updates from Ann Marie...

Queenstown, NZ

2007-12-04T18:03:00.001+13:00

From Australia, we flew to the South Island and took a bus from Christchurch to Queenstown. The bus was definitely the way to go - not only was it very affordable, but we also had a chance to see the central region of the South Island and relax at the same time.

The ride was beautiful - we had the perfect day for it. Plus, even though the bus was a normal city-to-city route, the driver still gives a little bit of commentary about the area you are driving through.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures:

flowers at Lake Tekapo

with Mt. Cook

Queenstown itself was awesome. It's known as the adventure capital of NZ and I can definitely see why. There are plenty of adrenaline options, including bungy jumping, canyoning, skydiving, hang gliding, jet boating, etc. There is no shortage of things to do in Queenstown and it has a great night life.

Our first couple days there Erik and I relaxed in town, went out for a jetboat ride, and did a little bit of hiking. We saved the more extreme activities for when some of Erik's friends from the US arrived (such as the canyon swing, which I will get to in a moment).

We were able to do a lot of fun stuff while in Queenstown, so I'll just list them all out...

Queenstown Hill Walkway (Hike)
Erik and I took an evening to do some exploring around town, including the Queenstown Hill...

Kawarau Jet
Erik and I also took a jetboat out on the Lake Wakatipu and up the Kawarau River. It's amazing how the boats can move over water just a few inches deep. The main attraction with the boats is that they are incredibly maneuverable. The driver makes you feel like you are going to crash into the wall, then will suddenly jerk the boat back or do a 360 degree spin... it was pretty insane.

Out on the town
Erik also had some friends come over from the states to visit us - here we are enjoying two for one beers!

Skyline Gondola, Luge & Hike
The Skyline Gondola was right outside our hostel. It's a steep 1,500 ft ascent to the top of the gondola.

The views from the top were gorgeous....

One of my favorite things we did was the luge. We all bought 3-ride passes and loved it! You ride a 3-wheeled plastic cart down an 800m track - it was great. Here I am taking things very seriously with Erik, Emily, and Gwen.

and Emily coming into the finish line...

We also did a little bit of hiking around before heading back down the gondola. Here are the ladies taking in the scenery.

mmmmm... Thai food
We had a nice meal out together as well - I had scallops and teddy-bear shaped rice -

Canyon Swing
Our big adventure was the Shotover Canyon Swing. It's sort of like a bungy jump - however you swing out rather than bounce. Here I am on my second jump...

I sat in a chair and tipped back until I fell... and fell and fell. The swing is 360 ft above the river. It was terrifying, but a ton of fun! My first jump was my favorite though - rather than sit in a chair, I simply stood on the platform and jumped off. I was so petrified I couldn't even scream.

Queenstown Botanic Garden
After our wild adventures at the Canyon Swing, we decided to relax for a bit at the Queenstown Gardens and along the waterfront. Here Erik is giving Jason a boost to climb into a tree. In my opinion, this was probably the riskiest thing we did all day.

(this particular attempt was unsuccessful!)

Walter Peak High Country Farm
Emily and I spent the afternoon across Lake Wakatipu at a high country sheep station. We had a great time taking the steamship across and learning all about the sheep farm (including a sheep dog demonstration). Here is a Emily with one of the little lambs -

One of our favorite parts was the sheep shearing demonstration - sitting like this does not look very comfortable for the sheep.

We all had a great time in Queenstown... it definitely is a must-see in New Zealand.

Album links:

Bus ride from Christchurch to Queenstown

Queenstown, NZ

North Queensland, Australia

2007-11-30T09:02:00.000+13:00

The weekend after Thanksgiving we started our month of travel before heading home for Christmas. Since arriving to NZ, Erik and I had tossed around the idea of checking out an island or two in the South Pacific, however this seemed to be a bit out of our price range. Instead we decided to visit tropical Queensland (the northeast portion of Australia).

We spent most of our time in Port Douglas, which is a lazy tourist town north of Cairns. I had a great time in Pt Douglas, but it's not exactly a hotbed of social activity. What I mean by that is there didn't seem to be much to do at night. However our hostel had a fun bar and we met some nice people on our rainforest tour. We met up with them one night to hear some live music and have a few drinks.

The #1 item on my list in Australia was the Great Barrier Reef... Here is a picture of a very, very, very small portion of the GBR from the plane - so cool!

