Auckland: 4th best city in the world! (according to one study, anyway)

Big news over here is the release of the Mercer 2009 study on the best cities in the world.

Auckland is tied with Vancouver for #4! I find this fascinating since the first time I saw Auckland I thought, "Hey - this place totally reminds me of Vancouver!"

Granted, I've never heard of Mercer, but hey.

Wellington can SUCK IT!

Dumb Americans

We have two American friends, Mike & Ellen, who invited us to a weekly quiz night held at a bar in town. Our team, titled Dumb Americans (sorry, Iain!) kicked ASS and came in third amongst 12+ teams! We walked away with a bottle of wine and a $20 gift certificate. We're now totally hooked and want to go back every week.

Weekend: Rated G

We spent our entire weekend playing board games and watching movies. It was the complete opposite of last weekend's marathon of mimosas, eggs benedict, ham, and lots of socializing. We ate really well, didn't drink, and didn't leave the house (except for groceries and movie rentals).

On Saturday, we spent the first part of the day working. Iain did some housework and I did some code, then we put away the tools (Iain) and laptop (me) and settled into a movie. Sunday we didn't do any work, and just hung around the house watching movies and playing boardgames. The weather was perfect for this -- it's still warm out, but quite rainy.

Iain managed to totally kick my ass in Connect Four and a game of Scrabble, but I sort of redeemed myself with a second game of Scrabble.





This week we're meeting two of our American friends for Quiz Night. I'm getting a much needed hair cut after three months of bad hair days, and then on Saturday we're attending a Moving to Australia Going Away Party for one of the New Kiwis.

Recommended Movie: Twilight
Do Not Rent Under Any Circumstances (It's So Bad It Will Make You Angry): The Day The Earth Stood Still & The Love Guru

Job Search

Every Wednesday I apply for jobs -- it's a pretty routine process which so far has yielded a whole lot of nothing. Last week, I applied for a job as a Postie (a Kiwi mailman). Some of you may already know that I have always wanted to be a mailman - mainly because there are no clients, no office politics, it's good exercise, and you get to wear a really cool uniform (no, I'm not being ironic).

My application for a Postie was rejected within minutes of its submission, no doubt an email auto-reply. I'm not surprised. That a job like this is generally gained only through knowing someone is not news. But I'll keep trying. I can't imagine a cooler job than tooling around NZ on a bike every day, getting paid.

Hedgehog Encounter!!!

The cats finally saw the hedgehog. I was outside when I suddenly saw the hedgehog lumbering across the lawn. Tama saw him and I thought, "Oh - sh*t." But they didn't know WHAT do do with this guy. I was keeping a close watch, but the hedgehog just stopped moving, and the cats got bored and left him alone.

Blue had a quick "WTF?" moment, but even he lost interest and wandered off. You can see the blurry shot of Tama prancing around, already bored by the hedgehog 2 feet away.

I think the reason they're so ambivalent is because hedgehogs don't dart around like a mouse or chipmunk, so there's no challenge.

New Camera

I got my new camera! So I'm back to taking meaningful pictures like this one of Tama watching the E! True Hollywood Story on Bret Michaels.

Monday

Our brunch yesterday was totally awesome. Iain made a big ham (not big enough, though - hardly any's leftover!), mac and cheese, salad, bread, and a vegan dish for our friend Jo which totally rocked.

We remembered Jo & Pete's baby's name: Hazel. Very cool. Hazel slept through most of brunch, allowing her parents to enjoy a few champagnes and a leisurely lunch. Gill & Vernie's kids tried to coax Blue & Tama out to play, but they were having none of it, so the kids were forced to amuse themselves with a big hedgehog that we saw in the yard.

All brunches should be this fun!

Now we're back to work, and back to healthy living... yawn.

Brunch X 2

Yesterday, after a fantastic hour and a half hike, we went to brunch with some friends from the New Kiwis group. It was a really fun time (even though we were the only ones who ordered mimosas!) I would've taken pictures, but alas.

As if to mock me, the most gorgeous yellow bird landed on the fence post right outside my window this morning -- but I couldn't take a picture. Instead, I captured this image of Blue sitting next to my laptop, staring longingly at my bowl of cereal and milk. But the new camera has been ordered, so I'll be back in business soon enough.

Today we're having two couples (Gill & Vernie, Jo & Pete) over for brunch. We're having ham!!! Iain's cooking right now and listening to Frank Sinatra. I'm supposed to be cleaning. Jo and Pete had a baby girl recently whose name we cannot recall, only that it's really cool and begins with "H".

Another one bites the dust

I dropped our camera in a cup of coffee. Yeah.

So there won't be any pictures for a while, except ones I can take with my laptop's camera, like this thrilling picture of Tama sitting on my desk!



