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!