Anyway, we took a snorkeling tour of the reef one afternoon and had a ton of fun. The weather looked rather threatening on our way out, but the ocean was quite calm and by the time the afternoon rolled around there was some sunshine.

Here is a picture of us on the boat and of our captain - all of the tour guides were a riot.

(He sure is working hard!)

Our snorkel trip included 3 stops... I was bummed when we weren't able to see the "normal" stop #3. It was supposed to be the site with sea turtles, but the area was covered in jellyfish, so they turned the boat around and took us to a different place. However, we saw heaps of fish, beautiful coral, and some massive hundred-year-old clams.

Our other big adventure was a day-long tour of the Daintree Rainforest. There were only 6 people in our group (plus our guide). Everyone on the tour was very friendly and we all got along really well. I am not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point on the trip I became the guinea pig for all activities. I believe it began when our guide picked up an ant and asked "Who would like to taste this?" I was the only one to volunteer, so after that I was "volunteered by others" to be the first to try/do anything (such as tasting the exotic fruits, sticking my head in a tree, acting like I was going to get cut in half, you name it. By the way, tasting the ant involved sticking your tongue out so the guide could touch the ant's green butt to your tongue. It tasted like a chewable vitamin C tablet.)

(That little stunt probably had the highest risk of injury compared to anything else I have done here... but I survived!)

Another fun tidbit from the rainforest tour was that one of our fellow tourists kept calling Erik "Rick." At first I tried to emphasize Erik's real name by using it whenever I addressed him, but that didn't work. After awhile it was simply hilarious, and I became worried she might catch on and correct herself. Erik claims he didn't care... but I know better than to believe that. (Otherwise I would have started calling him Rick myself!)

Here are a few pics from the tour -

Bloomfield Falls w/ our tour group (we drove for an hour on a gravel road, through streams and all to see this... since I was in the backseat, I was not a huge fan of the driving part)

Cape Tribulation

Me swimming in Noah Valley (private land that the tour company leases - the water was perfect, nice and cool, and clear so I could watch for snakes... there were none)

After the rainforest tour we stopped at Hartley's Creek Crocodile Farm where we saw koalas, tons and tons of crocs, and a crocodile show. It was very interesting and there is no amount of money that could make me get into a pool with this guy!

The focus of the show we watched was on how easy it is for a crocodile to kill you... real family friendly.

The last thing I wanted to mention about Australia is to triple check your calendar if you ever decide to visit North Queensland. Killer jellyfish season had just started when we arrived, swimming was prohibited in coastal waters (ie. on the beach). This was awful. It was hot and humid, and you couldn't even dip your feet in since the jellyfish are known to be in ankle-deep water. The only place you could swim was in this minuscule netted area. (It's hard to see in my pictures that the deepest point in the netted area the water is barely above your knee.) This was also the least crowded we saw the area...

I cannot emphasize enough how disappointed I was about the beaches being closed. Look at all this beach... NO swimming on "Four Mile Beach" - What a tease!

Disappointed or not, the jellyfish didn't stop me from having some fun and building a masterpiece one afternoon...

...and true to Dillhoff tradition, I worked hard to save the castle from the incoming tide, but without my brothers' moat-building skills, the it fell quickly.

All in all, our Australia trip was great... to see all 200+ pictures (yikes!), check out the Queensland, Australia photo album -

Queensland, Australia

Yes, I do spend time in Wellington...

2007-11-22T18:43:00.000+13:00

Seems like nearly all of my posts have been about traveling, so I thought I would share a little more about life in Wellington -

Starting with where I live -

My room - I affectionately refer to it as "the pumpkin." I will never have an orange room in my future house/apartment. This room is actually a converted dining room, which means it has a couple bonuses, but no closet!

Bonus #1 - the built-in hutch. The top middle drawer has built in cutlery dividers, perfect for socks and underwear!
Bonus #2 - the built-in wine closet on the left - pretty much only good for holding wine.

Our driveway/the house across the street. All the houses in this area are really nice. Andy (flatmate) and Erik like to call ours the worst house on the nicest block -
And we are real classy - Andy and Erik dragged the couch out to the driveway to show off their guitar skills.
We would have hung out in the backyard, but as you can see, the Wellington Motorway is cramping our style (ours is the one-story white house).
Everyday tasks

I forgot to mention in my NZ Observations post that most people in NZ do not use clothes dryers, so it's the old-fashioned, environmentally friendly clothesline for us. This is a pain when the weather is not cooperating because then we have to hang the clothes up all over the house... with so many people, space becomes a premium.
Birthday Party!

