Trains, Planes and Ferries

Hi everyone!

I wanted to fill you all in on our trip to Auckland last weekend. We left Saturday morning and returned Tuesday night. Since I have lots to report, I will try to break it down to some extent...

The trip to Auckland (PART ONE)
As I mentioned before, we took the Overlander from Wellington to Auckland - the countryside we passed through was gorgeous! (These pictures were taken from the observation car - an open air portion of the train)

The viaduct:

Some sheep:
(Before this train ride, I had yet to see ANY sheep - and for everyone's information, I just did a little bit of research, per the government (population.govt.nz), the ratio of sheep to people here is approximately 10:1. Specifically - March 2007 population of 4.18 million people, June 2006 population of 40.1 million sheep. In 1982 the ratio was 20:1. The current ratio in Australia is 5:1.)

Some lambs: There were so many little lambs - and they were so cute! Whenever I mentioned how cute the lambs were, Erik would say "Mmmmm. Lamb chops!"

About the train - I think the two of us dropped the average age of passengers by about 10 years... it was a retiree haven! We met some nice people on our journey, and naturally some characters as well -

Woman with Chicago Bulls sweatshirt on - At first, we were really excited to make a Chicago connection. When we asked about the sweatshirt (circa 1988), we learned that she bought it from a secondhand store in Melbourne. When asked what drew her to it, she responded that she "really liked the bull on it." I thought this was great! It reminded me of the time in high school when I picked up a shirt from Harrod's while visiting London with my Grandma, aunt, & cousin - I bought it because I liked the colors and the 'deer' on it, which I now know is actually a springbok and it's a South African rugby jersey, who knew? It had McNick colors.... but I digress. Back to this lady, she was a strange bird. She told us how she and her mate were sick with bronchitis and then wanted to know if we wanted to play cards with them. We kindly declined and decided to check out the rest of the train instead.

Couple, South Island beef farmers - They were great!! After picking up a tasty meal from the food car, we moved to a different car (away from bronchitis) and met this lovely couple from just south of Christchurch. They possessed that perfect balance of interest and disinterest you look for in a new travel companion. It was great hearing about all of their tramping trips in and around NZ. To put it simply, they were very friendly and we really enjoyed sitting with them.

The trip to Auckland (PART TWO)
This is a picture of Erik I took while we were hanging out on the observation deck. Does he look confused to you? Do you see the look of growing concern? He is trying to hear the conductor's announcement -
The concerning announcement was that the train ahead of us had derailed and they were going to bus us from National City to Auckland (we were about halfway at this point). We quickly looked up where exactly we were in our travel books, called a hostel and made plans to stay overnight rather than take the bus the rest of the way. This was actually a blessing in disguise, since the train ride was 12 hours. It was nice to have a break in there. The town we stayed in was tiny-tiny, not even 1 sq. mile! It was a ski town, and since we were not prepared for skiing, we did some hiking in our city slicker clothes, but we lived to tell the tale!

We were able to take the same train the next day - the train was, again, very comfortable and we arrived into Auckland on Sunday night.

Auckland
The 3 main things we did Auckland were Rangitoto, Devonport, & the aquarium.

Here is a photo from the ferry we took from Auckland to Rangitoto -

RANGITOTO
This island was formed by a volcano about 600 years ago. We took the ferry out Monday morning for a hike to the summit and to the lava caves. It was a ton of fun. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed being out and about. Granted, we also felt a little out of shape - this volcano is not very high, but there were some pretty steep parts. Here is a picture of me at the top -
DEVONPORT
Devonport is a sleepy little town across from the Auckland harbor (we took the ferry from Rangitoto to Devonport). We enjoyed a very nice lunch outside and climbed this massive hill there to check out the view (in the picture above). Since I considered us to be climbing experts now that we had a 260 meter volcano under our belt, I suggested we forego the path and run straight up - it was really steep - you couldn't even stand straight up on it. We had fun and the view of Auckland was fabulous. Here is Erik crawling his way up. I am not sure that this picture does the slope justice, but all the same, here it is:
KELLY TARTLON'S UNDWERWATER WORLD
On Tuesday we decided to check out the Auckland aquarium. My travelbook states that it "is possibly the most ingenious use of converted sewage tanks ever." Huh. This begs the question- what else have sewage tanks been converted into? Anyway, I do not recommend this place. It was expensive and rundown.

