I'm in love with things you can't define

Wow its been so long since I last posted.
We didn't do the Speight's brewery tour because it was full, lame. We ended up just making dinner and then chilled in the hot tub and then watched a serious movie that had Mr. Bean in it. Weird!
The lady working in Cadbury World was rude so I didn't want to do the tour. We bought fruit all sorts though and they are my new favourite candy! We went to Baldwin St (World's Steepest Street) and ran into our friends from the Te Anau and Slope Point backpackers.
So steep
Drove all the way to lake Tekapo after that and slept in the car. Woke up at sunset to see the lake. It was ok, nice mountains etc and a cute little church.
Lake Tekapo church
As we were driving to Mt Cook Village we spotted this amazing lake with a great view of mount cook. it made Lake Tekapo look like a flippen piece of crap!
Lake Punekaiki rocked my world
In Mount Cook village we were told the track we wanted to do was too dangerous due to avalanche risk so we did Sealy Tarns instead. It was a tough climb and the path quickly became snowy and unclear. As we were eating lollies at the top of the track and looking out onto the Tasman glacier and Mt cook I thought to myself that I will never forget that moment. Deep.
Mt Cook is so hot right now.
We drove to Fox glacier and slept in the car again. We went really far out of our way (we were meant to be heading to Christchurch, not backtracking to the West Coast), but it was because the weather was going to be sweet and we reeally wanted to do the Copeland Track up to welcome flat hut where there are thermal pools. The next morning we signed an intention form with the i-site and started the track. It was so rough. The pack was heavy and I rolled my ankle a bunch of times. It took us about 6 hrs to get to the hut. So brutal, but the thermal pools made it awesome. Sadly the stove was to be lit with coal, and sparingly. Kirk sparingly used most of the coal and the hut was still so cold. We went to sleep early. I thought I was going to die of cold. But it wasn't so bad. The guys downstairs were so loud as we were trying to sleep, they were like bulls in a china shop.
Thermal Pools by Welcome Flat Hut
The next morning we hiked out and it took just 5 hours. Drove to Greymouth and stayed at our fave hostel, Global Village. Finally caught a west coast sunset. Went on the Montieth's Brewery Tour. It was great, we got decent amounts of free booze and got to try all their beers (and a cider). The 2 girls on our tour were South African and SO funny. They told us about a great lama trek they did in Kaikoura (made friends with their lamas...) and how they are such grannies. Love it.
Drove to Kaikoura the next day, had some fish and chips, also tried mussel and scallops, not good! Slept in the car by the water, but a cop pulled up and wee decided maybe it was too central and moved to a spot by some public washrooms where 2 dirty wicked vans were also parked. The next morning we went to an Anglican service, we were 2 of 8 people present and the youngest by approximately 100 years. Weird.
We went out to the peninsula for brekky and then drove to Marlborough to taste wine. We went to Montana, Wither Hills, Villa Maria, Fromm, Wairau River and Cloudy Bay. Wither Hills had an awesome 2000 Pinot Noir and The Best Sauvignon Blanc of my life so we went back and bought it at the end of the day. Villa Maria had a fab Reisling and lunched on pizza and a cheese plate at Wairau River. It started to pour and we drove to Picton to sleep. A man pulled up beside us at the lookout where we intended to sleep and proceeded to guzzle unknown liquids. It was sooo awkward and funny I was laughing hysterically at this parched man and then Kirk informed me teh windows were open. We left. Ended up camping (finally used the tent again!) beside a farm and walked to some public washrooms nearby where a strange man on a bicycle was hanging out. I couldn't sleep well because I was scared he was coming for me.
Took the ferry to Welly the next morning. I accidentally booked Welly to Picton but luckily there was room for us on the Picton to Welly and it was leaving at the same-ish time. Watched like 9 episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Barney just kills me!
We met up with Tracey and Jade for feijoa tea and had dinner with Josh and Katie. Made lots of treats and fell asleep watching Burn Notice. Woke up early to finish laundry and start our North Island trip!