Here is a picture of me with Susan and Corey. Corey is Sarah's older brother, and Susan is another friend of Corey's. We all went to a Japanese restaurant for Corey's birthday, then hit the dance floor for a few hours - it was a ton of fun. Mount Victoria (Wellington)

Mt Vic is one of the city neighborhoods, and it is located "above" Oriental Parade (OP is right along the harbor - a put up some pictures of that area when I first arrived). One weekend Erik and I decided to take the time to hike up to the lookout... it was a gorgeous day and the views were amazing. It was the first time I had seen the harbor from the other side.

Here I am consulting my trusty map to make sure we are on the right course -

This is the view from Mt Vic towards the Pacific Ocean - if you look carefully, the Wellington airport is nestled in on this little strip of land. Given that Wellington, NZ is also known as the windy city and there isn't much shelter from the elements in this spot, it is no wonder that plane landings can be rough!

Some sailboats out enjoying the beautiful weather. On a clear day, I have been able to see the snow on the Rimataka mountains in the background.

A more current update...

I am actually in Queenstown, NZ at the moment. Erik and I just got back from a week in Queensland, Australia seeing the tropical rainforest and Great Barrier Reef (updates to follow). We have a couple weeks to tour the south island before heading home for the holidays. Then it is back to Wellington for a few more months in 2008!

Christchurch (part II)

2007-11-07T21:40:00.000+13:00

Picking up where I left off... (Sunday & Monday, 21-22 Oct)

Erik and I hitched ride with Mona to town to do some sightseeing on Sunday.

We started at the Arts Centre, which was actually the same area where we went to see the Glass Menagerie. During the day on Sundays there is a nice outdoor market with food and arts/crafts. They also had some live music in one of the courtyards -

And here is a statue that I really liked - if I had written this entry more timely, then I would remember what it symbolized or paid tribute to... however I do know that it is a Maori sculpture. Erik and I hope to take some time to visit some of the Maori heritage sites in the future.
After the market we made our way towards the city center - this is a picture of the Avon River, which runs through town.
Naturally, we couldn't go to Christchurch without seeing the church - here is Cathedral Square with the Christchurch Cathedral (built in 1865).
And one of my favorite stained-glass windows:
After spending the afternoon in the city sight-seeing, we walked over to our rental car agency. It wasn't too far of a walk, but it was really nice to see some more of the city. Everyone around here says that Christchurch is the "most British" area of New Zealand. I definitely agree. These buildings reminded me of London, however there were significantly fewer people on the street!
Since we picked up the car somewhat late, we decided to keep close to Jorgen and Mona's so we could be on time for dinner with Aunt Charlotte. We were also a bit tired from our busy day on Saturday (Jorgen really wore us out!) ... so we decided to take the gondola up to Mt. Cavendish Reserve.
I took this picture from the gondola - it reminded me of the Rimutaka Hill road that we took on our first weekend trip, except this road has a straight portion AND a guardrail! I also took this picture because I loved the scenery beyond the curve (which is the estuary of the Avon and Heathcote Rivers).
The views from Mt. Cavendish were amazing - this is Lyttelton Harbor. The harbor used to be a crater lake which eventually eroded until it joined the ocean. Hard to imagine that the entire area is the result of a volcano.
Oh, and this is me at the gondola gift shop - I was bored... but had no problem entertaining myself!
A picture of us in with Lyttelton Bay in the background -
And on a hike along part of the Crater Rim walkway -
Here is a photo of looking down towards Christchurch - those are the Southern Alps in the way background. And don't miss the cyclists coming up the mountain - I see people riding like this all over New Zealand. It's amazing how fit some of these athletes are - I recommend the gondola.

Monday we headed over to the Banks Peninsula... for those of you that are somewhat familiar with NZ, the Banks Peninsula is the little bump on the east coast of the South Island. Like I mentioned earlier, this entire area was formed by two giant volcanic eruptions. This is a photo of the map at the gondola gift shop - hopefully it helps give you a feel for what I am talking about...

Note - The "You are here" is the gondola shop at Mt. Cavendish, which overlooks Lyttleton Harbour.

Note - The large blue bay at the bottom of the map is Akaroa.

Before driving down into Akaroa Harbour we spent some time on the summit road there - and look at what I found! I just love these little lambs.
Here are a couple pictures of Akaroa Harbour - everything was very blue, but I think this picture looks a little too blue, but believe me, it was gorgeous!
(I love all the hillsides here...)

