The week the Hobbits came to town

My love for all things Lord of the Rings (well...the movies, anyway) is what first brought me to NZ way back in 2004, so it's fair to say that those movies changed my life. 

So you can imagine how chuffed I was to find myself, by pure cooincidence, staying in the same village where filming for The Hobbit was going on.

For the past five days I've been a giddy little girl, unashamedly asking people to take my photo with them and chatting up whomever I can, so long as they're somehow linked to the movie.

At first, I only encoutered crew members (drivers, caterers, etc.), all of whom received these hoodies a few days prior:

That dude in the background owns this hoodie.  He goodnaturedly offered to let me wear it for a photo. 

I'm such a geek.

 A few days later, I came across some of the lesser-known actors such as Richard Armitage, Graham McTavish, and Stephen Hunter.

But, finally, on Monday this happened:



Martin Freeman! He plays Bilbo.  You might also know him from The Office, Hitchhiker`s Guide to the Galaxy and Love Actually.
(Stupid blogging site!  Why have you made vertical pictures unusable?)



And the main event:



Yup.  That's me with Sir Ian Freaking McKellan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gandalf/Magneto himself.
He was lovely.  Friendly, funny, gracious and all round awesome.  Defnitely not the diva he has every right to be.

How amazing is that????? I was shaking when I first talked to him, but he was obviously used to it and took it all in stride.  I'm sure I came off as a ditzy chick. Oh well. 

Sadly, they've wrapped up their filming here, and they've left me bereft. 

Published in NZ!

As you may know, I have a degree in journalism and spent quite a few years working as a writer/communicator.  The last year and half, however, basically the only writing I've done has been for this blog. 

I've been wanting to get back into writing, so a few weeks ago I wrote an article for the local newspaper, The Wanaka Sun.

I had met Ellen Delis by chance back in August while I was hitchhiking up to Treble Cone (tons of people do it here).  She kindly offered me a ride and during the half-hour trip up to the mountain, she told me about the trip she and her husband Andy are going to take this coming May. I thought it was really interesting, and decided to contact the Sun about it.

The results are below:

Kiwis may not fly, but a Wanaka couple is proving that they sure can ride.

This coming May, Andi and Ellen Delis will pack a few belongings, strap on helmets and embark on the journey of a lifetime. 

Over the course of 18 months, the pair will ride motorcycles from Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego region. The journey will bring them through more than 25,000 km, three continents, some 15 countries, and countless adventures. 

“There will be some character-building moments,” says Ellen.  “Definitely.”

A long-haul trip has long been an ambition of motorcycle enthusiast Andi’s – he’s the president of the Wanaka Motorcycle Club – but as Ellen was a reluctant rider, it seemed unlikely he’d get to live his dream.

That all changed a few months ago when, to Andi’s great surprise, Ellen decided to get her full motorcycle licence.  Her test is scheduled for November 1^st.

“What was my dream has now become our dream,” says Andi.

To help offset costs, they’ll camp most of the way, and Beijing-born Ellen has been in contact with Chinese-language magazines about writing of their adventures.

They’ve also secured sponsorship from companies including Sargent Seats and Icebreaker, and hope to attract more leading up to their trip.

Their exploits and preparation are being documented on their blog at www.twomotokiwis.com, and they will continue to update it during their travels.

“We’ve never had a blog before.  We started and it’s really quite fun,” says Ellen. “We’re meeting new people. It’s opening a whole new world for us.  It’s already fantastic, and we haven’t even started [travelling] yet.”

As with any travels, there are some concerns, but not the ones you’d expect.

“To be honest, I’m afraid I won’t want to come home,” says Andi, with a laugh.

http://www.issuu.com/thewanakasun/docs/wanaka_sun_527 (go to page 5)

Follow Ellen and And's adventures at http://www.twomotokiwis.com/

What to bring on a two-week trip to New Zealand in the spring (mom and Chris, this is for you!)

So you're coming to New Zealand in October!  Great choice of destination.  It's fantastic here this time of year (well, any time of year, really).  But what to pack? 
Well, it's going to be pretty warm, but likely rainy, so that's something to take into consideration.  I guess it also depends on how you're getting around.  For the sake of argument (and the fact that this is mainly directed at mom and uncle Chris) let's say you'll be travelling by car, so weight of your bag is not an issue.
Beyond the obvious (undies, socks, shirts, tooth brush) which I assume you can figure out for yourselves, here are some of my recommendations of items to bring.

