Hotel bars

Yesterday we met friends for brunch then decided to wander around the Viaduct by ourselves. It was sunny and gorgeous so we stopped at the Hilton for a drink. I love hotel bars because it always feels like you're on vacation. They have a stunning bar that overlooks the entire harbor. I reached for my camera and realized that yet AGAIN, I left it at home. Damn it! We had a nice wander over to the Westin which was also picture-perfect but alas, no camera. Instead, here are a bunch of house pictures!

We're Back!

Okay, after a few month's hiatus I've decided to start up again. This is mainly due to the (sad?) fact that I really missed blogging, and while Facebook is great, I don't always want to post everything on it.

I promise not to keep rattling on about the bloody house - we're in it, it's great. I'll post some pictures.

Here's a quick run-down of what we've been up since I last posted:

1. I had minor foot surgery. This thrilling undertaking was 500x better than the same surgery I had on my other foot back in 2003. Incredible -- either they've made huge medical breakthroughs in bunion surgery (doubtful) or the first guy I had in Philly was crap (likely). I got to work from home for a week which was great!



2. Iain got promoted! (I can't remember if that was mentioned before). I'm still working for the same folks and am enjoying it a hell of lot more than I used to. Karma can be a good thing.

3. Iain's parents visited for 9 days in May. They were our first official houseguests! We spent the week eating way too much. It was a really good time and (hopefully) nice and relaxing for them. I think Blue had the best deal: he received twice the number of belly rubs and pats. Tama was still skittish but not totally freaking out, so that's progress.







More posts to come!

The Ritz

Remember our crappy old shower? Iain came up with a great solution. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what they have in 5 star hotels.


Wondering where do we brush our teeth? The kitchen sink. Yeah.

South Pacific!

We arrived home yesterday and I begin my new job today, so this will be a short post.

Here are a few things to note about Rarotonga:

1. It was slightly colder than we expected. Turns out they were having a little cold spell.

2. There were dogs EVERYWHERE. Mostly well taken care of dogs, which was nice, but for every cat, there must've been 5 dogs.

3. It's not resort-y at all. In fact, if we ever go back, we'll rent a house instead. Resorts are nice but totally unnecessary since all of the beaches are public, and there's grocery stores for food and booze.

Ok. Here are some pictures. All of these and more are already posted on Facebook.

HOLIDAY!

Countdown to Rarotonga: 3 days! Rarotonga is in the Cook Islands between Fiji and Tahiti.

The time difference is minus 22 hours. I'm having the worst time trying to wrap my head around it. The flight from Auckland is under 4 hours but with the time difference, we leave at 7:15pm Sunday and arrive at 1:05am Sunday. Bizarre.

I contacted the resort to find out what their internet policy is, and stopped by Vodaphone to find out what the deal is with cell phone coverage. Unfortunately, it's impossible right now to completely cut ourselves off for a week, but hopefully Stan the builder won't need to call us too much.

We're staying in a beachfront buré at the Palm Grove Resort. Our friends recommended it, saying it's quiet, reasonably priced with few or no children, and has a great bar. Perfect.

Our friend Kevin (originally from Buffalo NY!) is also going to be in Rarotonga, so we're hoping to hook up with him for a few drinks one lazy afternoon when we're sick of sitting on the beach doing nothing.

Hotel

We had a great first day of vacation. It took us 3 hours to get out of the house -- we have a TON of stuff. There was also the random last minute things to do: write a note for the cat sitter, leave a check in the mailbox for the lawn guy, empty the garbage, make sure the cats have enough food and water, as well as the insane task of packing 10 days' worth of luggage, camping equipment, food, etc. into the car. Iain did an amazing job.

It's only a 3 hour drive to Rotorua from Auckland, so we took our time and stopped at the little town of Cambridge for lunch. We arrived at the hotel around 2:30pm. It's a nice hotel and we got an amazing rate, but I was disappointed to learn that they had no king rooms available, only double queens. It sounds high maintenance but for me, half the fun of staying in a hotel is the big bed. Oh well.