Our plan for the day was to take the catamaran cruise out into the bay... things were up in the air for awhile since it was really windy, but we had a nice time walking around town. Akaroa is actually the site of the first French settlement in NZ - I'd say they picked a good spot (in fact, if not for some quick thinking by the British to plant their flag in Akaroa just before the French arrived, the South Island may have ended up as a French colony).
Thankfully the wind died down a little bit - emphasis on little - and we were able to do the cruise. The cruise was a couple hours long and took us from the dock to the harbour entrance, and back.

This is the photo while we were on our way out towards the Pacific Ocean. The trip was great when we were moving along, but when the captain stopped, it was less than pleasant for me. He let us bob up and down (and up and down) while everyone scrambled to take pictures of Hector dolphins and fur seals. The wildlife was really cool, but once I had seen it, I was ready to fire up the engine again and get moving. Instead, we stuck around... I think this is one of the last photos I took the rest of the day - which means that I really must not have been feeling very well because I love to take pictures. I know that the water does not look very rough, but I was feeling every wave...
See? Even though I am smiling, I am very uncomfortable here.
At this point I went to the back of the boat and down the steps and tried to relax... by the time we made it back to Jorgen and Mona's (which included an hour-long nap in the car) I was feeling better. Sorry, no pictures of the ocean wildlife from me - but I am sure there will be others in the future.

Take care everyone!

Christchurch (part I)

2007-11-07T07:34:00.001+13:00

For the Labour Weekend (Oct 19-22) we ventured down to Christchurch to visit Erik's family. It was great to finally meet Jorgen & Mona, especially after hearing all about them from Erik and Carsten.

We were able to do a lot while we were down there, so I have split this trip up into two posts...

Jorgen is also the Danish Consulate for the South Island. From talking with him, this means that he helps Danish citizens living or visiting NZ, entertains/hosts important visitors, and a variety of other things. It's not a full-time position like the ambassador, but it seems to keep him busy when he is not tied up at his real job. It also means that they have this awesome seal outside their house .
We arrived rather late on Friday night, but on Saturday we had a reasonably early start to check out the Craigieburn Range (which we could see from the Schousboe's porch!). Jorgen drove us out on some of the backroads, and on our way we passed through the Rakaia Gorge.

This is looking to the left (from the bridge)
And this one is looking straight-ahead / to the right

At this point we turned off of the paved road and spent the rest of our time on gravel/dirt roads. It was so nice of Jorgen to take us out, plus he knew exactly where is was going, well most of the time :) , so there wasn't anything for me and Erik to do except take in the sights and listen to some of Jorgen's stories. I really enjoyed hearing about when Erik's family used to live here or hearing about all the trouble that Carsten used to get into!

By the way, this area was about an hour outside of Christchurch.

The weather looked a little dicey as we were approaching the mountains, (notice the shift from blue sky to clouds in this picture) - but that didn't stop us!
Sure enough, not long after we pulled away from the Rakaia Gorge is started to rain. But neither rain nor fence held us back -

I am pretty sure he was thinking, "This rain is cold, and you two are just sitting there, warm and dry inside the car, laughing at me, and now I see you are taking my picture. Awesome." Ha!

We drove a little further to check out Lake Coleridge. Even though the weather wasn't cooperating, you can still see that the lake is this amazing blue... if it had been a clear day, you would be able to see snow-capped mountains on the other side of the lake.
Then we took a break and had lunch at the Schousboe's cabin in Castle Hill. Our lunch was delicious - real apple juice, pate, pastrami & Danish cheese. Yum!

Within minutes of finishing lunch, the sky cleared. I was really excited about this and proceeded to take an obscene number of photos.

This one was just behind the cabin -
And here's another one I took from inside the car -

And then we arrived at our next destination, the Cave Stream Scenic Reserve - a 596m long limestone cave. This is Erik and Jorgen walking down towards the river basin. If you look at the bottom right you can see where the underwater river comes out of the cave (it's a little hard to see because it is shaded). We did not go into the cave - it sounded a little too cold for our taste.
This picture was taken looking in the other direction, but halfway down the slope to the creek -

And this one was taken at the park entrance (there's a tiny sign in there at the bottom) -

Then we headed over to Kura Tawhiti Conservation Area. All of these limestone boulders used to be on the bottom of the ocean, and now here they are - that's me trying to climb up. In case you were wondering, that is about as far as I got...
But these people were far more successful (see some people walking with a big red things strapped on the one guy's back? The red thing is a mat they put down on the ground wherever they are rock climbing.) Climbers are not permitted to use any equipment in order to preserve the area - not even cleats on their shoes.
And I took this picture because I would like to live on this farm - looks like a sweet gig to me!