Not many, if any

In Te Anau we stayed at an awesome hostel just outside the 'town' called Barnyard Backpackers, it had 2 woodstoves, a pool table, no bunk beds and a clean kitchen! The cottages were a bit of a walk away from the main house but it was all good. We met Cecil and Peter, who had randomly met up in Nelson and decided to drive together across the south island. They were cool, poor Cecil's car supposedly broke down and the mechanic fully ripped her off by charging 350$ for some small piece and ten minutes of labour. sad!
We left early the next morning to go to the Kepler Track.
Above the cloudline!
It was such a hard walk, 1 hr to Brod Bay and then a serious climb up Mt Luxmore, it took us roughly 2 hrs when it shouldv'e taken 4.5 hrs. we are just that fit. we only had one pack and 2 day bags so we took turns taking the massive pack. it was sooo brutal! We got to Luxmore Hutt around 230pm and went to explore the caves. We took water from a stream outside the hutt as instructed by the i-site and then after i took a sip read a poster about Giardia, a bacteria that causes explosive foul-smelling diarrhea (is there any other kind?) I freaked out, but decided it was too late to boil the water. Luckily we didnt get it! that would have been rough. Especially since the builders of the hutt thought it would be genious to put an outhouse inside the hutt on the TOP FLOOR beside the bunk rooms. ewwww. and there was no toilet paper. ewwwww. the hutt has running water and real bathrooms in the summer. gutted. Anyway, that was off topic. The caves were pretty sweet, lots of fossilised stuff, stalagmites and stalagtites i think they are called. Limestone caves. speleothem. kirk just looked that up for me on google, i already forget all the stuff i learned. i think travelling makes me dumb. I forget people's names 5 seconds after they tell me!
That night we made lamb stew with quinoa, and our little stove wasn't working so we had to use the woodstove. luckily it wasnt the gas stoves the other huts had! We went to bed pretty early and decided to drag mattresses to the fire so i wouldnt freeze to death. Another couple did the same, while the 6 others went upstairs to the bunk rooms, the hut slept 50 ppl! so big. I had the best sleep ever, i was so warm!


The next day we got up early and hiked as far as we could without crampons and ice axes. Then we when back to the hut, got our packs and went down the mountain.
Above the treeline!
We pretty much ran down, took us just over an hour to get down. Then stopped for a snack and walked the last bit and collapsed beside the car in the parking lot 2 and a half hours after we started. we were so dead.
We drove to Slope Point straight away, stopping only for groceries. Twice, because we saw a countdown and had to see if lollies were cheap. and we spent probably 100$ on food. oops! worth it though.
We drove through Invercargil and got to slope point around 630pm. Yes, we drove the scenic route at night, genious. The lonely planet guidebook recommended 2 hostels at slope point and one of which was already closed and for sale. Luckily the farmstead hostel was open, we had to go to the farmer's house to sign in, no doors were locked! so random. there were 4 other people in teh kitchen when we got there, cecil and peter were there! they have the lonely planet book too, as did the other couple. we all had rooms to ourselves it was awesome. made a great dinner of venison sausages fried with potatoes and onions with steamed broccoli. Black forest chocolate for dessert. Watched some more 'how i met your mother', just for something different and went to bed around midnight. we took the heater into our room (from the kitchen), but it heated using lights, so our room was bright, but it was worth it to have some warmth. Woke up around 9am and left the hostel at 10, we drove through the catlins today, stopping at nugget point, kaka point, owaka just for gas, slope point (where you had to walk through sheep pen...) and a few other random places. i must say i wasn't that impressed with the catlins, the gorgeous west coast scenery has spoilt me! I miss snowy mountains.
Windswept trees at Slope Point
Now we are in Dunedin, staying at a little hostel just outside the town centre that has a sauna and spa pool. yessss i cant wait to use them. Our room has no bunk beds either. sweet. The plan for tonight is a Speight's brewery tour and then tomorrow Cadbury World. Stoked.
LOVE!