Oh - they also have shutters in the bathrooms that, we presume, allow you to take a bath while gazing out onto the lake. Weird.

Wayne arrived around 4pm. We met outside for some drinks before heading over to the hotel's restaurant for dinner. Already, our resolution to try to stay healthy while on vacation has been trashed. Good thing we're planning some hikes while camping!

HOLIDAY

WE'RE ON VACATION! So get ready for tons of pictures.

For the next three days we're in Rotorua at the Duxton Hotel. Wayne is visiting us, and he and Iain are fishing today. I'm enjoying myself by ordering room service and catching up on Lost.

Family Photos

Last night we all hung out on the deck and discussed fun things like "Should we buy new curtains tomorrow?", "Is it worth staying here or should we continue house-hunting?", "How much money can be made from web design?" and "Where the hell are the American neighbors??" (we've only caught glimpses!!)

Then we went inside for an awesome steak & beet salad dinner and episodes of 'The West Wing'. Here are some pictures. Yeah, I definitely need a hair cut....

Auckland harbor

Here are some pictures of swanky Auckland harbor - most of the pictures are from our hotel room. Our hotel is gorgeous, although almost everyone appears to be American (including the staff), which sorta takes away from the "We're in a new country!" feel.

Travelling is Fun!

We're here at the Westin Auckland and it's beautiful, although it's wasted on us a bit since we're so tired and cranky (some of us more than others).

Yesterday kinda sucked. We got in at 6:00am, were held up in the customs line at the airport because we had fishing and camping gear and cat treats. Then they confiscated Iain's tent, so we had to wait a half hour to get it back. Then we couldn't find our rental car place and had to call and have one of their reps meet us. We tried to buy a cell phone but it was Sunday and the 2 Vodaphone stores we passed were closed. So we bought phone cards to call my family but the two payphones we tried weren't working correctly and kept rejecting the cards, even after we tried two different kinds. We ended up resorting to the $5/minute "Hiwe'reherebutIcan'ttalkbecausethisiscostingafortunebye!"

After breakfast at a neat café in the neighborhood of Ponsonby, we drove off to visit the cats in quarantine. When we arrived at the Pussycat Lodge we were informed that the owner was "at the hot rod show" and wouldn't be back until 5pm. We'd told the guy were coming, but he must've forgotten. This was agonizing - we were looking right at the building where all of the cats were, but couldn't get in - we even tried to go around the back and catch a glimpse, but it was impossible (although we got an idea what the cages look like, and they're nice and big, like the size of a large bathroom.) We had no recourse but to turn around and drive back to town.

The good news is that the hotel upgraded us to a corner suite, and it's beautiful (although the hotel doesn't let you use phone cards, so we still couldn't make any calls).

What should've been a celebratory day in beautiful Auckland was blemished by annoyances like "Hey Sas, I just called the cattery again and the guy's still not back, so we can't see the cats until tomorrow." and "Hey Iain - I just checked my cell phone usage and I'm over by 500 minutes."

In spite of things,we had a few good meals and walked around the harbor a bit. It was gorgeous outside. That evening, we realized we were too tired to wander around again looking for a place for dinner, so we went to our room and decided to get room service. It never happened: we fell asleep as soon as we got into bed.

Today we're flying to Dunedin to see Iain's family for a week, so we're really looking forward to that.

Time to Kill

As a nice distraction from the cats (who we had to leave at a "kitty condo" all day) we hired a car service to take us on the standard tour of LA. Highlights included Britney Spears' house, and the hand and footprints in front of the Chinese Theatre.

About 3/4 of the way through the tour, we had to ask our very nice but VERY chatty driver to cut the tour short and just take us to the airport. We were absolutely exhausted! (the cats spent their last night kicking around in the litter box, meowing, racing around the hotel room, leaping on the bed, and knocking things off tables. It was as if they KNEW what was going to happen today, and were intent on punishing us.)