The main attraction was the Anarctic exhibit. This exhibit can only be viewed via the Snowcat. The Snowcat is a sort of like an enclosed tractor on rails with large windows and four benches for people to sit on (all face forward). It is fully automated and lasts 7.5 minutes (literally, that's what the sign says). It is a total ripoff of the buggies haunted houses use at the amusement parks. The first section of the Snowcat takes you through a vertigo tunnel - again, just like a haunted house, this is where you travel through a tunnel and the walls spin around you. The narrator informed us that this was the blizzard portion of the ride. The Snowcat continues to crawl very slowly through the rest of the exhibit, which included live penguins, fake animals, and the flags of all the countries that signed a treaty about Anarctica. Hmmm...

As I alluded to before, there were some fake animals to be seen. Here is my favorite picture from the Snowcat - as we entered this section the narrator said something along these lines - "Seals also live in the arctic. The seals eat fish, but the seals also have predators. Predators like the killer whale!!!" Then this thing rises (as you see it, the jaws do NOT move) from the water:
Yes, that is a fake whale with a fake seal in it's mouth. Lame.

The Underwater World did have HUGE sting rays and HUGE crayfish which were really cool. I had a hilarious time there - you had to laugh as you went through some parts. The true highlight of our visit was a video about the ocean food chain. It was just like something you may have seen on the Planet Earth series from the Discovery Channel. Fascinating.

Wrap-up
The entire trip was a lot of fun. We made the most of the unexpected on the train, saw some beautiful scenery, and learned a lot about how you feel the day after climbing steep hills (sore!). If you made it this far in this post - good work my friend! Keep in touch everyone - I hope to write soon about my job and other happenings here in Wellington. Take care!

Burrito Bros & Job

Friday night
This past weekend Andy (flatmate), Cherie (friend of Andy's), Erik and I decided to try our hand at salsa dancing - before we went out, the three of us had a lovely dinner at home (lamb chops - the best!) and met up with Cherie at the Flying Burrito Brothers. What a night!

Here is a picture of the dinner Erik and I made on Thursday night - it was so great, we made it again for Andy on Friday:
Like I mentioned, we all went out to Flying Burrito Brothers (FBB), which despite the name, is actually a very nice place. Here we are enjoying our pitchers of mango and raspberry margaritas (the mango was better) and laughing about some of the ridiculous decor, such as the hats and the fake watermelon.After FBB, we went to Latinos for dancing. Andy and Cherie have taken a few salsa lessons; Erik and I have had none. Not only we were no match for Andy and Cherie, but we were also no match for the regulars... so many of the couples there were just amazing! Sorry to disappoint, but no pictures of our dance attempts!

After we had our fill of salsa dancing we all went to a bar called The Big Kumara. Kumara is the Maori term for sweet potato. I think this is a superb name for a bar/dance club, especially considering that they have a GIANT, fake kumara strategically placed across the top of the bar! Anyway, this place was a lot of fun - the cover band played a lot of crowd favorites and we danced and sang along right with them...
Job search
I tried a couple more recruiting agencies and finally had some success. Until yesterday (Tuesday), only the door at the Wellington KPMG office was open (although not really "open" until October). Other than that there didn't seem to be many positions available. It was really frustrating for me when other people would talk about how many jobs there are in Wellington and how I would have no problem finding a job... yet I was actively looking for a job and hadn't found anything! Grrrrr... As it turns out, it is my opinion that I wasn't listed with the most active agents - it is very difficult to avoid working with recruiting agencies since 90% of jobs I found were listed through agents. I met with two more recruiters on Monday which resulted in 3 interviews on Tuesday (yesterday). (I did not have any interviews through the first two agencies I used.)