Baby, I'm not alright when you go

The night be spent as Montrose Backpackers in Franz Josef was such a bust, I could hardly sleep, I was in a room full of smelly boys who snored like nobody's biz. Ick. And I woke up at 7am. Oh well, it was nice to be warm anyway. The next morning we set off for Wanaka. stopped heaps for photos since it was a gorgeous day. Arrived in Wanaka around 5pm, realized it was Sunday and decided to track down a church. We saw signs for a catholic church and followed it until we saw another sign that said presbyterian church so we went and saw a sign that read: Taize, 6pm. I went in to ask what this Taize was and apparently its a straight up meditation service where you sit quietly with candles everywhere. Not quite my style, but the pastor-lady said there was a pentecostal church called 'lighthouse' for young snowboarders up the road in a lawn bowling club. Heck yes. Fish and chips was on our minds since the last time we tried was such a bust. Went to Wana to get some fush & chups. Got hoki and elephant fish with way too many chips and ate it all. Pretty yum! The church was super small, maybe 15-20 ppl there. Instead of having a band they put on a CD and everyone laid down on the floor to 'soak'. I was weirded out at first but it was pretty cool in the end. The pastor was speaking about leaving a legacy, and I quite enjoyed the message. Its funny how you crave church when you travel. Or I do anyway. Met some lovely people after the service and found out the church had started out in the states for a group of young professional snowboarders and now there are lighthouse churches all over the world. sweet as. As we were leaving my cheeky travel buddy asked one of the church leaders where we could find a good place to pitch our tent. I should add that I had already asked where to rent some boarding gear and Darren had offered his gear to us. Darren said he had a spare room and invited us to stay over for the night! as Wanaka was bloody freezing we were SO stoked. Darren and Vanessa were so awesome. We had our own room and they set us up with gloves, snowsuits, board, boots, everything we needed. We stayed up talking with them for a bit and then went to bed, I had a wicked sleep. Next morning we went to Treble Cone. Absolutely terrifying trip up the steepest hill I've ever seen with my old old all season tired. eeek. We made it though! Perfectly blue skies in the am. Very different hill to what I'm used to though. ALL man-made snow, and you only ski the very top of the mountain. you drive up to the top of the mountain and ski down maybe a quarter of the way down. weird. but its too warm near the bottom. no trees either! no way to tell which run is intermediate or advanced. also there are backcountry trails that you hike to after taking the chairlift, ski down and then hike back to the bottom of the chairlift. what a workout! and the boots i bought are way to big so i had a hard time getting my edge in as my heels would slip out all the time. kind of annoying. but i still had so much fun, especially when we accidentally went off a few drop offs (really narrow run too!) I was challenged in ways i've never been challenged on my board and i think ive improved quite a bit already! and tremblant is not icy at all compared to treble cone.
we made dinner for darren, van and their flatmate dave. chicken stirfry. yum! and brownies for dessert. kirk added too much water and the icing because sauce. it worked though.
We stayed another night with them and left in the am for queenstown. we stopped at a local fish and chips place (McGregor's) that van recommended to us and said we had to get blue cod instead of the crap fish. it was WAY better than our last fish. and we bought some ginger slice. I was stoked to see Rocko! We ran into her randomly on the street! love it. shes working 12 hr days so we couldnt catch up much but arranged to meet up the next evening. had such a hard time finding a hostel to stay at since queenstown's high season is winter. duh, totally forgot that. found a spot at nomads, was a pretty garbage hostel, really but one night is ok. just watched pushing daisies until 1am, then our roommates trickled in one by one, waking me up heaps. i missed the tent i must say.
