HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!

I LOVE the internet.

New Zealand is Lacking

Here is a list of things that NZ does not have, based on my limited time here and what Iain tells me (so forgive any inaccuracies):

1. Murphy's Oil Soap
2. egg nog
3. Taco Bell
4. John Frieda Frizz-Ease Dream Curls Curl Perfecting Spray
5. Amoré Sundried Tomato paste
6. Swiffer

Iain is most devastated by #5. I am almost in tears over #3. Even though I only ate Taco Bell like once a year, it was just nice to know that I could. And they have KFC and Pizza Hut, which is the same company, so what's the deal?

Richard Serra

Check this out. When we were on our west coast roadtrip we drove by this huge property, and right in the middle was this MASSIVE Richard Serra sculpture. I only know about Richard Serra thanks to my brief stint as personal assistant to "Mr. Pitt" in 2004. I Googled it, and sure enough, it's the largest piece of work Serra has ever done -- cool! There's other art installations on the land, as well. Whoever owns this property has some serious cash-money.

I don't know if the property is open to the public, but judging from the lack of signage and big fence, probably not. I managed to snag a picture from Google (above) , as well as the crappy one I took where you can barely tell what it is. I can't even stress how huge this thing is.

Auckland Museum

Here's the view from the steps. It's ain't Philly, but it's still nice.

Auckland Domain

Yesterday we met with our lawyer to have our wills drawn up. We're leaving everything to the cats! Then we drove to the Auckland Domain and had an amazing lunch and a bottle of wine. The Domain is the big public park here, and it's really cool. We were supposed to go for a big post-lunch walk since we've been eating so much, but the wine kinda took away our motivation. We did a 20 minute stroll, then got in the car and headed for home where we had more wine and ordered pizza. I love vacation!!!

Roadtrip!

Iain took the day off and we drove up the west coast, along the Tasman Sea. Here are some pictures. The weather has been perfect -- really sunny and beautiful.
Below are trees we walked through on our way to one of the black sand beaches that are famous in this part of the country.



Here are some alpacas we saw next to this gorgeous lake (I can't remember the name of the lake)

Coffee

Kiwis REALLY like their coffee. You can go into the crappiest mom & pop store and ask for a coffee and it'll taste amazing (I'm not including gas stations in this....) For example, these are pictures of McDonald's: believe it or not, they have great coffee and it's all made with organic rainforest friendly beans. Weird. I only order cappucinos and lattés because I still can't figure out the vernacular over here: flat white? tall dark? Huh?

That said, there's still a stupid Starbucks on every corner....

NY Reuben

I know that it's stupid to order a Philly cheesesteak when you're not in Philly, or in this case a reuben when you aren't in NY or a deli. This is a reuben I ordered at a local winery. It was open faced and on top of foccacia, not rye bread. It was still pretty good, though. Amazing Russian dressing!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAUREEN!

What the Heck New Zealand?

We took another stab at "What the Heck America?" last night, but could only sit through 15 minutes of coked-up idiot host rambling on about George Carlin. Here's a sampling (it's :53 long)

VACATION!!

I have all of next week off! Iain doesn't, but he said he'll take a few days so we can do some fun stuff. The bulk of the week will be spent catching up on school, going to the dentist, and cleaning. Thrilling!!! But I am SO excited, as evidenced by these beyond lame action shots taken of me trying to do a dorky leap in the air, and failing miserably.

Email?

Apparently I'm not getting all of my emails. I've had two people reference messages they sent that I never received. This appears to a recent issue, so if you've sent me an email and I haven't responded, please try resending!

Fish and Chips - Kiwi style!

Here's our dinner from last night: fish, chips, fried oysters, mini eggrolls, and a fried hotdog each. Pure disgusting saturated fat heaven.

Working from Home!

My favorite way to "work"! And judging from the number of apple breaks and general meandering through the house that Iain does, it's his favorite way, too! I'm just kidding.

Actually, I did a few things -- tried (unsuccessfully) to launch php on Iain's computer, read a little bit from my Bible-sized php book, and cut and pasted some Javascript into some code. And it worked!!! I was so excited.

But most of all, it was really, really nice to just be at home all day.

Tonight we're taking a break from Dr. BBQ and having fish and chips for dinner. Awesome.

High School Musical

For some reason, Iain took Tama's 'High School Musical' fleece blanket and hung it by his window, creating a terrifying effect. At least three times now, I've been startled by the scary Zac Efron image staring at me from the window.