- Ministry of Economic Development: Per the website, "The Ministry works to ensure New Zealand is one of the best places in the world to do business, and to make a real difference to the country's economic performance." The interview went well and I accepted the offer. I start next week on Wednesday, so more details to follow once things get going.

- Xero: an Internet start-up company whose main offering is an online general ledger system. If you have ever considered starting your own business or own your own business, this is a pretty impressive product since you can login from any computer (in other words, it doesn't require any software). If that is you, you should seriously check it out (xero.com/nz). It's like having your GL through an email provider. Unfortunately, this contract did not come through for me, which is a bit of a bummer since the office was exactly what you would imagine an internet start-up to be like... lots of young programmers wearing designer jeans, trendy eyeglasses and sporting ipods. A little different environment from JPMorgan Chase and KPMG to say the least! (traded on the NZ exchange with a share price of NZ$0.71 if you think it has a chance!)

- New Zealand Post: this position was to help the Sales and Marketing team. It would have involved some accounting, budgeting, variance analysis and forecasting. Unfortunately this position, like xero, was also given to someone with management accounting experience. That was also a bit of a bummer since it would have been great to get involved in new areas. Oh well, so it goes.

Upcoming plans
We bought train tickets on the Overlander (http://www.tranzscenic.co.nz/) from Wellington to Auckland for Saturday and plane tickets to return on Tuesday night. The train ride will take the better part of day, but it's supposed to be gorgeous, so cross your fingers that we have nice weather!

First "real" weekend

(This post was written Monday, September 3)

Quick story:
One thing that I really enjoyed while in London was fish & chips - which is also quite popular over here. The other night one of our flatmates, Andy, treated us to homemade fish & chips. He had picked up some fish (hoki, a local whitefish) "from the coast" while on the way home. He battered the fish, chopped up some potatoes, dropped them all in the deep fryer (of course, not at the same time) and within a few minutes, we had quite a feast. I look forward to deep frying some Snickers bars next time!

First weekend out:
This weekend was a good combination of going out, great food, and seeing the sights. One of the highlights included our night out in Courtney Place. Courtney Place is a strip of bars downtown that is very popular among backpackers as well as the average Kiwi looking to go out. It reminds me of the bars on Clark, but on a smaller scale. We met quite a few characters there - including a group of men that worked for a delivery company. One man, Donny, approached me while Erik had his hand behind my chair to ask if "that guy was bothering me" - I was about a millisecond from saying "Why yes, he is!" but thought better of it, although that would have made for a very interesting start to the night. In reality, I just laughed and told him I was fine, at which point he insisted on buying us our next round... it was pretty entertaining.

Botanical Garden:
The weather was gorgeous on Saturday, so we decided to check out the Botanical Gardens, which are about a half mile from the flat. I was amazed at how many trees were in bloom - it was gorgeous - here are a few pictures of some of my favorites -

Some crazy huge aloe plants (or aloe-looking plants):The rose garden: (obviously not quite in bloom, but I'll be sure to include an after photo once the roses are out - this photo makes me laugh since we were "saving the rose garden for the last thing on the way out" - comical since there wasn't much to see!)
Just a picture of me at the observatory - it started to get really, really windy later in the afternoon:


Netball
On Sunday Erik filled in on one of our friend's netball teams. Netball is such a different game. From discussing it with my mom, it sounds like it may have been like women's basketball back in the day (apparently you could only dribble the ball twice and things like that). In netball, the only thing it seems to have in common with basketball is the hoop - it looks just like a basketball hoop but NO backboard. There is no dribbling and you need to keep your pivot foot when you have the ball. It is a no contact sport, which means you need to give the player with the ball a meter buffer. And what seems to be the strangest thing to me is that you cannot jump when you shoot! Erik held is own at the game, and we have plans to sign up for a indoor league that starts in a few weeks (netball is normally played outdoors). I'll be sure to include more info (perhaps a link to the rules or a clip of a game), because it is hard to wrap your mind around it until you actually see it.

