Comforts of Home

Just a couple of highlights of the week...found the most amazing Mexican restaurant about 2 seconds walk from the building where Jacques works :)  It's called Jalapenos and it's the best by far I've had in New Zealand! Yum Yum!

Also, have been able to watch all 4 Celtics v. Heat playoff games so far live on ESPN! Now just have to hope they keep winning...

My interviews last week went well (I also had one on Friday about working at a cafe to open soon in Takapuna, seems like it would be a fun atmosphere).  I haven't heard anything back yet, but It's been a long weekend for the Queen's Birthday so hopefully I will get some news early this week.

Friday, I went to visit with Astrid and participate in her busy afternoon.  Watching a bit of Kali's ballet, making sure her car passed it WOF and meeting Milo, the family's new puppy.  At the end of the day, I drove her car back to Albany where I will look after it/drive it around until she returns from Belgium in the middle of July.  fortunately, this fixes the car situation temporarily until we get a replacement for the honda.

Friday night we played some pool...skills that need practice, though happened to have some pretty incredible lucky shots!  Saturday, hung out on Brown's Bay beach for a bit in the evening because the weather was nice and then went to see Men in Black 3.  Sunday we went to a couple of sales (every shop seems to have them this weekend every year).  We each got a new outfit discounted :)  Then, it was time to prepare food for the evening.  Felecia had about 16 people over to celebrate her birthday Sunday night. I made some delicious herbal appetizers learned at the master gardeners lecture day with mom.  Glad I signed up for both cooking sessions.  The spinach cakes were a huge hit.  I also made brie bites, bruschetta and pasta carbonara.  All very yummy!  For dessert I made everyone a mini chocolate chip pancake which we served with ice cream or nutella or both.  A novelty for most, they too were very popular.  There were also chicken wings and meatballs, a nice big green salad, garlic bread, a fancy cheese platter, a beef dish, vegan/paleo chocolate cupcakes with homemade chocolate frosting, and rice pudding.  It was definitely a night of cheating on food rituals for both Jacques and I, delicious and worth it though!

Today we went out west to Piha, another beach I hadn't seen yet (there are just so many to see in this country, each differently beautiful!).  It was such a nice sunny winter day again! Lot of surfers in the water as well!  I had my feet in the water and at one point felt like if I'd had my suit, would have actually gone for a dip.  The water felt like early summer on Cape Cod, chilly but bearable for a few minutes.

Piha

Auckland from the bus on the bridge

Takapuna Beach

Rangitoto from Takapuna

Kali and Milo

On the way down to Piha

Job Interviews and Busy Weekend

On Wednesday, I went into town to meet Jacques for lunch.  I was excited because earlier that morning I had heard back from the job at World Challenge that I'd applied for an I will be having an interview this coming Wednesday. If successful, I will move on to round 2 of interviews with their top 3 candidates via Skype with headquarters in Australia (don't worry, the job is based in Auckland).  After lunch, when I was wandering through town, I received an email from a job I had only applied to the day before, asking if I could come in for an interview.  This one was for Education First (EF) High School Year Overseas.  It's a Swedish company, only still developing in NZ.  They teach people English in many countries across the world and send students away on an exchange year.  I had my interview Thursday but they are still not sure if it will be a part of full-time position.  I am still waiting to hear back about that one.

Wednesday night, we went to a pub quiz.  Our team of 8 needed my America expertise on 3 questions in particular.  I told them the baseball team that Moneyball was about, that Kentucky was the highlighted state on the map of the USA and that the city situated on Mount Royal was Montreal.  We had a pretty good team in general and ended up coming 5th out of 16...not bad...