Drove up to the Remarkables to board. We were warmed that snow chains were needed to get up the hill, but after making it up treblecone we were cocky and decided to try it, our hostel receptionist said you could rent chains partway up anyway. oh snap, we made it! and lucky too as there was NOWHERE to rent snow chains. crazy woman. the road wasnt nearly as bad as treblecone's anyway. Had another perfect day, remarks had 10cm of fresh snow too so we did some backcountry trails, and i have been sore ever since, hiking with a board is tough! but worth the fresh powder. I scratched up my board from the rocks everywhere. Did I mention that the hills have rocks and grass patches? sooo strange, and the lifts dont have foot rests so your feet get mad cramps from the board hanging down! Awesome day though, went back to town around 430 to return kirk's rentals and my rented snowpants and went to our new hostel 'bungi' to investigate the hot tub. it was so awesome, we had our fergburgers too. famous burger place. i got tropical swine, streaky bacon, pineapple, aioli, lettuce, tomato, etc, etc. not as good as the works but better than burger fuel. huuuuge burger, i ate only half.
met up with rocko for mochas in a cute resto and sat by the fire to catch up. was so lovely! Wish it could have been longer. Went back to the hostel to make granola bars and stayed up late watching pushing daisies again. the hostel kitchen was awful and disgustingly dirty. not fun to cook in. but we were in a nice little 4 bed dorm, and the place had an outdoor hot tub....
Left the next morning early to do the 134m Nevis bungee. Not gonna lie, I was nervous and wondering why the heck i was doing this to myself. again. first bungee was wakefield, 60m. Drove 45mins to the spot and it was so foggy we had to wait in the pod for like an hour before we could go. Had to under go the awful awkwardness of being weighed in all your winter gear and with a harness and having your weight written on your hand, and put in order of heaviest to lightest to jump. HATE that part. So I was third in line to jump, I shuffled the the edge and had to smile at the camera before my swan dive. Flippen heck I screamed like no other. Screamed until I lost air. Then it was done, on the first recoil i pulled the tag and was sitting upright to get pulled back in. What a rush! I couldnt stop smiling. Best moment. Next up I want to do the highest bungee, its 320m in colorado.
After that we drove to where I am now, Te Anau. Planned to do teh milford track, but duw to 60 avalanche pads on the track and the treacherous terrain, we decided to for once in our lives be sensible and choose an easier track. We decided on Keplar track, you hike above the tree line on day one and then you need ice axes and crampons. unfortunately we dont have hiking boots which you need for crampons. almost bought some boots at warehouse but the quality was too brutal to even be worth 45$. So we will just do the first day and then walk back down the second day. We will stay in a hut one night up there and rent an avalanche beacon just in case. scary!
I bought snowpants/ splash pants today for 50$ so I dont have to rent anymore...yay!
now we are in the libs using free wifi. yes. Had chocolate/banana pancakes for breaky. so good. finished season one of pushing daisies last night. gutted the show was cancelled. i LOVE it. now we are gonna watch how i met your mother. honestly thats the only was we can make it to bed after 8pm, theres nothing else to do at night! well i suppose we could party but its off season here and no one is around! Laundry day today...how exciting slash disgusting we made it 2 weeks without laundry. ewwwww.
LOVE!

