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):
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