No clouds near the top this time, so, guess what I did? I took yet another picture.
After the limestone boulders at Kura Tawhiti we headed back to Christchurch. This is the main road heading back to Christchurch (instead of the gravel ones we took on our way up) - it was amazing how quickly we were out of the mountains and back on flat land. (Christchurch is flat as a pancake - with the exception of a few spots which will be in my next post.)
Once back in town we had a lovely meal at home with Mona, then the four of us went to see Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie at the local theater. It was a lot of fun, and we were very, very impressed by the Southern accents. It felt like I was watching the play in Missouri!

======================

Hope all is well with everyone - I hope to post about the second half of our trip soon!

Taranaki

2007-10-24T15:32:00.000+13:00

Weekend of October 13-14

Sarah, Carsten, Erik and I took a weekend trip up to New Plymouth/Taranaki a couple weekends ago. We skipped out of work a little bit early on Friday to try to beat some of the traffic... (Taranaki is a 4-5 hour drive northwest of Wellington, on the west coast)

On the way up, we stopped for dinner in Wanganui (pop. 43,000). There weren't many restaurants near the highway, so we opted for one of the first places we saw - the local RSA (Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association), which is very much like our VFW. It was a huge open hall with lots of tables, average food, and cheap beer! I don't have any pictures of our dinner or the place (didn't feel right), but it was a good dose of rural NZ. I ordered steak and potatoes. It was a great change up from city life in Wellington and the more touristy areas we've seen.

We arrived relatively late on Friday, so the evening was pretty low key.

Saturday started with Erik and Carsten getting up early to watch rugby, but discovering it wasn't on until the next morning (bummer, huh guys?). After breakfast we took a trip through "downtown" New Plymouth. We spent a couple hours at Pukekura Park and Brooklands Park. Pukekura is regarded as the best urban park in New Zealand. It definitely felt like we were far from civilization. This park also hosts the annual rhododendron festival in late October. We just missed the festival (which was nice since the hotels in the area are booked while it is happening), but we did get to see lots of plants in bloom. Unfortunately it rained a bit while we were walking around, but it wasn't too bad.

A picture from Pukekura Park -
My favorite part of the park was the children's zoo. It was free and they had all kinds of animals wandering around in their pens.

No, this is not a very exciting picture, but these little chicks were darling, so I included the photo...

We spent the day driving around Taranaki (its Maori name) aka Mt Egmont (its English name) - both are official names. We used the vaguest map possible (the one from the Lonely Planet guide book), but we managed just fine. It was pretty entertaining to try to figure out where we were on a map that was lacking things such as road names, and roads for that matter. It was nice to just drive with no real destination and take in the scenery.

Unlike the other areas of NZ we have been too, Taranaki is extremely green farmland, with just a few rolling hills. It is also the dairy capital of NZ - there were black & white cows everywhere! I swear no matter what time of day it was, they were always lining up to be milked.

Once the morning rain moved out, the sky was quite clear everywhere except at the mountain top... fortunately the clouds parted just long enough for me to take this picture. We had literally 2 minutes of clarity at the mountain top during the entire day!
During our drive around we stopped in Egmont Nat'l Park for a brief visit to Dawson's Falls, which was about a 5 minute walk from where we parked. It was kind of strange to be rewarded with a beautiful sight after such little effort on our part...

On Saturday night we checked out New Plymouth and its culinary offerings. We settled on El Condor, which billed itself as an Argentinian restaurant, however they served entrees such as blue cheese ravioli and a meat lover's pizza... but it was BYO wine, so we let that go! The food was delicious - especially the empanadas we had for an appetizer (pretty much the only Argentinian item on the entire menu).

After dinner we went to a couple bars, and ended up spending most of our time at a Celtic pub... they had a ton of Guinness coasters on hand, and one way or another, we ended up playing Guinness coaster memory... random, I know, but we weren't about to give up our seats on GUINNESS couches, by the fire mind you. It was very, very entertaining.