She had an earthquake on her mind

I am so in love with New Zealand. Such a beautiful country. Don't get me wrong, Wellington is amazing and I feel like its my second home, but the South Island is gorgeous!
We left Thursday July 8th early-ish to get to the ferry for 12. Unfortunately it was delayed until 3pm due to crazy winds. We took the opportunity to walk around Welly and I showed kirk the Parliament (beehive) and Te Papa, pretty much the only sights I knew of. We bought a camp stove, fuel, pots, mugs, cutlery and other really useful camping gear. We made it back to the ferry just in time for it to be delayed even longer, but we were allowed to board anyway. We got free hot chips (fries) and milo to keep us happy. An awful movie was showing too. The ferry pulled out of the harbour around 430ish and I felt seasick pretty quick, so I feel asleep and woke up a few times but slept 99% of the trip. Arrived in Picton just before 8pm and we drove to Blenheim to find a random spot to camp. Slept beside a winery that night and left the headlights on to put up to tent. Oops, it made my car battery die. Good start! We decided to wait until morning to deal with it. Coldest night of my life, I had 2 sleeping bags and wore all my winter gear and still froze. All night cars drove by and honked at us, so annoying!! In the am we flagged down some cars but no one had jumper cables, so we walked to the nearest house and the owner helped us out. We went into Blenheim to see what there was to do...nothing. We found a chocolate factory and got some free samples and then drove back to Picton. Where I bought some jumper cables, just in case. From there we drove the Queen Charlotte Drive, amazing views. We did a walk along the Queen Charlotte Track, maybe 3 hours or so, it was great. So beautiful. We made our way to Nelson next, I thought it would be a happening town. Nope. So we got groceries and more gear from Warehouse and drove to a winery outside Nelson to sleep. Again flippen froze. Drove to Marahau the next morning, gateway town to the Abel Tasman National Park. We did a short day hike, maybe 3-4 hours again. Decided to pay the extra 12$/person to camp outside a hostel in the town. It was awesome, great little kitchen, hot showers, and a roaring fireplace. I swear it was 35 degrees in there, everyone had a red face! The Stray bus people were there, it was nice to socialize a bit. One guy even cooked us sausages and potatoes! Yum. Met a hilarious Greek guy who asked me what 'oh snap' meant and I explained it as an expression like sweet as. SO he goes 'ooooh, sweet as snap"! Sooo funny. The next morning we set off on a 3 day kayak trip with our rented tandom kayak. Overnight we stayed in 2 huts, Anchorage and Bark Bay. The weather was utterly perfect, all blue skies and sunshine. The first night we met some lovely kiwis and americans who made a big fire and shared their weird flavoured marshmallows (called pink and white but taste like cherry) with us. And some whittakers chocolate. YUM! We visited a glow worm cave that night and the park ranger checked our hut so we were glad to have paid! She showed me how to find scorpio in the stars and we saw venus. Sweet as. We were told the hut was heated, but it was only the kitchen area that was heated and it was shut off at night. I only brought one sleeping bag and flippen froze. Just for something different...
The next day we explored the seal colony island, baby seals were sooo cute. Got some good photos I hope. We stayed at the Bark Bay hutt next, we arrived at low tide and had to walk for aaages to get in. But it was nice enough. Made some dinner and went to bed at like 8pm. I'm turning into an old lady! I awoke around midnight shaking and shivering like nobody's biz. It was awful. I actually had to go outside to puke, but took me so long to get out of my sleeping bag that I didnt make it to the 'bathrooms'. Sorry peeps, TMI I know. The next day I still felt awful and I'm pretty sure I had a fever, I could hardly paddle so we took breaks every few minutes. I was useless though, luckily we didnt have far to go. At lunch we stopped on an island and I stumbled off the kayak and onto a rock where I fell asleep instead of eating. SO unlike me. We got back to Marahau and debriefed and got on our way. Next stop was Westport, but we arrived late so we just slept in the car. The next morning we went into the 'town'' and used internet for free at the libs (library) and then drove to Greymouth. The drive was beautiful, snowy moutains, lush native bush. Amazing. We stayed at Village Backpackers since we needed showers pretty badly. We camped outside the hostel actually, but used their facilities. Cost us 15$/person. Not bad. We made granola bars, granola and watched Wayne's World. Soooo funny. The hostel was awesome, empty and quite but had free bikes and kayaks for hire. Didnt take advantage though. The next day we drove to Arthurs Pass, highest elevation town in NZ. We did an unreal hike called Scott's trail, which was suggested by the very informative lady at the i-site. it was just what we wanted, climbed past the treeline, and ive never seen such gorgeous vistas. Pretty much was losing my mind it was so beautiful. It took us about 3 hours to do a 4-6 hour hike, because we are just that fit. We saw the devil's punchbowl from the ridgeline. so cool. We slept that night at a tiny campsite that was free and made a sweet little fire and watched Step Up on my laptop. Chatum Tanning!! we are sooo roughing it. hahaha.
The next morning I was pretty grumpy because we were woken up by the train and cars going past every 5 mins. We booked it to town to do out dishes in the bathroom and then drove to Hokitika where I got to do my bone carving for 85$, pricey yes, but so worth it. I did it in a studio where I was the only amateur, usually its alll backpackers. So I literally did all the carving myself, I was so scared I would screw up and break it, but I dropped it just once when I was buffing it. All good though. We went to the local fish and chips shop (or fush and chups as kiwis call it) to try some whitebait, which is famous in the area. but it wasn't in season and would have cost 150$/kg when in season. Yikes. we orded a lunchbox meal which was 2 fish and some chips, or so we thought. Waited for it and got fried chicken. re-read the sign and realized the 'lunchbox' options were just chicken not fish. and we both hate chicken skin so peeled off all the batter and skin and crap and ate some chicken. dark meat though.... ewww. we will have to try again and order actual fish. We drove to Franz Josef after and signed up to do the day hike the next morning at 8am. We parked at a lake where it blatantly read 'no camping and no parking'and broke both rules. We did the hike today and it was amazing. Not as challenging as Scott's Trail, but I loved it. We are staying at a shanty hostel, in an actual room tonight as we have camped the last 10 nights and deserve it. My face is sunbrunt again (burnt it kayaking too).
I can't even begin to describe how gorgeous and amazing and beautiful this country is and my photos will never ever do it justice. So I highly rercommend you get here asap and see it for yourself.
On to see Mount Cook tomorrow and then Wanaka for some snowboarding!

