NZ Summary & Pics

Well, we are back in Aus as of Friday morning. Friday and Saturday were marathons to re-integrate ourselves back into our boring Aussie lives. Cleaning, putting crap away, setting everything back up, grocery shopping. Last night we had Marc and Alana over for dinner and a movie...ahh we're home again. I have managed to post the best NZ pics on my picasa website for all to see. Alana was surprised to see that I posted over 200 pictures in three albums, but she and everyone else should know the restraint I applied to not post more. I took over 2000 pics; 7 gigs worth. Isn't digital great? So, please feel free to view the pictures (if you haven't already been accosted by my mass email with the link) at this site: http://picasaweb.google.com/angiesommer. Hopefully, sometime, I'll be adding a fourth picture album of panoramic pictures after I Photoshop them together.

To briefly summarize NZ: it was good. The trip was well planned, it went smoothly, the weather was mercifully (and unusually) nice, and it was a good length and intensity. New Zealand is an interesting and beautiful country, and I recommend it as a travel destination to anyone who loves the outdoors, or just likes to photograph it. I feel it necessary to include a short list of "goods" and "bads" in this NZ summary to pointedly and/or humorously mention a few of the fun or annoying oddities that we experienced on our south island tour. I'm sure each trip would reveal something different about a country, but this is the stuff we noticed:

The Good Stuff:
1. Lots of land, not many people. Therefore, un-congested towns and highways (in general) throughout the island.
2. The NZ accent - I'm putting this under "good" because I find it funny and cute. The most noticeable accented words are "ee" words, example: head, bed, pen, pin, penguin, etc. They use a very heavy ee sound on these types or words and say "heed" rather than head, "peen" for pen, etc.
3. Money - this is the best money scheme I've seen yet. In America we do pennies - I can't handle that, what's the point? In Aus, they've gotten rid of the pennies but all the bills are different sizes and the sizes of the coins don't correspond to the value. In NZ, the bills are all the same size (different colors), the coins are in logical size order, and they don't use pennies OR nickels! They round to the nearest $0.10 which makes my life so much happier.
4. No tipping at restaurants.
5. The road signs - the train crossing and truck crossing signs look like pictures of trains and trucks from a children's book. So cute. I put a picture of a train sign in the online albums.
6. Wildlife - They have a really neat assortment including fun and pretty birds, dolphins, seals, penguins, and (of course) Kiwis, which we didn't get the chance to see.
7. Better exchange rate than Aus, $1US = about $1.20NZ.
8. Avocados are cheap. Kane was happy.
9. Speed limit on the highway is 100kph (70mph), even when it probably shouldn't be.
10. And the very best thing about the land of New Zealand is (...and I somehow forgot this when I first wrote this post so had to go back and add it later, which means no one will read it, but I had to do it anyway...) Hokey Pokey ice cream. This is surely the most heavenly frozen treat that exists on this earth. It is basically vanilla ice cream with little bits of caramel-toffee-honecomb-type pieces that combine into the most delicious food ever made. Hail to the Hokey Pokey.

The Not as Goods:
1. People turning right get the right of way against people turning left (they drive on the left, so that would be like people turning left getting the right of way in the US). It's not really bad, just confusing to foreigners...
2. Lots of smokers, seems to be the norm outside of CA =(
3. Ocean is freaking freezing.
4. Gas is expensive - $1.77NZ per liter = $6 or $7US per gallon. And Americans complain...
5. You can't use your Australian bank card as a debit card for purchases, even when they have the same bank over there...WTF?
6. It's rather expensive to travel there, even when you go cheap. Our final tally was over $5300NZ = about $4400US for both of us for 18 days. And that was staying in hostels and eating mostly grocery food.
7. Sand flies! They bite and it itches worse and longer than a mosquito bite!
8. One lane bridges. For some reason they decided to save money on bridges (since there are so many rivers) and make them only one lane. So you have to pay attention to the little sign before the bridge to see if you have to yield to oncoming traffic or if you have the right of way. At one point there was a one lane bridge that was for both ways of traffic and both ways of train tracks!! Ridiculous!
9. And last but not least (most, actually), is the Departure Voucher required to fly out of the country. This is my only actual complaint and it is the stupidest most red-tape, bureaucratic, irrational piece of bullshit that I've encountered in a long time, even for an airport. When you leave the country, you have to get a Departure Voucher. Now you think, ok, this is basically a mandatory tax, so just include it in the price of my ticket, right? Well that's what normal countries do. But in NZ, you have to pay for this voucher at the airport. This means you have to stand in a huge line, separate from the huge check-in line, to give them an additional $25 each before you can leave. Stupidest thing ever. And since we couldn't use our Aus bank cards, we waited in the ATM line to buy the voucher first only to find that it doesn't work. Grrr...

Anyway, all in all, NZ was great and we had a really good time. You can actually comment on the photos on the picasa website if you see one that particularly requires it. You have to click the picture so that you are looking at only that one (not the list of thumbnails), then there will be a comment box below it.

Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming of sitting around and playing on the internet all day. No, seriously, we have the work visas now, so we need to get jobs. Thom (our boss in SLO) just presented me with a Hilton Hotel project that he wants me/us to do...and we're still doing a bunch of other work for him, so at least we have some income in the interim. Stay tuned to see how it goes.

Seal Swim

Well, this trip has seemed both long and short at the same time, and now we're at the end of it. Our final activity on our extensively planned itinerary was to swim with the seals in Kaikoura, our last stop before returning to Christchurch to fly back to Melbourne. I thought it sounded fun; I love animals, so does Kane, we'll get up close to them and oggle, fun right? As seems to happen more than I'd like it to, there were other obstacles that I was either unaware of or just didn't think of that were significantly detrimental to the fun that I thought we'd have on this particular adventure.