Friday, I went to meet with the Rodney North Harbour Health Trust (who the recruiting company, AER, passed on my details to about personal care work).  I wasn't too sure if I was going in for another interview or just to discuss the job in more detail and find out my availability or what....turns out they had my name badge all made-up already with my employee number on the back and a back with manuals and time sheets in it.  Today (Monday), I am going to meet with a mother and her 20-yr-old son with seizure disorder.  So this will similar work to what I was doing at home, plus potentially a bit of elderly care as well.  Depending on the outcomes of my other job interviews, I can fill up my schedule with Personal Care work if necessary, or leave it to a couple hours a day or week, filling in around another part or full-time job.

Friday night, I picked Jacques up from the bus from work and we went to check out NZ Sale's warehouse sale on the North Shore.  It's a website offering supposedly super discounted clothing with new offers each day.  We got there and there were millions of cars and people and we were there less than a hour after it had started.  It was only on for 3 hours Friday night and supposed to be all day Saturday and Sunday (but I'm not sure they would have had anything left to sell!)  It was impossible to move inside the place with all the racks of clothes so tightly packed and the amount of people pushing you around.  Not to mention the amount of clothes that had already ended up on the floor.  Shoes were scattered around the shelves...if you found one that you liked, good luck finding the match.  Jacques was not too impressed because there was not a whole lot of guys clothing to begin with, plus he couldn't find anything in the right size either.  Plus, although you were probably getting a really good deal on some items, others were probably not too discounted.  ALL shoes were $30, dresses were $30 or 2 for $50 or 3 for $60.  Men's dress shirts were $20 and 2 for $30...just shows you how overpriced most clothing is in this country.  I think the whole of Albany was at this sale waiting for the doors to open.  It was more of an experience and I decided taking pictures was more fun than trying to search for clothes.  I don't think we stayed in there more than 5 minutes! Instead we went out of Indian for dinner :)  One meal we can eat out together at the same place pretty easily.  With Jacques' strict paleo diet and my vegan, he can just get a meat dish and not eat rice or naan and I get a veggie dish and we're both happy! It was delicious.  Then of course I had to watch the American Idol finale!  Because it's normally shown Fri and Sat nights here, they just combined the performances into a one hour show, then had a 1.5 hour break, then the 2 hr results show.  I was happy with the outcome!

Saturday, we went to a different clothing sale (supposedly designer clothes mostly).  But they cut or rip the labels out of things so you can't tell where it's from.  Sometimes extra things are left on that say the brand.  For example, I found a little summer shirt/dress with the first part of the label cut out but xxi was left behind and then the rubber straps were left in to hang it from which said forever 21 on them.  Most people here wouldn't know what Forever 21 is, and not know that it's a pretty cheap store to begin with.  Fortunately this one was only $5 so it was still a good deal.  I saw another shirt from Express and a dress that was xhilertation brand...from Target, 2 others stores people here would not recognize.  If you pick through very carefully, you can find some nicer things but there were lots of clothes and that's a lot of work!  I did find one BeBe dress that fit me perfectly for $5, but the problem with lots of items is someone's gone and cut a chunk of material right out of the bottom near the seam (if you're lucky) or just made a slit somewhere else random.  I thought I'd examined this one thoroughly enough, and only found a slit right on the seam, easily fixable, but when I had a closer look there was a curved cut right through the middle of the back of the dress...not so fixable, so that one had to stay.  I did find another nice blue dress for $5 and another more casual dress for $15.  Not too bad, 3 dresses for $25.

In the afternoon, we went to watch some of a NZ Olympic Weightlifting competition.  Jacques is now signed up so he can compete in the future monthly events with some of his other CF buddies.  Just more experience to improve what they are already doing in CrossFit.  There were a couple of young kids (one lighter than me) who were the strongest and held NZ records.  Pretty impressive to watch!

Saturday night, we met up with some friends at Deep Creek Brewing company (visiting with one especially who was over from Australia).  We spent a few ours there sitting outside with just a light jacket on.  Although it's winter, I can survive with that temperature, after dark and still able to sit around and visit outside without having to be completely bundled up!  From there we went into town and went to SkyCity.  Laura and I watched the boys play some Roulette for awhile, trying to help predict the winning numbers.  It was a fun night.

