Total. Gyp.

This was enclosed in some Mallo Cups that my sister sent me. Read it. It's the worst rebate program EVER.

Online dating

There are loads of online expat groups for people like us who moved here but don't have a lot of friends. We've been exploring the "online friends" option for a while, but haven't been successful.

For example, the day of Obama's inauguration we read that one of the groups was hosting a celebration at an American bar. We thought, "This'll be awesome!" It wasn't awesome. It was totally disorganized: we couldn't differentiate between the Americans and people just hanging out at the bar. The people who were obviously Americans (guy wearing a USA flag tie, chick with USA flag scarf) were MUCH older than us. We were also in bad moods which didn't help motivate us to be social. It reminded me of when I was single and would go to a bar and just sit there with my girlfriends, scanning the room all night but never approaching anyone, and then going home and thinking, "Well, THAT sucked." It's no fun.

Then there's the SUPER organized groups who have screening processes, membership dues, and attendance requirements. Thanks, but I did the whole sorority thing in college.

The other problem is, a lot of these groups like to actually DO stuff (museums! garden walks! concerts! hikes!) And honestly, we don't like doing stuff, unless "doing stuff" involves sitting, eating, and/or drinking. Is there a group out there that likes to drink wine and yell at the TV? I'd join that!

Iain is more open-minded and optimistic than me, and has kept looking. That, or he's getting really sick of weekends with me and the cats and is desperate to find some new friends.

It paid off. On Facebook, Iain found a group called New Kiwis. We went to a happy hour they hosted and as soon as we walked in I thought, "Cool." They'd organized it perfectly -- they booked a private room so you knew exactly where to go, and everyone there seemed friendly. It was small enough so you could really talk to people. Everyone was from everywhere: England, Ireland, Scotland, South Africa, France, Germany... It was cool. The ONLY scary part was a comment one of the people made about someone being "very Christian". It was meant as a compliment, like "He's a great guy, very Christian." This raised some red flags, so we're hoping she meant it in a nice or innocent way, and not a creepy moral majority WWJD fish decal way.

When we got home, I went to the site and looked through every event and picture, and there is nothing that implies that it's a religious group, so maybe it was just an odd comment, or perhaps this woman just happens to be particularly religious. Iain said, "I'll take that over Republican!"

We stayed for two hours, met about 6 potentially cool people, and plan to attend more events. I hope it works out!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADISON!

Hey Mad, you can thank Hannah for the photos!

Post Graduation Vacation

My graduation is on February 17 (or 17 February, depending on what country you're in). I can't wait. After graduation (rumored to be a pitiful low budget affair held in the grody student common room), we're heading off for a week's holiday to the Coromandel Peninsula. I've posted two pictures from our 2005 trip for reference.

This time, we're going car camping!! We've got all the gear: the tent, the aerobed, the 3 burner stove, the outdoor shower, the lanterns, the cooler.... Iain has been 100% in charge of this, which is good since I've never been car camping. It's a great way to go on vacation without spending a gabillion dollars on hotels so let's hope I don't hate it.

Iain did a trial run of setting up the tent last weekend. It's huge!

Ponsonby

Yesterday we drove to Mission Bay for brunch but turned around because traffic was ridiculous. Then we drove over to another neighborhood but everything was closed. We finally hit the neighborhood of Ponsonby where, thankfully, everything was open. We had a fantastic brunch at an outside café, then got a phone call from our friends Toni & Max inviting us over for a few drinks.

Toni and Max recently re-did their back deck and installed a vegetable garden. I stared at it longingly all afternoon. I'm not alone in my adoration -- their cat Stella saw the new garden as a big, awesome toilet, until Toni put little wooden spikes in the dirt to prevent Stella from digging up the vegies.

Auckland Day

High-fives for Auckland Day!! Every major NZ city has a birthday, and everyone who lives there gets the day off. This is a really cool idea in a country with only 5 or so major cities, but I can only imagine the chaos of trying that in the US.

This morning we went for a nice walk and considered stopping into a local café for brunch but of course it was closed. I keep forgetting that on holidays, everyone shuts down.

Iain has primed and filled the hallway, so the only thing left now is painting. Awesome. This bloody hallway wound up being the biggest hassle -- there are a total of EIGHT doorways, which made it a really tough job. Once the house is in good shape we'll probably put it on the market and move to a new neighborhood.

Well, I'm finished with work for the day and we're off to brunch! Let's hope we find a place that's actually open!

Movie Recommend: 'Be Kind Rewind' by Michel Gondry with Mos Def & Jack Black.