Kane took some of my crazy Thai Dramamine equivalent tablets this morning in hopes of warding of any potential sea sickness. I had envisioned that we'd board some large boat, put on wet suits and take a dip when we saw some seals swimming around, then re-board the ship to hunker down and shake off the chill of the water on our way back. It went sort of like that, but not really. We arrived at the seal swim store and were outfitted with wet suits, fins, masks and snorkels on the spot. We had to leave all belongings at the store or risk them getting wet. Cameras were even recommended to stay, so I don't have a single picture of this endeavor. We then took a 10 minute bus ride out to the beach and hopped into a speedboat. There were a dozen of us in total on this trip, mostly people our age-ish and one man with his two young boys (10ish?).

We boat out only about half a mile to a large rock in the water where a colony of seals likes to perch during the day (they feed at night and bask and sleep in the day). The seals we were going to see are eared fur seals; they have external ears and are kept warm by their fur rather than blubber like a true seal. Apparently, this type of seal has more in common biologically with a dog than a common seal, which I thought was interesting. They were hunted to near extinction over a hundred years ago, but now they're protected and are doing better. We even saw some tiny dolphins on the way out to the big rock, they swam and jumped just in front of our boat. They were small and cute and so close we could have touched them. Maybe it was a sign that I should try swimming with the dolphins instead...

So, we get to the rock and are allowed to "deboard". This consists of sitting on the edge of the boat and essentially falling backwards into the water, which has always scared me. I like to ease into the freezing water, thank you very much. But, no choice, so I flop in. The water is freaking freezing. It's the same ocean that stalks the coast of CA, and it felt about the same temperature as it does in the Bay or SLO. Ocean people think it's fine, but it's numbingly, hyperventilating-ly freezing to me. I find that in situations like this I tend to cope with bouts of uncontrollable laughter. I laugh hysterically on roller coasters too, and probably while snowboarding, etc. I get in the water just after Kane and I can't stop laughing. I start with the gasping from the shock of the cold and continue straight into insane, involuntary, body wrenching laughter. The other passengers are happily (seemingly happily, anyway) floating along looking for seals while the guides are trying to point out where we should look for the seals from up in the boat.

I couldn't care less about a god damn seal at this point. I am completely freezing and hysterical and seals are really the last thing on my mind. In realizing this fact, I laugh even harder, appearing even more insane. After about 5 minutes I calmed down and started trying to snorkel. When you're not used to it, trying to plunge your face into freezing water and convince your brain that it's ok to breathe normally through a stupid tube attached to your head is a bit of a challenge. I don't think it's quite as bad when the water is warmer for some reason; maybe there's just less to get used to. So for the first 15 minutes or so, I basically can't put my head underwater without starting to hyperventilate - short, quick, labored breaths through the stupid snorkel for about 10 seconds until I would surface to see where I was.

So I do that for a while. I saw a seal swim by once or twice, but hardly noticed. I look up and Kane is making an awful face; he's clearly feeling sick. The waves weren't crashing on us, but the water was swishing us around quite a bit and he was not doing well. I floated with him for a bit, trying to be comforting (not much else to do), then he decided he'd better ask to be taken to shore to avoid swimming in a puddle of his own vomit. He went to the shore and I stayed in by myself (with the others, but with no one particular person to hang with - sad face).

It was good he went shore, because shortly after that, we all got back in the boat and moved to another side of the rock where there were a few more seals swimming around. This location was seriously rockin' in the tide. The swells would move us up 6-10 feet and side to side even more, he wouldn't have stood a chance here. I was even starting to feel queasy by the end of it. Although being banished to sit alone on the shore in the wind while soaking wet for 45 minutes probably wasn't his favorite thing to be doing for the rest of the trip either, poor Kane.

At this new location I actually saw some seals as they swam around and under the group of us. They were very cute; about 3/4 the size of me or so (on average) with huge round eyes. They would come rather close to us (we were allowed to let them touch us if they wanted to, but I was fine with them just being close) and swim with unmatched agility and ease. They would play with each other, swimming all tangled together and biting at each other's faces. They're pretty cool animals and I was happy to have gotten some close up views. I did find it funny the juxtaposition of humans swimming and seals swimming - we're all in our gear flailing at the surface bumping into each other with flippers and stray elbows while they swim with grace and precision anywhere they want. It cracked me up, but lord knows I didn't want to start laughing again...

The other thing I wasn't really ready for was the seaweed. I'm not sure why kelp is one of the most terrifying substances in the entire world, but it is. And being carried helplessly toward a giant mass of slimy plant tentacles makes me react like someone would to a seething monster in a horror movie. I really felt like Scooby-doo escaping a man in a ghost costume. Stupid seaweed. I swear the only comfort in all of this was thinking about blogging about it later. The worse time we have, the better the blog entry, which I guess is a nice silver lining.

So, retrospectively, it was pretty much a waste of $80 each for us, but that's yet another thing you don't know until you try it. Next time we will rethink the water sports with Kane - and I'll make sure the temperature is more favorable before I pay someone to freeze my buns off for two hours.

Tomorrow we drive to Christchurch (which they abbreviate Chch, which I love) and verrry early the following morning we fly back to Melbourne to resume our uneventful couch potato lives. Thank goodness, I'm exhausted.

Pancakes and Kayaking

Pictured: Top: Me at the "pancake rocks" in Punakaiki as the ocean splashes up through a huge hole in the really cool rocks that you can't see too well in this particular picture. Bottom: Our kayaks on the beach in Abel Tasman National Park.

Easter Sunday was taken up entirely by the longest drive of the trip: about 500 km (300 miles) from Franz Joseph Glacier to Abel Tasman National Park at the very top of the South island. We stopped in Punakaiki to see the "pancake" rocks, which were really cool rock formations that have a whole bunch of layers of rock all stacked up on each other. They don't know how they were formed, but they look really neat. The rocks have also been eroded in a very fun way, making caves and tall islands of rock that the ocean dances around with each breaking wave. Glad we stopped there.

We arrived in Marahau (tiny, and I mean tiny, town at the foot of Abel Tasman Nat'l Park) at around 5:30pm and were greeted with probably our crappiest accommodations yet. The nearby YHA in Motueka (yeah, try to say that) was full, so we were left to whatever the internet could provide. At least we got the (yes, "the" as in there is one) double room, though the walls were so thin that we may as well have just had a curtain separating us from the adjacent bunk rooms.

