Bryce's new desk

Bryce's office had a reorganization and he was told to take someone else's old desk. So, move he did, to a desk with an amazing view of the City Art Gallery and Wellington Harbour. People have told him that they don't have such a good view, even after working for the Council for 20 years.

Here's his actual view; please note the coffee plunger that I had to get for him so that he could make use of the free office coffee (a common perk here in NZ-- tea, coffee, and Milo (a chocolate mix).

10K Race

We slept through our alarm but still managed to catch the train for Bryce's 10 K this morning, which started at Westpac Stadium in Wellington.


It was absolutely awful conditions, cold southerlies and rainy. But Bryce finished at a time better than he expected; our theory is he ran faster to get it over with.


Emma picked us up at the train station and took us to Floriditas for breakfast. They had these beautiful jars of jam for sale at the front counter.

When we got home I did NOT feel like running at the gym. Then I realized how lazy I was compared to Bryce so I dragged my buns down there. Pretty proud of myself, my knees let me run a whole 30 mins, whoo hoo! I made the mistake of telling B, who said I'm ready to run 5K's now. The 5k's they start back up in August-- they're on the waterfront Tuesdays after work. I usually like to sit and have a beer on the water while he runs, so well see.

Looking Back a bit

I spent most of my sick day yesterday resting in bed, going through old pictures on the computer to clear out some hard drive space. I only got up to Jan 2007 but managed to clear out about 400 pictures. It was fun to see pictures from when hubs and I started dating.

I took a peek at some of our first pictures from Wellington; almost a whole year ago now.

B checking out our wintertime view of the harbour from the mailbox:

Mamaku fern trees in the ravine near our house:


Ryan visiting and learning with us a week after we arrived:

It's overwhelming to think of all the experiences we've had; the year has gone by so fast. We've made wonderful friends and have learned so much. I learned to have the confidence to be more friendly, an easy thing here when almost everyone is friendly and reciprocating. Bryce and I are much more relaxed about things; we never honk our horns any more, we generally try and go with the flow, we'll give a minute here and there to talk with a chatty stranger. In some ways though, I've surprised myself at how stubborn I've been at assimilating to a new culture.

Overall, I'm pretty grateful for the chance to live here and share this with Bryce. There's a lot of little things that the other person misses that we discuss with each other. I'll come home from work with recommendations, new words, and no-no's that I hear from colleagues and parents. And last night, Bryce had to have a little sit-down with me to teach me what this whole "World Cup" business was all about.

Best Day Ever

The entire weekend was forecasted for rain, but we woke up to gorgeous sunshine that didn't look like it was going to go away. Bryce went for a run while I made a mini-English breakfast (hashbrowns, bread, tomatoes, and mushies with plunger coffee).

We headed to Animates to look at the adorable puppies and then went to the French cafe next door. We realized that we know of 3 French cafes here; they all have French owners and employ French speaking staff. I don't know of any French cafes in Seattle (not saying that they don't exist, just that I'm not aware of them).

We parked downtown and caught the Saturday morning market at Frank Kitts Park. I got some paua jewelry there as gifts; a carved whale bone caught Bryce's eye that we might go back and get later.

On the way to the market we noticed kids playing in inflatable balls on the water.

Off we went to the City Museum, but unfortunately they were changing over exhibits so only a few rooms were open. There was a movie playing of a woman who documented her iwi- leader father getting facial tattoos-- but then in the next scenes he is in a hospital bed being sung Bob Marley redemption song. It was so sad; I couldn't believe that this woman set out to document her father and then he passes away (the next scenes were of his funeral, where his family sung for him again). It was very moving, to see him in life and then go through the tragedy.

After a very round-about journey to find the zoo (the directions online said to "follow the signs" which were not really obvious), we finally found it. There's a zoo cafe out front where miniature monkeys play and watch you through a window. There were blue penguins there (they quack like ducks) and really cool giraffes that were eating up close to us. I had forgotten how huge ostriches were. Apparently a cheetah was watching and stalking me, but I didn't even notice, Bryce says he understands now why I'm afraid of animals out in the wild ;-).

The absolute best part of the whole trip and whole day was the nocturnal kiwi exhibit. We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. Once our eyes got used to the dark, we found 2 kiwis. They were soo so so cool. It was so fun to listen for them walking around. You could see their big beaks digging for bugs in the leaves. At one point, one kiwi started making noises and called to the other kiwi, who answered back in the most haunting way. It was amazing.


After the zoo we headed to the Mediterranean market in Newtown. We bought some capellini pasta to try out later at home. At the attached pizzeria, we ordered a pizza and a bottle of wine, which the man at the deli said we had to drink while we were there due to licensing issues. So we stayed there about 2 hours, having a wonderful dinner.

Wellington summed up

"Well, it's windy. But it's actually a lovely place, where you're pretty much surrounded by water and the bay. The city itself is quite small, but the surrounding areas are very reminiscent of the hills up in northern California, like Marin County near San Francisco and the Bay Area climate and some of the architecture. Kind of a cross between that and Hawaii."
From Peter Jackson i guess he directed some movie?
Since I'm house husband it's probably one of my responsibilities to communicate more. I'll try to start providing more regular updates. Suffice to say we're both pretty busy and having fun. We had a blast with Ryan visiting, lots of huge home cooked meals and wine to be enjoyed. Even got some skiing in.

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!

Wellington!!

Geoff from NZ job seek wrote this afternoon and said he found a job in Wellington!



Bryce told me just a few days ago that Wellington would be ideal because it's on the southern tip of the North Island-- easy access by ferry to the South Island. Wellington looks amazing. Of course I'd live pretty much anywhere in New Zealand, so that's not saying much. It's about 4 hours away from the nearest ski resort, Mt. Ruapehu.

Wellington's the capitol of NZ (Embarrassingly, we just found that out. We thought it was Auckland). Wellington is NZ's 3rd biggest city. I found this out on Wellington's website:

New Zealand's currency is based on dollars ($) and cents (c). There are five notes ($5, $10, $20, $50, $100) and five coins (10c, 20c, 50c, $1, $2).