Posts by Chris Bowden
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I met my wife during the 2003 World Cup. We were in London. She was (is) a hard core Aussie fan and I was (am) a true blue ABs man. We agree to meet up for a drink after the NZ v Aussie semi-final. Obviously I had assumed we would win it, but I swallowed my pride and turned up anyway. She invited me out to watch the Aussie v England final with her and her mates at the Walkabout. I declined as it felt like I would be attending a party I wasn't invited to, but I joined her in a kind of grieving solidarity after the game. Given that the game started early in the day UK time, by the time I caught up with her she had made quite a start on drowning her sorrows. Things progressed from there.
In 2007 we were living together (engaged?) and the World Cup was on closer to our London home. I had been to an ABs pool game, and we both had quarter final tickets - hers to England v Australia in Marsielle and mine to THAT game in Cardiff. After watching the Aussie game in a pub in the middle of the Welsh valleys (a bit bizarre, us Kiwis supporting England and the locals supporting Australia, and our English friend celebrating but not too hard...he was in the Welsh valleys after all) I managed to restrain myself from sending any smart arsed text messages to her. My mates and I then preceded on into Cardiff and THAT game (the stories from that could fill another blog). At least it meant that we could grieve together, again.
Its 2011 and I managed to get her to agree to move to New Zealand (tough ask for an Aussie). We purchased a villa right next to Eden Park, purchased an Eden Park pool pack and a few extra tickets a year ago. In January we found out we had a new arrival due right in the middle of the World Cup, although he was good enough to arrive a month ago rather than during a game (I was secretly hoping he would be born at Eden Park). He already has an All Blacks one piece and a home made All Blacks cardigan. And a Wallabies one piece, gloves and bib.
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We managed to get our garden equipment, and tent, in without much more than a 'man clean' by myself. In fact, customs was a lot less interested in our stuff then we thought they would be. If in doubt, give them a ring. I found them very helpful on the phone when I called them regarding my wife's 50 or so food essences!! You might be surprised about what you can bring in.
I often tell people I moved to London with a backpack and three tea chests and moved back with a wife and a whole shipping crate, and that the two are definitely related. Get a few quotes from different moving companies but expect to pay more once they have wrapped everything up. My wife brought a whole bunch of antique furniture which I thought was excessive at the time but has been great to have now. Once you reach a certain volume of stuff, the marginal cost of including even more is fairly small.
Whether you like Georgian furniture or Ikea, the range in NZ is a lot smaller and more expenisve than the UK (and the US probably), and it is also good to have stuff that remind you of your overseas adventure. Bring back those lamps.
And if you are moving to Auckland, prepare to be shocked re house prices.
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In my experience sitting the Life in the UK test, all it really is is an English comprehension test. Before the test you are encouraged to purchase a book which talks about life in the UK. All of the answers to the test (mainly statistics, dates and geography) are somewhere in the book. So if you can read English (myself and the Canadian doing the test) you can finish it in ten minutes. If you don't speak English (in my test there were quite a few, and IMHO looked like the people most desparate to stay in the UK), you struggled. Therefore, the test was merely a way of weeding out non-English speaking immigrants.
The thing I did like was completing mine in Brick Lane, historically a home for so many UK immigrants. It had a certain symbolism to it.
There was a proposal while I was there for potential new immigrants to undertake community work, but it doesn't look like it gained traction. Although it looks like they are about to crack down on the method of immigration I used: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2011/june/12government-migration-proposals
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What a crock. Funnily enough, I have never had a (DB verion) Radler as I assumed it was shandy-in-a-bottle (ie 1 or 2% alcohol) when it is actually a 5% brew. So they lost me by advertising it as a radler in the first place, when it wasn't even a 'proper' radler.
My first experience with 'proper' radler was at the Munich Oktoberfest, where my German mate, a Weisn regular, used it as a strategy to get through the day.
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Oh, was meant to add, the French landscapes make it for me though.
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Don't forget the sheep that ran across the road in front of the leaders last year during a mountain stage. Hope this works
I have been watching it for the last three of four years. Great half hour highlights every night and the last two hours of some of the more important stages. It is an amazingly tactical race, and the commentators do a great job of explaining it all.
The different outfits represent the different classifications: yellow = tour leader, polka dots (always some interesting outfits) = king of the mountains, green = sprint leader, white = young rider. I think they even have a category for the most combatative. Why the girls? Well, it's France!!
These other classifications, and the little battles within the overall general classification, fascinate me. It means, for example, that there are whole teams in the tour that are not even aiming to win the overall race, but trying to get kudos for leading a breakaway, winning a stage etc.
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Long time listener, first time caller here. I just wanted to say that I went inside the rugby ball when it was in London and thought it was fantastic. In fact, I immediately joined the rather long set of tourists from all over the globe and went and did it again. We passed the time in the queue being entertained by what I guess where the London NZ Maori group. It was a great AV experiece and I thought it was a great adverisement to NZ, sitting right by the Tower Bridge too. Pity my cycle odometer went missing while I was in there, but that is another story.