Ok, so Carly and I know that our updates are looooooooong
overdue. We apologize for our inconsistency and would like to take this
opportunity to share personal life updates seeing as we’re not together 24/7
anymore. I will bug THE HECK out of Carly for the next week so that she posts
soon, too. (We all know who’s the slacker when it comes to correspondence,
anyway…)
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| The Pinnacles! |
Life in Wellington is starting to blossom as the weather
gets poorer and poorer. I don’t know if it’s actually “winter” here yet, but I
hope this is as cold as it gets. As I’ve told many of you already, Kiwis do not
believe in central heating. Here we are, living in an hundred-year-old house
(renovated, of course) freezing our little tushies off every morning we get up.
Though we have space heaters in our rooms (lifesavers), I swear to you – I can see
my breath every morning while I eat breakfast in the kitchen. However, I
absolutely adore the place I live. Very comfortable and out of the city but
still close enough to be convenient. Oh yeah – and this must be the Seattle of
the Southern Hemisphere, or something. But Wellington on a nice day is
heavenly!
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| Carly, Kate, Dave and myself! |
The job! I feel like I haven’t given anyone a good
explanation…I am sorry to have kept you in the dark! I work at the Ministry of
Justice, which unfortunately is not related to the Ministry of Magic, though I
do fancy myself a wizard every now and then. Wooo for finding a government job! Haha! I work in Support
Services, which basically exists to keep the building running and the people
(around 1000 employees) happy. A few of my duties:
- - logging plumbing, electrical and general maintenance calls
- - refilling toner cartridges in the building’s printers (there are around 40 large machines)
- - ordering office supplies (some people can get really needy!)
- - setting up meeting rooms
I have to say, now that I’ve typed the list, it does sound
pretty boring. However, I really
enjoy it because I am away from my desk half the day and get to interact with people
in every department in the building, so I’m always talking! The work atmosphere
is also fairly relaxed, and I love the ladies I work with. I do have one really
cool task – taking a few mailbags over to Parliament twice a day. For those of
you who have been here or know Wellington, that means going into the Beehive!
How official is that?
On the friends front, Carly and I are still fighting the
good fight. We hang out regularly (can anyone say weekly dinner/movie night?)
with our good friend, fellow American, traveler and overall awesome person:
Kate Schnippering. We met in Dunedin, where we thought we’d end up living, and
managed to stay in contact. She has been living in Wellington for the last
month or so but alas, she is headed to either New York or Southeast Asia in a
few weeks time. We are hoping that she returns, though! Also, we were fortunate
to meet Dave Pearce, the embodiment of dry British humor, during our time in Kaikoura
when we were rain/clouded into our hostel for two days. It has been excellent
keeping in touch with him, too! Carly and I have both made great Kiwi friends
as well, and we are trying to develop those relationships as much as possible
before we head back home. It’s going well!
Finally, I will post a bit about our recent outing to the Pinnacles
in the Putangirua Scenic Reserve. Carly, Kate, Dave and I borrowed a car and
drove the 1.5 hours out of the city to the reserve on the Palliser coast. Our
intent was to travel the Dimholt Road, aka the “Paths of the Dead,” that you
see in the third LOTR movie. It’s not the little gap that looks all scary and
everything, but it’s the part after that, just before Aragorn, Legolas and
Gimli go in the hole in the mountain. It was very beautiful, just like the
movie, and there were no tourists! A win on all fronts. It’s a bit unfortunate
sometimes – I have visited a few of the filming locations and they look nothing
like the movie, which is understandable, but in this case it could not have
been closer to the film!
We wandered a bit, ate a great packed lunch, and headed out
to Cape Palliser to check out the seal colony: stinky creatures! We managed to
(inadvertently…promise!) scare a few smaller ones out of a bush and watched
them furlumph their way back towards the water…classic! Otherwise we
encountered some dead possums hanging over a fence and then a present of deer
pelts and heads left along the side of the road by some prankster hunters…sorry
for those of you who are squeamish.
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| Deer head... |
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| ...and pelts. |
A very lovely day, indeed!
Tomorrow we are going to check out Brave, the new Pixar movie! Other than that,
Carly and I are ruminating about our travels in November/December. We may or
may not hit up SE Asia, but are definitely going to finish our tour of New
Zealand and make it to Australia for friends and fun! Until next time, folks!
(We promise to be more diligent about this blog…)