Here is a picture of Sarah taking a picture of Carsten with a pair of seals he had just matched - laughable!
On Sunday morning we went to KFC for breakfast - it's not as good as KFC back home though - and then were more or less on our way back to Wellington. However before we left, Erik and I decided that we wanted to check out Paritutu, which means 'rising precipice' - see below (154 meters tall) - and is just outside of New Plymouth on the waterfront:

I am not sure that the picture above does the "hill" justice, but it was incredibly steep and a lot of fun scrambling to the top. We happened to time it just right - a few minutes before we began it was raining, and a few minutes after we finished, it started to rain again...

Here is a picture of the path - again, it was incredibly steep... naturally this was fine on the way up, but when we were coming down I was getting quite nervous - it completely drops off over the edge to the right - add in the wind and you have quite the adrenaline rush...
[The cable in this picture is to help you pull your way up - it was quite vertical at this part]

The views from the top were magnificent. Looking out over the ocean we could see the Sugar Loaf Islands, which are eroded volcanic remnants (which is also what Paritutu is). Here is a picture of where I should have been able to see Mt. Taranaki in the distance. As you can see from this picture, the volcano is in the middle of nowhere. It's amazing how flat the area is, and then all of the sudden, there it is...
This is a picture looking South from the top. As you can tell from the water, it was a really, really windy day. It was actually a bit scary up there because if you weren't paying attention, the wind could really blow you around. We took some video while we were up there as well - hopefully I will be able to post that some time soon.

That's about it from Taranaki - it was a fun-filled weekend. It's amazing how much the landscape changes here from place to place...

Next post - my first visit to the South Island - Christchurch to be specific.

Keep in touch everyone!

New Zealand observations…

2007-10-24T08:55:00.001+13:00

(below are a few things I've noticed or just wanted to mention)

It’s common practice to sit in the front seat of cabs here – even if it’s just you or if you could all fit in the back.

Central heat is not the norm. Households use propane heaters, standing wall units, or small electric units. Given that Wellington is a very damp area, the house is often very, very cold. Fortunately things are warming up and this is less of an issue. (But the propane heater does work wonders.)

Speaking of dampness, our flat is so damp that the ceiling “rains” after you shower – that is, the water condensation on the ceiling starts to drip if you are in there too long. And let me tell you, that water is cold! To improve circulation, we leave the bathroom window open all the time, even when it is 45 degrees out there! (Fortunately it’s not so bad anymore)

Kiwi meteorologists have a way with words. Since NZ is a pretty small country, the weather report is national… one evening the broadcaster stated, “And we are just waving the ugly stick all over the south island this weekend…” Comical.

Filtered (drip) coffee is rather hard to find. It is rarely on the menu, and even if it is on the menu, a lot of times it is actually instant coffee that dissolves in hot water. Not surprisingly a lot of people drink tea. If they do drink “coffee,” they order things such as a long black (espresso with hot water), a flat white (a long black with a dollop of milk) or a short black (between an espresso and a long black). At work I mostly drink tea, but if I am out and about, I like to get a flat white:

The workweek here is generally 37.5 hours. That is because most people take a tea break in the morning. For me, that means going down to the ground floor café with some of the other women in the finance department.

The grocery stores are similar to the ones back home (like Kroger or Dominick’s) - except you do not have to wear shoes! While 98% of customers wear shoes, you will see people shopping barefoot from time to time. It’s not so strange when you see a kid running around barefoot, but when it’s an adult, it’s a little weird. That being said, I have promised myself that I will grocery shop barefoot at least once before I head back. Another thing about the grocery store is that checkout aisles without any candy are labeled "confectionary free." I assume this is for parents who are shopping with kids... a nice touch.

NZ has one traffic law that will take some getting used to… while everyone drives on the left side of the road here, I will explain this one as if they drove on the “right” side like we do at home. Without getting too bogged down in the details and or the supposed reasoning behind this law, if you are turning right (such as in a non-stop sign situation), you must yield to the person coming from the other direction if they are turning left (so basically, you let them cut in front of you). This totally freaked me out the first time we “cut” someone off… most people think this law is pretty nonsensical, but so it goes. You just have to hope that everyone at the intersection knows the law (there are a lot of tourists here) and that the person behind you is paying attention if you have to give way to someone else!

About the food – it isn’t that different from back home, although the lamb, kiwi fruit, and fish & chips are really good. Of course the seafood is quite fresh, but so far, our favorite uniquely kiwi food is onion dip! It’s just a packet of onion soup mix, a can of reduced cream, and a TB of vinegar (then refrigerate for 30 min), but let me tell you, it is awesome! I have been told that they only sell this special kind of onion soup here, but I bet you could find a very similar spice packet in the US… (or perhaps some of you already make this yourselves, but even the seasoning packet calls it a kiwi favorite)
There is not a standard length for phone numbers. My cell phone number is 11 digits, Erik’s cell phone number is 10 digits, and older cell numbers are only 9 digits. Land lines and fax numbers vary as well.