Sunday, Jacques and I left for Whangarei by 9:30 to go and pick up some rubber matting won on TradeMe.  He is going to use it to protect the garage floor when lifting weights, but we were collecting it from a horse farm.  I warned him that anything that has been around horses is going to smell like one. He was skeptical at first, but after not even 5 minutes of having the stuff in the car you could smell it just standing OUTSIDE the car!  Needless to say we drove with the windows down the rest of the day!  We got some picnic foods at the grocery store and went to Whangarei falls for lunch.  Nice picturesque place to eat.  From there, we went to a Kauri park with boardwalks up in the trees and walked to see another waterfall along the trail.  Once we began driving again to head south, the gas light in the car came on and then all of a sudden it cut off completely.  Fortunately we hadn't been too far and there was a little pull off right where we needed it to be.  We pulled in there and it was immediately stinking of gas.  Jacques checked under the hood and the fuel line had come right off so the gas was just leaking onto the ground.  Somehow the clip had come undone for it to come loose.  Again, fortunately, there was also a man in this pull-in place getting ready for a run in the park with his son and dog.  He offered to take Jacques quickly to the gas station before he left for his jog.  Jacques reconnected the fuel line (and put the clip back on) and then we went to return the jug and fill up at the gas station.  Everything went smoothly after that and fortunately it could not have been more than a 20-30 min delay to our day.  Just a strange occurrence which we hope does not happen again.  Perhaps the last time the car was serviced, someone did not reattach the clip properly or knocked it slightly out of place...who knows.  Oh and we were in his dad's car, because we needed the space in the back with all the seats down for this rubber matting.  While away, we found out his dad sold the honda and it was gone when we got home.  Now we'll search for a car with a smaller engine (not 2.2 litre) so we don't pay a fortune for gas every week!  One more stop on our way home, we checked out Ruakaka beach, huge and amazing, beautiful even on a gloomy-ish day so I'd love to see what it's like in the summer!

So this week, or at least until we get a cheaper replacement for the car, we will play musical cars with the 2 between the 4 of us!  Fortunately, I can take the bus to my interview on Wed.

Orange Sky Tower

Bridge on the way to Whangarei

$5 Dress! :)

crazy NZ sale...

Lunch time :)

Just another little Kauri tree

Pukenui Falls

Ruakaka Beach

Found a DELICIOUS Vegan Restaurant

Well, my visa came back in my passport last Tuesday, before noon, the day after it was approved online.  The speediest service anyone has heard of!  I have been applying to many jobs since then, but in the mean time, I responded to a recruiting company's ad about needing personal carers.  I met with the woman at the recruiting company Wednesday, who then passed on my CV (newly created in NZ format) to the North Harbour Health Trust, who called me today to schedule an interview with them directly and find out my availability.  The trust does in-home elder care as well as special needs care for children in the area.  So depending on what jobs are available, I could be doing a bit of both.   Most of the full-time jobs I have applied for only start in July, leaving June for all the hiring process.  This is more of an ideal start-date anyway, so I won't have to ask for time off for our trip to Cairns, Australia June 27-July 4.

Tuesday morning, I went down to Devonport to see Tessa dance at toddler toes and then we went to the cafe for a catch up (with Jess and Ariel) but Tessa has become so chatty she wanted all of my attention for conversation.  Apparently, she needs frequent encouragement to play with her little friend that is there as well.

Wednesday I had another Hilltop reunion!  I caught up with Anna, one of my counselors my very first year camp.  The last year I saw her was my CIT year, 2003.  She is from CO but married one of the Kiwi counselors and moved to NZ shortly after.  She was up staying in Albany for work so I brought her to Corelli's with the gang for dinner.  Now, I have to make a trip down to Palmerston North to see Craig and their 1-yr-old baby, Jessica.

