New Home! And New Directions!

Finished the move to our new apartment. It's so awesome! It was kind of fun, playing it all by ear. Couchsurfing hosts here are a lot less likely to get back to you here it seems, so after spending a week and a half waiting for people to get back to us, we found ourselves 2 days before our lease ran out with no idea where we were going to live.

Lucky for us, our roommate Amy knew some friends who had an extra bedroom in their house and needed someone, so we ended up in this amazing house (a real house!) With a garden and a kitty, in Mt Eden, a really nice area of Auckland. It's really nice being out of the city proper, more trees, less dirty, the pigeons don't have messed up feet, etc. The rent is HALF of what we were paying before, and our roommates are quiet and keep to themselves a bit, but they are good people for sure.

Last week, I found out I didn't even get an interview for the science roadshow job I'd been obsessing about. It was really a let down for me.

Except it really made me re-think what I'm doing here. Even with the new house with less rent, we're not really saving much if anything after buying groceries, which is going to make traveling anywhere on the way home impossible. But most importantly, we aren't even adventuring here. We're living in the same place doing the same things every day. I work 5 days a week, which leaves no time for trips more than a couple days, plus we don't even have the money to travel if we could. It really bothered me when we moved, I realized that even in 3 months, we'd really started to accumulate stuff. Like 3 bags more than we had when we moved in. Here we are tied down not only by lack of money but again by being owned by our possessions.

And the whole situation is making both of us depressed.

One of the best rules for live I've ever heard is: If you don't like your life, change it.

I put in my two weeks at work last Wednesday, and in 11 days (can't believe it's that soon!) we're getting rid of everything that we can't fit with both of us on the bike (this is less than we came here with), going camping on Rangatoto with Amy for a few days, then heading down to Nelson - the very top of the south island - to become fruit pickers.

I've heard it's hard. I've heard it's not too bad.
I've heard it's good money. I've heard it's very little money.
I've heard it's fun. I've heard it's awful.

I've definitely got to find out.

So, that's whats on the plate next. Before we leave here I'll try to get a picture of our kitty who I'm trying to help get used to humans. She is the cutest.

Today Dar and I went to the park where they had what are apparently called 'Zorb Balls' - Just watch the video and I think you'll get the idea....You'll see I was really good at getting stuck on my head XD

Hi again!

Whats new? Well, after a heart to heart with our awesome roomy Amy, we finally have come to the conclusion that we kind of hate Auckland. It's making both of us severely depressed. Maybe it's our situation where our apartment is so crazy expensive that we've been dumpster diving for food (don't worry, we're both totally fine, we aren't even loosing weight - it was an adventure and an experience for sure, and we're back to buying food at the grocery store now!) But I really think part of it is this city. It's a business city, so many people here are into the Gucci, Prada stores on Queen street, the fancy yachts, and business suits, and I crave the pierced and tattooed, crazy haired funky with purple motorcycle people of Cuba Street in Wellington. We need more funk in our lives! And it doesn't help that the economy for any jobs science related (a job for Dar) is just dead, and dead how we are feeling! This life of monotony is making me un-inspired, un-alive, un-adventure-full. And that's NOT what I want from our time here.

So, we're going to mix it back up. While I'm waiting on hearing back from the Science Roadshow Presenter job, and Dar continues his job search (in Wellington now :D), we are saying bye to our 15th floor apartment in CBD, getting rid of anything that doesn't fit in our backpacks, except my adventure hat, which I'm putting back on my head, and we're gonna see what adventure we can find. We don't have anything else lined up yet, we'll probably couchsurf when we can find hosts, and stay in hostels the rest of the time. Hostels are actually significantly cheaper than rent here!

We, as the official slouch managers, made an eviction notice for Amy...

And while life in Auckland hasn't been super fun in general, on the bright side I had a really good birthday! I woke up to a scavenger hunt made for me by Amy :D 

I got to open my present from Rob & Sharon that had been sitting on the table for a week - a beautiful purple shirt! And later, Dar and I went out on the bike and had ramen for dinner. And we saw Wreck it Ralph in 3d, which I've wanted to see since forever!

