Sultanas over raisins. Sweeter, but in a different nonsweet way.
There is something about bread in the Southern Hemisphere, can't be beat. Including Turkish.
New Zealand apples are FAR superior to Australia apples.
Fresh figs, while intriguing to eat, are delicious.
If you go to Starbucks, expect to have to wait to get filtered coffee. Even in the middle of the day, you are always the first one to have ordered it, so there is none made.
People don't eat healthy breakfast, in either country. Breakfast foods beyond muffins and pastries are nearly impossible to find.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
April 17th: Spaceship Saga Begins.
This is Milford. He is our Kiwi. He is no Myla/Nessa/Olivia substitute, but he doesnt puke in the carpet either!
Saturday, April 17, 2010
-Days are just better that start with a workout
-Until you pick up your Spaceship Campervan and end up sobbing in misery. It is very much not as advertised. He spent a lot of time showing us how to use the “features” but its really a mini van with shit welded to it. Not thrilled. It is skuzzy and dirty. There are crumbs still from the last people just sitting on the bench….the “cooler” fits about two water bottles, and that’s all. No microwave, only a gas cooker that has to be used outside. Just miserable and decrepit. (And that was just the things we saw immediately, the end list of crap is LONG)
-But we did find a sweet market that had awesome food and produce (fresh figs!!). Went in and was super pleased. There were stations after stations of awesome. Breads, meats, veggies, meats, dips, prepared foods, desserts, everything. I would have killed to be able to shop from there every Saturday, it was fantastic. And everything was cheap and looked great. Then we sampled some humus and actually got some to go with our carrots. Had KILLER hot chocolate sample spoon. If it probably wasn’t 1000 calories, I would have totally bought a mug. Bought small, but perfect looking galas from this super cute couple. They jammed as many apples as humanly possible into the bag. 5 bucks for probably 10+ apples. Bought a ciabatta, chocolate chip bagel, and a roll for Tim. The chocolate chip bagel was followed by Tim's quote, "It's like a chocolate chip cookie and bread had sex...."
-I like the South Island a lot better. The roads are much better, wider, nicer, and the landscape, while a lot like Iowa, is also more interesting. No hills to make me want to puke, at least along the coast that we are driving along. More cute towns to look at too. More sizable than the North Island, but nothing huge.
-We pulled into the Oamaru I site and stopped in, and they closed the door right behind us. Thankfully we somewhat got our Penguin question answered. It was either go to the Free Beach where you may see one yellow eyed penguin around 4:30 (it was 4) OR pay $44, wait til 5:15 for a production of Blue Penguins at 6 where you see 60 some from an ampitheater with lights and a narration. We choose to go now, and free. Within minutes of arrival, I heard a honking from the cliff below, looked down, and BAM. Penguin about 15 feet down. Chilling.
-The drive from the Penguins to the Moertaki Boulders was gorgeous. Right at magic hour, we followed right along the beach, through rolling hills with sheep pastures on one side, glowing sky, mountains in the back, and the beach besides us. It was perfect and calming. Totally juxtaposed with our background music of Kevin Smith being vulgar as normal.
-We got to the boulders, slightly disappointing since I was expecting much bigger rocks. There were more than I expected, just a lot smaller. So strange though, perfect spheres. I guess the biggest one was the size I expected them all to be. Cool to look at, very curious as to how they are like that, especially the ones that have the weird rock looking like they were broken once and glued together, but its rock…..they all have cracks in them, and some of them have shattered apart, so I wonder how much longer they will last. Or if there is more.
-We turned around the mountain to Dunedin, and I was not expecting a city quite so huge. Later we learned that there is a major university there, but nonetheless, we kept turning around the mountain and there was more and more city everywhere you looked. Lights galore! We ate our Hell pizza and went back to the camp, got internet, and arranged the car and bedding, but it was super obnoxious and cold and complicated.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
-Days are just better that start with a workout
-Until you pick up your Spaceship Campervan and end up sobbing in misery. It is very much not as advertised. He spent a lot of time showing us how to use the “features” but its really a mini van with shit welded to it. Not thrilled. It is skuzzy and dirty. There are crumbs still from the last people just sitting on the bench….the “cooler” fits about two water bottles, and that’s all. No microwave, only a gas cooker that has to be used outside. Just miserable and decrepit. (And that was just the things we saw immediately, the end list of crap is LONG)
-But we did find a sweet market that had awesome food and produce (fresh figs!!). Went in and was super pleased. There were stations after stations of awesome. Breads, meats, veggies, meats, dips, prepared foods, desserts, everything. I would have killed to be able to shop from there every Saturday, it was fantastic. And everything was cheap and looked great. Then we sampled some humus and actually got some to go with our carrots. Had KILLER hot chocolate sample spoon. If it probably wasn’t 1000 calories, I would have totally bought a mug. Bought small, but perfect looking galas from this super cute couple. They jammed as many apples as humanly possible into the bag. 5 bucks for probably 10+ apples. Bought a ciabatta, chocolate chip bagel, and a roll for Tim. The chocolate chip bagel was followed by Tim's quote, "It's like a chocolate chip cookie and bread had sex...."