Many smokers roll their own cigarettes. Since smoking is not permitted in any buildings, people are often outside not only battling the elements just by being outside, but also trying to measure out the tobacco while the wind is swirling around them…

All pens are clicker pens here – no joke. I rarely see any pens with caps, only clickers. Random observation, but an observation none the less. Even the cheap ones from work are clickers.

There are no pennies or nickels and notes are made of plastic!!! Merchandise is priced to the penny, and then rounded when you check out. As for the plastic money – it is a polymer banknote. You cannot tear it unless you use scissors or a knife and it absolutely survives the washing machine. They were developed in Australia.

Speaking of money – prostitution is legal here…

New Zealand is a very “green” country. There is a significant push here from the government to create a sustainable economy. Therefore the government often leads they way. For example, take a look at my desk –
That’s all I have for my “rubbish.” There is one, and I mean ONE, garbage can on the entire floor – in the kitchen. It is also next to two other pull out drawers for recycling and composting. Therefore, we all recycle/compost. Those of you that know me well know that I don’t mind this one bit, I just think it’s really funny that I only get these two little cubes to collect my rubbish before I have to take it to the kitchen to sort. (And believe it or not, that garbage can is rarely full). I read an article about the recycling efforts at the Ministry, and the building waste was reduced by 86%!! I’d say that was pretty effective.

Another things about conservation – most toilets have two buttons – one is a half flush and the other is a full flush. I’ll leave it at that.

And my last, observation for this post (believe it or not, I have plenty more), security here is unlike anything we have at home.

Here is a picture of parliament (there are no fences and generally there is only one guard outside):
And I walk through the alley of these two buildings to get to my office (same building as what is above, just the other end of it):
And here is a picture of the lock on the Prime Minister’s house (which is just down the street, I pass it on the way to the Botanic Garden):
And here is a picture of the US Embassy, literally, the most fortified building in all of New Zealand! (please note the car barrier flower pots and high fences... there are also two guard stations with 2-3 guards/attendants in each at all times)

Up next: Our weekend trips to Taranaki and Christchurch...

Winding roads, Windy days, & Wineries

2007-10-04T00:18:00.000+13:00

Hello everyone!

It's been a little while since my last post – sorry about that!

Two weekends ago (Sept 29-30) we took a quick jaunt up to Hawke's Bay (HB). HB is a 4-5 hour drive from Wellington and is located on the east coast of the North Island. It is one of the primary wine regions on the NI. We had a fabulous time - here are a few highlights from the weekend.

The mountain drive...
In order to get out of Wellington, we drove on a two lane road through the Rimatakas. I give Erik an A on his driving; as for myself, I think I earned about a C+ as the passenger. The road was one of the curviest I have been on, and every other turn it felt like we were about to slide right off... I was very stressed. I decided to close my eyes most of the way to keep from distracting Erik while he was driving by trying to use the imaginary brake pedal on my side. Since I closed my eyes, Erik asked if I was tired, to which I responded, "No, just stressed.” Then I scolded myself for acting like my Mom! (Sorry Mom, but you know what I am talking about!) I did open my eyes a few times, and the views were spectacular. Once we were through the mountains, we pulled over so I could unpack the Advil. From that point on it was smooth sailing!

Spending a couple nights in prison.
I don't know what it is with us going to all these converted places (remember the sewer system that was converted into an aquarium in Auckland?), but it seems to be a bit of a trend. The Napier Prison is the oldest in NZ. The building has served as a quarantine facility, an army barracks, an insane asylum, and served as lockup from 1862 – 1993. We stayed in the psych unit – which was really creepy. Figuratively because of who may have spent time in that room and literally because of the cockroach that crawled along the wall one night. I was thrilled about that.

Here is the entrance - (for the observant ones out there, this entrance was part of a prison addition, which explains the 1906 on here compared to the dates I just gave you).

The door to our cell -
The yard -
Bike D’Vine
We decided to change it up and rent bikes for our wine tour. It works exactly how it sounds – you rent the bikes and, depending on which route you want to take, you get dropped off near the first winery and work your way back. We chose Route 2 – which was 5 wineries, 1 chocolate factory, and 1 cider house/tap room (beer garden). You may be thinking that that sounds like a lot of drinking for bike riding, but I assure you pedaling your way through the countryside, straight into headwinds (I swear the wind was never at our back), and up a monster hill keeps you pretty grounded.

