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!
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| Happy Beach Birthday to Dar! |
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| 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.
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| The Auckland War Memorial Museum |
I was really happy to Skype with Whitney, Gustav, and Whitney the other night! Miss you all terribly!
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| 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!
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| A funny ad running in Auckland |
That's all for now! Maybe if I keep these short I'll do them more often!
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