On the road again...

Not much to report over these past few weeks. Clem has hung up his steel toes and high-vis vest in exchange for swimming trunks and flip flops! He finished work on Friday so now we are gearing up to take off on our travels again. We’ve been cruising around trying to catch the sun whenever we can…hasn’t been easy. The weather here has been rather poor. It was rainy, windy and cold for almost three weeks straight. It even got to the point on one day that people were wearing their down-filled winter jackets, hats, and mitts! Ole’ “purps” (my purple hoodie that has saved my life on numerous occasions) was resurrected from the closet for a few days there; I’m hoping to retire her soon though. “Chez Barber Julez” has been hopping with business, with the addition of a second client and one repeat customer (he usually requires my services about every 3-4 weeks). I’m starting to get into the sideburn and facial hair specialties, which I hope will attract local gents. I’ll keep you all posted on the success of the business over the course of our travels.

Today has been a really exciting day for us as Clement’s parents arrived from Charlottetown, PE this morning! It was so nice to see familiar faces walking down the stairs at the airport and of course, to have them here in NZ with us for our last month in this beautiful country! We are going to spend the next two days showing them some of the Wellington sights and then we leave for our East Coast tour on Thursday morning. We’ll be gone for 6 days and then back in Wellington for a few before taking off to the South Island for some more fun. We are hoping the weather decides to cooperate to allow us to get the best out of Wellington while they are in town. Either way, we are thrilled to have them here!

Speaking of Wellington sights, there is a certain someone who we must share with you. There hasn’t been a day since our arrival in Wellington that “Blanket Man” didn’t come up in conversation or brighten our day in one way or another. To give you a brief lowdown, “Blanket Man” is a local Wellington celebrity. He is a homeless man who sits on the street corner in nothing but a small piece of material to cover what legally needs to be covered and of course, his blanket. Everyone knows him (there isn’t one Wellingtonian who wouldn’t know him) and always crack a little smile as they walk by him. He is harmless, never begs, and doesn’t do much other than stomp his feet and chant (mumble) loudly at people as they walk by. Oh, and the odd time you see more than you bargained for but that’s the name of the game with “Blanket Man”. I’ll attach his Wikipedia site (yes, he even has a Wiki site!) to allow you to get the whole story but just wanted to share him with everyone. No matter the day of the week or time of day, you’ll pass him (or at the very least hear him) at the same spot on Courtney Place (the main drag for bars and pubs). He always has a crushed can of “V” (energy drink) and his Ipod….we are still trying to figure out how he charges that thing!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hana

Sweet as what?

We can’t believe we’ve been here for 2 months! The time is just flying now and before you know it, we will be off to Oz. We have a really great story to share…. The other day I was browsing in a store here in Wellington, when a girl overheard me talking and after asking if I was from Canada or the US, asked if I knew what the size conversion was for North America. We spoke briefly about the difference in sizes when she asked where I was from…I always say that I’m from PEI, but when she replied that she was from Edmonton, I was so happy! Within 30 seconds, we had plans to go for drinks right then and there. Her and her boyfriend (Scott and Candy are their names) are travelling the world as well. The similarities between the two of us were scary…I can’t even get into the details because it just kept getting more and more bizarre. They have been together for the same amount of time as us, are travelling for 9 months, almost the same itinerary, AND left Edmonton on the same day and time as us (Nov 3/09)! So needless to say, we clicked and thoroughly enjoyed our drinks with them. They came back to our friends’ house for a BBQ and ended up staying with us for a couple of days (they slept in their campervan outside our house because we don’t have an extra bed). They both surf and many of their destinations are because of the surf, so with their extra surfboard and wetsuit, Scott taught Clem how to surf! When we arrived at the beach, Candy pulled out her bikini to wear which just happened to be the EXACT same one I had on under my dress that I bought at a small boutique in St. Albert. We had a good laugh over that one too! We had a beautiful day at Lyall Bay (where the surfers go in Wellington) and where Clem gave it his all! He was out for a while battling the waves and said it was one of the most physically challenging things he’s done. He didn’t get up this time (came damn close), but is determined to do so on his next go-round! I didn’t try surfing this time, but it is something I’ll be trying at some point in NZ or Oz. We had a great time with Scott and Candy and have plans to meet up with them again on our travels. Whether it is in Wellington again, Oz, SE Asia or Edmonton, we will see them again soon!