Yesterday we kayaked up the ocean along Abel Tasman, which was really cool. I think that was a really good way to see the park. We did a bit of hiking, but the trails just seemed to be a way to get from beach to beach, which was easier to do by kayaking. And it was a beautiful day, so all was well...or maybe I should say most was well. As you may know, Kane gets sea sick rather easily. We snorkeled in a bay in Hawaii once and had to get out after 15 minutes to prevent Kane from yacking all over the sea turtles (which were rather impressive, by the way). The water was pretty much as glassy as it could be, but even the slight rocking aggravated his sensitive stomach. He was feeling queasy when we stopped for our first break, but shook it off mostly by the time we headed back into the water. Then, as we were almost to the end of the kayaking part of the trip, we stopped a few times and just floated in the water to look at birds and have the guide tell us stuff about the flora, etc. It was the lack of paddling and subsequent isolation of the wavy movement that got him. We were in a double kayak, so I had to lean left to counter his lean right so that we didn't flip over while he gracefully fed the fishies. The release made him feel better (or good enough to get to shore at least), and we were fortunate to have been in a position such that none of the other members of the group saw or heard (or should I say that they were fortunate).

After we got to shore, we had lunch (now that he was on an actual empty stomach) and did a couple easy hikes before a water taxi (speedboat) picked us up at the end of the day. All in all a good time, next time we'll paddle like we mean it to avoid the yack-itude.

Today we drove to Kaikoura which is a small beach town on the east coast just north of Christchurch. I like it here and am really looking forward to swimming with the seals tomorrow. I hope I can handle the ocean temperature...it's not exactly warm water here...but at least there's no sharks or poisonous things. Australia had the courtesy to keep that crap to itself.

Icee Cool

Yesterday and today we finally saw real glaciers. Not these dirt covered unrecognizable mounds of crap that we saw near Mt. Cook, but real glaciers like in a magazine. It was neat. We did a guided tour up Franz Josef Glacier today, which was really cool. The thing I hadn't realized is that to get on a glacier you actually have to climb up the glacier. I had expected some circuitous route along adjacent mountsides that lead to a graceful walk onto the ice. Nope, you just climb up the face of the stupid thing with your crampons, sludging through little ice steps that the guides carve with their ice picks. It was vigorous, but well worth it. I'm tired, so no long explanation. Look at the dang pictures.

Long drive tomorrow, kayaking at Abel Tasman Nat'l Park the next day. The final leg of our journey approaches...

West Coast is the Best Coast

(Pictured: Me next to the Skyline Restaurant atop a 2000 ft mountain that overlooks Queenstown)

Yes, this is even true in New Zealand. Perhaps arguable in Australia however...

The west Coast of NZ is surprisingly different from the east coast. The first many days of our trip really didn't have any landscapes that don't exist in California or Oregon. The west coast is a different story. There are massive and expansive forests perched precariously along the steepest solid granite mountain ranges you can imagine. Much of this area is temperate rainforest that gets 6-9 meters (20-30 feet) of rain per year - often a meter or more in one day! The landscape can change dramatically with one day of heavy rain by flooding areas, creating waterfalls, and raising rivers and lakes to levels that make them unrecognizable. It's pretty incredible. Just driving up to Milford was probably the best part of our trip so far. It's just really amazing scenery. Too bad my photography skills are not really good enough for me to take the caliber of pictures that this area deserves.

Our Milford Sound boat cruise was really nice and neither of us even got sea sick, which is amazing in itself. The scenery was awesome, blah, blah, blah, now on to the coolest part. We saw dolphins!! Our guide pointed them out as our boat approached, then they casually rode in front of our boat for like 10 minutes, just like in the movies! It was really cool, dolphins are awesome. That's the closest I think I've ever been to them - they're bigger than I thought they would be. We could see them (there were three of them) swimming sideways under the water, weaving all around, and jumping out of the water about 6 feet away from us. It was so cool. We also passed some seals perched on a rock and later that night had a few encounters with a Kea bird, which is a fairly large native parrot-type bird that has a bit of a funny personality (birdality?). I'm glad we've met some of the "natives", the animals here are fun.

We were in Queenstown yesterday, which is a very cool place as well. It's like the extreme sports capital of NZ, which we're not really into, but it makes for a nice touristy town. Lots of places to stay and eat, quaint downtown, and the whole town is nestled in the mountains next to a large lake. Very nice. And it was about 30 degrees (Celsius - uh, 86 degrees F?) the day we were there, which was as unusual as it was pleasant. We rode a gnarly gondola up this huge mountain adjacent to the town to see the tourist-trap venue at the top which featured: overly expensive buffet restaurant with a killer view, bungee jumping, and two luge tracks which are like little unmotorized go-carts that you ride down a concrete track. The whole experience was very fun and even worth the ridiculous cost.

Today we're in Wanaka, a tiny town just north of Queenstown. I guess in NZ terms, this would probably be a city since they have like 3500 residents. There seems to be a hierarchy of city sizes in NZ that is a bit different than I'm used to: village 0-200 people, town 200-1000 people, small city 1000-3000 people, city 3000-50,000, huge raging metropolis over 50,000. Of course this is approximate but that's mostly because I made it all up. Still, so many towns we pass are little more than a main drag with a few buildings. Imagine Nevada but green, without all the hicks, and not so crappy and run down. Ok, that's not easy to imagine, but try.

And yes, we do notice the different accent they have here, as opposed to Aussies (in response to Monique's comment). We mock them constantly (sorry Marc) because it's funny and I'm pretty sure it's required. Some of them are very hard to understand and mockery is our only defense.

Today and yesterday have been sort of relaxing: not much driving, easy schedules, less rugged atmosphere and activities. Tomorrow we head to the glaciers (Fox and Franz Joseph) which had better be awesome.

