Getting started with this blog

So I don't really know what I'm doing here in terms of making a blog, yet... But I have wanted to share some stories and some photos with folks since I've arrived here, so I'm jumping in.

So before I get to the photos, here's a bit of an update on how things are going. I must admit that picking up my life and moving to somewhere I've only been to once when I passed through the train station is a bigger deal than I'd really anticipated. There's the usual stuff with getting started in a new place. Finding a new place to live, anew car, filling my new home with everything from plants to a bed to silverware... I brought very little.

Then there's moving to a place where no one has known me any longer than the day I got off the plane. And then there's learning the new language. True - they speak English here. But I forgot how different their accent and the local idioms can be. I sit around during smokoh (our twice daily coffee/tea break) and find myself as lost as if folks were speaking Portuguese, at times. I suppose they find my accent as hard to understand as I do theirs, but as some have pointed out, they've got the advantage of having grown up listening to American TV and movies, so at least they're somewhat familiar with my accent.

Greymouth is my new home. It's the biggest town on the West Coast, where us Coasters live. It's the commercial and urban hub for the 35,000 folks who live on the coast, with less than 10,000 total. The rest are spread from Karamea to Haast, which is several hours drive in both directions. It's got a branch office of all the major banks, several large grocery stores, equivalents to a K-Mart, Home Depot and small department store, a few cafes, and yet for the life of me I spent a week in search of a lamp that would hold a bulb brighter than a refrigerator bulb and couldn't find one that I was happy with. I wasn't being too picky, really. I found one that held a 60 watt bulb (the largest capacity I could find for a free-standing desk lamp) but it took a style of bulb I'd never seen (pins at the bottom rather than a screw in type) and so didn't buy. Frankly it was pretty dim anyhow. I couldn't read by it, which was the reason for buying it to begin with. Reading from he light of bulb hanging 10 feet above from the ceiling is rather a challenge, without sitting upright in one's bed.

Anyhow, I'm learning to appreciate Greymouth's charms, including it's natural beauty. For example, Greymouth is famous for the 'barber', a cold winter wind that whips down the Grey river valley to the sea, keeping parts of town noticably colder than others, and bringing with it a beautiful fog some mornings. I took this picture on my way to work one morning. The next day the front page of the local paper had a similar photo. I guess I'm not the only one with a bit of civic pride.

More another day...

Bryan