Here is an action shot for you until then (Erik is in the back, wearing green):

Opening

Hello everyone and welcome to my first post. My goal with this thing is to (1) keep everyone in the loop with what is going on with me and (2) share some fun stories/pictures with you all. As you know, this blog begins in NZ (although I would like to add some pictures from the summer, so I may do some backtracking), but I hope that I have the time/discipline to keep it up afterwards. I guess you could say this is my alternative to the social networking sites.

(I wrote this on Thursday, August 30)

The trip:
I left Cincinnati on Thursday arrived in Wellington on Saturday morning (so much for Friday!). Thankfully, the trip went very smoothly. There was some major weather in Chicago - in fact, they evacuated the air traffic control towers while we were waiting in line for takeoff. (It was amazing how fast the storm moved in.) Our pilot assured us that our plane (a 777) was fine and he told us we should be "grateful we are not in one of those small planes - would you look at that?" I can only assume he was referring to the other planes we could sort of see through the rain that were rocking back and forth in the wind. But given the strong wind (80 knots, which meant nothing to me until our pilot told us that was the speed some small planes reach during take off), the storm passed quickly and then I was on my to SFO.

The trip from SFO to Auckland was not half as bad as I expected. 13 hours (although more like 14 since we sat on the runway again) sounds a bit daunting at first. Fortunately I hadn't slept on any of my flights yet, so I was able to sleep for over 9 hours. I was awake for dinner, breakfast, and one movie.

Auckland to Wellington was going to be a catnap, but I was seated with an older gentleman and another girl my age, and the gentleman kept us all talking the entire time. At some points, he did some unnecessary translating - such as the time he was describing to me how rough plane landings in Wellington can be, or how many times the planes cannot land and have to turn back to wherever they came from (due to high winds...) I said something along the lines of, "Sounds like Wellington is not a very plane-friendly airport." To which he responded, "Here we would say 'Wellington is not conducive to landing airplanes.' Tell me miss, I am curious, would you hyphenate plane-friendly?" Thankfully the girl next to me chimed in and said that he must be a literature professor - which he is. He also informed the other girl that the word "Right" means "Yes" in America. We all laughed at that one.

Arrival and first weekend
Erik was waiting for me at the gate - so from that point on, all travel worries ceased to exist. It has been great seeing him again. Our weekend was spent sleeping and walking around town. We also hit up a few restaurants for some delicious Indian food and fish. Going out to eat seems a bit more expensive here; we plan on having most of our meals at home.

Here is a picture of us during our walk around the harbor (yes, it's posed, but until this point I only had pictures of the skyline and boats)
Wellington seems to be a nice little city. You can certainly see a lot more sky, hillsides, etc than I am used to in the States. I am pleased to report that the weather has been very nice, although it is quite a change from the high 90s (100 even) that we had in the Midwest. The temperature has hovered around the mid-50s (perhaps 60 at midday) since I have been here and lots of sun.

Here is a picture of Oriental Bay taken from the waterfront of downtown Wellington. If you look carefully, you can see my favorite house - it's green, with white trim and an orange roof.


Getting down to business
One last thing before I sign off, the job hunt. I had an interview yesterday (Wednesday) with a recruiter. Since I am only here for a few months, I am looking for contract work. While the interview went well, it may be difficult to find a job given the short time frame. While this is certainly what I expected, they sounded pretty optimistic that something would turn up. I may be doing accounts payable reconciliations for the board of education, but a job is a job, and I need some income so I can afford to do some traveling! I'll keep you all posted.