We were on our way to get my beautiful and not-at-all cheesey *sarcasm* and “oh me, oh my do they REALLY want one on there” photos for my job applications (see below) and so that I wouldn’t stress out (seriously hate getting “proper” photo’s taken) and my hair wouldn’t frizz, Ingo offered to drive, which means when it really started pelting down there was no accidental drifting to the left.

I had sensibly taken the umbrella with me so gentlemannly like Ingo hopped out first and came round to my side in order to protect the hair (seriously, warm wet weather is not my friend)

Unfortunately I was either too slow, or looking the wrong way and never saw any of the forked lightning – which I’ve never seen before, “what!? No?!” you say with unbelieving tones, “yes that’s right, forked lightning in Upper Hutt, NZ isn’t exactly a common occurance” I reply. So I will have to be extra vigilant in the next storm (they are supposed to be ongoing for the next couple of days)

Anyway… here I am:

You’d hire me, wouldn’t you???

German’s are very particular about letting people rent off them (probably a good thing, considering some of the trouble people I know have gone through with tenants they’ve had) and a self-employed, freelancer working for a company in New Zealand, with his foreign, unemployed girl friend aren’t exactly what you’d call ‘risk free’ so again YAY!!! That we have a new home!!!

Also we had a very restricting list of “must haves” and “would-be-great-if-it-has haves”

• would be great if it has a balcony or garden (or both!)
• would be great if it’s in one of 4 select areas
• must be close to transport (U-bahn and/or S-bahn stops)
• must have at least 2 rooms
• must be bigger then the last (those that know it know why)
• must be not too big (we own NO things and don’t want to buy in excess)
• must have heating
• must be within our price range
• must not have a stupid “pay me just cause” provision fee
• must have a kitchen

So yeah… not too fussy Our final home ticks 8 of the 10 boxes plus it came with a cabinet, couch and some curtains, so we’re doing pretty well.
Here’s a quick squizz at what it looks like before we take over:

The couch in the middle is ours now

Another thing I wasn’t prepared for is the kitchen… homes in Germany don’t always come with kitchens! Crazy huh?! So your house is kitted out with a nice spanky kitchen, everything fits and works well, couple of years down the track you decide to move. What do you do? Take the kitchen with you! that’s right! and then get to your new place and try and figure out how the kitchen that worked so well in one place is going to work in another :/ As a tenant, same thing! So our ‘must have a kitchen’ list item was a lot harder then normal! In the end we bought the kitchen off the previous tenants, just a small simple IKEA thing. We are now proud owners of a stainless steel bench top with sink and taps, 2 cupboards underneath, 2 high wall hung cupboards and an oven!!!

You would think that now I would be all relaxed and happy since we have a home… Nope! Now that I can no longer put off the job search in favour of the home hunt it’s all come crashing down! Arrrrhhh! Wish me luck!!

History: A chocolate joghurt in NZ (possible in other places aswell) sometimes known as “Dairy food” (is that trademarked?) Is a delicious tasting lunch-box treat that is basically chocolate pudding in a joghurt container.

The story: Went grocery shopping – by myself (again!) – and saw much to my delight a chocolate joghurt, and this one had chocolate flakes in it. Whoop! For me this was hugely exciting. Unfortunately the following day when I decided to take this familiar delicious treat out of the fridge and proceed to consume it, on the first mouthful came an unsuspected shock! What?!? Chocolate joghurt in Germany ISN’T delicious chocolate flavoured pudding?!?! You mean to say that chocolate joghurt is actually joghurt that has a chocolate flavour?!? What is this travesty???? Joghurt -tangy, un-sugared- just doesn’t go with chocolate flavouring. It’s supposed to be the other way around! Joghurt is the garnish to the deliciously sickening dense chocolate fudge cake brownie I almost cried!

And after I finished it – yes I finished it, it was still food and it still had chocolate flakes in it after all – I resolved never to eat a Joghurt that’s flavoured chocolate ever again. Such a shame after such a good experience with chocolate cream cheese – see now that one you expect to be disgusting! think again! Yum!

As it was I had to search-find-grab in quick succession from my list, which was NOT in order of the store’s aisles (when we have a local supermarket, this will cease to be a problem). Also decided on a basket over a trolley at the entrance way as the list didn’t look that bad… Didn’t consider the fact that I’d written “fruit” and “vegetables” (yes the grocery list is still in English :p) and ended up struggling mightily with a very heavy basket!

However, the reasons I would have enjoyed it otherwise is, grocery shopping is quite therapeutic, the Rewe supermarkets are awesome – especially when there’s a cheese and meat centre (much like in Moore Wilsons Fresh) and a bakery near the entrance and finally I need to search and decide on what our “Germany brands” are going to be. You know when you’ve found that brand of shampoo, or milk, or cheese, that never seems to be too pricey, packaging doesn’t suck (seriously.) and ticks all the right boxes (organic/free range/always smells good/never lets you down). Well it took Ingo and I a good year to find the eggs we used to buy, almost double that for the milk and sadly I had only just tried and discovered the shampoo and conditioner (Tresemme Naturals Vibrantly Smooth if anyone’s coming over and has room in their suitcase ) that was to be my new best friend, and now we have to DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! Hence my excitement for the time I can spend shelf gazing.

On a more “Living in a new land” specific note; it’s really not hard to grocery shop in a foreign speaking country, you pick what you want (pictures help), you take it to the counter (never hard to find) and you pay the amount that shows on the screen (just in case you didn’t understand what they said ) A “good morning/day/hello” and a “thank you and goodbye” doesn’t go a-miss either!

