What on earth is it like to live in New Zealand

[ApplesandOat]

Honestly been looking at videos etc on YouTube about New Zealand but I've decided to go on here and ask people who might have actually spent some time there.

Tell me all about it!

Cousin moved there when she got married. Lives on a beautiful island, 20+ years behind us. Libes an idyllic life.

Never forget they lost their minds in covid. My brother didn’t get the vaccination and lost his job because of it - couldn’t even get a haircut apparently. No thank you. It’s a cultural wasteland and the houses are ugly. I’d rather be in Europe 1000 times over.

No! Lived on the North Island and only visited Kaiteriteri and Christchurch on the SI. Didn't know Canterbury was exceptionally windy!

Literally the weirdest post on here. Their houses are like everywhere, varied. Some are ugly like some dreadful pebbledash monstrosity in the Uk is ugly. Some are lavish. Most in middle class areas are fairly modern. They are so varied that anyone claiming they are all ugly is clearly just being hyperbolic.
here is a selection of houses from upscale but not what would be considered top top end through to fairly modest. There are grand houses that would blow your mind away and dreadful houses that you’d not want to live in. Exactly like in the UK.

I know right 🤣 it’s a country of immigrants. Everyone apparently spending their lives being guarded 🙄🤣

One difficult thing for many migrants particularly from Northern hemisphere countries is the time difference and the opposite seasons. I think someone else wrote about this a bit. It’s a fun quirk at first but it makes it hard to call loved ones, particularly with children as it’s either bed time or breakfast/school run time. Trips to the country of origin mean sacrificing valuable summer time (proper warm summer is really only reliably two months - January and Feb, especially as you go south from Auckland), and putting up with Euro winter on holiday, or, going in NZ winter but that can be disruptive to jobs, school etc as it’s not holiday season. Also, it makes it increasingly hard to relate because everything is so absolutely opposite in this sense. It really brings to the fore how much people bond over the stage of the year they are experiencing (eg growth, harvest, hibernation, re starting etc ) and how weird it is when the person you are talking to is about to go to bed when you’ve just gotten up. It’s not a biggie necessarily but it can be progressively wearisome for some people.

The thing that I struggled with being "upside down" was the seasons, especially Christmas. Christmas and the long summer holidays rolled into one. It felt wrong and strange to be on the beach on Christmas Day. At first it was a novelty, but I missed a cosy Winter Christmas. Taking the kids to see Father Christmas who was wearing shorts and flip flops on the beach was strange!
The winters felt long and dragged a bit. Because in the Northern Hemisphere, Christmas breaks up the winter somewhat. Obviously in NZ, there's nothing to look forward to to break it up.

We get howling nor'westers in spring and autumn, although I have to say not nearly as much as we used to do. However they can still cause a lot of damage at times.