I'll try to stay awake as long as I can

I'm sure everyone has been anxiously awaiting an update on how I'm doing in the YMCA competition. I'm still in the lead!! Sooo stoked. Minus the fact that I am unbelievably sick of the gym. I can hardly bear to be there for an hour, much less my usual 2 hours (5x/week). Its brutal. Katie made me an awesome workout which helps me to stay a bit motivated. I'm halfway done, just 14 more days to go!
I forget exactly what I wrote about last week, so I will just begin my ramblings as per ushe. Friday after going to the gym I went and saw Boy (a kiwi flick about a little Maori boy) with Mama T (workmate) and her son and neighbours kids. I picked up some Candy from Pac n Save and ran into Katie and Adam. I swear I see Katie every time I am buying crap food! Flippeeen Boy is a sad movie. I cried a little bit. Also, was pretty funny as it was set in the 80s. Some people thought I might not understand the kiwi humour. However, I think the 80s were just a hilarious time all over the world.
Saturday I worked out, skyped the whole world and then spent ages cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and doing laundry because it was a sunny day! Honestly, when its sunny you would never know its winter. It gets warm and feels like Ottawa Spring (you know when its warm enough to wear sandals, a tee and shorts just because you remember how cold the winter was). I went to church for Impact, a youth conference that night. The band was fantastic, so cohesive and just awesome sound. Unfortunately, the speaker was rough. I had heard him speak before and loved it, but he dumbed the message waaay down and just did like 1000 alter calls, so after 3 hours I just peaced out. Couldn't handle it anymore. I went home and ate rocky road chocolate and watched the Mentalist, my current favourite show because J & K's friends lent them Season 1. Its such a good show. All about this guy who used to be a psychic, but after his family was brutally murdered he decided he wasn't a psychic at all and joined the police to help them track down killers using his mental prowess and his keen ability to read people's body language to solve crimes. LOVE IT.
But I couldn't fall asleep because J & K were away for the weekend and I was afraid of being murdered.
I worked out Sunday morning and then took a day trip with Mike to Wairarapa. It was pouring rain in Upper Hutt (shocking!) but was only 50% chance over the hill, so we chanced it. Got lunch supplies at Pac n Save and drove to Masterton. Stopped along the way at a number of tramps so I could find them on my own next time I want to go for a walk, since I have now done Canon Point over 1,000,000 times. No exaggeration. Masterton is an insanely small town, really old school buildings, and its famous for its wineries. Some fab Pinot Noirs come out of there, I am told. Stopped at Cabbage Tree Winery to try a few wines. I tasted a Pinot Noir followed by a Semillon. Big mistake, supposedly, you are meant to have the white first. But, I am not a wine snob and I prefer reds so I had red first. The owner showed us his wine making set-up, I think winter is really slow for them. I spotted a Book sale in the town hall, so of course I bought a few books. Including a little kids book for Daph!


Moving on, drove to the coast, stopping a couple of times for photo ops. My. camera. sucks.

Final destination was Cape Palliser Lighthouse which I have wanted to see for ages. There were exactly 248 steps to the top. Made a bet on how many steps there were. I guessed 275 and Mike guessed 200. I win! The view from the top was absolutely stunning. We ate lunch, salami sandwiches with avocado, brie, hummus and chips ?!?! People here eat 'chippy' sandwiches. I was apprehensive, but when in Rome! Can't say it was very good, The crunchiness was a bit unnerving. Will probably never do it again, but it was an interesting cultural experience. There were 2 kiwis up the top of the lighthouse and I got to talking with them, they were SO friendly. When I said goodbye the girl just gave me the hugest hug. As a Jackson, I am not too big on the physical contact so my first thought was that this chick was on drugs, but I'm sure she was just friendly...

View from Cape Palliser Lightouse

There was a seal colony down by the sea, Mike got a bit too close and one of the seals started flipping out (do you see what I did there? Seals don't have arms they kind of have flippers...). It was growling and bearing its teeth. Got some pictures of it on Facebook if you are into that.


The pinnacles were just down the road, but it was about 1 hour until it got dark and the walk was estimated to take 1-2 hours, so it would be tight, but we walked it anyway. My pictures are complete rubbish and do not do the pinnacles justice, so you'll have to take my word for it that they were really impressive. Parts of Lord of the Rings were filmed there. That doesn't mean much to me anymore as every single place in New Zealand says part of the movies were filmed there.
Pinnacles

Got back to the car as the sun was setting and drove back to Upper Hutt where it had been raining all day! Luckily it was great weather in Wairarapa region. Caught up with J & K and had a flatmate night of watching the Mentalist and eating raspberry slice. Yum.
Work on Monday was brutal, its slow so there was nothing for me to do. I basically sat on my desk all day and distracted my workmates. I forgot my lunch and hadn't had breakfast because I went to the gym before work. Luckily I had a liquid breakfast and 2 granola bars in my car. I went to Kathmandu (an expensive version of MEC; I know what your thinking, MEC is already expensive! but this is even MORE expensive) because there was a 60% off sale, so I wanted to get some thermals and a fleece. Sadly, it was still too much for me. A crap fleece with no zipper was 50$! Heck to the no. My car stalled 3 times in the parking lot, and its not even standard! Soooo annoying. I was late getting back to work, by about half an hour, luckily no one cares.
Last night I went to Jade and Tracey's after work. Tracey made an amazing dinner of Lamb with mint yogurt sauce on pita with a side salad. For dessert we had mini meringues with cream and berries. It does not get any better than that! Jade and I watched Shortland Street which is a soap opera filmed in Auckland. Complete rubbish and totally addictive. Worst acting ever!
Today work was better, went for a walk at lunch along the Hutt River which reminded me so much of internship last summer when I ran along the Ottawa River at lunch time.
Got an email from Dad today, apparently the parents are having heaps of fun driving across the country to the NWT. Crazy.
I'm giving my 2 weeks notice to my boss tomorrow, I'm excited! South Island trip starts July 8th I booked the ferry tonight. Only 200$! Oh wow.
LOVE!

