I am in New Zealand, and I have no idea where to start writing this post. It is absolutely amazing to just even be here, and the feeling of being at the end of the world, or at least at the very other end of the world has not yet really settled in my brain.
Here in (the outksirts) of Christchurch, things seem very “normal”: European trees and plants and birds, no wildly exotic smells, and although traffic is on the wrong side of the road (not just the “other side” ok, it is just WRONG) it is normal too, perhaps a bit slow, unrushed.
People are nice, and my first days were nice. Surprisingly things at work are extremely organized. You would think that would be a German thing, but at least my current workplace is roughly 500 gazillion times better organized than ANY German organization. But that is just a first impression.
Well to start at the beginning: Saturday Thomas and me somehow managed to drag ourselves and my 58 kilo bags to Frankfurt airport. Things were again complicated, but with loads of time and two sets of eyes and brains we managed to relatively quickly check me in. They took my bags without so much as a comment on the (excessive) weight. Amazing. Maybe Frankfurt Airport isn’t as bad as I thought.
We had a drink, we bought a magazine, and then I cried and cried and cried. And then I left.
I must say, you do get used to such heartbreaking goodbyes. I remember much worse scenes at airports. Which doesn’t mean I am a heartless beast now but luckily I don’t have to cry all the way to the gate and then all the way through the flight.
My first flight, to Vancouver, was 10 hours but it seemed much longer. I watched three or four movies and worried about my suitcase breaking open.
In Vancouver my uncle picked me up and at his house I felt so at home and on holidays that I wondered why I wasn’t staying there indefinitely … They had a power outing and so we went for dinner which was fun. I went to bed early and slept 12 hours. As I said, it felt completely at home and strangely at the moment I might even miss Vancouver more than Freiburg.
Easter Sunday I watched Formula 1 with my uncle and nephew, had lunch at the beach with Jason, went swimming and finally chatted with my aunt and played a little ping-pong with my nephew. And then my uncle drove me to the airport again. I was in Vancouver last October when I first heard about my current post doc, and so my uncle has followed the whole process and is extremely excited about me being here and doing this. He knew more about Christchurch than me from various google-searches and has more or less worked out a complete tour through New Zealand, so it wouldn’t surprise me when he and his family are actually the first to make it over here. He hugged me for a long time and offered to negotiate the best seat for me before he drove on to an Easter dinner. It was such a wonderfully relaxed and fun day in Vancouver that I really didn’t feel like leaving …
But, the flight was amazing! I LOVE Air New Zealand! They definitely made a smashing first impression on me. It seemed as if there was much more leg-room, and the seat next to me was free so I had a lot of space. The flight attendants were hilariously funny, friendly and relaxed. I didn’t understand all they said, but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared the kiwi-accent would be. And apparently Air NZ is (trying to be) the most sustainable airline: they had all these little tricks of reducing plastic waste, organic hand soap in the lavatory and some other details that I really liked. I even slept at least half of the 14 hour flight, so nice.
My row had some problems with the video system, which didn’t really bother me, but at the end of the flight they gave us a 60 NZ$ voucher for Air NZ, which I thought was extremely generous for such a minor problem. So at least on my next Air NZ flight I will get this 60$ discount, even when it probably hardly even equals the reservation costs…
In Auckland I did get a bit nervous. Would they just accept my visa? And how thorough would they investigate me and my hiking boots with traces of biohazardous soil?! It was all no problem. And guess what! The NZ gold medal winner in the paralympics was on my plane! I didn’t actually see him, but I saw the welcoming team and I heard them yell when he got there, while I was waiting to get my luggage transferred. Ha! I knew that some kiwi would be able to win gold on Whistler’s slopes!
I Auckland I apparently had some 50 minutes left before boarding the next plane. I was completely mixed up with time zones. I’m still puzzled what happened to Monday. I just lost it. It never happened. I walked from the international terminal to the domestic one and breathed in the exotic, warm and moist, air. Over there it did seem very different. Exotic trees, strange smells. And I was happy, to actually be in Kiwiland after all!
The flight to ChCh was short. My supervisor was there to pick me up and after we had loaded my bags into the car he drove me to my home for the next few weeks. He pointed out native trees, which were not many. ChCh is NZ’s most European city, and that largely applies to the vegetation as well. At least all the oaks and beeches and birches still had, only slightly coloured, leaves so it didn’t seem too autumn’ish right away…
I decided to come with him to the institute right away, after a quick shower. It was 10am and I didn’t really want to sit in the strange house the whole day all by myself. The house belongs to a woman working there too and she occasionally rents a room to short term visitors, and will be on a 1 month South-America trip so I’ll have the house to myself then.