Slow News Day

Today, Iain continued working on the hallway while I continued working on my site. The end is near -- for both projects, so that's good. We ended our day with a refreshing jump in the water. Now we're going to sit on the deck with a drink while the pizza Iain made cooks in the oven. Delish!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARISKA HARGITAY!!!!!!!!

Here's a picture of me and my BFF Mariska at an awards show. We had SO much fun!

January 22, 2009

BIG DAY!!

Today is a big celebration!! YAY!!!!

And we're celebrating by working all day!!! CRAP!!!

I've had it on my calendar for months and hoped to take the day off and drink champagne all day, but alas. Reality snuck in, but it's still a great day.

It is...

OBAMA'S INAUGURATION!!!
OUR ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN NEW ZEALAND!!

I have been up since 5am watching CNN while making revisions to my industry project. The cats got up at the same time as me. Blue realized a few minutes later he'd been duped and went back to bed with Iain.

I am totally amazed at the stamina of the Obama family. It's like getting married 80x in one day, without food or booze. Just one long awful receiving line and meet 'n greet.

Tonight we're heading into town to an American ex-pat bar called The Mustang Saloon (I know...) to celebrate.

Rotorua and Lake Tarawera!

Our weekend of fun was awesome. We took Friday off and drove down early, allowing Iain an hour or so of fishing and me some welcome relaxation with tabloid magazines. We had a picnic lunch by the water, a bottle of wine, and went for a walk along the stream. It's fed by an underground spring, so the water is a beautiful turquoise blue but it's freezing (despite this, loads of kids were leaping into it from the bridge -- it was great).

The stream empties into the lake, and the fish love it. Iain caught THREE fish in a little over an hour. Pretty awesome. Here are the pictures.

It's tough to see in the photos, but the stream bed is this insane blue color.



The first of three!!


Around 7pm, after a drink at the lakeside restaurant, The Landing, we met our friends Shane, Glenn, and Claudine for a night of BBQ and booze. Shane lives in Rotorua and let us all crash at his place. You'd think that 5 adults staying together (for the first time) in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house would be potentially disastrous, but we all got along great. I admit it - I was pleasantly surprised! (it helped that no one wanted to do anything except eat, drink, watch the Crime & Investigations channel, and go to the lake).

The next day we headed to the lake for waterskiing and swimming. I had to take a picture of Iain's outfit -- he wore Glenn's shorts for waterskiing, a life jacket, his own floral shirt, and hat. Sex on a stick!

The last time I went waterskiing was 1988 on Grand Island, NY with Kate Brill. Times have changed! Waterskiing is SCARY! Our efforts resulted in one pulled hamstring (Glenn), major water up the nose and ears (Iain), extremely sore arms (me), and one 20 second success (Shane, pictured below). We are all getting old.

Shane and Iain decided to play some cricket, which was interrupted by a guy who was either drunk or severely mentally disabled, or both. We're guessing drunk, but who knows. Apparently, he took the cricket ball and threw it at family seated about 20 feet away. Not cool (but I'm a little sorry I missed it!)

We also lost a water ski, which was devastating for Glenn, who search the lake about three times. The only saving grace is that he was the one who lost it, not one of us. Here's Glenn and Claudine returning from an unsuccessful search....

The mountains in the background are volcanos that erupted in the 1800s, and no longer have their tops.

Last Weekend

Last weekend we both worked all day on Saturday. I worked on my project and Iain sanded the hallway. The entire house is now covered in a fine layer of white dust (see paw print).

We were zombies by the end of the day, and while I sat on the sofa in a mild fugue state, Iain made the brilliant suggestion that we take Sunday off. No "I'll do some work in the morning then relax." A complete day off.

We totally geeked out and rented The Lord of the Rings (see attached photo of Frodo's foot). I annoyed Iain throughout the movie by asking, "Where is that? Have we been there?" every few minutes.

Weekend!

This weekend we're heading down to Rotorua with Glenn & Claudine for a weekend of waterskiing, swimming, fishing (Iain), eating, drinking, and hanging out.

Two things we will NOT be doing this weekend: WRITING CODE AND STRIPPING WALLPAPER.

I am actually leaving my laptop at home -- this will not be easy but it has to be done.

In other news, I discovered that Tama loves corn!

Google Maps RULES!

Here's a satellite photo of our 'hood. (if you click on the photo it enlarges). We're on Taurus Crescent where the yellow star is. Check out the street layouts to see why I miss the Philly grid system and why I'm scared to drive anywhere (one wrong turn!)