-I like the South Island a lot better. The roads are much better, wider, nicer, and the landscape, while a lot like Iowa, is also more interesting. No hills to make me want to puke, at least along the coast that we are driving along. More cute towns to look at too. More sizable than the North Island, but nothing huge.
-We pulled into the Oamaru I site and stopped in, and they closed the door right behind us. Thankfully we somewhat got our Penguin question answered. It was either go to the Free Beach where you may see one yellow eyed penguin around 4:30 (it was 4) OR pay $44, wait til 5:15 for a production of Blue Penguins at 6 where you see 60 some from an ampitheater with lights and a narration. We choose to go now, and free. Within minutes of arrival, I heard a honking from the cliff below, looked down, and BAM. Penguin about 15 feet down. Chilling.
-The drive from the Penguins to the Moertaki Boulders was gorgeous. Right at magic hour, we followed right along the beach, through rolling hills with sheep pastures on one side, glowing sky, mountains in the back, and the beach besides us. It was perfect and calming. Totally juxtaposed with our background music of Kevin Smith being vulgar as normal.
-We got to the boulders, slightly disappointing since I was expecting much bigger rocks. There were more than I expected, just a lot smaller. So strange though, perfect spheres. I guess the biggest one was the size I expected them all to be. Cool to look at, very curious as to how they are like that, especially the ones that have the weird rock looking like they were broken once and glued together, but its rock…..they all have cracks in them, and some of them have shattered apart, so I wonder how much longer they will last. Or if there is more.
-We turned around the mountain to Dunedin, and I was not expecting a city quite so huge. Later we learned that there is a major university there, but nonetheless, we kept turning around the mountain and there was more and more city everywhere you looked. Lights galore! We ate our Hell pizza and went back to the camp, got internet, and arranged the car and bedding, but it was super obnoxious and cold and complicated.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
April 16th. A million ways to be transported in 24 hours.
Friday, April 16, 2010
-Alarm went off at 5:50,
-Calling a cab ended up being the smartest decision we made that day because it was raining. At first it just looked like a mist, but then it was definitely a heavy rain. We would have been wet, hot, sweaty, and utterly miserable if we had walked all the way to the ferry docks.
-The Bluebridge Ferry” One section had some small couches, others had airline seats all facing a tv, there was an outside looking deck, but with the rain, no point. We were ready to sit in the airline seats, but then I went to the café and saw that there were small tables with cushy chairs around them.
-We gave in to the glorious smells of breakfast, Tim left to go order eggs and toast. Absolutely delicious. 4 slices of toast, and scrambled eggs that Tim shared. The only jelly was a “Breakfast Marmelade” but it totally worked for me. More a citrus jelly than anything else.
-Tim just left to go sit in the airline style seats, I think he’s going to try and sleep, but he doesn’t seem to be doing to well with the pitching back and forth, and at times its almost a circular motion
-Riding on a train for 6+ hours is far less enjoyable when you have two people sitting directly across from you that want to chat the whole time….Which is fine for awhile, I actually would love to hear tidbits and facts that I didn’t know, but I also wanted to take a break from looking at all the passing mountains that I have seen for a week straight from the car
-The salt farms were quite interesting, they are big fields of water waiting to dry up to harvest the salt. Some of them were even pink.
-THERE WERE SEALS!
-If you are ever in Christchurch, stay at Hotel SO. It’s like you are sleeping in a futuristic spaceship pod.
Complete with the ability to shower in 7 different colors, and blue glow lights under the bed. And the best hotel gym this side of the equator, and a HUGE laundry room for cheap. Adoration of the Hotel SO.-Christchurch = Boston in New Zealand.
-Cathedral Square is a copy of Copley, and the blocks off of it are so totally filled with Bostonian crazies.
-Poppy Thai = Thai food that needs to be concentrated on, as to not INHALE in one glorious My Way Satay, bite.
-And to end the day, I hit the gym at 11pm….*sigh*
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
April 15th. Wellington makes us tuckered!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
-Weta Cave: Basically the people that did all the cool stuff in LOTR. And a crap load of other famous movies. I would adore to work for them, but frankly I am nowhere near talented enough, especially in that line of the work (more actual art).
-St Pauls Church
-Wellington Zoo: Wallabyes, Kangaroos, Meerkats, HUGE Pelican, Sunbears, African dogs, Penguins…Tim touched one of the Kangaroos through the fence.
-Wellington City and Sea Museum has some WEIRD exhibit now that involves Alice in Wonderland, very acid trippy….
-KEYNOTE: The best things in this country, are free. It’s strange. The more money it costs, really, the less awesome it ends up being. Case in point, Te Papa is the best free musem you could ever visit.
-Te Papa is ginormous, you could spend days there and not see it all, but we did take our time in the Pompeii exhibit. There was a very cool 3d timeline movie to watch.
-Grocery store dinners rule our lives.
-Weta Cave: Basically the people that did all the cool stuff in LOTR. And a crap load of other famous movies. I would adore to work for them, but frankly I am nowhere near talented enough, especially in that line of the work (more actual art).