At the institute, which I won’t name for privacy reasons, my supervisor, called “I”, showed me my office, 100 people, some labs, the library, another 50 people, and the “tearoom”. I was excited to hear that they keep exactly the same breaks as in Freiburg: tea at 10, lunch at 12:30, tea again in the afternoon. It’s also really cute that over here the focus is on tea instead of on coffee. In my contract there is official time for “tea breaks” and in the introductory checklist one of the first things is “location and use of tearooms”. Another sign that this is my country.
This really impressed me: they have a 5 page check list for new employees so that within the first week you will get all possible information, from tearooms to safety to your actual contract and the use of your computer. I already swore to myself I will take this checklist to all future workplaces and just use it for myself as a list of things I absolutely want to know. How do I take a holiday and which software am I allowed to install? Who is responsible for field equipment and where do I go when I have a mental problem? It might all fall apart soon but this place seems a dream come true compared to the chaos in Freiburg…
In the afternoon Tania, the woman from the house, drove me home and we went to the supermarket and she cooked dinner for me, so nice! Then I went to bed. I wasn’t really tired during the day, but definitely in a daze.
Wednesday morning we drove to the institute, which is about 20 km outside of ChCH. Almost everyone asked me if/when I was going to purchase a vehicle. I wasn’t actually planning to do that real soon, there is a good bus connection and I learned today that I might be able to carpool with 3 others at least as long as I live in this part of town.
This second day I was much more awake and we discussed some scientific things. My supervisor seemed to have the same science philosophies as me, regarding some important aspects such as who are co-authors on various papers, how to approach each other, and even regarding the project. I thought he wanted to prove A with this project, and would do anything to present the data so that A is proven. But personally I think the project will ultimately prove B, which is the opposite hypothesis of A. He agreed that it would also be fantastic if we could prove B. So, at least it seems as if he is flexible. And we just had a real nice chat/discussion about the project. I immediately felt I could say whatever I wanted and just outirght disagree with him, without him thinking I am stupid. He took a lot of time for me too, and he seemed nicely chaotic and taken up by his work.
I also met my office-room-mate, Gareth from Australia. He has been here 2 months, so also relatively new, and I think he was happy to have someone else in the office. We were both away most of the day but whenever we were in the office together we chatted about finding a house or our PhD-time. When we found out we will both be here for the next three years I said “haha so we will share all the ups and downs!”, and I think that will be nice.
Well, that is a lot of information about my first two days. I just dug through my luggage to unearth the plug to convert between the NZ electricity socket and my laptop’s and connected to Tania’s wireless, so from now on I can write and post daily. And I am sure I will! Every day is soooo exciting!
Here in (the outksirts) of Christchurch, things seem very “normal”: European trees and plants and birds, no wildly exotic smells, and although traffic is on the wrong side of the road (not just the “other side” ok, it is just WRONG) it is normal too, perhaps a bit slow, unrushed.
People are nice, and my first days were nice. Surprisingly things at work are extremely organized. You would think that would be a German thing, but at least my current workplace is roughly 500 gazillion times better organized than ANY German organization. But that is just a first impression.
Well to start at the beginning: Saturday Thomas and me somehow managed to drag ourselves and my 58 kilo bags to Frankfurt airport. Things were again complicated, but with loads of time and two sets of eyes and brains we managed to relatively quickly check me in. They took my bags without so much as a comment on the (excessive) weight. Amazing. Maybe Frankfurt Airport isn’t as bad as I thought.
We had a drink, we bought a magazine, and then I cried and cried and cried. And then I left.
I must say, you do get used to such heartbreaking goodbyes. I remember much worse scenes at airports. Which doesn’t mean I am a heartless beast now but luckily I don’t have to cry all the way to the gate and then all the way through the flight.
My first flight, to Vancouver, was 10 hours but it seemed much longer. I watched three or four movies and worried about my suitcase breaking open.
In Vancouver my uncle picked me up and at his house I felt so at home and on holidays that I wondered why I wasn’t staying there indefinitely … They had a power outing and so we went for dinner which was fun. I went to bed early and slept 12 hours. As I said, it felt completely at home and strangely at the moment I might even miss Vancouver more than Freiburg.
Easter Sunday I watched Formula 1 with my uncle and nephew, had lunch at the beach with Jason, went swimming and finally chatted with my aunt and played a little ping-pong with my nephew. And then my uncle drove me to the airport again. I was in Vancouver last October when I first heard about my current post doc, and so my uncle has followed the whole process and is extremely excited about me being here and doing this. He knew more about Christchurch than me from various google-searches and has more or less worked out a complete tour through New Zealand, so it wouldn’t surprise me when he and his family are actually the first to make it over here. He hugged me for a long time and offered to negotiate the best seat for me before he drove on to an Easter dinner. It was such a wonderfully relaxed and fun day in Vancouver that I really didn’t feel like leaving …
But, the flight was amazing! I LOVE Air New Zealand! They definitely made a smashing first impression on me. It seemed as if there was much more leg-room, and the seat next to me was free so I had a lot of space. The flight attendants were hilariously funny, friendly and relaxed. I didn’t understand all they said, but it wasn’t as bad as I had feared the kiwi-accent would be. And apparently Air NZ is (trying to be) the most sustainable airline: they had all these little tricks of reducing plastic waste, organic hand soap in the lavatory and some other details that I really liked. I even slept at least half of the 14 hour flight, so nice.