Milford Track

(Pictured: K & A overlooking Lake Te Anau from the Milford Track)

Hello all, your comments are very funny. Annie, I hope you can get your account straightened out - and if you can't, I'm still happy to see you on as "anonymous". Rhonda, they do drive on the left, and Kane is a pro now. It's actually not that hard to get used to, and I find that the one thing I get confused about is which way we are turning. To explain: when I, as the navigator, tell Kane to take a left turn, sometimes I find that I actually meant to take a right. I'm not one of those people that doesn't know left from right (although I do mix up the colors pink and yellow, a whole other story), but I have found that I seem to associate the direction of the turn just as much with whether or not you cross traffic as I do with the actual direction of the turn. What I mean is, does the turn require driving across cross traffic, or can you just turn onto the adjacent street? In that respect, a left turn is similar to a right turn in the U.S.; you can turn left on a red light because you don't have to cross oncoming traffic. Anyway, I was surprised to find this association in my brain, and I'm trying to work it out.

And as for the 8-person bunks, they were interesting, but not too bad. We had a pretty good group both nights and the only really crappy part was that the bunks were very creaky and quite rickety. And no one set of bunks were available when we got there, so Kane and I were each on the top bunk of two separate bunks with strangers underneath us. Kane complained that the guy below him on the second night seemed to be doing some sort of earthquake simulation (which can be easily caused by simply rolling over in these janky bunks) which was bothersome to him. Other than that, we dealt with the nighttime toots, bad breath, and the bustling starting at 7am. I know, sounds like hell, but it really wasn't. We do prefer the rooms to ourselves, but not much you can do when they're full and we're cheap. We have bunks a couple of other nights, hopefully those will go smoothly also.

The following night in Dunedin was excellent accommodation. The YHA there is a converted old house. And I do mean old and I do mean converted. The remodel on this place must have been heinous. So many rooms tacked on, doorways blocked, stairways crammed in, low ceilings, short doors, converted basement areas, winding passageways, etc, etc. It was sort of like the Winchester Mystery House - I liked it a lot. We got a room with a double bed and a view of the city which was sweet. Last night and tonight we are in a very small room with two twin beds in Te Anau. Which brings me to the title of this posting, which apparently will not be the majority of my writing...

We hiked the Milford Track today on a guided tour. The Milford Track is known for being one of the most beautiful hikes in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Track. You begin with an hour boat ride (on a sweet boat that can hold like 60 people) up Lake Te Anau to the start of the trail. The full hike is 54 kilometers (about 40 miles) and takes 4 days/3 nights, though we just walked the first 5.5 kilometers and back today. It was very flat, very well maintained and very pretty. They provided a nice lunch, and all in all it was very nice. Rhonda, you would love it; we imagined you ooohing and aaahing. We didn't see much wildlife up there, but one fact we did learn is that there are no land mammals native to NZ, so all the native birds are very curious and friendly because they have no natural predators. So, a little bird walked all the way up to our group and almost hopped on my foot to say hi. It was adorable, not even scared by our talking. I wished we had seen more, but I guess the introduction of land mammals by other cultures has really messed up the native wildlife here. They're trying to fix it. Anyway, the bird was cute (I wanted to pet it).

I did get to pet the calico that roams the parking lot - yeay, kitties!

Tomorrow we're off to our boat cruise (I use the word "cruise" lightly) around Milford Sound. More later, keep commenting friends and fams!

Tramping

(Pictured: Mountains behind the trail to Hooker Glacier, I am the tiny blue speck on the swing bridge)

Tramping is what they call hiking in NZ, which I think is funny. We spent a good chunk of yesterday tramping around the trails of Mt. Cook and ended up with sore feet and legs. Mt. Cook is a strange town. I had expected it to be up at high altitude, near the mountain that shares its name, but it is rather in a valley near the foot of the mountain. The mountains in that area are like huge lumps gracefully popping out of an otherwise flat landscape, which I found sort of odd. It turns out to be awesome because it means that most of the hiking trails are relatively flat - bonus for lazy me.

The town of Mt. Cook has like 100 people or something ridiculous, and they don't even has gas piped in. They also don't have a supermarket or gas station and are basically a glorified campground. We have been blazing a trail around the NZ YHAs (youth hostel) and left from the Mt. Cook YHA this morning to arrive at our third YHA this afternoon in Dunedin. We had a good day of driving today, Kane has gotten the hang of it, and, since we're prepared for the distances and aren't on a super strict timetable, the driving isn't bad. Not like the drive between SLO and Hayward which seems to take forever because you just want to get where you're going.

So, it's been nice. So far, the scenery isn't anything you can't find in California (save one particular lake that is a gnarly neon teal color - naturally), so if you want to save some cash, take a road trip around the Golden State instead. The west coast of NZ should be a bit different; we'll be heading over there tomorrow. Until then, we actually have a room with a double bed tonight, as opposed to the 8 person bunk bed room we were in last night - yowza, so we will sleep well in Dunedin.

Work and Holiday Visa

Well, in short, we have them (for Australia). We applied online last night, didn't even submit any paperwork or anything (birth certificate, passport, transcripts, etc). Approved like 2 hours later. Done and done!

Now we can get back and get to work...but not before exploring NZ...

Genesis

And so begins our epic New Zealand journey. The three hour flight was tolerable and we made it to Christchurch unscathed. I always hate the way I feel when I travel, it mostly has to do with the ridiculously crappy night sleep I inevitably get the night before. Anyway, we're tired, but fortunately we also skipped ahead two time zones, so we are justifying going to bed at 10pm NZ time, which is 8pm Melbourne time. We love sleeping, especially on vacation.

We have our rental car: the monstrous, the terrifying, the envy of all Raiders fans: the Nissan Sunny. They have basically the same cars here and in Aus as they do at home, but many of them have different names. Our Sunny is probably equivalent to a Sentra or some other relatively crappy but manageable car. Kane is deftly attacking the chaotic roadways of NZ while I hyperventilate in the passenger seat. He can't get the hang of the turn signal lever being on the right side of the steering wheel instead of the left. We have had much unnecessary use of our windshield wipers thus far due to this - yet another screaming indicator that we're not from around here.