We had a perfect day for biking and the scenery was gorgeous. It was a nice mix of farms, small subdivisions, and of course, vineyards. Here are a few pictures from our day out – unfortunately it was quite early in the season so the vines were quite bare.

This is the bottle that I wanted, but in the end I decided it might be more than I bargained for - especially since I would have had to haul it around on the bike. Can you imagine?

A delicious cheese plate!
At the entrance Mission Estate Winery – the oldest vineyard in New Zealand. This ended up being my favorite...
Overlooking the Mission Estate Vineyards
On the way to Bike D’Vine (which is actually run out of someone’s garage) – I never thought I would see so many palm trees in NZ!
The Filter Room (this picture is actually from Sunday - we liked this place so much we decided to go back for another round)
Napier
Napier is one of the small towns in the HB region. It was destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1931 – at the time it was rebuilt, Art Deco was extremely popular. As such, most of the buildings are Art Deco. At times it felt like a bit of time capsule. I can’t say that I was a huge fan of the buildings, but there was a nice pavilion along the ocean… (I actually am not 100% that this is Art Deco, but it looked a bit different to me)

Picture looking south - towards Napier

More time in the Ford Focus!
Now that I was used to “driving” on the wrong side of the road (I put that in quotations since I actually did not drive at all), it was much easier to relax and take in more of the scenery. We consulted our maps and decided to check out Tukituki Road – a scenic drive marked on our map. This road, like many roads in this country, was relatively unmarked, narrow, and curvy. The road more or less followed the Tukituki River. It was a very rural that seemed to be very popular with some of the well-heeled kiwis. The houses along this drive were beautiful. Some looked like they were straight out of the Greek islands, while others looked like they were from Lake Como. Here are a few pictures from the drive:

A view of the Tukituki River
Like I said, quite rural – this cow just cracked me up! (I don’t understand how these cows can climb all these hills!) It's hard to tell from this picture, but the cow was right by the road/the car... It was really funny for some reason - it felt like I was having a staring contest with it.

Some pasture with a hillock backdrop
Te Mata Peak
Also marked on our map was the Te Mata Lookout. We figured we might as well check it out while we wer e in the area. As we entered the lookout park, there was a prominent sign about entering at your own risk – I wondered what this meant, and once we were into the climb, I figured the sign was talking about yet another narrow, curvy road…. Not quite. It was in reference to the actual lookout point. I later learned from one of my coworkers who grew up in the area (Havelock North), that for many years there was no fence at the top – just wide open.

This lookout was definitely worth the stop. Since we were using a variety of maps, we had no idea that the lookout we were driving up to see was actually the top of the hillock I had just taken a picture of 20 minutes earlier. If you look carefully (I think you can click on these), you can see Tukituki Rd/River. (By the way, Te Mata Peak is 400 meters tall.)
One of the craziest things about this place was the paragliding platform. Can you imagine what it would be like to paraglide off of this thing?? (We did not climb around the fence in this area since it was so steep – but other people were!) These pictures do not do the dropoff justice... the foreground is in the way here, but once that platform ends, it is straight down...
Same platform, different angle - there were two jumping points at the lookout. This was rather scary - it was crazy windy up there!

There she is - the Ford Focus...

The ride back…
Our ride home was relatively uneventful. Since it was dark for much of our drive to Hawke’s Bay, much of the scenery was new. Two of my favorite parts were the Akatarawa mountains and the windmill farm. The mountains were snow-covered and beautifully lit by a few bits of sun sneaking through the clouds. I wish I had a picture to share, but my camera battery had died. The windmill farm was surprisingly picturesque. It was rather hypnotic watching them from a distance (they were the huge white ones with three narrow arms – obviously not like Don Quixote). I will touch more on the eco-friendly push here in NZ another time….

Wrap up –
It was a really fun weekend… this past weekend we stayed here in Wellington and spent some time exploring some of the scenic trails through the surrounding hills. Next weekend (as in a few days), we are going to drive up to Taranaki , one of the volcanoes on the west coast. Take care everyone and keep in touch!

Trains, Planes and Ferries

2007-09-23T17:56:00.000+12:00

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

2007-09-12T11:36:00.001+12:00

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

2007-09-01T21:50:00.000+12:00

(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

2007-09-01T21:04:00.000+12:00

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.