The 'old' Introduce yourself!

Hi Cal,

Emirates are good, as are Singapore. It's the route that you need to think about. If you go via LA you get 62kg luggage allowance each (double - regardless of airline). The downside being you have to go through LA :icon_sad:

Once you've chosen the airline, join their FF club to see what advantages you get (free) and also go to www.seatguru.com to see what seats are best. :icon_biggrin:

I wish you hadn't mentioned Westies! :icon_razz: I LOVE WESTIES. Frodo says I can have one when we get to NZ, but I'm worried there won't be any breeders out there :icon_sad: I don't want to get a wee puppy and then put it through the flight.

Milliemoo :icon_wink:

Hey Cal,

Welshgirl here (Taffy's other half!). Sorry if I've missed it on one of your previous postings, but I was just wondering how old your children are? Four of the blighters is a lot to manage on a long haul flight like that! I came over by myself with our four year old daughter in tow. She coped remarkably well but did require a lot of attention! I took plenty for her to do but there were still moments when she'd just about had enough! Fortunately we only had a 2 hour stopover in Los Angeles, and by the time we got through immigration and into the transit lounge, it was time to get back on the plane!

I flew with Air New Zealand and they were pretty good with the kids - provided some goodies and special kids meals for her. You might also find (depending on the ages of your children.....) that you get fast-tracked through a lot of the queues like we did, so it's not all bad, travelling with little 'uns! :icon_wink:

Anyway, good luck with the dog problem - can't help you with that one sorry!

Best of luck with the move :icon_biggrin:

Welshgirl ::):

Hey Welshgirl,

Welcome to NZ! How are you finding it now you've been here a few weeks?

Hope you're settling in OK and glad that you're all back together again.

Hope we can meet up soon!

Jod
::):

Howdy! Well, a little about me. I'm male, in my mid/late twenties, single, software engineer/entrepreneur, and I live on the central coast of california.

I own a software development business with two other people, and we recently (bet you can guess the date) all decided it was time to leave this country. Our hope is to relocate somewhere to the Wellington area, and bring our business with us. Since the nature of our business and our communication with our clients is almost exclusively electronic we are hoping that we will not have any big logistical (which is of course not saying anything about the legal) problems with moving the business over :)

I've only been to NZ once, in the winter (summer there) of 2002, and was there for about three weeks. I absolutely fell in love with it, and suggested it as our escape route to my business partners...though I think they were already eyeing the island themselves without much prompting from me!

I went on a bit of a rant in another thread about my reasons for wanting to move to NZ, suffice to say I am at my wits' end with the US right now.

I will cut this short, and try to catch up with some of the threads and experiences others have been relating. If anyone is curious for more info, I will be happy to provide it!

Hi Jodie ::):

Thanks for the welcome! I've been here now since the 3rd November and I think the place is amazing :icon_biggrin:

The recent weather has been a little offputting :icon_frown: but it's getting better now and we've finally been able to get in a little sightseeing!

Glad to be back with Taffy though :icon_wink: - had to get here as soon as I could before he started enjoying life as a single man! lol

Would be great if we could all get together at some point - I'm sure a BBQ was mentioned at some point in the past..............

Are you still enjoying the place as much? How are you finding Wellington?

Welshgirl :icon_mrgreen:

[quote:ace045689c="Welshgirl"]I'm sure a BBQ was mentioned at some point in the past..............[/quote:ace045689c]

*puts on tacky fake boobies apron, scrubs down BBQ*

Right, I'm not firing up til someone assures me of pavlova!

Welcome to all Newbies from me too :icon_biggrin:

Joy...

Have just discovered there are a couple of shops around Auckland, which import foodstuffs and beverages from the UK... needless to say, my lazy bum day I had planned staring at my freshly mowed lawn, has just changed drastically, as wifey now wants to go and re-connect with her roots, and go buy half the store by the sound of it... lmao

Glad you're enjoying NZ life Welshgirl - where have you managed to get to so far and see? Glad you got there in time to stop Taffy getting used to singledom! :icon_lol: How's the little 'un settling in?

What's the weather been like in Tauranga then? I thought it was nice weather most/all of the time up that way? :icon_confused:

Welly weather has been pretty kind to us here over the last few weeks - although when we first got to Welly in August, we arrived at the start of the worst storm they've had for 40 years! Bloody Typical! :icon_rolleyes: I've never known wind and rain like it - it was pretty crazy for a few days! The rest of the winter was pretty mixed - some lovely crisp sunny days, and some typical grey winter days with a bit of wind thrown in for good measure, but we survived it so it couldn't have been too bad! The last few weeks we've had some gorgeous sunny days (and I admit I stayed out in the sun and cooked a bit too much last weekend... :icon_eek: icon_exclaim.gif ), but there have been a few typical windy Welly days in between (like today actually :icon_mad: ) which have been pretty crap, but I have to say that if you can put up with the crap days in between, then the rest of the time the spring/summer has been absolutely fantastic so far - I think you'd be hard pushed to beat a good day in Welly. It's so beautiful - the water in the harbour is a different colour every day - from bright blue, to turquiose, to aqua and green - it's really amazing. (Although I don't know how I manage not to crash on my way into town on the motorway every day - I'm so busy gazing out across the harbour and being mesmorised by the water! :icon_lol: )

When we first got here, I knew that I liked the city itself - it's really quirky and relaxed with a nice vibe, but when we were last here, that was all we saw of Welly - Te Papa and the shopping area, Cuba Street. Now that we've been here 4 months (today actually!), we've found some other nice areas of the city and some really dramatic coastline and beaches on our doorstep that we can't wait to spend time on in the summer. OK they're mostly dark sand and not nice golden sandy beaches, but I can live with that! I have to say, honestly and truly, that we really love it here. OK - I do get fed up with the wind sometimes I must admit, but there's always going to be some payoff for living in a nice place, isn't there? After all, nowhere is perfect.

Anyway, I'll stop rabbiting on now - sorry everyone!

Yep a bbq was mentioned a while back - we should definately organise it - if you fancy a visit to the capital then give us a shout!

Jod

Hey Jodie ::):

The weather in Tauranga has been a bit bleak lately, lots of rain, wind, thunder & lightning :icon_sad: but it's cleared up the last few days and made things a bit more pleasant! Rachael, our daughter, is settling in fine - she's only 4, but she's turning into a real beach babe!

We went to Rotorua the other day - very awe-inspiring to see all the thermal pools and boiling hot mud pools, but an amazing experience!

We've taken a few drives to Papamoa & Mount Maunganui. My main objective until now though, has been to find a decent supermarket! I am in love with all the sights around Tauranga - like you said about the water in the harbour - it's the same in parts here. (We can see the Mount from our balcony, I just love waking up to that sight every morning!) And the beaches are stunning, I only ever imagined I'd see crystal clear blue water like that on the t.v. but now I am actually living the dream!

Of course there are negative points too - I am missing my family and friends in Wales very much, and obviously there's the thing of arriving here with absolutely nothing and having to set up home all over again. I miss familiarity. But really, I've tried to think of it as a big adventure, rather than a big upheaval and most of the time, my attitude has worked! I feel very at home in New Zealand already.

Anyway, my turn to babble now, so I will stop! :icon_wink: We will no doubt manage to get down to Welly in the forseeable future, so that BBQ may well become a reality!

We're going back to the UK for a few weeks just before Christmas, so it will either be just before then or just after we come back in the New Year.

I can't believe I'm here - it feels so surreal sometimes!

Welshgirl :icon_mrgreen: