easy to distinguish them.

Rob is quite liking his job so far. It's a busy clinic and he says the days go by fast.

There are a number of places around here we'd like to go and see on the weekends. Hopefully this weekend we can make it out to where they filmed Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. The hobbit holes, or outside of the hobbit homes are still visible. I guess we need to get over our hesitancy to avoid outings when the weather is yucky and it's rainy, since it does that here a lot. But when it clears up it sure is gorgeous!