Expensive Expressions

From the moment we first stepped on New Zealand soil, we were counting down to the day that our visas would expire and our departure would be called for. Being from different countries, our visas differed greatly in when that day would be, but it was just the earliest date that mattered to our relationship. We had until June 20th 2007 to acquire Lucie a new visa, or both of us would start the journey back to the UK.
We always knew this was the future we faced so started making arrangements towards a solution long before the deadline. In November we submitted an ‘expression of interest’ for permanent residency in New Zealand. This ‘expression’ cost $300 and highlighted two important things to us: 1st, My current employment contract was in conflict with the visa restrictions of my working holiday visa (apparently ‘any employment’ actually means ‘any employment except permanent employment); and 2nd, even dispite this misunderstanding, I seemed to know more about immigrations policies and our entitlements than our assigned case officer. Our future now rested in the hands of someone we had very little confidence in.

Nevertheless, my contract was amended with some clever wording, sent to immigration, and a month or so afterwards we received an invitation to apply for permanent residence, with a deadline to submit all necessary information by April 6th 2007. It seemed like plenty of time but that date approached a lot faster than we anticipated. Academic transcripts, birth certificates, and proof of previous employment had to be sent out from the UK. Police certificates needed to be applied for both for the UK and Czech Republic, and official translations were required for any document not written in English. Medical examinations were required in New Zealand, and we needed to submit proof of our relationship – photos, letters of support, bank statements, and flight receipts. The cost for all these things, and the next stage of the application was over $1500, but it was substantially more than this in terms of our stress and health. We encountered numerous problems and setbacks which made us constantly question whether or not it was worth the effort. I’m a firm believer in the fact things work out for you if you’re on the right course in life, and a lot of signs here pointed we weren’t. However, I’m stubborn and don’t like changing my mind once it’s set on doing something, so we battled on.

Our next issue was the fact it could take anywhere between 3 & 6 months for our application to be processed, and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed that we would be given residency. This was slighly worrying as from the date of submittal, we had less than two and a half months before Lucie’s visa would expire. As a contingency plan, we were advised by our case officer and two separate immigration officials that Lucie should apply for a tourist visa for the interim period if we haven’t heard anything by June.

This all made for some very testing moments. We were trying to settle in a country that we felt didn’t want us. We didn’t know if we were leaving in months or when we wanted, so didn’t know what we should save and what we should spend. We obviously still enjoyed our breaks, concerts, and events, but we had to justify the spending of each against the uncertainly of our future. One event we were not going to miss was the chance to see The Red Hot Chili Peppers play Vector Arena – a new stadium less than a 15 minute walk away from our apartment. I bought our tickets 2 minutes after they went on sale, 8 minutes later the gigs were sold out, and a few hours later they started appearing on ‘trade me’ (a NZ equivalent of ebay) for some ridiculously large sums, and we started questioning how badly we wanted to go. However, the initial excitement and desperation soon calmed down, the bidding dropped to more sensible levels, and the temptation to sell evaporated.

The gig was good in the sense that I love their music, and it’s always good hearing the tunes, but the actual show was lacked energy. The only performance that was bursting with life was that of the support act, ‘Har Mar Superstar’. We didn’t know they were scheduled so it was a good surprise. I’d last seen them perform at Glastonbury 2003, and consequently knew who it was as soon as we saw a middle-aged overweight balding man take the stage just wearing his underpants. The rest of the audience weren’t quite so enthused and the reception wasn’t particularly welcoming. There were some great moments to the Chili’s show, but it didn’t compare to their performance at Hyde Park in 2005.

Back to reality and our June deadline quickly approached. Our fear and loathing of the immigration service increased, stress levels reached the sky, and we felt permanently tired. We badly needed a holiday.

A Call for Action

Easter brought us a couple of days off work, a long weekend, and the excuse for another trip away. The only problem was that all the predictions, both professional and office based, pointed to a wet weekend. We thought about taking a ferry to ‘Waiheke Island’, but doubted the entertainment depth of such a place could withstand poor weather. So, we hesitated and deliberated. We played with ideas of places to visit and then discounted each of them for reasons centred on the forecast. Best just stay local, do nothing, and enjoy a relaxing time. Yeah well, we should’ve learned by now that no matter what the predictions are, if you have a plan, just do it. 'Good Friday' arrived, the grey sky turned to blue, the wind died down, and the sun shone supreme. We’d been tricked again, and unfortunately nobody else had. All accommodation on ‘Waiheke’ was now booked up, and barely a single hire car remained in Auckland. Even our secondary plans of being proactive and fixing things around the home were flummoxed as we discovered that every store in the city was closed – except of course the souvenir stores, but they’d be open after a nuclear holocaust with only cockroaches for customers.

Good Friday and the Saturday right after dissappeared in a blink of proactive intentions & further indeciveness. It wasn’t until Easter Sunday before our plans had materialised to anything resembling an escape from Auckland.
Once the formalities and a couple of hundred kilometres were out the way, we’d arrived in our hire car at the ‘Kai Iwi Lakes’ just north of Dargaville. It took roughly 3 hours to cover the distance, and yet the first drops of rain didn’t touch our windscreen until we approached the car park of our destination. A few drops soon became a deluge capable of extinguishing the fires of hell, and when we left the safety of the car, the ground was a mirror for the sky. The following couple of hours were a glorious contrast of threatening dark clouds and divine moments of illumination that provided some beautiful views and worrying walks.

On the way home, we stopped on the North Shore of Auckland to grab some dinner. Perhaps it was because we hadn’t spent as much money as we’d originally intended, or maybe it was because our journey had been long and the cupboard at home was bare. Whatever the reasons, it was wasn’t something to debate about. Decisive action would now feature firmly on our menu.