Our hostel is really nice; it's the first time I've stayed at a youth hostel besides my initial trip through Europe (which was on a tour where we stayed in hostels and, at the time, I didn't even know they were called hostels). The staff is super nice, they have relatively reasonably priced wireless, a common room with couches and TVs, and a giant kitchen where you can store and prepare any or all of your own food. Very sweet indeed if you don't mind being emerged in a sea of potential weirdos.

I would say that most of the people here seem to be what I would expect: younger travelers seemingly trying to travel cheap. The word "youth" in "youth hostel" is not necessarily a requirement, however. And then there is the fact that our room is a tiny 2-bed cell surrounded on three sides by similar rooms (we have no window, but we do have a skylight). This is fine for us as we will only be in that room for sleeping, and for that it is more than adequate. We did notice, in the brief time that we dropped off our bags, that there is a tiny opening in the top of the wall that connects us to the room behind us. It is a small opening, maybe 1" tall and a foot wide, but it seems to make audio privacy an impossibility. Once again, not a big deal, we're not expecting the lap of luxury here, but the first thing Kane and I heard when we originally walked into our room was a woman on the other side.

"Fucking Jesus" is all we hear. She says it about half a dozen times.

I don't know who she is, and, obviously, can't see her. She is talking softly, but certainly loud enough for us to clearly hear her. Kane and I just stared at each other perplexed, stifling giggles. Does she know we can hear her? Does she know we're here at all? Is she ok? Is she crazy? These questions flashed through my mind. We turned to leave her to her mantra, but did not manage to get out of the room in time to miss her loud fart. Apparently we're getting rather friendly with our unseen neighbors here - excellent. We'll see if there are any other incidents during our stay here; all we can do now is laugh and type it out on the internet for all to see.

An easy day in Christchurch tomorrow, then we're off on our south island tour. Tune in next time for updates on our adventure and insight into crazy people staying at hostels.

NZ, Here We Come

The eve before a flight to a new country. Or any place, really. Always a nervous night. Packing, cleaning, did we bring everything? Don't forget to take out the trash, eat all the perishables, what time do we need to be at the airport? We need to go to sleep early, but, of course, I'm not tired. It's like Christmas eve for grown ups. The item I always forget: any guesses? My hairbrush. Not the worst thing to forget, easily replaced, but still annoying.

We are packed, the list of last minutes is ready for tomorrow morning, the cab is booked. I think we are good to go. 18 days, a rental car and a jam packed itinerary for a trip around the south island of NZ. I'm really looking forward to some great photos - my main goal besides having fun in general. I really wish that I had at least one more lens for my Canon XTi (digital SLR); I have really been aching to take some fish-eye and/or wide angle pics. Someday I will splurge for another lens, right now I'll make due with this amazing camera and its solitary lens.

Not much else to say this fine night, except that I'll be blogging in NZ and I think we'll have a really great time. Think good thoughts to the travel gods for us. Bon Voyage!

Big Brother Smiles

Kane and I are currently jumping through the numerous and gratuitous hoops to try to transfer our visa to a Work and Holiday Visa, which would allow us to work for a limited time in this country. You may be aware of this situation from previous blog entries, but to summarize, we are currently on a travel visa whereby we cannot work legally. We were expecting to be sponsored by potential employers for a work visa, which has not happened yet. A new visa has just become available to US citizens that allows us to conditionally work in Aus, and that's the visa we're trying to get so that we are more desirable to potential employers. The annoying thing is that we have to be outside of the country when we apply for and when we receive this visa. So for that and other reasons, we are headed to New Zealand.

So, of course, the application process is not very clear on the government website. I therefore fired off an extensive email that I assumed would either be overlooked, not answered in any helpful way, or responded to long after I needed the information. However, to my surprise, I received a very long email from the immigration office this morning. I assumed it would be full of random ramblings that don't really answer my question, but it wasn't. An actual person actually read my email, found the answers to my questions, and typed out intelligible answers in a prompt response. Does any of this sound like government to you? No, me neither. Big brother (and Moe, as pictured) smiles on me today.

Not only that, but the information that the lady sent me was exactly what I wanted to hear. My application is not as complicated as I had originally thought, we don't need to get a bunch of stuff notarized, and the wait time for our visa is typically 48 hours if all goes smoothly. So, unless this lady is yanking my chain and laughing her ass off over it in her cubicle (which I think is justification for a person to be sent to hell in the afterlife), we are hopefully going to be able to get through this and still enjoy our vacation. Add a drop of faith in the government bucket for me.

Workin' It

A couple weeks ago (they use the term "fortnight" here like a normal word, hehe) we went to a sustainable living festival here in Melbourne and stopped by the Engineers Without Borders booth and subsequently joined the group online. Tonight we went to our first EWB meeting in the city along with about 20+ other local members. We met at a downtown bar and fully expected a handfull of middle aged men in suits dryly discussing engineering topics. We were pleasantly surprised to find a mostly younger crowd (our age or a bit older) about half of which were females and who were all very into the multitude of projects, big and small, that the organization orchestrates. They were also a very social group, appearing to be "our kind of people": smart, involved, fun, professional, extremely good looking...you know who I'm talking about.

As an added bonus, we talked to a few people who suggested that we send our resumes their direction to be passed along to interested parties in their respective companies. Frankly, we were hoping for some sort of networking like this to occur, so we're glad that we fit in and got to talk to some nice folks who may have openings at their places of employment. A group of them even invited us to dinner after the meeting, so we shared a nice meal around a lazy susan in Chinatown. All in all, it was a success and we will be contacting the 2 represented companies tomorrow with our resumes.

In other news, our travel visa runs out (i.e. requires us to leave the country and come back in to renew it) on March 15th. We are planning on heading to NZ just before then for a couple weeks to meet our visa requirement and to apply for a different visa that will allow us to work. This temporary work visa was not available when we left the States and it should help us to get work upon our return. We have to apply and receive this stupid visa while outside the country, which is the only tricky part. They say it only takes 2-4 weeks to process, so we're really hoping that they go faster than the US government is known for so that we can come back and get one of these jobs before the fire goes out. I have faith that we will 1) get our foot (feet?) in the door at at least one company, 2) have an awesome NZ vacation, 3) receive our new work visas in a timely fashion while on vacation, 4) come back to a nice job that pays us money. Cross your fingers for us.