• Rain is always a possibility in New Zealand, especially on the West Coast.  Bring a rain jacket.  I wouldn't bother with an embrella -- they're heavy and the wind that often accompanies said rain just destroys them (I speak from experience)
• It'll be fairly warm during the day (mid- to high-teens), so you'll likely want some summery clothes: capris, shorts, skirts, that kind of thing. 
• At night it tends to cool down, even in summer (much of the heat here is due to direct sunlight -- when the sun goes, so does the heat). So be sure to also pack long pants, at least one sweater and/or a light jacket.
• About that sun -- it's no triffling thing here.  The hole in the ozone layer is pretty much directly overhead and it's extremely easy to burn here.  You'll want sunscreen and a hat with a brim (and I'd bring the sunscreen rather than buying it here -- it costs an arm and a leg compared to in Canada).
• With all the stunning scenery you'll be enjoying,  a camera is definitely a must.
• For you bird watchers, binoculars might be appreaciated.
• Comfortable shoes are always a good idea no matter where you are, especially somewhere with such amazing walking tracks.
• If you're bringing electronics, obviously you'll want to have a converter for the plugs.  The outlets here look like this:

Yet another attempt at sliding down a hill

I have completed the alpine trifecta today by trying telemark skiing for the first time. 

Don't know what telemark is?  I'm not surprised.  It's hardly mainstream. 

If you're old enough to remember the Lillehammer Olympics back in 1994, you would have seen skiers telemark down a hill as part of the opening ceremonies. That's when I first saw it.

Basically, telemark skis look like a hybrid of downhill and cross country skis -- The base is the same, but the bindings don't attach in the back, so your heel lifts up as on a cross country ski.  To turn, you bend the knee of the leg in the direction you wish to go and do a bit of a lunge.

Here's a video!

I actually went to dinner last night and the Biff guy from this video was there.  Too funny

Working on the ski hill I've seen a few telemarkers in person, but had never planned on trying it. 

Anyway, Dave has a bunch of extra telemark skis and boots for some strange reason, and with not much to do today, he basically forced me to try.  It was fun, but I wasn't really doing it properly.  Oh well. At least I tried.

Farewell to an awesome dog

Anyone who’s ever owned a pet knows the pure happiness and simple joy an animal who to call your own brings. 

Despite the smelliness of their fur and their breath and their digestive system, despite the pain-in-the-ass walks in the rain and poop-and-scooping, despite the cost and the hassle of having them around, you love them.

Unfortunately, almost everyone who’s owned a pet also knows the pain and heartache of losing them.

Let me tell you about an awesome dog named Chevy that left us far too early.

Chevy was a big, friendly husky with those big, expressive husky-blue eyes, the gentlest of personalities, and a dopey look about him thanks to some floppy ears that aren’t typical of his breed (an ear infection somehow damaged them when he was young).

Droopy ears on an awesome dog.

Chevy’s exact origins are somewhat unclear to me.  All I know is that he came into my life a few years ago courtesy of my stepfather, Roger who acquired him when he bought a house (when he wasn’t yet my stepfather, but already an unofficial member of the Robitaille clan) off a couple moving overseas. 

I understand that poor Chevy was tied up much of the time in his early years, pre-us, which is devastating for a dog, especially a husky who’s wired to run, run, run! For the love of all things good and holy RUN!

Even sadder is that one day while he was tied up, another dog came and attacked him, and he was unable to run away.  That encounter left him with some big scars – some visible, some not.  He was often nervous around other dogs.

When Roger moved into a pet-unfriendly condo a few years later, my brother Paul was quick to offer to take Chevy in as a boarder at my mom’s place (she, not much of an animal person, eventually agreed).

How could she turn this face away?

We’re so glad he did. 

Chevy quickly became an integral part of the family, and it’s safe to say he loved being at our place as much as we loved having him there.  He was happiest when he was around people (especially people with treats) and there were often a lot of people at our house to be around.  We rarely had to tie him up – he wasn’t one to run away.  He just loved hanging around our place. 

See? That's one happy puppy.

In the summer all that husky fur made for an uncomfortable and slow-moving dog.  His usual hot, summer day would consist of sleeping in the driveway in one spot for an hour or so at a time, getting up, moving about three metres, then flopping back down again for another hour’s snooze. My brother Johnny once joked that we should set up a bingo-style grid and place bets on where he’d flop next. 

Last summer when Johnny and I were staying at my mom’s, we woke up one morning to find a few porcupine quills stuck in Chevy’s nose.  I’m convinced that he didn’t try to attack the other animal, he just saw a prickly shape moving around and thought “yay! Someone to play with!  Hello friend! What do you smell like?” 