My row had some problems with the video system, which didn’t really bother me, but at the end of the flight they gave us a 60 NZ$ voucher for Air NZ, which I thought was extremely generous for such a minor problem. So at least on my next Air NZ flight I will get this 60$ discount, even when it probably hardly even equals the reservation costs…
In Auckland I did get a bit nervous. Would they just accept my visa? And how thorough would they investigate me and my hiking boots with traces of biohazardous soil?! It was all no problem. And guess what! The NZ gold medal winner in the paralympics was on my plane! I didn’t actually see him, but I saw the welcoming team and I heard them yell when he got there, while I was waiting to get my luggage transferred. Ha! I knew that some kiwi would be able to win gold on Whistler’s slopes!
I Auckland I apparently had some 50 minutes left before boarding the next plane. I was completely mixed up with time zones. I’m still puzzled what happened to Monday. I just lost it. It never happened. I walked from the international terminal to the domestic one and breathed in the exotic, warm and moist, air. Over there it did seem very different. Exotic trees, strange smells. And I was happy, to actually be in Kiwiland after all!
The flight to ChCh was short. My supervisor was there to pick me up and after we had loaded my bags into the car he drove me to my home for the next few weeks. He pointed out native trees, which were not many. ChCh is NZ’s most European city, and that largely applies to the vegetation as well. At least all the oaks and beeches and birches still had, only slightly coloured, leaves so it didn’t seem too autumn’ish right away…
I decided to come with him to the institute right away, after a quick shower. It was 10am and I didn’t really want to sit in the strange house the whole day all by myself. The house belongs to a woman working there too and she occasionally rents a room to short term visitors, and will be on a 1 month South-America trip so I’ll have the house to myself then.
At the institute, which I won’t name for privacy reasons, my supervisor, called “I”, showed me my office, 100 people, some labs, the library, another 50 people, and the “tearoom”. I was excited to hear that they keep exactly the same breaks as in Freiburg: tea at 10, lunch at 12:30, tea again in the afternoon. It’s also really cute that over here the focus is on tea instead of on coffee. In my contract there is official time for “tea breaks” and in the introductory checklist one of the first things is “location and use of tearooms”. Another sign that this is my country.
This really impressed me: they have a 5 page check list for new employees so that within the first week you will get all possible information, from tearooms to safety to your actual contract and the use of your computer. I already swore to myself I will take this checklist to all future workplaces and just use it for myself as a list of things I absolutely want to know. How do I take a holiday and which software am I allowed to install? Who is responsible for field equipment and where do I go when I have a mental problem? It might all fall apart soon but this place seems a dream come true compared to the chaos in Freiburg…
In the afternoon Tania, the woman from the house, drove me home and we went to the supermarket and she cooked dinner for me, so nice! Then I went to bed. I wasn’t really tired during the day, but definitely in a daze.
Wednesday morning we drove to the institute, which is about 20 km outside of ChCH. Almost everyone asked me if/when I was going to purchase a vehicle. I wasn’t actually planning to do that real soon, there is a good bus connection and I learned today that I might be able to carpool with 3 others at least as long as I live in this part of town.
This second day I was much more awake and we discussed some scientific things. My supervisor seemed to have the same science philosophies as me, regarding some important aspects such as who are co-authors on various papers, how to approach each other, and even regarding the project. I thought he wanted to prove A with this project, and would do anything to present the data so that A is proven. But personally I think the project will ultimately prove B, which is the opposite hypothesis of A. He agreed that it would also be fantastic if we could prove B. So, at least it seems as if he is flexible. And we just had a real nice chat/discussion about the project. I immediately felt I could say whatever I wanted and just outirght disagree with him, without him thinking I am stupid. He took a lot of time for me too, and he seemed nicely chaotic and taken up by his work.
I also met my office-room-mate, Gareth from Australia. He has been here 2 months, so also relatively new, and I think he was happy to have someone else in the office. We were both away most of the day but whenever we were in the office together we chatted about finding a house or our PhD-time. When we found out we will both be here for the next three years I said “haha so we will share all the ups and downs!”, and I think that will be nice.
Well, that is a lot of information about my first two days. I just dug through my luggage to unearth the plug to convert between the NZ electricity socket and my laptop’s and connected to Tania’s wireless, so from now on I can write and post daily. And I am sure I will! Every day is soooo exciting!