We also booked what we needed to for our roadie with Clem’s parents when they come at the end of this month. We have rented a car and are going to tour the east coast of the North Island for 6 days, which will include Napier, Gisbourne, Tauranga, Taupo and hopefully the Tongariro National Park (if the hike isn’t cancelled due to poor weather this time!). We will be back in Wellington for a weekend for the Rugby Sevens tournament and then are off to the South Island for a week to do some more exploring. We are going to spend that week around the northern areas of the South Island, which will include Nelson, Blenheim, Abel Tasman National Park, Marlborough Sounds and Kaikoura. We also just booked tickets for the Marlborough Wine Festival on Feb 13th with some of our Kiwi friends and are looking forward to that….it’s going to be O-some (“O” for “Awesome”).

Happy 2010!

Happy 2010 to you all! We had a quiet, but great holiday here in NZ. Our Christmas Eve dinner consisted of Domino’s Pizza and we cooked a great chicken dinner for Christmas Day. We kept saying we were having turkey dinner and everyone was thinking we were crazy. Clem’s work buddies kept teasing him and wishing him luck finding a turkey in NZ (“Good luck finding a turkey mate!”)…apparently they aren’t as plentiful here as they are at home. We celebrated our anniversary on the 27th by donning our matching raincoats and heading out for Thai food. It was a quaint little restaurant with amazing food – and of course it was Bring Your Own Wine.

We decided to spend New Year’s apart this year. Clement went up to a beach house with a bunch of guys for four days to Waiterere Beach. He had a great time! His days were spent on the beach, boogy boarding, playing tennis, golf, and table tennis and you can’t forget drinking his height in beer (drink as many cans of beer that equal your height when stacked). It was funny because we went from spending every waking minute together for the last two months to no communication at all for four days (he had no cell reception). I stayed in Wellington and went out with some of my Irish friends. They are truly some of the best people I’ve met and it feels like we’ve known each other for 20 years. Canada is on their list of places to go so I’ve convinced them to hit up the east coast and especially Newfoundland, where they are more Irish than the Irish!

We had a blast and did some pub crawling around the city. There were quite a few funny moments that I can’t possibly recap, but I’ll try. The first bar we went to was for the countdown, called “Southern Cross”. It’s a bar we frequent as it has an amazing outdoor garden and when it gets chilly they provide you with blankets and hot water bottles. Then we went to a bar called “Havana”, which was no bigger than a small apartment! At one point I was dancing in what I thought was the living room (the small antique chandelier hanging right over my head didn’t help) and asked who’s house we were at!? Ooops, like I said it was a bar. The Irish lassies liked this bar because “it smells like an Irish pub”. I’m sure you are all picturing this place by now. We then went to a bar called “Alice” which is an Alice in Wonderland-themed bar. This place totally tripped us out as we walked through a long hallway covered in red velvet curtains only to find everyone dressed up as the Alice characters! Apparently we didn’t get the memo. The movie was even playing on small, old-school, 13 inch, black and white TVs. Despite the wild partying that was going on at this bar, the tea cups and tea pots on every table made us feel as though we were out for our morning tea rather than NYE! So off we went down the street to “The Big Kumara”, another Wellington hotspot (or so I’m told). We walked in and instantly were up to our knees in foam. Yes, foam. Just like the infamous 1999 Myron’s Foam Parties! This was the point of no return, as we looked like ditchpigs after 30 seconds of being inside. We decided we were going to party like we were eighteen and had a blast doing so. Our pub crawl came to an end at 3am when we realized we couldn’t go anywhere else looking like we did….not to mention trying to tell people that we are 28 and just came from a foam party. The best part was when we walked out of the bar and looked up at the sign…it read: “The Big Kumara- Wellington’s Best Student Bar”. That’s right!

We both feel that 2010 got off to a damn good start and are looking forward to seeing what it holds. Hope you all had a fantastic NYE and wishing you all the best for 2010!