Ouch.  A costly (but worthwhile) trip to the vet later, we had a de-quilled and be-drugged Chevy on our hands.  It was so cute and sad to see him looking so dopey and bewildered and oh-so-sleepy.  He fell asleep in the vet’s office with his head on my foot, his drool soaking my shoe.  Awwwww. Chevy.

Doped-up Chevy.  See hoe his upper lip is caught on his paw?  Priceless.  After a few hours in this position I had to physically roll him over by grabbing his feet.  He had bits of gravel stuck to his lip. Poor pathetic Chevy. 

While the Robitaille’s loved Chevy tons, there’s one person who I think loved him most of all: my uncle Chris.

I can’t prove it, but I’m fairly certain that Chris’ visits to mom’s house increased exponentially once Chevy was around. 



Look at the love.

For Christmas last year I bought Chris a set of those glass coasters you slide a photo into to personalize them and set a photo of Chevy in each one.  He allegedly keeps a photo of Chevy on his fridge too.

I haven’t seen Chevy since I left Canada in January, but every time I talked to anyone at home via Skype, I’d be sure to ask to see the dog.  Except last time. I was so caught up in my own stupid dramas and stresses that I forgot to say hi to him – and do I ever regret it.

A few weeks ago I got an email from my mom with the title “A very lucky dog”.  She went on to explain that Chevy had very uncharacteristically wandered onto the road in front of our house where there’s an unfortunate blind spot, and was struck by a car.  They’d taken him to the vet with a bloody nose, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him, so he was sent home with a few pain killers.  We all breathed a sigh of relief.

Yesterday though, I got another email.  This one was simply titled “Chevy” and it contained much worse news.  It seems that he hadn’t been himself since the accident. “Like a zombie, a body without a spirit”, as mom put it, and eventually, he couldn’t even stand up.  They had to put him down.

It’s been devastating.  I’ve been crying buckets and I understand that most of the family has been doing the same.  I’ve lost dogs before, but I think it’s harder for me cause I’m so far away, and when I left him he was so happy and healthy and now I’ll never see him again.

Bye buddy.  I miss you so much.

I miss your big bark and your happy growls.

I miss your prancy "foods-a-comin'!" dance.

I miss your insatiable hunger for treats.

I miss your canine smile and your barky greeting.

I miss your late night howling at cows and your all-day naps.

I miss your doggy stench and your doggy breath

I miss you.

If you’ve got a dog around, give ‘em a big hug and a pat and a cuddle and treat for me.  You never know when it’ll be their last.

Treats

Chevy's other biggest fan, Johnny.

One of the last times I pet him : (

Things I'll miss about New Zealand, Volume 4

17- Walking around barefoot: especially now that the weather is warming up and people are starting to do it around town.
18- Slices: One thing kiwis don't eat much (at least not as much as we Tim Horton's-dependant Canadians) is donuts.  They prefer their baked goods sans hole and pressed into a pan in the form of slices.  Basically, these generally consist of a biscuit base with either one or two layers of sugary topping.  In North America, I guess these would be our "squares" or "bars".  It's not that they're revolutionary over here, it's just that they're ubiquitous. Enter any bakery, café, or even petrol station and you'll find a slice or five just waiting to be eaten. I've even forayed into slice-making myself, trying my hand at (and succeeding quite well, I must say) making a nice ginger slice and an even better chocolate caramel one.  My next venture is likely to be a mocha concoction.  Stay tuned.

19-The flowery trees: Again, with spring here, it's especially difficult to think of leaving.  The buds are out, the willows down at the waterfront are already "en feuille" as we say in French, and a remarkable amount of trees are in bloom.  I remember being impressed in 2009 when I arrived to see how many trees here boast flowers.  I'm still impressed today.

Here's one now!

20-The rugby: rugby is awesome.  Canada should watch and play more of it.  It's as exciting and even more physical than hockey, and the dudes are tough.  And hot.  Here, rugby is undeniably, and rightly, king.

Snowboarding and other random pictures

I am happy to report that after being employed at a ski field for the better part of three months, dating a ski instructor for the same amount of time, and taking two lessons, I have reached one of my goals for the year.  I can finally say I'm comfortable skiing down some of the blue runs at Treble Cone (which would be considered black runs anywhere else. That mountain be STEEP).


Woohoo!


And, as of Tuesday, I acheived another goal -- I tried snowboarding.


Dave very kindly took time out of his work day up at the Cardrona ski resort where he works to show me how to board.  We went there cause it's a much easier mountain on which to learn anything thanks to its mercifully flat beginners' area and actual green runs (as mentioned above blue runs at Treble Cone = black elsewhere.  Same goes for the green run.  Green at TC = blue anywhere else).