It's not worth enough to declare it on our insurance, so we'll just have to buy a new one. All of the inner workings of the camera (the display) are working, but you can't actually take a picture and I'm not sure yet if the memory card is damaged. We're going to make one last ditch effort to save it, by taking it apart and properly cleaning it (the milk in the coffee made it pretty sticky and smelly). I don't think this will work, but it's worth a shot.

I'm a published author! Or just a crazy unemployed cat lady...

I wrote a letter to the editor and it got published! I'd attach a link to the article, but the magazine doesn't have a website! Ah, New Zealand!

Best Bar Ever (this month, anyway)

We've become neighborhood whores. We check out a new neighborhood every few weeks, fall in love with it (last month it was, "Parnell is the BEST!"), get bored, and move on to the next one. Each new love affair is accompanied by a disheartening real estate search (cool 'hood = $$$$$$).

We enjoyed a very healthy week and weekend to make up for the debauchery of our Auckland happy hour with Claudine and Glenn, but on Monday we thought, "Ok... let's go out and have a beer." We went to our new favorite neighborhood, Kingsland, and settled into the spacious outdoor patio of Mac's Neighborhood Bar.

The place was awesome -- there were families with kids, biker dudes, groups of women hanging out for the night, couples.... It was very diverse. The service was good, the decor kicked ass and the menu looked great. We've decided to celebrate our anniversary here in a month, unless of course we find a better neighborhood....

Working...

With our four day weekend, we decided to have two days of fun, and two days of work. Work for Iain involves painting the windows and (hopefully!) putting up the blinds in the bedroom and guest room. Tama kept his dad company (sort of) while he worked outside.

Easter Weekend!

One of the cool things about living in NZ is the large quantity of public holidays: Good Friday AND Easter Monday, Anzac Day, the Queen's Birthday, Auckland Day, Boxing Day...

To celebrate Easter weekend, we drove west to Huia and went for a hike along the black sand beach. We were expecting it to be pretty deserted, which it was by American public beach standards, but for NZ it was a little crowded (20-30 people on the beach, mostly fishing).







Huia is home to a bunch of caves and tunnels, which I was totally psyched to explore (as much as one can without a flashlight). I walked brazenly towards the darker parts of the cave, until every scary cave-related book and movie came flooding into my consciousness and I turned and hurried back to the light. It's weird how that works. Like walking down the steps to a spooky basement, the first few steps you're not afraid, everything's cool, and then three-quarters of the way down it's suddenly NOT cool and you run back upstairs.




Apparently, when Iain was still in his rowdy 20s, his friends had the ambitious idea to haul generators, turntables, lights, and speakers out to one of the caves for a rave party. How edgy! Iain claims it was awful.

We stopped at a little café for coffee and a piece of pie on the way home.

April 7, 2008

A year ago today was my first day of school! Yuck! I'm so glad to be finished, working at home on part time freelance. I've even purchased a mouse and wireless keyboard to be ergonomically correct!

Iain and I have set up a few rules for working from home together: emails are allowed but no wandering into the other person's office unannounced. We even take separate lunches. This makes the end of day more interesting - it gives us that "Hi, honey! How was your day!" time together.

Ok, back to work!

Happy Hour in Auckland

Before Iain lived in the UK, then moved to the US, then moved back to NZ, he worked for a medical communications company called Adis. Almost all of Iain's good friends met at this company, and while most of them have moved on to other jobs or other countries, our friend Claudine has remained.

Adis hosted a company party on Saturday, with the option for employees to invite friends. It was the perfect excuse for all of us to get really dressed up, go into town, and hang out.

We had a great time, and here are a ton of pictures (apologies to those who've seen these on Facebook already). I made sure to take a LOT since how often do most of us get dressed up? It was a really fun night, although it made me a little nostalgic for American bars -- no one makes a better cocktail (except Iain). This bar was pretty good, but the bartenders got backlogged because the guests kept ordering ridiculous high-maintenance sugary drinks that took 10 minutes to prepare. Milk, chocolate sauce, Kahlua, Baileys...?! C'mon. Order a vodka and club soda and move on...

I wonder what the real Target would think of this....

I guess one advantage to being a small country, far removed from the US, is that you can totally steal registered US trademarks and no one's gonna know.

There's also a parking garage downtown that I swear has the exact same logo as Warner Brothers...

Or maybe THIS store is the real Target... Hmmmmm...

Thursday night

We're enjoying an extended Summer right now -- we're supposed to be into Fall, and the mornings have definitely been chilly (we even had the heat on once or twice!) but the afternoons and evenings are gorgeous.

Last night we had homemade Mexican and a few drinks on our deck, celebrating the end of my internship and another beautiful night.