And on a last note: OH MY GOODNESS – I always knew that NZ check-out operators (sorry to the people I may offend*) were slow (physically, not mentally) but I didn’t realise HOW slow!!! I won’t be able to handle it when we’re there again, Germany check-out operators are awesome! They’re machines! Hands a blur, conveyor belt never stopping, phew! Impressed! Although it would be nice if they gave you a few seconds to get your stuff out the way before they start whooshing the next persons through

* Seriously, I was a check-out operator for all of 3 months and even I (haha) was snail paced compared to here!

For a lot of people I think that is the case, I know Ingo didn’t have any lessons to transfer from the right to the left side of the road. But for me, the confidence on the wrong side of the road just isn’t a happening thing :/ I feel all nervous and stupid, and if I can get out of it I will :s
In fact I feel the same way I felt when I started having driving lessons with my dad and mum… Plus I have that similar feeling of ‘the person in the passenger seat reeeeeeally doesn’t feel to great about me driving right now’ which does nothing to increase the confidence levels :s

At least I get told “that was good!” at the end of each little outing That helps!

Well onwards and forwards! Haven’t crashed – yet – and practise makes perfect (and all those other sayings)

On a more information is helpful to others note: You can drive in Germany on your NZ drivers licence for up to 6 months. After 6 months you can either extend it for another 6 months (but you have to prove that you’re only going to be in Germany for another 6 months) or you can do the Germany theory test and get a brand spanking new German “Führerschein” (and you’ll be giving up your NZ one if you do this) Otherwise there’s the option of an internation licence – not sure what’s involved there!
Happy driving!

In New Zealand, I had finally found a hairdresser I could rely on. No matter what he did -even if it was the complete opposite of what I’d asked for- I knew it was going to be OK. No tears for me after a haircut! Ridiculously overpriced, but I was happy to pay for the security, the way my head felt afterwards, and the a-mazing head massage always received at the conditioning side of life.

So needless to say, I was a teeny bit nervous about finding a good hairdresser and being able to convey the importance of the moment to them in German.

Thankfully, Ingo also needed a haircut, so I put my wussy I-can’t-cope-on-my-own boots on again, and went with him to a nice little place in Morbach.
Also good tip: take photos! and use lots and lots of gestures: “here, and here, short here, long here….” and don’t sit down until you’re quite sure they know what you’re talking about!
I was quite happy Not only was the hairdresser very lovely “your German is really good!” “no really!” (thanks, but I’m not stupid ) she was also very competent. Only 2 things that I found a little bit wrong hehe
1. Conditioner people??! where was my massage!? (at a quarter of the price of my NZ hairdresser I’m not really too surprised though )
2. I realise having thick hair is something many people would love to have (and I DO love having thick hair) however that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to have BIG hair. Mousse + hairdryer (without a narrow attachment) + some contraption that puts more air in the hair while flooffing it up more + wax + hairspray = 80s disaster.

But because the cut was so awesome it just took a wash (with conditioner) and a little bit of straightening to get it looking pretty ok First haircut experience overall rated pretty high!

and it’s hard.

and expensive.

however there is no going back now, there is far too much knowledge and information out there for me to passively pretend I’m a better person without actively trying to do anything about it. Plus the guilt is huge. Massive.

Yes I’ve always been environmentally friendly conscious – I don’t think it’s possible to not be anymore and shame on you if you aren’t! (spreading the guilt to make more people get on the road) – but it’s no longer possible for me to believe that JUST not using plastic bags at the grocery store and buying organic potatoes (that’s currently the only food we buy that’s organic) is enough.

I realise it’s quite difficult to change your way of life overnight, but after watching Food Inc and then reading up about farms in NZ through Nat’s blog links, I have decided that I want to try. Completely. I want to buy locally, know where it’s coming from, and how it was made, and by whom it was made. Plus I want to think about my own actions and what impact they have on the environment, you know how you always wanted to be a person that made an impact??? well I guess we all did… only not a good one :/

It would be awesome if you could have a little breakdown of your daily day (hehe) and the impact in numerical something negatively on the environment. For example (10 being BAD and 1 being NOT SO BAD): woke up = 1, had a longer than necessary shower = 7, ate breakfast made from crap that in the end came from massive money makers with no conscience = 10, drove massive gas chugging car to work = 9, etc etc. verses: woke up = 1, had a no longer than 5 min shower with solar heated water = 4, caught the bus = 5 or even walked = 1 ……. anyway you get the point – may seem a little extreme, but isn’t that the idea?? tip the scales the other way to bounce back to a happy medium?? or even tip the scales completely over and realise that we’re better off and want for nothing anyway so what were we ever thinking?

I wish I had the power to run down these massive corporations that do nothing but make money for moneys sake with no morality or consequences to worry them.

But those are the bigger dreams… for now I’m looking for products that I can rely on and am jumping on the band wagon to change to my lifestyle – for the better (no matter the $$$ cost)

So with a pretty new spreadsheet (yes. That’s correct ANOTHER spreadsheet) I have started to organise my job searching.

This of course is in procrastination for doing the thing that will contribute to my finding of a job – the Portfolio – and now I find myself procrastinating again whilst writing this post.

So… bow and arrow (because it sounds far more point, shoot, and score then any other kind of hunting weapon) ready… Off to find a job!!!