It was a lot of fun, despite the multiple painful and embarassing spills and the inevitable mocking from my oh-so-helpful instructor (anyone who's ever tried to learn a new skill or teach a new skill to a romantic partner knows what I'm talking about). By late afternoon I managed to make it down the oh-so-flat slope once or twice without falling!  Go me!  Dave had to (begrudgingly) admit that I "turned out to be pretty average" after all.  Yay!  Mediocrity!


Though I am devastatingly without a camera at the moment, luckily Dave has one and has been very generous about my borowing it.  So, I have pictures!


Heading up the "magic carpet" (basically like an escalator in the snow).

After one of my many spills.



Still smiling though.  I'm a trouper.

We have motion! Look up Nadine.  Look up! 


I'm planning on taking another lesson on Monday or Tuesday up at Treble Cone, so hopefully I'll be able to actually make it down a run or two by then. 


In the meantime, I'm nursing sore muscles, limping, and groaning like an old lady.


Let's see, what else has been going on lately?


Dave and I went down to Invercargill again last week to watch a Rugby World Cup game between Scotland and Georgia.  It was fun, though expensive and the game itself was rather a snoozefest since not a single try (goal) was scored.  All the points were made thanks to penalty kicks.  Yawn.


Here are some photos.




Some sheep bedecked in the flags of the four nations that played games down in Invercargill.

A dude in a jaunty Scotish cap watches as the national anthems are sung before the match.

Heineken is sponsoring the RWC, so they're the only beer you can buy on the spot.  They come in these awful four packs, with environmentally unfriendly rings from which the beer is hard to extract (especially since they open the cans before selling them to you).  We ended up spending $72 on beer between the two of us.  That's for 12 beers.  Damn it.  As a result, I don't remember much of the second half of the match.

Unflattering shot of moi during the match.  Notice the be-mulleted man to my left (your right)?  He made a point of giving the finger to the TV camera every time it was pointed in his general direction.  Classy.  Also, it was raining, thus the hood.

Have I mentioned that Dave is also a volunteer fireman?  Pretty sweet eh?  Well two Saturdays ago there was an event to hand out plaques and stripes and pins and medals and such to various members of the Wanaka, Luggate and Hawea (three regions near here) fire brigade to recognize their years of service, and I got to go as Dave's date.


Not going to lie, the night was interminibly long what with the pomp and circumstance and the speaches and the awkward conversations.  It was like being at a high school graduation and a wedding where you know nobody all rolled into one.  On the plus side, I got to dress up and go somewhere with a man in uniform (awwwwww yeah!) and there was an open bar.  And you know I availed myself of that.




Me in a dress for the first time in months, and Dave in his fancy fireman suit for the first time ever.




Dave and some fellow brigaderes (not sure if that's a word, but I like it anyway) line up for some official welcome thing.  He's the fourth from the left.

 And I've had a few fun nights out with people from work.  Often I don't have a camera with me, but this particular night I did.


Me and the blondies: Jade, Jenny and Amber at Amber's house.



Amber and I looking as happy as we were (notice the glass).

 And Dave and I went to the old mining town of Arrowtown one day last week too.  He used to work at one of the resorts there and brought me on a little tour. It was quaint.



Me near the waterfall beside the Millbrook Resort.



Very likely the highlight of the week -- This is around where they filmed the Ford of Bruinen scenes in Fellowship of the Ring.  You know, the scene with the horses and the river.  I annoyed Dave with quotes from the movie for a good ten minutes after this ("Give us the halfling She Elf!"  "If you want him, come and claim him!").  Ahhhhh. Now that I look at it though, I think I should have gone another few hundred metres upriver.  Oh well.  Close enough.

And of course, in my jobless state, I've been spending a lot of time with a furry and barky creature.  He's taken to following me around wherever I go during the day on the off-chance that I might bring him for a walk (I do take him out once or twice a day).  Poor Scruff.




Scruffle Ruffle!  Happy to be out on a walk.



Speaking of Scruff, I really should bring him out.  He's been ever so patient all morning. Toodleloo!

Update

I have my new passport.  It arrived last Tuesday at 8:30 in the morning, and as soon as the courier left, I burst into tears -- I really don't want to go.  Though it was a pain in the ass being in limbo, at least not having that passport gave me carte blanche to ignore the fact that I have to leave soon.

But having that passport in hand does not mean that my bureaucratic woes are done.  Oh no!  I still have the visa situation to deal with.

If you recall, I had to undergo a rather intensive and invasive and expensive medical in order to apply for the visitors' visa. I was told the results would take about four or five days to come back from the lab.  However, when I called on the morning of the fifth day, I was told it was in fact a two-week turnaround.  This was the 14th; my working holiday visa expired on the 15th, and I received the passport on the 13th. Things were tight. 

