Merry Christmas!

First off, we want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!! It is Christmas Day here and we are enjoying this holiday to ourselves. Our flatmates have gone away for a few days over the holidays, so we are enjoying having the place to ourselves to cook a “turkey” dinner and have a few glasses of the finest NZ wine! You would never know it was even December here, there are no decorations, no lights and barely any mention of Christmas. It is quite weird for us, considering how Christmas is such a commercial event at home. It’s a refreshing change, although we could have used a Christmas carol or two to put us in the cheer. Speaking of Christmas music, we just found a music channel on TV that was playing “Christmas Number 1’s” over the last decade. It was great until it got to the year 2006 when Gwen Stefani’s “Wind it up” came on as the number one holiday song?! It left us a little confused, but we enjoyed the 2000-2005 selections nonetheless.

In terms of other happenings, we had a party at our place last weekend, which was a blast. There are four guys that live upstairs and four of us downstairs so we hosted a “Heaven and Hell” themed party…upstairs being heaven and downstairs being hell. Kiwis take themed parties very seriously, so there was no lack of elaborate costumes. I went as an angel (obviously!) and Clem went as a “she-devil”. It took some convincing, but when six o’clock rolled around and he didn’t have a costume, the idea came in handy and he was beautified in no time. With his tights, boobs, eye shadow, toenail polish and skirt, he quickly became the highlight of the party. I now have some serious material for blackmail in the case that I ever need it….You couldn’t move anywhere in the house and everyone seemed to have a great time, not to mention the Brazilian cocktails that our flatmate Marceu whipped up for us!



Clem found a job a couple of weeks ago and has been working as a labourer with a construction company in central Wellington. He works long, hard hours but is enjoying it so far. He will work until the end of January, when his parents come to NZ for a month. He can be found in a “high-vis vest” and steel toe boots doing what he does best- SWEEP! Yup, ten hours a day are spent sweeping, lifting and moving heavy objects such as dishwashers, “rubbish” removal and hooking loads onto cranes. Needless to say he is beat at the end of the day!

Meanwhile, I’ve been spending my time reading, making copious amounts of peanut butter balls for local potlucks and lazing around on the beach. I had an interesting experience at the beach the other day that I should share. We live about a ten minute walk to the closest beach. My friend Terri and I decided to go for a swim one day after she finished work. They have a raft out in the middle of the water that you can swim to and laze on for hours. So on our walk down I interrogated her on the potential sea creatures that I may visit us in these waters. As some of you know, I am not a fan of anything that moves in the ocean, including any type of seaweed. She assured me that there wouldn’t be much to be worried about and we carried on. After all, the water is aqua blue and crystal clear. So we enter the water and are about hip-deep in this clear water. It was really cold so when she encouraged us to dive in at the same time, I told her to go first and I would follow. So she dives in and jumps up to encourage me to do the same…only I was already half way to the shore squealing like a two year old girl and cursing like a sailor. When she dove in, a HUGE stingray darted out from underneath her!! She didn’t believe me, so I’d like to give you an idea of our conversation (which was more like an argument):

Julia: TERRI, GET OUT OF THE WATER, I JUST SAW A HUGE STINGRAY!!!
Terri: Julia, no it’s okay, it’s just the weeds. Don’t worry about it. C’mon.
Julia: TERRI, I WOULDN’T LIE TO YOU. I KNOW WHAT I SAW!!!!
Terri: Julia, just get back in the water. Let’s go to the platoon. It’ll be fine.
Julia: TERRI, DO YOU GUYS HAVE STINGRAYS HERE? I MEAN, I KNOW YOU HAVE THEM IN NZ, BUT DO YOU HAVE THEM HERE AT THIS BEACH? I’M NOT ^&*$# LYING, I SAW ONE!!!
Terri: NO JULIA! It’s fine. I don’t believe you, you are just paranoid.
Julia: I’M NOT %^&$# PARANOID. I SWEAR I SAW A STINGRAY. GET OUR OF THE WATER, NOW!!

Anyway, you get the point. I was freaking out and Terri wasn’t happy. We sounded like an old married couple and argued back and forth for about five minutes before the two 20-something year old guys down the beach ran out of the water squealing like little girls. I ran over to them and asked what was wrong. They went on to tell me they overheard us arguing and thought I was just being paranoid about a stingray…all because of my accent (we don’t have accents, THEY do). So, I was right all along, there was an official stingray sighting by this Canadian tourist! The Kiwi boys went on a rant about Steve Irwin, who I couldn’t have cared less about at this point! The fact was that a stingray swam right in from of me!! Terri ran out of the water and apologized as we walked down the beach a little ways to watch all of the clueless swimmers enjoy their time in the water! Little did they know….

After too much “googling” and multiple Wikipedia searches, the last stingray stinging that happened at Oriental Bay in Wellington was a young girl in 2006. The reassuring statistics have told me that one is more likely to die tripping over their living room rug than from a stingray sting….whatever!

