The problem with flying to New Zealand from America is that if you get a well-timed flight, you don’t really have jetlag on the first day. You get this fantastic feeling of competence, because you’ve flown halfway around the world and are fizzing and popping with energy. That lasts until the next day.

I woke around 7:30, puttered around until 9. Then we went into town to make our first shopping run, including gas for the car. Holy Jesus H Christ on a Crutch: NZ$65 to fill the tank! I’m absolutely useless at making sense of the metric amounts, I’m so attuned to American miles/gallon and so on, but I know that a shitload to fill the tank isn’t good. I guess that’s why there’s now a “give me $20 worth of petrol” button on the pumps–the wallet’s the limiting factor, not the tank.

Things in general are more expensive here, and I’m amazed at the amount of wank that’s for sale. I don’t remember NZ being a consumer society when I was a kid in the 80s. Now we have our own Wal-Mart (The Warehouse) and there are dozens of stores in town all trying to sell art from a local coop, wanky yuppie furniture, and a dozen cafes. The rest of the town is taken up with real estate agencies.

Apparently there’s been a real estate boom while I was gone and now the national sport is buying and selling houses. The road from Warkworth to our house is peppered with “For Sale” signs. The main street of town must have a dozen stores on it. The newspaper has a Wank Up Your House section, there are “we’ll let your second property!” services advertised in the budget local rag, and so on. Where the hell do people get the money from?

When I left, salaries were crap. Now I’m back, salaries are still crap. At least, I think so: it’s hard to tell because none of the job listings mention salaries. Either I’m misinformed and salaries of >NZ$100k are commonplace, or everyone in the family must be working. Any ideas how I’d find out what I could earn here, other than applying for jobs which seems a slow and frustrating methodology?

This emphasis on spending seems a new thing, but I haven’t seen it discussed in the popular press the same way that I see the brain drain or the latest policy decisions from Wellington. Perhaps I misremember what it was like in the auld days–always possible given my age and the premature senility induced by two children.

We went to William’s new school, Leigh School. It was great to see again the place where I went to school. We met William’s class (he starts Monday). They’re how I remember kids when I was growing up: a little scruffy, not polished and shiny like kids in the US. Kids here are like cars: probably second-hand economy models rather than the all-leather-interior SUVs of the US. They all seemed friendly and nobody was sullen and stropping a razor, so I took the liberty of feeling optimistic that William will get on well with them. Raley I’m not worried about: she owned the preschool as soon as she walked into it. Possibly this was because she was wearing a Princess dress, but I’ll be a Proud Dad and assume it was her strong friendly personality.

As we talk to people, it’s obvious that our part of NZ is remarkably classless. In London, it was apparent that everyone thought in terms of class. In Colorado, there was only the fabulously rich and the suburban middle class. Poor people weren’t visible, so the range of thought about the human condition was much lower. It didn’t feel ostentatious to have William walking around Fort Collins with an iPod while we did the shopping. In Warkworth, I felt a little self-conscious knowing there were people struggling to make ends meet (and that we could be those people with a few poor budgeting decisions in the coming months) while our six year old had a frivolous toy.

I’ll close with domestic matters: the fridge. Jenine’s been on TradeMe and has some lines on good ones. The prices on TradeMe are 40% of the prices we were being quoted from the “do you a deal!” guy at Halls Retrovision (I kid you not, that’s the name of the store). I love the Internet.