Luckily, when I presented myself to the Immigration NZ office they were sympathetic (good ol' kiwis!) and granted me an interim visa on the spot, so I'm not illegal.  Once I get the results from the medical I'll send them in and should be granted a visitor's visa whihc will allow me to stay for another month and a bit.

Originally, I was meant to leave tomorrow, but I've managed to change my ticket to the 1st of November cause I'm having visitors!!!  My mom and uncle are coming to NZ in mid-October for two weeks.  So exciting!

So at the moment I'm squatting at Dave's and trying not to spend too much money, trying to sell my car, hoping to get some volunteering in at one of the local papers and baking and cleaning for my keep.  Also went skiing a few times (I'm actually getting better!) and been watching a lot of rugby.

A pox on bureaucracy!

My passport woes continue.

So here's the latest: As I'm sure you've deduced, I still don't have a bloody passport.  I gave the fiendishly unhelpful Canadian High Commission a call on Tuesday and they were characteristically unaccommodating.

Basically I was told that I shouldn't expect a replacement passport for at least another two weeks, and that I shouldn't bother them before then.  And when I stressed that I'm running the risk of being here illegally, they didn't seem to care.  I asked if they could send me an email to prove that I have lodged an application at which time they transferred me to an unmanned line and I had to leave a message with my request.  They never responded or replied. 

Sigh.

Immigration New Zealand, however, has been fantastic.  When I called them to see what my options are, the agent on the line appologized for my situation (I guess she felt bad that such a thing would happen in her country), and went out of her way to find out what could be done for me. 

Well, I have to apply for a visitors' visa, which, one would assume, is a simple process -- not so, it appears. If I had a passport, I could simply hop on a flight to Australia and return here a few days later and immediately be issued a three-month visitors' visa on arrival.  However, if you're applying for one while in the country, it's a monumental pain in the tush. 

I have a 19-page form to fill out and had to undergo a full medical including vision test, cholesterol test, HIV test and chest X-ray at the cost of a whopping $425.  Oh, and I need to submit not one, not two but five passport-sized photos, which, on top of the two sets I had to take for the actual passport (the first batch failed), I've had to have four sessions of passport photos taken.  Hell. Then there's the actual cost of the visa which will be another hundred and fifty I believe.

I underwent the medical on Wednesday, and they have to send all the samples to Dunedin (a city three hours from here), and they may not have the results of said medical before next Wednesday, which is the last day I can get the application in before I'm officially here illegally.  I'm so screwed.

Long story short: I'm broke and getting robbed sucks.

:(

And two things I WON"T miss about New Zealand

Snot rockets.  If you don't know what they are, let me be the unfortunate soul to explain.  Snot rockets are what people who neglect to carry tissues (or Kleenex, as we would say back home) resort to to clear their nasal passages.  They block one nostril with a finger, and exhale forcefully to ejaculate a mucusy globule of nastiness into theit surroundings.  Charming.  I don't know if it's a NZ-wide phenomenon, but it's de rigeur here in Wanaka.  Gross.

The ridiculous set up of many, if not most sinks.  Observe:

What the hell is that?  I mean, really?  You have one tap that produes an icy stream, and the other that gives you a scalding one.  And they're located on opposite ends of the bloody sink, so if you want to wash your hands or face, you have to either freeze or burn, or do this frantic back and forth motion in an attempt to get warm water.  It's maddening.  And nonesensical.  And bizarre.  Gah!

Things I'll miss about New Zealand, Volume 3

14- The public washrooms.  I spoke of them briefly in that same post that mentionned L&P (Lemon and Paeroa).  The "toilets", as they're refered to here, are plentiful, mostly impecably clean, roomy and often really quite modern with fancy door locking systems, automated soap dispensers, hand dryers and even sometimes tunes to make your visit even more enjoyable -- and to be clear, I'm not talking about toilets in malls or public buildings.  I mean the toilets in parks, at the side of the road, next to a lake: those public toilets.  Amazing.
15- The dogs: Don't get me wrong, there are some Canadian dogs that I sorely miss (Holla to Chevy and George!), but generally speaking, Kiwi dogs are the bomb compared to North American ones.  The dogs here are just so awesome. They're well behaved (generally, of course, there are obviously exceptions).  They're playful, yet obedient.  They often don't need leashes; the first time I took Dave's roomate's dog, Scruff for a walk on my own, he listened to me straight away.  I confidently take him into town sans leash and even leave him outside some stores untied if I'm not in for long.  Awwwww...Scruff.  I think I'll miss him most of all.