That would be the best therapy for me

My Car
Lemon meringue Roulade
Cheese plate
Twin Cars!






Another good weekend. I entered a competition last week at the YMCA, called the Tour de France. Basically, the first person to work out for 28 hours (max 1 hour per day) wins. For most of last week I had no idea what the prize was, I just wanted to win. But I have since found out the prize is a towel, water bottle, 1 month free membership and movie tickets for each section winner (senior, adult and student) and for the overall winner there is a bottle of champagne and a dinner for two at a restaurant (to be determined). Clearly, as a single lady, these prizes aren't all that exciting... However, as a competitive person, I still really, really want to win. So I am going to work out for 28 days in a row. Katie has made up an awesome work out plan for me to do every second day. So far I have worked out 7 days in a row and am in the lead by an hour or so. Up until today I have been sketchily peeking through the binder to see who my competition is, but every time I do this a staff person asks me what I'm doing, because we aren't supposed to look through the binder (because I guess some ppl might cheat and add more hours). So I have to make up some dumb excuse as to why I was peeking through it. Thankfully, as of today they have a map of the actual Tour de France on the wall with all the competitors and their places in the race.
Friday night I went to Mike's for dinner and since he has traveled the North and South Islands (as well as a ridiculous amount of other places) he helped me plan part of my trip. Which starts in just a few weeks!!! I'm so excited.
Saturday morning I went to the Upper Hutt farmer's market, and it was absolute rubbish. More expensive fruit and vegetables than the grocery stores!! Saturday night I went to Strawberry fare with Michelle and her housemate Meaghan (pronounced Mee-gan). I accidentally called her Meaghan every time. We shared an awesome cheese plate, it had camembert, smoked gouda, blue cheese, old cheddar, grapes with seeds (yuck), pear slices, some weird fruit that looked like tomato and tasted like nothing... For dessert I had lemon meringue roulade (lemon curd filling with meringue and toasted coconut on the outside) with a scoop of honey hokey pokey ice cream. Awesome. A bit too sweet for my liking but I managed to eat the whole thing!
The rugby game was on, Ireland vs Allblacks. We watched it at Four Kings, a sports bar owned and operated by 4 former rugby players. It was a good game, All blacks won by almost 40 points.
Watched Step Up 2 at Michelle's after the game. Its a super cheesy movie, but sweet as dance moves. I was jealous.
On the drive home from Wadestown I was breathalyzed. This time by a lovely cop who explained what he was doing. However, the contraption was different and I just blew on the machine (like the last time) and the copper politely told me that in fact I had to put my mouth on the mouthpiece and blow into that. I balked and asked him if it was a fresh one. He said it was, but I was still mildly disgusted. Anyway, I passed and he let me go home.
Sunday morning I slept in until 945am! I am awesome at sleeping in these days. I think its because the house is so bloody cold and my bed is comfy and warm. I went to the gym and then for a walk up canon point and down to the dam without falling into the creek or getting lost. YES! It started to pour part way through the walk and my sweater STILL isn't dry. That's how damp it is in this flippin country. Sunday night I went to church and after we went to Tracey and Jade's house for pikelets with the rest of the young adults group. Pikelets are basically tiny pancakes, but don't tell any kiwi that because they will argue that pikelets are totally different, when in fact they look like pancakes and taste like pancakes. But you put cream and jam on them. They are delish. But I will keep believing they are just little pancakes. We spent the evening figuring out each other's weird party tricks. One girl could talk with her mouth closed, Kirsten could do the wave with her stomach and make it gurgle at the same time. Warick could look in different directions with his eyes. Cherie could wiggle her ears separately and pop out her shoulder. I could do the wave with my eyebrows and flare my nostrils (which I thought everyone could do...) A few ppl had flexible thumbs, and on and on. Very humorous evening.
Monday morning I woke up on time and ran out to my car, exclaiming to Katie that I may actually be on time for the first day in ages! Got to the car and no doors would open. The driver's side door lock bailed a few weeks ago so I have been opening the passenger side door and climbing across into the driver's seat. A few times I have looked into my rear view mirror only to realize its out of alignment and kept wondering why. Obviously because I bang my head on it every single time I climb across the front seats. I'm losing brain cells at an alarming rate when programming EFTPOS machines, it seems. Anyway, so I freaked out and ran back into the house and googled how to open a frozen car door lock, as it was the first morning when the weather was below freezing. I tried vaseline on the key, but the key wouldn't budge, and I then couldn't grip the key properly because my hands were covered in vaseline... I called a workmate and she picked me up. I was 45 mins late. Walked in to realize there was a man in my seat. I freaked and realized I should have called to say I would be late and since i hadn't called i had been replaced by a new temp! But then my boss was so pleased to see me and i realized the guy in my seat was a temp who was being trained to do my job until i got there and then went back to his other work once I arrived. What a stressful Monday. At the end of the day I found out that I had somehow missed 17 machines and thus sometime this week I will have to search through the 178 machines I had programmed to find the 17 I missed. Ugh. My workmate couldn't drive me home because her son had a rugby game in Avalon, but a friend was able to pick me up on his way home from Welly.
When I got home I tried the car door and it worked, turns out it was just frozen. Just in case, the boys from work had sent me home with some CRC (aka WD-40) with instructions on how to spray it into the lock to clean out and lubricate the mechanism.
This morning I tried the driver's side door and it works too! Hooray for CRC! No more climbing over seats and banging my head on mirrors.
That's all I've got for now,
LOVE!

