In the swing of things

We've now been in Wellington for about 5 days, still waiting for our internet hook-up.
Here's a little recap.

• The ferry ride over was nice. The ship was large which made it pretty smooth(couldn't even feel it pull away from docks). It was sunny and we were able to see dolphins which of course made our day. However we saw evidence for why a 18 y/o drinking age is a bit too young.
• Our place is quite nice. It doesn't however have baseboards, I guess they didn't quite get that done.
• Wellington is smaller looking that I expected. The CBD(downtown) is wedged between steep hills and the harbor and most the housing is hidding in the hills and valleys around the city. It's very green everywhere. Very different than flat Christchurch.
• It is cloudier here, and the windiness, while exaggerated, is still constant.
• I rode the bus and then the train into the city with Julie Monday. A nice efficient system. Hardly any waiting and the walks weren't too far either. It was fun to go with her.
• Tuesday Julie felt very cosmopolitan taking the bus and train herself. She got her pass and was able to assure the agent she didn't mind missing the next train because she knew another was coming in just a few minutes. She really likes her 5th floor view of part of the harbor and the river valley that lies below our home. We both think it's pretty cool to set down in a new place. It's a different feel than our first month(which was felt a bit more like a vacation)
  
• I've taken to lots of walking/driving around being not really lost but not really on task. We'll call it unguided exploration. It feels unproductive, but I totally know my way around now.
• I've found the internet cafe system to use, and I've found that they cluster their stores by type. Outdoors stores, check! Snowboard shops, check!
  
• I'm looking to join a climbing gym shortly to stay in shape and improve my climbing. There's not much traditional climbing here or long hikes. However there are many day hikes and bouldering (unroped, low altitude climbing with a pad for any small falls). The deep outdoors is mostly a day drive away, which works. I think I do miss the south island, but this place could definitely be fun place to call home for 6-9 months.

Well that's my summation, hopefully we'll have home internet soon so we can more easily post pictures and Julie can post as well. Tonight I'm making our tacos. You wouldn't beleive how hard it is to find uncooked black beans. I've been to 4 grocery stores and 4 Asian/Indian markets to find them, success!

Winter spirits are high

Today marked our 9 and 8th days and our return to back to back days at Mt Hutt. My has the weather changed. Where as our arrival was cold with fresh snow it's about the groomers the last two days. Off-piste is a moonscape of wind swept ice with sun cups, sastrugi(wierd ice hooks formed by wind) and other snow-sliding atrocities of ice. Meanwhile the groomers are firm, but with good dust on top from scrapings and groomer chewings. We've been kicking a bit free-style lately with some friend jaunts into the terrrain park. Julies been cleaning up her big air on the park feathures while I've been cleaning up those grabs(still can't nail the tail grab, argh!) and a couple Front-side 180s on the bigger features. Yesterday was a sleep in kind of day and for our mid-afternoon relaxation we finally made it inside the lodge at our home mountain after 5 days there. We enjoyed a couple light flavored Export 33 (I think I need a beer blog), and some onion rings.
Today was all about early starts as we finally got out of the house before 8. Made the ski field by a hair past 9 but decided we had skippped breakfast! That would not stand! So we made a bee-line for our new favorite mtn place, which also served a mean breakfast. We enjoyed our cappuccino and mochaccino(eveything is a damn ccino, and good luck getting normal brewed coffee), with a delicious apple & cinnamon porridge and a ham and cheese croissant. We finally made it on snow at 10(no worse than a morning back home I suppose). There was a warm breeze on the slopes but the snow was similar to yesterday. Fast break-away groomers and moonscape elsewhere. We did explore to find a high angle hard-pack/ice slope which my single edge tool(snowboard) didn't adhere to as well as Julie's Skis(excuses, excuses, it was also some balance issues). Don't report me, but we did some freestyle even though I forgot my helmet. No spins on the big stuff today, but I busted a big Method Grab off a park feature. We left early for lunch a pretty resort place called Terrace Downs. Apparently they were having a private party so all us lowly guests were forced to eat outside in 55 degree weather(no prob) with 30-40Mph winds(problem). We scarfed our garlic bread while trying to keep everything from blowing away. We couldn't help but laugh. the garlic was blowing off the pizza, my wine glass started sliding, my dinner plate even lifted up a little. After that we skedaddled home to a pleasant Christchurch early evening.