Footy

We attended our first game of Australian Rules Football last night, loving nicknamed "footy": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Rules_Football. We live about one block away from the Telstra Dome, a large sporting field with a retractable roof that can hold just over 50,000 people. I thought it might be bad living right next to such a monstrosity - that there would be lots of noise and traffic during events - but it's so unobtrusive that I had previously thought that they weren't even hosting events there at all. I was wondering how they actually make money there, but I found out that events are held there all the time without any sign of noise or congestion to speak of - excellent.

We attended this event at the invitation of a couple that we met through the meetup.com event about a month ago, Lindsey and John. This is not the couple I just introduced, this is the couple that took us to the beach (damn sunburns) a few weeks ago. They had two friends (an Aussie couple from work) along as well.

We got there at about 6:30pm, about 45 minutes before the game started to get good seats since it's general admission. I find it strange that the footy game is general admission while the movie theaters assign seats...I digress. So, we got seats at the field level right at center field - pretty much perfect. And we were slightly under the overhang of the balcony above which allowed us to avoid the rain when it started about halfway through the game. It only rained for a few minutes anyway, but I was happy to have cover.

To start, the field is huge. I see why they use 18 players from each team to play a game - there's no way to cover the field otherwise. The field is a giant grassy oval - Kane estimated it to be about twice the size of an American football field (lord knows I have no idea). Footy is not American football. It's not soccer and it's not rugby. It's a whole different game entirely from any of these games. There is a ball which is oval shaped - sort of like a football but smaller and with no points at the ends. There are goals at either end of the field, but instead of there being two goal posts to make one goal area, there are four posts making three goal areas. If you kick the ball between the middle two posts, it's 6 points, between the outer posts is only 1.

You can pass the ball by either kicking it in the air (drop kick) or by hand passing, which is like serving underhand in volleyball; you can't just toss it to someone. There are no time outs and the game does not stop at all unless the ball goes out of bounds or a goal is scored at which time they either throw the ball back in or do a jump ball type thing, respectively. It is virtually continuous for the entire 4 quarters (with 5-15 minute breaks between quarters) and it looks exhausting. To get the ball from the other team you either tackle the person with the ball (no pads) or intercept, and these two actions are often intermixed. It's basically complete chaos on the field for four 25-ish minute quarters.

My favorite part of the game was the shouting coming from the fathers, brothers, and other random men (and women, they're just not as loud). It was great. Standard heckling and anger at what they envision to be poor calls by the umpires was ever present and just as entertaining as the game itself. There was one guy a couple rows behind us that had the perfect coliseum heckling voice: loud, gruff, assertive. He kept yelling insults at whichever team that he didn't like, but he kept all the abuse to a G rating which made it even funnier. "You idiot!", "Get up you wimp!", and simply, "Girl!", were among his most commonly used taunts, though he did venture toward some more obscure name-calling with "Mongrel!" and "You're such a twit!". It was great, the crowds here are excellent.

We both had a good time, despite it being a bit to cold for my taste (they left the damn retractable roof open for some reason). They do the standard coliseum-style food: hot dogs, chips, french fries, soda, beer, but they actually had a bit larger of a menu including meat pies (very popular here, it looks like dog crap in a pot pie), burgers, ice cream bars, and a few other things. I was sad to see nachos missing from the menu, but that crap is poison anyway. I even saw a veggie burger on one of the menus, though we made a point to eat before hand to avoid that junk.

All in all it was fun and, though I don't think I'm going to start attending religiously, it was a nice event to go to with friends once in a while (like an A's game), and a good old fashioned Aussie experience. After the game we hung out at John and Lindsey's place, ordered some pizza, watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and played with their newly acquired didgeridoo. It was a good night, see wiki for info on the strange native Australian instrument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo.

Introducing

I would like to introduce everyone to our new friends Marc and Alana. I mentioned them briefly before as the couple who invited us out to dinner, but we ended up having to leave because Kane was sunburn-sick (for those that are blog followers). Since then, we have hung out with them multiple times and they are both very cool. Marc is a Kiwi (New Zealander) who does web design for a company that his parents own. Alana is a native Minneapolis-ian (?) who has lived in NZ for the past three years before coming to Melbourne with Marc almost a year ago. As they are our best (and pretty much only) friends here, I will likely mention them again in the future. So, everyone, meet Marc and Alana, they are very cool.

On a different topic, we're into month three of our stay here, and therefore approaching the final third of our allowable stay on our visa. After three months in the country on a travel visa, you have to leave the country and when/if you come back, you get another three months. This can continue for a year. We were intending on having jobs by now which would have hypothetically sponsored us for work visas that would allow us to stay for up to four years. Those of you who have been in contact with one or both of us know that it has not been as easy as we had thought/hoped.

The easy way to get a job in Australia is to go to a recruiter. These are middle-man firms that match up employees with employers and take a fee from both to do so. It doesn't sound so bad except that it is not uncommon for these businesses to take 15-18% of your negotiated salary for the first 6 months! That is like thousands of dollars! So, we've been trying to do without these people, and figure that this much time with no income is better than giving a bunch of money to them. It's been relaxing at least, if not boring, not to have a job for a while.

So, we've been looking up companies online, getting references from people we meet, etc. Kane called a place Monday to ask about a Mechanical Engineering job that they were advertising on their website. Once they heard that he had done structural work, the woman indicated how they were really hurting for structural engineers, so Kane sent both of our resumes over. Their immigration lawyer called us later that day to ask about our visa situation. So that's promising, but we'll have to see how it works out. I don't know if they are willing to go through the hoops of sponsoring us for a visa, but we'll see.

Next week we will start looking for tickets to New Zealand if we haven't heard from that company- yeay, a forced vacation. Until then, we'll just have to see what happens...

