Taking a step back

New Zealand is a thoroughly modern, first-world country. If you take a short trip here, the only differences you'll really notice between here and the Pacific Northwest are the accents, driving on the left hand side of the road, and the mysterious absence of ketchup when served fries. There are definitely some other things about New Zealand that are not like home.

Things I took for granted in the States:
(Besides the obvious: dropping in on family whenever I felt like it, and Azteca).

• relatively inexpensive, good quality, fashionable clothing
• domestic postage (they have that here of course, but there's really no reason to mail anyone here).
• flat rate internet
• the ability to take a relatively short road trip (i.e., of 1-3 days) to somewhere entirely new (I can't believe, now, that I rarely went to Whistler and have yet to see Crater Lake, Yosemite, or Yellowstone)
• inexpensive make-up
• Gene Juarez. Oh Gene Juarez, I miss you so. I could really trust you.
• Mold-free house.
  

Still, if I move back to the States I will really, really miss:

• My job - where I get almost complete autonomy and for the first time have helped to actually help effect some change in children.
• Paying people back online with only their bank account number.
• BYO restaurants.
• Turkish, Cambodian, Malaysian food. I will try and find this in the States.
  
• The views. Of course.
• Friendly airlines and nice people at airline security.
• Being away from the scary Tea Party nonsense.
• The common-sense political attitude of the kiwis.
• The international feeling of everyone I meet-- that travelling abroad is a normal part of life.
• Super friendly expats and kiwis who are always willing to hang out and have fun.

7 Years in Tibet

Bryce is really into his plan to go to Tibet sometime next year. He's always checked out climbing books from the library, which I usually can't stand to read. They're almost always centered around an ADHD guy who has no idea the fear he causes his loved ones to feel when he goes on another dangerous adventure.

7 Years in Tibet is a great book though. Totally recommend it. It took me a few days to read, which I think is good; it's nice to think about a few chunks of the book at a time. I had looked up the movie and was at first angry at how different the script was from the book; turns out that the movie was more real than the book. (The movie portrays the main character as, you guessed, it, narcissistic; he leave his pregnant wife for a climbing trip shortly after they marry.)

Good-bye South Island

It was hard to leave Queenstown today! Gorgeous sunny weather that was actually warm. The snowstorm from Saturday made all the mountains pop against the blue sky. The Queenstown airport waiting lounge had the most amazing picture-perfect view of rolling green hills.


Wellington greeted us with cold wind. Our car at the long-term car park had salt on the windscreen-- somehow it was so windy that the waves managed to spray our car. Our car was parked about 1/2 mile away from the harbour.

Puzzling World!

Finally got to go to Puzzling World in Wanaka-- I even got a sweet kiwi puzzle as a souvenir. The maze was actually fun too-- occupied us for about 40 mins :-) This was after a morning of skiing at Treble Cone.... We got a text as we were leaving Puzzling World from Tiffany-- "Nachos ready in 10 mins." ahhh, heaven!

Snowy Queenstown trip

Over ribs and lamb at Mac's brewery last night in Wanaka, we developed an intelligent 3-part plan for the next day based on the weather.

1. Great snow: Ohau ski resort near Mt. Cook.
2. Mediocre snow: Coronet in Queenstown
3. Raining, no snow: Puzzling World in Wanaka and tour Queenstown

We hadn't counted on possibility #4: snowING.

As we drove to Queenstown, the snow started in. We considered driving back but decided to keep to plan #2: drive to Coronet. We ended up there around noon, but the snow was so thick that we couldn't even see the chair lifts from the cafe. We stopped for lunch and then headed to Queenstown to tour around. I love these orange trees there:


Just before we left Queenstown we all had gelato at an ice-cream shop I had been searching for.

Our drive home was pretty dicey due to the snow storm. Fortunately Bryce is experienced driving in the snow and we had 4-wheel drive.

Treble Cone skiing: Day 1 of 2

We spent day 2 of our ski holiday at Treble Cone resort in Wanaka. There was bad visibility down below, but the top of the mountain was completely clear.



There were gorgeous views of Lake Wanaka once the clouds cleared.

Ryan's Here!!

We thought we'd be picking up Ryan at 11:30 late tonight, but he wrote us over the weekend-- "Just getting on the plane, see you Monday afternoon!"

Harummmm... that's was rather suspicious. Yep indeed, turns out he arrived at 3:10pm. Lucky for him, we had our car in town and I was able to leave work early and pick him up. Took that lucky guy to the sweet-as Maranui cafe with it's ocean-view for a snack. Great weather for sitting in a cafe on the ocean, he was lucky again! Picked up Bryce and now we're back home eating homemade pizzas and catching up. Leave in 2 days for Wanaka with Tiff, should be fun!!

Windstorm 2010

Wind arrived late last night as forecasted, and as predicted Turoa was closed for the day. The gusts shook the house fairly hard; I joked around that in Seattle this would be called "THE WINDSTORM OF 2010" but that here in NZ it's just called a fairly heavy storm.

Hearing the wind and figuring that the mountain was likely closed, the group of us slept in, and were treated to pancakes with melted chocolate made by one of the group.

We quickly tidied the place up and then drove to Wellington. Josien and Marc kept pace with us on the motorway, so we all stopped for lunch together at an American diner. There, I found out that "milkshakes" are just chilled milk with syrup added; you have to request a "thick milkshake" to get a milkshake made with ice cream. We were all pretty underwhelmed by the place.

Getting home, we found that Wellington was just as windy as Ohakune. Now our focus is on relaxing, cleaning up a bit, and get ready for Ryan to arrive tomorrow night!!