Scruffaluffagus.



I once asked Dave why the dogs here are so well behaved, and his response was "the ones that don't do as they're told, get shot".  It sounds harsh, but in a country that is rather dependant on farming, and where so many native birds can't fly, it's kind of a necessary practice.
16- Keas: I know I already mentionned birds, but keas deserve their own bullet point.  They're like winged monkeys.  I'll borrow from what I posted another time: "Keas are one of NZ's mountain parrots.  These guys are not shy and are super smart and curious.  They've been known to steal people's boots and bags and anything they can get their talons or beaks on.  There are even some that have learned how to open and close doors by watching people do it, and have locked trampers inside huts and outhouses for kicks. Cheeky buggers."  There are a few of them that were hanging around Treble Cone all season and they were a hoot to watch. One of my coworkers actually saw one jump into an open truck and steal a family's picnic lunch piece by piece while the owner was busy talking to someone else. 

Things I'll miss about New Zealand, Volume Two

9-The lack of added tax: The price you see on the price tag is the price you pay at the counter. None of that "fourteen percent tacked on afterwards" B.S., they sensibly include the tax into the price of the item.  I know I'm goingto be ridiculously annoyed with sales tax for the first little while I'm at home.
10-The lack of pennies: The smallest cash denomination here is the ten-cent coin.  If your total comes up to $12.33, the price you pay in cash will be rounded down to $12.30.  If it's $12.37, it'll be rounded up to $12.40. It's so much more pleasant than having to count out pennies at the cash.
11-Lemon and Paeroa: I briefly talked about the delicious Kiwi drink Lemon and Paeroa in a post back in Feb.  Unfortunately for the non-kiwi world, it's only available here. Not sure why they haven't started exporting it (especially since it's owned by Coke or Pepsi now).
12-The views: I know that there are other places in the world that are equally or even more beautiful than here, but NZ seems to be beautiful from tip to tail.
13-The tramps (a.k.a. hikes): There are marked (and some not-so-marked) walks all over the place here.  Even within cities, it's possible to find a route that will take you to some stunning vistas, natural delights and green as spots. In the rural areas, there is generally a few well-known day walks and at least one multi-day walk scattered around within a half-hour's drive of an y given point.

Things I'll miss about New Zealand, Volume One

1- The birds.  They're so plentiful and musical here.
2- The pies: Savoury pies are a staple of kiwi takeaways.  Every diner, dairy (convenience store), and petrol station (gas station) sells pies as a quick and easy meal or snack. 
3- The coffee: It's super expensive here, but it's worth it. No watered-down drip stuff here.  It's all flat whites, long blacks, mochas and machiatos. Delish.
4- The expressions and the different ways they say things: "fair enough," "Sweet as" "petrol" "wind screen", "rubbish", "mince" (ground beef).
5- The rugby: The World Cup kicks off this Friday and the country is stoked. The Canadian Team has landed and got a cool kiwi reception at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds (where the country as we know it was officially founded) complete with a trip in a waka (big Maori "canoe") and a warriors' greeting.  Damn, I wish I could stick around for the whole tournament.  Go All Blacks!

6- The jingles: It's incredible how catchy ditties can permeate your conciousness without your realizing it.

• "The Warehouse, The Warehouse, where everyone gets a bargain."
• "Briscoes: you'll never buy better"
• "Smith City makes it easy!"
• "Go Harvey Normans, GO!"
• And so on...

7- The "can do" attitude: Kiwis are such practical folk.  They know how to make things, fix things and do it happily.
8- The weather: Even in the middle of winter in the deep South (where it's colder, remember), it's not uncommon for people to walk around in shorts (to be fair, they might just be made from tougher stuff than me, cause I was still wearing my ski jacket around town yesterday.)

Premature nostalgia about New Zealand

I'm headed home soon.  In the coming days I'm going to try and post about things I'm going to miss about New Zealand, and, in an attempt to make myself feet better, some things I won't miss.

Bits and pieces: recovered stolen property, unemployment and possible deportation!