I just spent the last hour on this site looking up my parents, my sister, the house I grew up in, all of my old apartments, and YOUR house!

The Week

It's been a good week. The holidays are over, and we're both back to work. Actually, Iain took a week off to finally finish the hallway. He's spent the last 4 days stripping the wallpaper off, filling, and sanding -- this area of the house was left at the bottom of the "to do" list last year. We'd spent 3 insane weeks frantically doing up the rest of the house (dining room, living room, bedroom, office, bathroom) and ran out of time.

I always thought I'd finish the hallway in my "spare time" once school started. HA!

It took Iain most of the week just to get to this stage -- I will be forever amazed at how unpleasant it is to strip 2+ layers of wallpaper and paint.

Here's some pictures. I've also included some unrelated pictures of Tama in the backyard.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I saw this movie with my friend Nana. It was ok. I found out it was written by the same guy who wrote Forrest Gump, which explains a lot. Brad Pitt's make-up was completely flawless and Cate Blanchett looked stunning in every shot. Danielle said, "I could've watched the scenes where they're in their prime for hours."

**SPOILER ALERT**



The scenes she's referring to include a bunch with them fixing up their first house. They had no furniture, just a mattress and some boxes and they spent their days painting and hanging out. And of course, they both looked totally gorgeous. Watching the house scenes, I thought, "Wow -- that's sorta what it was like when Iain and I moved to our house in Auckland..... only it looked NOTHING like that!!!!!!!" It looked like THIS.

My god -- I'm like Cate Blanchett's TWIN!

HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY SHELBY!!

Holy crap -- my sister is 40. I remember when my PARENTS turned 40!

more Christmas shots

For Christmas day, most people do a big lunch. We were invited to Glenn & Claudine's to celebrate with their kids. It was 10 hours of EATING, drinking, opening Christmas crackers, and playing with the kids' presents. My favorite toy was the Wet Head, which is like Russian Roulette, only with water (the victim wears a hat with a cup of water on top, while the players pull sticks out -- one of the sticks releases the water.)

Despite an entire living room full of brand new toys, books, and clothing, the highlight of the day was the whoopie cushion. It was a HUGE hit. The fun lasted for a few hours before one of the kids broke it. Crying ensued, new toys were brought out, and eventually the whoopie cushion was forgotten.

We also got the kids fake tattoos, which were surprisingly difficult to apply, as seen in the pictures (that's supposed to be a NZ flag on Kiain's leg...).

It was a great day. Everyone headed into the kitchen throughout the day to sneak "just one more piece" of ham, "just a little bit more" mac and cheese. The day was capped off by the 4 of us collapsing onto the sofas at 8pm to watch 'Bad Boys II'.

It was a very different Christmas than what I'm used to, but it was loads of fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANI!!

New Years

Around the holidays, everything sorta shuts down (Melanie, you were right!) On December 27, we drove around from neighborhood to neighborhood to neighborhood trying like hell to find a place for brunch. We only found one place.

While businesses might be quiet during this time, our neighborhood was NOT. Holy. Shit.

We had the family two doors down who had at least 3 parties (that we know of). Nothing like a CD on repeat of Christmas oldies sung in Maori to drive one (me) to drink. At first it's cool, it's novel, you smile, but by hour four you've HAD IT.

Worse, the family behind the house next door had what seemed like 480 children visiting for the ENTIRE MONTH. That's 30 days. We're not actually sure they're gone, but we didn't hear them today so fingers crossed.

These kids were intolerable. They were totally unsupervised and spent the entire day going up and down their driveway on a skateboard while screaming. When not doing that, they'd beat each other up, resulting in more howling and screaming. I'm not a fan of children and this confirmed ALL of those feelings. The lack of adult supervision made all of this 100x worse.

Thank god we got our insulation finished and double-glazing installed. When the kids got particularly bad we'd just shut the windows, put up the double-glazing, and the house would be sealed up like a tomb. Great for sound but not so great in summer.

We were terrified of what New Years would be like. We decided to cut our losses and book a hotel room and get the hell out of dodge.

It wound up being fantastic. We went back to the Langham and hung out by the pool all day. To keep costs down, we snuck in wine and snacks which we surreptitiously ate by the pool. We think there was a band staying at the hotel because there were these total rockstar looking guys (tattoos, long hair, grungy looking) with these total porn star girlfriends hanging over them. They drank beer and made out in the pool.

I'm still amazed at the great deal we get at this hotel. The service is comparable to a Four Seasons, with Sheraton prices. We didn't want to leave! Here are some pics.