Interesting. Also you forgot to add the lack of "orstrayan's" which must be a bonus ;-)
I used to live in Central ChCh and am an avid Cyclist too. Training was always akin to Russian Roulette most of the time. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 4 June 2004 10:44 a.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [DUG-Offtopic] IT in NZ I worked in Sydney, Melbourne & Johannesburg for Borland in 98 & 99, and enjoyed the year I spent there, but once I'd done all the things you can do within the big Aussie cities, I found it really frustrating to find it so difficult to drive out of town for the weekend. I'm a really outdoorsy person (spent all of my twenties away most weekends while in the UK mountaineering and tramping), so when I came over here for a 3 month break from Oz, I loved it. Ended up meeting my now wife (who's from Scotland, I'm from Northern Ireland) in Te Anau, went back to Scotland for 2.5 years, then we got married, and said lets go back to NZ, so here I am. Didn't want to live in Awkland 'cos of the same sprawling problem, and found this job in Chch, a place which to me seems a reasonable compromise in terms of being able to easily get to a wide variety of places in the South Island. Yeah, cost of travel outside NZ is an issue, going back to the UK in July is costing me $6000 for the 2 of us, although what makes me really grumpy is having to pay $300 for the privilege of having my 10 month old daughter spend a 24 hour flight sitting on my knee and she doesn't even get a baggage allowance. Grrrrr, don't get me started on that issue... ;-) So to summarise, NZ's got fewer people, more variety of landscape in a smaller space, climate in Chch is way better than the UK, but not too hot, the mountains are bigger, and it seems like a nice place to bring up kids. Work to live, not live to work, so I enjoy the more relaxed pace of life and less traffic, although roads can still be dangerous here (drunken hit and run bastard killed a fellow cyclist down here in Chch 5 mins from work here yesterday). I vaguely miss central heating, double glazing and proper brick houses. Having said all that, a good thing about the IT industry is the relative ease of finding jobs around the world, so if we decide we're not having fun anymore, we can go and find somewhere else. Apologies for extended waffling... Cheers, C. -----Original Message----- From: James Sugrue [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] How do you find the pace of life and living standards here? I would think there are great advantages in living here, but disadvantages too, such as cost of travel etc. Do you mind if I ask why you chose NZ rather than Oz? _______________________________________________ Offtopic mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ns3.123.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/offtopic _______________________________________________ Offtopic mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ns3.123.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/offtopic