-St Pauls Church
-Wellington Zoo: Wallabyes, Kangaroos, Meerkats, HUGE Pelican, Sunbears, African dogs, Penguins…Tim touched one of the Kangaroos through the fence.
-Wellington City and Sea Museum has some WEIRD exhibit now that involves Alice in Wonderland, very acid trippy….
-KEYNOTE: The best things in this country, are free. It’s strange. The more money it costs, really, the less awesome it ends up being. Case in point, Te Papa is the best free musem you could ever visit.
-Te Papa is ginormous, you could spend days there and not see it all, but we did take our time in the Pompeii exhibit. There was a very cool 3d timeline movie to watch.
-Grocery store dinners rule our lives.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
April 14th.
Blast from the Past. Not so far away for you, but decades ago for me.....
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
- Left Palmerston North, and headed towards Castlepoint.
-The drive is gorgeous. The first part, the sun is still so low that everything gets hit with light in a totally different way than we would normally see. Its awesome. And the forests are so lush and thick and green right now. Everything is wet with dew. As we keep going the mist creates an awesome haze on everything. Its just sweet and magical to look at.
-We had to slow down later on because a truck was in the road herding a load of sheep from one area to another. They had just been sheared, and there were four dogs helping get them across the road. It was super cute as they trotted beside the truck, and then one hopped up into the back of the truck from a standstill. Quite impressive.
-At the edge of Castlepoint was a big beach that clearly flooded every high tide and then a long walkway up the ridge to the lighthouse. We parked on the edge of the beach, walked across and up the walkway. It was so ridiculously windy. I feared for my sunglasses even. It was as if the wind were going to rip my jacket apart. We went up, and a little bit past the lighthouse. It was really cool because when you turned around, you could see there was a tide pool behind the beach that we had parked at. You could also see the line in the water where it went from light aqua to dark blue. Tim said that must be where the beach ends.
-We visited Pua World, where even the toilets are made of Pua shells…
- 45 minutes outside of Wellington, we were on a mountainside, and Tim was getting super worried about how fast the gas gauge was dropping, and kept getting worried, so in the middle of the tiny mountain lane, he turned around and headed back down the mountain to the town at the bottom to get gas.
-Tim got a bag of Twisties. He got it only because it had a Penguin on the bag.
–In Wellington, we saw a building that had Hot Yoga on the top floor, and New York Pizza right below. It was quite amusing, the perfect building for the both of us!
-After a less than awesome day, we splurged with pita and humus appetizer, white sangria, Tim had pizza, and I had a very small Mozz/Tomato plate (and some of his pizza) and then baklava for dessert. All delicious.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
- Left Palmerston North, and headed towards Castlepoint.
-The drive is gorgeous. The first part, the sun is still so low that everything gets hit with light in a totally different way than we would normally see. Its awesome. And the forests are so lush and thick and green right now. Everything is wet with dew. As we keep going the mist creates an awesome haze on everything. Its just sweet and magical to look at.
-We had to slow down later on because a truck was in the road herding a load of sheep from one area to another. They had just been sheared, and there were four dogs helping get them across the road. It was super cute as they trotted beside the truck, and then one hopped up into the back of the truck from a standstill. Quite impressive.
-At the edge of Castlepoint was a big beach that clearly flooded every high tide and then a long walkway up the ridge to the lighthouse. We parked on the edge of the beach, walked across and up the walkway. It was so ridiculously windy. I feared for my sunglasses even. It was as if the wind were going to rip my jacket apart. We went up, and a little bit past the lighthouse. It was really cool because when you turned around, you could see there was a tide pool behind the beach that we had parked at. You could also see the line in the water where it went from light aqua to dark blue. Tim said that must be where the beach ends.
-We visited Pua World, where even the toilets are made of Pua shells…
- 45 minutes outside of Wellington, we were on a mountainside, and Tim was getting super worried about how fast the gas gauge was dropping, and kept getting worried, so in the middle of the tiny mountain lane, he turned around and headed back down the mountain to the town at the bottom to get gas.
-Tim got a bag of Twisties. He got it only because it had a Penguin on the bag.
–In Wellington, we saw a building that had Hot Yoga on the top floor, and New York Pizza right below. It was quite amusing, the perfect building for the both of us!
-After a less than awesome day, we splurged with pita and humus appetizer, white sangria, Tim had pizza, and I had a very small Mozz/Tomato plate (and some of his pizza) and then baklava for dessert. All delicious.
Sydney Snippets.
I know I am jumping the gun a bit, but this stupid internet situation is just not peachy keen! I will get back to the daily stuff, but for now, here's a glimpse of time in Sydney!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Madre in Sydney.
Lori Nordyke is safely in Sydney. Today, she pranced around the Sydney Opera House, ate kabobs, and grooved at Hillsong.
Not to mention the Justice and Police museum, and the Hyde Park barracks, and the Rocks, AND grocery shopping.
Now she is curled into bed like a tuckered puppy, and has been since 8pm. Now lets see how early she gets up :)
Not to mention the Justice and Police museum, and the Hyde Park barracks, and the Rocks, AND grocery shopping.
Now she is curled into bed like a tuckered puppy, and has been since 8pm. Now lets see how early she gets up :)
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