• The Wanaka police called me at 9:40 tonight (Saturday) to inform me that my hard drive and the remnants of my passport and interenational drivers' license have been found in some bushes near my house.  Apparently the passport has been ripped up, which makes these robbers (generally an unpleasant breed of people to begin with) extra douchy.  Gah
• Today was my last day at Treble Cone (TC).  I won't miss many aspects of the job, but I will miss that amazing view and the great people on my team.  I'm mad at myself for not skiing or snowboarding more when I had the chance. 
• I haven't sold my car yet.  I need to sell my car.
• My Visa expires on the 15th.  I still don`t have a replacement passport.  Don't know what to do.  Will call the High Commission and Immigration NZ to find out what to do and when to start panicking (Ha! Start!  How many of you actually believe that I haven't been panicking for weeks already?)
• I didn't get that job at Wanaka Wastebusters.  It would have been fantastic -- interesting, challenging, in an area I love doing work towards something I believe in, and the people seemed really cool.  They told me that they thought I'd have been "a great addition to the team" but that there was a local woman with similar credentials who applied,and as a result, they couldn't have argued my case with immigration to help me get a work visa (you have to prove that there are no qualified kiwis who applied before you can sponsor a foreigner, apparently).  They seemed really appologetic and even said that if I was applying for other jobs and if I wanted to put them down as a sort of reference, I could (not sure how that would have worked, but nice nonetheless).  Needless to say, I'm pretty gutted.  I would have loved to have worked there and had the opportunity to stay here another year.

So I imagine many of you are thinking "now what?" Well, let me tell you, so am I.  Tomorrow being Sunday, there's not much I can do about the "official" things that need dealing with, so I'm going skiing and using my season's pass while I still can.  I'm also going to hopefully meet with someone who might be keen on buying my car (oh please let her buy my car!).  If I do manage to sell it, I'll have some much-needed cash that could help me, you know, get home.  Sigh.

I won't bore you with any more details until I really have some to give. Plus I'm tired, and fighting a head ache, so I'll say ta ta for now.

Oh, one last thing.  It's Fathers' Day here in NZ tomorrow, so Happy Fathers' Day to all you dads who might be reading this.  Consider it a bonus day.

Crouch. Touch. Pause. Engage! * (Rugby and other stuff in Invercargill)

Can you believe I've been here eleven and a half months?  Unbelievable.  What's even more unbelievable, is that during those eleven and a half months I had never seen a rugby match. 


How un-kiwi of me.


You see, rugby is to New Zealanders what hockey is to Canadians; it's basically a religion, and I am a bit of a convert. 


I've never understood why soccer is such a big deal in most of the world.  I think The Simpsons summed my feelings up rather well: "High kicking! Low Scoring!  And ties? You betcha!!" Not to mention the ridiculous fake dives some of the players take to try and get penalties awarded to the other team (tossers).


And North American football?  Gag me.


Now rugby, on the other hand...wow.  These guys are as hard as nails.  They head out there with nothing but a cup, a pair of (tight!) shorts and a (tight!) t-shirt to protect their gorgeous manliness (you really must check out their thighs.  And torsos. They're a sight to behold. Here, let me help. And again! and since I'm so generous, another! And if you're inclined towards the lads, I strongly suggest you google "hot men rugby" Yowsa!) Phew! Where was I?  Ah yes.  So these scantilly clad, well-shaped men get knocked around, pulled to the ground, tackled mercilessly, and jumped on.  If one of them gets hurt, more often than not, he'll wipe away the blood, pop his broken nose back into place, and head straight back out onto the field.  Hard. As. Nails.


I won't pretend I understand all the nitty gritty details of the game, but essentially the goal is to get the ball over the line at your end of the field and touch it to the ground (so you can't just carry it over, or fall over onto your back holding the ball, the ball has to make firm and direct contact with the earth) to score 5 points (they call that a "try").  To get it there, players can pass the ball to each other, but only to players behind them.  They can kick the ball forward, but I think there's some rule about when you can or can't kick it (offside rule, I presume). You can also get 3 points through penalty kicks and simply kicking the ball through the goal posts (that kind of look like the ones used in N.A. football).


So all that to say, I like rugby, and up until last week, I had yet to see a match.  When Dave suggested we head on down to Invercargill, NZ's Southernmost city, to catch a Ranfurlly Shield match between the Southland Stags and Taranaki, I very happily agreed.


It was really great to see.  Unfortunately for the hometown crowd (and Dave) the Stags lost the match 12-15, and not a single try was scored all match. So not the most exciting game in terms of runs or action, but still fantastic.  There are some pictures on Dave's camera, but I don't have it with me, so you'll have to go without for now.  I'll try and post them in the coming days!




*For the uninitiated, those first four words of the title of this post are how a rugby scrum gets going. 


The players huddle together in an organized mass, facing the oposing team.  The ref tells them to "Crouch", they do so.  He tells them to "touch", which basically means the guys on the outer sides of the front line jab the oposing player in the arm (apparently, this is to prove that the players are in fact supporting their own body weight and not leaning on the others...not sure how it does though.)