Other than that eventful day, we have been having a blast! We are celebrating our first anniversary on Sunday and are going to go to a Thai restaurant which is also a BYO – Bring your own wine. It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by, but we were reminiscing yesterday and while 2009 has had its ups and downs, it’s certainly been a memorable one! We are anxiously awaiting Clem’s parents’ arrival when we will do some more travelling. Until then, enjoy your turkey dinners, drink too much wine and as bad as it sounds, have fun in the snow and cold this Christmas! Love to you all!

Life's a beach!

Kia Ora! We are continuing to really enjoy ourselves in Wellington. We can't say enough about the city. While we don't think we could make it "home", it is a great city for people our age at this point in our lives and definitely a good choice for a place to live for 4 months. We have been continuing to tour around Wellington and the surrounding areas, but the weather hasn't been cooperating at all and this isn't a city where there's a whole lot to do when it's pouring rain! When it is nice, we have certainly been taking advantage by going to the beach and doing outdoor activities. We have been walking a lot and Clem has started running more...he loves the hills! (Me, not so much!). We spent some more time at the Te Papa NZ National Museum, which is huge so we tend to only do one floor at a time and save it for rainy days. We also went to the city gallery to see this art exhibit that completely revolved around dots. Yes, tons and tons of dots. It was fascinating and I highly suggest you google Yayoi Kusama - Mirrored Years. She is an 80 year old Japanese artist whose work is influenced by her childhood and her mental illness. She had many episodes as a child where her world would turn into dots. A very interesting story that fascinated even us, who aren't that big into the art scene. We also planned at day trip to do a hike to see fur seals in Island Bay, called "Red Rocks" (approx 20 mins outside of Wellington). It was beautiful when we left home, but got very windy when we got off the bus. We walked an hour to get to the entrance of the hike and then ran into other travellers who advised us not to go any further. They had to turn around half way because the wind was too strong and they were being pelted by rocks! Like we've said before, they don't call it "Windy Wellington" for nothing!! The wind literally stops you dead in your tracks and you can't walk forward at all. It's quite fun some times, actually. We will plan to go back and do it again on a nicer day. Apparently when it is really clear, you can see the South Island from the rocks. We also have a hike right behind our house that takes you up to the top of Mount Victoria (the neighborhood we live in). It's only about a 20-25 minute hike up, but it's very steep and well worth it when you get to the top. The views of Wellington are amazing! We did that on Sat morning before heading to the Cricket match between NZ and Pakistan. Cricket is an interesting sport to say the least...just put it this way- the game we saw lasted for 5 days! It's not the most exhilarating to watch, but we had a really great time with all of our NZ friends.



Clem has been busy looking for work and although it sounds really crazy, he can't find anything! He has tried everything and will do anything, but the competition for the jobs is unbelievable! He dropped off many resumes, and has had some interviews but hasn't heard back. He is looking for anything in retail, cafes, bars, etc. To give you an idea, he dropped a resume off at Mitre 10 (like Canadian Tire) and the manager told him he had 75 applications for one position on the floor in the power tool department! Cafes will not hire unless you have your Barista course and many years of experience (they don't mess around with their coffee here). The working holiday visa has been a deterrent as well as you can only work with one employer for 6 months and as soon as some employers see that, they tell you they are looking for someone long term. It's not a big deal, but he would like to do something part-time to balance out our rent while we are living here.

It's quite funny, because I don't think I've read a brochure in my life and suddenly I've become obsessed. Brochure stands look like gold mines to me these days...especially if they've got coupons in them. Clem and I may run a little test to see how many time we can use a "Buy 1 get 1 Free Coffee" coupon from the Wellington Visitor's Guide. It's for Esquires Coffee and we've already used it three times. It's funny how you change when you are travelling and if we've learned anything so far (and we certainly have!), it's not to take anything for granted!



In the meantime, we are keeping busy planning for our tour of the South Island, Oz and SE Asia. We are going to be doing the South Island in the 2 weeks before we leave NZ, as we fly out of Christchurch to Australia on March 5. I really enjoy planning, but have to keep reminding myself that I can't plan too much...something I am getting used to as a traveller!

We find it hard to believe that it is almost half way through December. Christmas certainly isn't the same here. Nobody has lights up and only some people put up Christmas trees! I haven't even heard any Christmas music playing in the stores yet! It will definitely be one to remember and I know you will all hate me for saying this, but I think I like my Christmases in the snow! (I know, I know, it was -38 with the windchill today in Edmonton- I've had a few emails!!). We plan to cook our own little turkey dinner on Christmas Eve, so looking forward to that as well as our 1st anniversary on the 27th :)

Ok, I think I've rambled on about enough randomness now, so we hope all is well with everyone where ever you all are! We will post again before Christmas. Until then..get your shopping done!