Newness, Adaption and Time

Yowza! It's been 6 weeks since my last post, and the time has passed in an entirely novel way. We arrived in New Zealand on June 11th. After being here only a few days and countless times since then, Kevin and I have regularly made this shared observation: it feels like we've been here so much longer than we have. It seemed to take a long time for us to be able to say we've been here a whole month. We looked forward to observing that as a significant milestone, anticipating the novelty of saying we've been in New Zealand for a whole month. Then when it came, it didn't feel accurate; it felt like we'd been here twice as long as that, because we'd been through so many changes. And it seems to be taking more than twice a long to pass the two-month milestone, but it is finally in sight: this coming Tuesday.

Just in the past month, after a period of acclimatization (observing Kevin's driving), I've learned to drive on the left side of Wellington roads. I know how to move through a roundabout and other strange indications on the ground. I've driven around the Miramar Peninsula, Kilbirnie, Newtown, and downtown Wellington. I used to be a very good driver in Canada, and excellent at parking (even Kevin agrees). Here, I know I'm a 'bad' driver, but I have a good excuse, and I'm getting better all the time.

I've also made friends! Kevin and I have befriended and socialized with a dozen people whom we didn't know before June 11th, none of them Canadians. That's half a dozen girlfriends for me! Most, but not all of them have a connection with Weta. In other words, they are either Weta Boys as our Weta Relocation Coordinator dubbed them, or Weta Wives as they/we are officially known as per the Weta Wives Facebook group. Only one of my new friends has no connection to Weta, she's someone I met through Trade Aid.

Our social circle is a far flung bunch in terms of nationality, though. Haylee and Mike are Aussies. Anne is a Pommy; her husband Gavin is a Possy (Pommy and Aussie, so called by his friends because he's an Aussie who's lived in England for 8 years). Carola is German. Celine is French. Hillary, Jessica, Ryan and Matt are American. Only Marita, Diz and Tim are Kiwis. We took the bull by the horns and threw a party last night. It was really great. Everyone came, and they clearly enjoyed meeting one another. Only Mike Beauchamp didn't come, the guy from Windsor that we keep trying to meet up with but never do (we still have not met him to this day, although we have several mutual friends). Isn't that ironic? Anyway, we are really glad that we went for it, although Kevin and I are both a little hungover today. No matter. The point is, it's happening already. Kevin and I both thought it would take much, much longer to make friends here. And they are good people: cool, interesting, funny and nice. You'd like them.

There's a phenomenon at work here, having to do with our experience of newness, adaptation and time, whereby we are adapting to our new lifestyle and fitting in to this new situation much faster than we thought possible. I won't pontificate about it too much, I barely understand it and I definitely don't want to spoil it!