Then there's the very brief "Pause" portion of the scrum which, again, serves to prove the players aren't leaning forward too much.  Finally, we get the all important "Engage!" where the players surge forward with a big, meaty, muscly, grunty crunch into the players in front of them.  Somehow, a ball gets thrown into the middle of this mess and comes out on one of the two sides, thus determining who has posession of it.


Wow.  Explaining that (and likely explaining it wrong) took about ten times as long as the actual process.

Snowed in and robbed

Today, the country ground to a halt. 

Schools were closed.  Roads made impassable. Even a local ski field stayed shut. 

The reason: Snow.  Now, for a Canadian, the paltry amount on the ground was laughably small.  In Wanaka, for instance, we had a dusting of barely two cm coating the grass.  Nonetheless, it crippled most of the country.

I would post a picture here, but I can't.  As you may have read on Facebook, my cameras are now no longer in my posession thanks to some petty thief (or thieves) that decided to pay my apartment a visit the other night.

It is partly my fault. After having locked myself out of the house once, and learning that many people around time leave their doors unlocked cause it's such a safe town, I had grown complacent about securing the door. Evidently, Friday evening was one of the unfortunate times I neglected to turn the key on my way out, and some douchenozzle(s) benefitted from my negligence.

Along with my cameras, the stellar human being(s) also took my external hard drive, my e-reader, i-pod, a DVD collection (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5), some cash, (ironically) a bible, and, most devastatingly, my passport.

Ugh.

I'm hopeful that my travel insurance will cover at least some of the taken items, and there's not much I can do now after the fact. It was an expensive lesson that, despite living in a small, safe town where many people don't lock their doors, I should do so nonetheless.  So now, with only a short month to go I have to sort out my documents.  It's especially annoying since without a passport, I can't book any flights, and therefore can't really plan my life. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Nay, invited.

Working in Wanaka

Treble Cone has been open and operational for nearly three weeks now, though it feels like I’ve been working there much longer.  Well, I guess technically I have been under TC’s employment for nearly two months, but have only really been actually employed (as in used…and paid) since mid-July.

So what do my days look like?  Well, for one thing they start off pretty dark.

I wake up at 6:30 or so and walk in the dark to the meeting spot about 400m down the road from my place.  At about 7:05, a convoy of vans of the mini and mega variety pull up and I and the other staffers living in the area pile in.  We finish off “the loop” of pick up points, then make our way along the side of Lake Wanaka to the base of the mountain some 15 minutes away. From there, it’s another 7 km of zig-zagging narrow dirt road with dizzying drops on one side up to the TC base building.

I’m not going to lie; the first few times I made the climb I was frankly terrified.  It’s amazing what can become everyday and commonplace after a while.

This view, however, has not become either of those things:

It goes a long way to helping wake me up when I stumble out of the warm van into the cold, mountain winter air at 7:45.  You see, in town, the temperature usually sits in the high-single digits and even sometimes the low double-digits.  On the mountain however, where the base building sits at some 1200 metres above sea level, it’s considerably colder.

It’s not so bad on the days I work inside selling lift passes, lessons and rental gear – there I’m warm and protected from the elements. On the days I’m outside working the gates however, it’s less pleasant. For eight hours I stand in the cold armed with an iPad to make sure punters are making their way through our automatic gate OK, and to do crowd control.  It’s rather mind- and toe-numbing.  I’ve actually developed chilblains thanks to those shifts.  For the (lucky) uninitiated, chilblains are basically itchy, swollen, painful toe ulcers.  Yum!

At least on those days, I’m guaranteed a decent shift.  On ticketing days I often finish up at one or two in the afternoon, which usually means waiting around a few hours for staff transport down the mountain or hitchhiking down with some of the customers.

Naturally, on those days I can take advantage of the big snowy mountain and my free lift pass, but given that I’ve had exactly one lesson in my life some twenty years ago (man I’m old), and that the hills I’ve skied before were of the small, docile variety, I’m reluctant.

Treble Cone, you must understand, is a great mountain for the confident, skilled skier or boarder, but a daunting one for anyone learning.  It’s big.  It’s steep. Its only “green” run is narrow with hairpin turns and big drops running alongside it.  I overheard an instructor refer to it as the “beginner’s cliffs of doom.”  Charming.

I’ve been spending most of my time on the learners’ slope with the kids and the people who have never been on snow before.  Sigh.

But I’m happy to report that, thanks to the (uncharacteristically) patient tutelage of Dave, a ski instructor I’ve been seeing, I made it down the mountain without killing myself or even crying today! Huzzah!



Base building




Staff waiting for transport at the end of the day.





Dave by the lake.



Lake Wanaka at sunset

My main man, Scruff.