Peter – Long Bay
“I sent the last email yesterday, because my grand-daughter took part in the bikini body-building show in Auckland, and she made the first place.
I sent the email to my family in Germany and in South Africa, because I lived 50 years in South Africa, and now two years in New Zealand. So, I sent them the pictures of my grand-daughter after she had won first place in that competition. That was an international competition held in Auckland, and I told them the story; how proud the whole family is.
I came out of South Africa that was also a rainbow country. I mean, even in my homeland, Germany, where I immigrated from in 1964 when I was 20 years old, what happens now in Germany is unbelievable. I wouldn’t even go back there, but here we can walk freely. I lost in the first year here 25 kilograms because for the first time in years we could freely walk without being mugged, and maybe even killed for nothing. My daughter and family’s already 12 years here. They are Kiwis already, and my son and his wife are living in Invercargill, but that is a bit too cold for me, because for 50 years we haven’t seen any snow, and cold weather.
This is already extraordinary to be here in summer with long pants, you know, but as I said, we can now freely walk. This matters. There is no electric fences around our house. There’s no barbecue – no alarm system. You can leave the house doors open; unthinkable over in South Africa. I know Auckland is the third town in the world where people want to live. The only one in front of them is Vienna in Austria and Zurich in Switzerland, and then I was surprised because Germany got three towns under the 10. So, at the very present moment Auckland is obviously getting more people here. You need more houses, the prices of houses are extraordinary. I don’t know where the New Zealander gets the money from to buy one.
I have now fortunate with my wife; we received a Gold Card to travel by bus, because we didn’t want to spend money on a motorcar. We live with the three grandchildren. They all got motorcars, and we have to look after our Mickey-mouse money from South Africa, because the exchange is 11 to one, that means if you have a million rand in South Africa, you come here with $100,000. That is not feeding my dog here.
You can’t buy a house in Long Bay where I’m living. Our daughter and son, they were born, and also our son-in-law, were born in South Africa. My wife and I go to church in Torbay, to the Anglican Church. We met a lot of super people; New Zealanders and a lot of South African. I mean, this part here, Auckland on the North Shore is so filled with South African. They have their shops and you can buy South African stuff, but we don’t really need it.
We’re going to buy so many things here that we haven’t seen even in the market on South Africa, and it’s all top class. The children and the grand-children are married to not German people – they’re married to England people and a Scottish woman; we have already parted from the German culture. It’s only my wife and I; we keep it very high, especially Christmas time and Easter time.”