Globes and maps are all around me now

It turns out that I have spent a lot of money on clothes in the past few weeks! I have neglected to look at my bank accounts and just looked today and its a bit ridiculous...
This weekend was the long weekend, I am loving 3 days off in a row! Friday night I went to jade's for a highly fattening meal of deep fried hamburger, egg and fried bun as well! Sooo much oil. We watched Glee, episode 1, season 2. Its such an awesome show! I so want to watch the first season now!

Saturday I slept in and skyped with Becky and Rachel. Had an amazing home workout and Katie and I went out for dessert at Silverspoon 9which Josh used to manage). I had almond meringue with cream and berries. It was so good. Then we went out for some upper hutt clubbing. hilarious. We walked to the hutt bar, but the pool tables were full so we moved on to the seven bar which had an available table. We played against some members of katie's gym and we lost really badly. Then we met up with the husbands, who were having a poker night, at the cozzie club where you actually have to have a membership to get in. It was full of super old people, but cheap drinks! katie and i went back to the seven bar but it was playing weird music so we met the boys a mcdonalds and piled into the car. They were placing their order as we were running to the car so we yelled out that we wanted cheeseburgers. classy ladies, we are. Really good cheeseburgers, too! Got home around 130, had some chocolate and went to bed!

Yum!

Katie is teaching me how to flex properly
$12.99 wine from Under The Tree Winery in South Aussie
Awesome Almond meringue with cream and berries from Silverspoon
Dress Jade gave me from Dotti


Sunday Katie and Josh were having guests over for brunch and I was going to the 10am church in lower hutt so we were all up fairly early. church was good and i did some shopping for friend's birthdays. and i got myself a thermal, finally. merino wool, its so cosy I will love it when I'm on the south island for sure! Sunday night we had a bday dinner for wayne (josh's dad). josh made butter chicken and michelle made custard square for dessert. soo good, another traditional kiwi dessert I will be bringing back to canada!
Today has been a really laid back day, went to the gym for 2 hours (mostly cardio because im still so sore from my saturday morning workout!) and then came home and made banana white chocolate muffins. Now I'm going to take a nap and then I'm going to kirsten's for a baking night! should be fun!
I really need to start planning my trip to the south island soon, im leaving july 9th! starting to get excited! Still haven't touched my awesome bike. I really need to get a helmet and clean it up. But I just have no drive to do it... Maybe in August? haha
I think my phone knows when someone is thinking about texting me. Its weird because when i get a text it lights up and beeps at me. But sometimes it will just light up on its own and i have no msg. Very strange.
LOVE!