Queenstown: 2 weeks in

 We made it! And have lived here about two weeks. 

Our AirBnB for these first weeks was in an area called Five Mile and it's a very convenient place for "real" people. It's next to grocery stores, hardware store, NZ Target aka the Warehouse although they also have a store called Target here, a Bed Bath and Beyond (not the US one), etc. 

More importantly, my new office is in Five Mile so it's nice to have convenience while the culture shock sets in. 

Things that are kind of surprising so far:

-How diverse a community QT is. There are SO MANY Filipinos here and it's genuinely surprising to hear my native tongue spoken literally everywhere. I didn't realize I kind of missed that.  

My office is pretty diverse too. I work alongside so many Brits, people from Ireland, Russia and South Africa and Kiwis. It's a good mix and I really enjoy the variety of backgrounds. Everyone seems extremely well-traveled.  

-How prevalent the NFL is here. We saw a store displaying random gear for the Raiders, Browns and Dolphins AND it airs for free...albeit at 5 AM. 

- On that note the amount of free streaming in general. All of TVNZ can be watched on the app. There's also other channels available and no one has to pay a cent.

-Nice doggos everywhere. They're allowed in my office, at the safety boot store, this other random place where I had to do a construction safety test, the bar. Love it. They're just not allowed at property rentals apparently. 

-I horrendously lied about the time difference. Daylight savings just ended and now I'm only a yesterday and 5 hours apart from Colorado. When Colorado daylight savings kicks in we'll be a yesterday and 4 hours apart. 

-Queenstown is in turn an international vacation destination and a quaint little mountain town. We found out our future rental at Hanley's Farm doesn't get post delivered to it. You need to get a P.O. Box and there's anywhere between a month and year's wait for that. Almost everyone at my job gets their post delivered to the office. 

The week I started work has also been fraught with all sorts of crazy apocalyptic events. There was cryptosporidium in the water which can make you super sick so there was a boil water notice (still ongoing). There was also aggressive rain which brought on crazy debris flow from the infamous area where they had removed all the trees under the Skyline Gondola. 

It's still absolutely beautiful though and it's been challenging and honestly so interesting moving somewhere new.  

Random example is produce. You have to buy things when they're in season otherwise you're spending $17/ kg for a zucchini erhemm I mean a courgette. 

You also have to order ahead if you want something biggish. We were shopping around for a new couch and it's going to take weeks for it to arrive. It's just a slight mentality shift after living in the land of Amazon Prime. 

Pictured: Just random things around town including Alfie the boot dog and the local ice rink!











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