Smokers

To precede this rant, I want to say that I mean no personal offense to anyone. To each his own and all that, everyone can make their own decisions and suffer their own consequences and that's fine. Having said that, this cursed town is full of smokers!! We walked some errands today, traversing probably three miles around the CBD during mid-day. It was nice to be out in the bustling business district and to walk around this rather impressive city. There are a lot of cool venues, old rad architecture, sweet skyscrapers, sculptures, public areas, parks, etc. in this town. Overall, I would say Melbourne is set up very well and has a lot to offer a resident. I'm really enjoying living in a large metropolitan area.

The only major complaint I have about this place is the ridiculous quantity of smokers. All ages, sizes, shapes, men, women...so many folks smoke!! And I couldn't care less if they're not bugging me, but walking around town during business hours means being constantly accosted by second hand smoke from people who are now doubt on their smoke breaks, or, as I like to call it, their slacker/cancer breaks.

I guess I've never lived right in a big city before, but I could swear that there aren't this many smokers in California. I know there are plenty of them, but they seem to usually be limited to the eternally addicted, the white (or insert appropriate color) trash, and the hopeful juvenile delinquents. These people are just random business people. They are dressed nicely, they look professional, and they're standing around in an alley next to their resident high rise smoking a cigarette. Maybe I've been brainwashed by PSAs, but it just looks wrong.

So, I basically dart around the sidewalks strategically holding my breath to avoid the big whiffs, attempting to dodge the hot end of their cancer sticks that they wave around rather carelessly, and ritualistically bitching about them once I'm out of ear shot. I think I may instate a smoker kicking policy when walking down the street. Or, maybe I should try something more subtle like sedative darts. Or, maybe I'll just keep walking, scowling, and silently cursing the smokers who are slowly murdering me while they kill themselves to get 5 minutes off of work every two hours.

The irony is that my face got a bit sunburned while we were walking around today. I'm an idiot. Maybe I should just take up smoking and get it over with.

Itching

It has been over a week since Kane and I went to the beach and received well-deserved yet unfortunate sunburns. We spent the following four days without leaving the house at all. I realize that this doesn't deviate from our standard schedule as much as it perhaps should, however, it was awful nonetheless. We were in significant pain the first few days - neither of us could sleep any other way than on our backs, underwear was the only welcome clothing, and Kane even opted to take Advil to ease the pain a couple times. Needless to say it was terrible and we won't do it again.

For the past few days we have found that the pain has mostly subsided and that we are peeling. We used an inordinate amount of aloe lotion on these burns, but alas, a couple layers of skin are so irreparably unhappy with us that they are leaving despite our efforts to make amends. I don't really blame them, but I'm still sad to see them go. Not because of the ridiculously uneven tan that I'm giving up, but rather because it's just really annoying.

I remember peeling being fun when I was a kid, and a small amount of that joy did manage to make it through to this episode of skin loss. However, I had forgotten about the initial and continuing symptom that plagues a peeling sunburn: itching. No, the title of this post was not some artistic metaphor for our need to really get out and explore the land or something; we're not that cool so you should just stop hoping that we are. Itching, you think, isn't really that bad - either scratch or don't and then it goes away. Firstly, I'm a scratcher and Kane's not, so that added tension floating around my sunburn doesn't really help. Secondly, I don't know how he doesn't scratch because my itching is something out of a horror movie: it stalks me, wakes me in the night, plagues my dreams and waking thoughts. It is all-consuming. Maybe it has something to do with me being a huge baby in general, but I have never itched so badly and it must be scratched.

Not to mention that I'm not really happy with the entire purpose of the itching. As I understand it, the itch of a sunburn is our body's way of encouraging us to get this dead layer of skin off our bodies. It is an instinctive stimulus and we respond in kind by aiding this molting process. Now, I understand this natural function of human evolution, however, I think it's out of date by a few thousand years. I am no longer a Neanderthal that needs a whole cause and effect situation to do what needs to be done with this sort of thing. It's not like having pain receptors or feeling hunger or something - things that actually let me know, or at least confirm, something previously unknown about my body. No self respecting, opposable thumbed human can avoid - neigh resist - peeling off skin that has formed a neat little "pull here" tab. And even if you could, or, god forbid, the skin was peeling somewhere unreachable (and I thought my burn was bad...), I'm pretty sure it will just come off in the shower or in your typical daily movin' and shakin'. So what's the big deal with itching; it's unnecessary and bothersome and I don't appreciate it. I am submitting this complaint to the god of human evolutionary changes, I think there's an office just downtown. I am also submitting to have people stop having bad eye sight - there's no point anymore, we have glasses, contact lenses, and Lasik; you're not weeding anyone out anymore.

So, I've scratched and scratched and I'm still itchy but now with irritated skin. I've tried not scratching, hoping the itch would take the "I'm not home right now, so go away" hint, but it just persists like the most hard core, knowing-you're-hovering-behind-the-peephole Jehovah's Witness ever to approach your front porch. The only upside is the rare but coveted occasion when the skin does actually decide it's time to depart from the body and Kane and I can compete to see who can get the most gigantic single piece of peeled skin from their torso. Now that's some good old fashioned fourth grade fun. I think I'm in the lead for largest chunk of skin, but he's certainly winning for most overall skin lost. His sunburn damage traversed significantly more body area than mine did, but mine was highly concentrated in an awful spot: the "seam" of skin connecting boob to stomach - very harsh. It may be part of the reason that my skin seems to be suffering more (I'm on round two of peeling); that area is not only really sensitive and (obviously) never sees the sun, but it's also being constantly irritated with each slight bob of my chest. Good times.

Basically, next time we go outside for a prolonged period of time and/or with less-than decent amounts of clothing on (why can't we all just go to the beach in t-shirts and shorts anyway?), we're sunscreening up our entire bodies directly after showering. Why try to anticipate every little crevice that the sun will make it into - we clearly need to cover any and all crevice-like areas of our respective (but not necessarily respectable) bodies. Sun, you are not an enemy, but you are a dangerous friend and we can no longer permit you to just hang around without us preparing properly to see you, similar to being around, say, a rattlesnake or Fran Drescher. We're watching you...(scum).

So You Think You Know Aussies?

Coming Feb '08: You've seen Australians on TV; You've heard a few Aussie accents at random local establishments over the years; You loved Olivia Newton John in Grease...So, You think you know Aussies??