Dar has been baking bread like mad - loves of whole grain, chocolate, plain, and they are getting better every time. There is nothing like fresh baked bread with a little butter and salt. Yum yum! Today we're trying to get rid of everything in our kitchen before we move, so he's making a loaf with the green food dye I bought for his bday cake :D

And here are your bonus pictures for today!

I didn't know NZ was so ahead of the US for women's suffrage. Like 20 years ahead.

And an Emperor Penguin (actual size - makes me REALLY want to go to Antartica)

And this one is for Alee XD There is an entire gallery of these guys here - a bunch of them life-size!

A New Year!

Happy New Year!

About 48 hours ago, I was among the first in the world to ring in 2013. With Dar, our friend Giulia, and some couchsurfers, we had a 'barbie' (BBQ) watched the fireworks from the Skytower, and popped a bottle of champagne :)

The last few months in Auckland have been pretty cool. These are some of the highlights!

We're still in our house on Saint Paul Street in CBD, and we have a roommate! Her name is Amy. She's originally from Colorado, and has spent time living in Australia and taught English for a year in Thailand. It's been really fun having her around. She started out as our couchsurfer, and we decided to keep her around! We've been learning a lot from each other, sharing stories, yummy recipes, and enjoying Auckland together. We have another couchsurfer coming tomorrow from Chile!

We'll also be moving in a couple weeks. Not sure where yet, but the high price of our downtown apartment, the lack of need to be super central in Auckland, and the nasty mold problem here, is getting us excited about finding something new. We've been checking out some housesitting websites too, so we might just find somewhere for a couple weeks to housesit for before we settle down again.

A couple weeks ago we did a short road trip up to the Coromandel peninsula. It was really beautiful, and I drove a car on the left side for the first time! We made a stop at Hot Water Beach, where there is a natural hot spring right next to the ocean, so at low tide you can dig into the sand to make a hot pool, then you let the ocean water come into your pool until you have the right temp.



We had a really great Christmas. We missed family of couse, but I surprised Dar with my first ever homemade ice cream cake (I even made the ice cream myself!), and we rented a car with our friends Lars and Giulia, and drove around Northland trying to find the sun. That hurricane/cyclone that hit Fiji a couple weeks ago made its way down to NZ as nasty weather over Xmas, making the normally beautiful Bay of Islands a rainy mess! But on Christmas Day, for Dar's birthday, we headed to Piha, a beautiful beach near Auckland, and we got the sunny, beachy Christmas we'd been looking forward to!

Happy Beach Birthday to Dar!

Dar liked his cake :D

That's not to say we didn't have fun during the rainy part. We went to this place called Mermaid Pools, climbed this muddy hill and swam in the ocean in our underwear, got soaked to the bone, and wore our metaphorical adventure hats!



Our Christmas was that much more special when we got cards and gifts in the mail :) Among my favorite was a Eugene Weekly and a Daily Emerald from Whitney :) Some hand-made stockings made by Dar's Aunt, and the sweetest care package from Rob & Sharon!



Here's a picture of our Christmas setup!




Dar surprised me a few days before Xmas, taking me to the museum, which was all lit up! Extra special because they don't really do Christmas Lights here on houes, and I this year I really missed going with Espie on our yearly Christmas Lights tour.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum

I was really happy to Skype with Whitney, Gustav, and Whitney the other night! Miss you all terribly!

Friendship!

Well I'm working as a waitress now, at an Argentinian Restaurant. The staff is all super relaxed, I get to practice my Spanish (and a little Japanese!), and the food super yumm! And Dar got a job interview today, at a computer recycling company. *fingers crossed*

And for those of you in Eugene, look out for Dar's return in June! He applied for the Physics Master's program at UO, so hopefully he'll be headed back to Eugene then! I may come back then too, or I may stay until October, depending on how things unfold out here....

I saw a just-born butterfly the other day! These guys are all over here!

And here's your bonus picture!

A funny ad running in Auckland

That's all for now! Maybe if I keep these short I'll do them more often!