No Sleep Till … Brooklyn

We’re no longer homeless! That’s right, we’ve settled down. To escape the hustle and bustle, we moved to rural New Zealand. We’ve settled in Brooklyn! Brooklyn, Motueka that is. Just like Brooklyn, NY, it’s on planet earth. Other than that, there’s very little similarity between the two. For instance, it's not nearly as busy here in Brooklyn, New Zealand. No traffic lights at all in fact. The closest town, Riwaka has no traffic lights either. Motueka is the closest 'big' town which has two traffic circles, but still no traffic light.

We’re renting a house in a small suburb in the middle of rural farmland. Our neighbor told us that this little suburb was incorrectly zoned as urban. Our neighbor on the opposite side noticed the discrepancy and took advantage by subdividing his property. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know.



Our address includes RD3, which stands for rural delivery number 3. I’m not sure where rural delivery 1 and 2 are. They’re probably on the north island. I think rural delivery 3 makes up the south island. We’re not sure what the postal code is yet. Postal codes are a new thing here in New Zealand, and they haven’t taken off yet. Before you send us that big housewarming basket, you’ll need the postal code. ; ) We’ll see if the post office can fill us in tomorrow.

There seem to be swarms of other kids roaming around, so Quinne and Beck will have a blast. There’s a common space behind our property where they can all explore along the riverbank.

The house is brand spanking new. We’re the very first ones to move in. That makes us a little nervous because we can’t blame any damage on the previous tenants. Our landlords helped build the house, so they’ll probably notice the bite marks in the drywall highlighted with crayola crayons. We’ll worry about that when we move out. Now we’re busy trying to move in. Rental houses in New Zealand don’t come with fridges, so we’ve been shopping around for a fridge. In the mean time, we’ve been using the fridge in the caravan.

Our shipment of goods from our previous house won’t be here for another two months, so we’re camping out in the house until then. Amy calls it our Zen house because there isn’t much in the way of furniture. To maintain its Zen status though, we’ll need to get a vacuum cleaner pretty soon. Sitting cross-legged eating off the floor grows old quickly. We’ve been looking around for outdoor furniture to use until our dining room table and chairs arrive. Andy and Erika, who we house sat for, lent us a table to eat at. We’ve been using our camp chairs with the borrowed table. Quinne can hardly see over the tabletop though, and Amy and I feel like kids with the dinner table at shoulder height. It works fine for Beck, who stands on his chair. He falls off ever now and then, but gets back up after a little complaining.

Although it’s been warm during the day, it’s been quite cold at night over the last two weeks. It was 2 degrees Celsius this morning. Even though the house is new, the builder didn’t seem to think double-paned windows were necessary. I asked our landlord about that, and he quickly responded that you didn’t need double-paned windows here. I paused before asking whether he ever used the air conditioner. I expected a tough guy like that to say “no way”. I was surprised when he said they used the air conditioner quite often during the summer. But they don’t seem to think double-paned windows are a wise investment. At least it reassured us that they aren’t planning to move into this house themselves. Surely they would’ve paid a little extra for windows if they were planning on paying the heating bill. They did insulate the walls at least. There’s a wall-mounted electric heat pump in the living room. It makes the living room comfortable, but the bedrooms on the other side of the house get quite cold at night. Read: icebox.

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