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On Sunday, there was a gathering of expatriates in the Christchurch area which I was very happy to be able to attend.

Most of us who were there have been in contact through a Yahoo Group called Expats-in-New-Zealand. So, it was nice to actually put some faces to the names I’ve seen on the various postings.

This group serves both those who have already immigrated to New Zealand as well as those who are still considering it. it is an excellent source of all sorts of information about New Zealand from immigration requirements to whether or not one can find Fritos here on the market shelves.

It was an interesting group of people. We had folks whose current or former careers included: an IT Project Manager, an Airline Pilot, Real Estate Agents and investors, Appaloosa Horse Breeders, a young gymnast, a Writer/Photographer, University Students, and University Professors among others. I can venture to say that it doesn’t look like there are many particularly dull people who decide to pack up and move to the other side of the world .

Kathi and Bruce, who hail from the Bay Area and have been in New Zealand for about six months, were our hosts and shared their beautiful home with us. In addition to our Bay Area representatives, we had folks from Washington, Florida, Texas, Idaho, South Africa, Portland, Chicago and Germany there. People’s time in New Zealand ranged from 2 days to 12 years.

And, did I mention that we also had a genuine Kiwi, Len, who is married to an American expatriate, there as well? Len makes his own liquor mixes and he was nice enough to share two of them with me and they were excellent!

There’s just not enough room and time to recount all of the excellent conversations I had at the party but be assured that I sincerely hope to see all of these folks again.

It was a great get-together. Here’s a couple of photos I shot at the party:

Tom & Marie’s Photos are below:

This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 23:11 and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.