Living with the Kiwis: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

A few more things on Tuesday morning

I realized that with all of my pictures I forgot to put up proof of our sunburns. So this is Ryan with his sunburn below. Look at that awesome farmer's tan. And that was on a cloudy day! The sun is nuts here so you can only imagine what a sunny day will do. Sunscreen will be my new best friend.

The other thing I forgot to mention was how expensive beer is here. It costs at least $13 for a 6 pack, and that's for their version of Natty Light. To make up for that, you can get a bottle of decent wine for as little as $6. That's in New Zealand dollars which are equal to 80 cents or so in the US. I guess it's just because New Zealand makes a ton of wine and not so much beer. Looks like we're going to turn into wine drinkers for the foreseeable future.
Chase took a bunch of pictures yesterday so I thought we'd throw them in here. Check them out...

Cool picture from the plane while we were landing.

Another picture from the plane.

Making friends with the locals. I honestly don't even know why they had a panda in a picture frame

The other two look normal. Me, not so much. This was in downtown down by the water.

On the boat on our way to Devonport.

I got a sunburn today. How's the snow?

Well day 2 in Auckland was an exciting one. We all woke up early because our brains are still on Kansas time which is 5 hours ahead. After showering, eating, and waiting on the girls (typical) we headed out to explore downtown Auckland. It had a bunch of shops and restaurants, some of which you see in the U.S. and some I've never heard of. Here's a picture of one of the main streets.

We looked all around for some authentic New Zealand food for lunch, maybe some seafood, maybe some strange food. What did we find? A place called Mexicali that basically served Chipotle burritos. Yeah, real authentic New Zealand cuisine.

That's the remnants of Chase's burrito. Outside the restaurant there was some sort of show being put on by some weird guy that worked up a crowd, then talked for 20 minutes, then basically did nothing. We thought he'd jump through a flaming hoop or something, but no. He did nothing exciting but I took a picture of his sweet outfit.

Since we were striking out on much entertainment in downtown, we hopped on a boat and headed to a nice little island just across the bay and a town called Devonport.

That's us on the boat in the picture above and below is a picture of downtown from the boat.

And this is a picture of Mary with clydesdales. They took people on tours of the island and I think Mary might have scared them with that face. After Mary got done with the horses we tried to climb Mount Victoria. It was a grueling hike that took hours, hard work, and dedication. Ok, that was a lie. It was really just a glorified hill, kind of like snow creek. But we did climb it and took some good pictures on top.

Ryan and chase looking Japanese.

Erin, Chase, and Ryan decided to get extreme and go off the beaten path.

Panoramic view from the top.

Me with downtown Auckland in the background

Just hanging out at the top of the 'mountain'

After the grueling hike, we decided to reward ourselves with some local wine in the island's town.

After the wine, we continued our tour of the island which included this old tree with some crazy roots. Half the group is above and half is below. I'd like to think the better looking group is below.

We finished off the day in Devonport with a meal at a local restaurant. Since we're in New Zealand and they are known for their lamb, we figured we had to try some. You can see our fancy looking dishes in the picture below. And yes, it was as good as it looked and that's coming from somebody who doesn't usually like lamb.

I couldn't finish this post without my picture of Mary driving her new Smartcar. Watch out world, she's a crazy driver.

That was a long, long day. The only thing I didn't have any pictures of was us carrying groceries back across town, mainly because my hands were full. My feet are sore and my face is red from the sun. I'm going to head to bed to get some sleep before the first day of the rotation. Let's hope that tomorrow is as much fun as today.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Finally in Auckland!

Well, we finally made it! What did it take to get here? Well there was the 3 hour flight to LA followed by a 24 hour layover. We had to find something to occupy the time during the layover so we checked out some restaurants. No real good stories here except I found that Mary's idea of eating a cheeseburger is going for the beef, bacon and vegetables and to make it look like a mess...

Then we went and walked out on the boardwalk at Hermosa Beach. Watching seagulls swarm Erin was a good laugh.

Above is Hermosa Beach and below is Erin and Kristin being scared by birds.

And of course, we had to look like Japanese tourists.

So that was our 24 hours in L.A. The next 13 1/2 hours were spent on board a V Australia flight that left Friday night. I'd never heard of the airline before we bought tickets but I was really impressed. The food was actually decent and the plane looked brand new. I don't have any pictures of that, sorry. We landed in Sydney at 6 am local time Sunday after crossing the international dateline and skipping Saturday. I quickly discovered that Verizon doesn't work in Australia, which was frustrating, especially since we had our flight delayed and we ended up being in the Sydney airport for about 4 hours. The next flight was 3 hours on a Emirates A380. It was the biggest plane I'd ever been on. The flight was uneventful but here's a picture of the giant plane...

So after 2 days, a Saturday that didn't exist, and way too much airplane food, we were finally in Auckland! After surviving the headache that is customs, we got a van to drive us to our apartment. We must have looked like idiots when we all tried to find the door on the van. It turns out that since they drive on the left side of the street and the drivers sit on the right, the door is on the opposite side from what we are used to. Duly noted.
Our apartment is nice, but small. Here are some pictures.

Above is the kitchen with a sink, stove, and refrigerator. It also has a bunch of silverware and appliances.

This is our little living room. It works for what we need. Hopefully we won't spend too much time in here.

The bathroom. Pretty standard

The bedroom I share with Ryan. And there's Ryan cleaning something... I think

Erin and Chase hanging out in the other bedroom

After we got settled into the apartment, we walked around and tried to find a place to eat. It was Sunday night at about 7:30 at this point and restaurants were already closing! Apparently people eat earlier here than they do at home. That'll take some getting used to. We found a nice Japanese restaurant that ended up being really good.

The night ended with some cake from a small bakery downtown.

That's all that's happened so far. Hopefully there will be some more excitement in the days to come. I'll update this as much as I can and hopefully I'll have more pictures of the places we go.

-Tommy

Monday, January 17, 2011

Free Money

So google gives me the option to put ads on this blog. It's basically asking me if I want free money so of course I have to say yes. But I need people to read this to make money so keep reading it and tell other people to read it too. Money is good. Keep coming back. Seems simple.

Why do this?

OK, you guys have pestered me enough that I decided to make a blog for the trip to New Zealand. As stupid as I usually think these things are, I figured this is easier than retelling every story over and over. This is also cheaper than spending $1.99 per minute that Verizon charges for calls to the US from NZ.I don't know what else to put on here so if you have any ideas let me know. I'll update this more once I get over there. - Frank