For those of you who think you know some stuff about Australia and its quirky culture, or would like to know some, here's some trivia for you. Since I can't put the answers upside down on the bottom of the box, I'll just put them right side up...at the bottom of this entry. So take your best guess at what these crazy Aussies are all about, and remember: this is only the stuff that we've noticed so far...

Level 1: Gimme Questions (or stuff I habitually mention in my blog)
1. Which side of the road to the drive on in Australia?
2. What do they call the area of town we call "downtown"?
3. In what time increment do they advertise rent (ex: our apartment costs $ per ___?)
4. What is the standard percent used for tipping at service establishments (restaurants)?
5. What worldwide yearly tennis competition was held in Melbourne last month?
6. What are these words slang for: brekky, uni, avo, telly?
7. What do these words translate to in American English: car park, footpath, singlet, chips?

Level 2: A Bit More Difficult
1. Do Aussies actually say g'day mate?
2. What sports are Aussie 'equivalents' of baseball and football?
3. What denominations does their money come in?
4. What is lemonade?
5. What is the emergency number (911 equivalent)?
6. What are these words slang for: mozzies, rego, piss?

Level 3: Good Luck Figuring This Out
1. What is a gaol?
2. What is dim sim?
3. How is the word "quay" pronounced?
4. What quantity of liquid is a pot of beer?
5. What is virtually the only brand of toothpaste available?
6. What do these words translate to in American English: capsicum, milk bar, bogan, nappies?

Think these over carefully...cue Jeopardy song...doo dee doo doo, doo dee doo...

Answers
Level 1:
1. Left
2. The CBD
3. Weekly
4. 0% - it's standard not to tip (awesome)
5. Australian Open
6. Breakfast, university (which means college), avocado, television
7. Parking lot, sidewalk, tank top, French fries

Level 2:
1. They definitely say g'day and mate, but I haven't often heard them together
2. Cricket and Australian Rules Football, known as "footy" (or, you could argue, rugby)
3. Bills: $100, $50, $20, $10, $5; Coins: $2, $1, $.50, $.20, $.10, $.05 and NO PENNIES!
4. Lemonade is lemon/lime soda (like Sprite or 7up) - this one really pissed me off at first
5. 000
6. Mosquitoes, registration, alcohol (or just beer)

Level 3:
1. A gaol is a jail; it's just some old British way of spelling it. Pronounce the g as a j and it actually does work. Damn Brits.
2. Dim Sim is an Aussie version of a Chinese inspired dumpling dish. See wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_sim. I ate one not knowing that it was pork; they're pretty good, though I thought it tasted more seafood-ish. I guess it's just all mushed up hot dog style - probably horrible for you. And, of course, they shorten the name to "dimmy" in good Aussie form.
3. Quay is pronounced "key". Having a hard time with this one
4. A pot of beer is 10 ounces and appears to replace a pint in popularity
5. Colgate, wtf?
6. Bell pepper, quickie mart/convenience store, white trash/hick, diapers

So, that's Round One of "So You Think You Know Aussies"! Enjoy your consolation prizes and we look forward to seeing you again next round. Thank you for playing, and now a word from our sponsors.

Here Comes the Sun

Yesterday we had our first opportunity to explore outside of Melbourne proper a bit. One of the nice couples we met at the meetup.com event invited us to the beach in Williamstown, about a 15 minute drive south-west of the city. It was beautiful - nice small beach, warm day, gorgeous green/blue water. I wasn't sure exactly what we'd do on the beach, but our friends wanted to mostly layout, which was nice and relaxing.

We did not, however, apply appropriate sunscreen. I had sunscreened up before we left, but I did so in preparation for standing sun exposure (i.e. face, shoulders, chest, feet) rather than laying down sun exposure (full body). Once we realized we were going to be laying in the sun, we added sunscreen, but not nearly enough. The day was nice: sunshine, good conversation, nice temperature water, a nice lunch at a restaurant on the beach.

Once we returned, our lack of sun preparation was evident. Kane was pretty burned at first, his whole front and splotchy in the back. My stomach was burned. We showered and I napped a bit and another couple wanted to go out to dinner. So, we gathered the beach couple again and went to meet the other couple for a night out. There is filming going on downtown - it appeared to be a 1940s type movie; we saw the extras in costume and they had blocked off the street. It was pretty cool, couldn't see much though. Anyway, we decided to go to a part of town Kane and I hadn't been before which was really nice.

This area of town reminded me of a quainter version of San Francisco's North Beach area - lots of Italian restaurants intermixed with boutiques and shops (minus the nudie bars though). It was very nice. Kane started to feel nauseous so we actually had to leave before even ordering dinner, but we will surely return. We're pretty sure it was his sunburn accosting his body that made him feel ill, and realized it probably would have been better just to rest that night. We came home and he went to bed lathered in aloe.

By then, his sunburn had progressed to cover his entire front and back, parts of his legs and face. I hate to see him hurting!! As of this morning, his back and legs seem to be a lot better, it's just his front and parts of his face that got it pretty bad and will give him trouble for a few days. My stomach got it pretty good and other splotchy parts (good splotchy Doctor splotchy) such as right armpit and right hip. Good times. We heart aloe vera.

Well, lesson is live and learn. I figure if you're learning a lot you are either: in school, living a lot, or not too bright. I like to think we're living a lot, though you can draw your own conclusions.

Urban Wakeboarding

Invitation from Kane:
Some sort of festival going on next to our apartments this weekend. As you can see in the picture they are setting up the urban wakeboarding pools in the parking lot right now (wakeboarders will jump from one pool to the next and hopefully not fall onto the asphalt). Let Angie or I know if you would like to come play.

We Have Internet

Perhaps the most momentus occurance since our arrival in this country, and perhaps since our departure from the internet-abled haven of our San Luis Obispo home - we have DSL internet!!
We are basking in the glory as it flows effortlessly through our home, searching the internet far and wide for useless knowledge and youtube videos. We feel liberated, invigorated, able again. Thank goodness for the best invention ever; welcome back into our lives, internet, we missed you.