Friday, Nikita, Courtney and I had a girls night catch up and dinner (which will turn into a monthly tradition).  Courtney's boyfriend, Jamie, is also doing PAS (professional accounting school) right now (what Jacques is doing) so he also has workshops one Friday night and Saturday every 4 weeks.  We ate at Elliot Stables, a sort of upscale food court, where you can order a meal from any of the restaurants but all sit together at the same table no matter when you've ordered from.  Courtney tried to eat mainly vegetarian, so we were both very excited to discover Basilicum!  It was fabulous! I had purple tofu (bbq style) and eggplant the same way.  Both the flavor and texture were really nice.  They even had vegan desserts, which I was very excited about!  I wanted to try the vegan chocolate cake, but it still had about 20 min of preparation to go, so instead I went for the vegan carrot cake.  It was also very delicious!  Now, I can't wait to go back and try the chocolate cake and more items off the strictly vegan/vegetarian menu!

Saturday we went to a "onesie" party, where many were wearing adult sized footed pjs.  Nice and cozy! I didn't have any, so I took that opportunity to wear my random one-piece fitted suit I purchased at the unclaimed baggage center.  I knew I'd get the chance to wear it someday!  Was nice to meet Nick's girlfriend Laura and some of her friends.

Sunday, we went out to Martha's Backyard (the American Store) full of overpriced items imported from the USA that you can't find here.  I was in search of Cream of Wheat, since nothing similar exists here, but didn't have any luck.  Instead, Jacques found 2 new pair of shoes from the shop next door, not only super discounted but buy 1, get 1 50% as well.  So it wasn't a wasted trip.  Because it was a nice sunny day, we decided to take a ride up Mt. Wellington, another one of Auckland's volcanos, and walk around the perimeter of the crater. It offered some very nice views from a different perspective in Auckland.  We also stopped at a beach near home to collect some sand for my yoga sandbags.  Mitre 10 would have made my buy 25 liters of sand.  When I asked the guy if I could just purchase the amount that I needed and said that it was for sandbags, he suggested my best bet would be to just go to the beach.  Yesterday, I bleached the sand and immediately upon pouring in the bleach many bugs surfaced and escaped.  Today was nice and sunny and in the 60s so I set the sand out to dry.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to load it into my sandbags.

I also went for my first run today, taking advantage of the nice weather and braving the hilly terrain.  It went surprisingly well and although I went at a slow pace, it felt pretty easy.

Our new mattress was collected and set up last week Wednesday night.  The story of how Eugene (Jacques' dad) and I retrieved it is a story for a separate blog post!  Quite an hour and a half of adventure.  It is amazing and soooo comfy! Great nights sleeps since then!  Also, after a suggestion from Dad on how to fix squeaky slats (felt between the frame and slats), and my handy work the next day, it is now a silent slat bed!

Excited for a sleep on the new bed!

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View from Mt. Wellington

Beach where my sand came from

Onesie/PJ party

Making Progress

Accomplishments so far:

1) Visa granted! :) From the average 25 day wait period, somehow I submitted it May 10, then needed to make the payment May 11 because somehow they couldn't get it off the credit card details section I filled out on the actual application, now Monday, May 14 I checked the status online and it had been approved through May 14, 2014!  I can work full-time for any employer in any occupation.  Strangely enough, I applied for my working holiday visa on May 10, 2010 and it was granted on May 14, 2010! I didn't even realize this until I saw it posted on my immigration status history.

2) Bed frame won on TradeMe (New Zealand version of ebay)! Now need to figure out how we will get it home...possibly part of tomorrow's adventures

3) New comfy "Black Diamond" mattress purchased! Also will be interesting getting it home!

4) Made our own almond milk using almonds soaked overnight, a blender (but from now on we'll be able to use the fancy new food processor that Felecia got for Mother's Day) a cheesecloth, a coffee filter and some water.  We also got a decent amount of leftover almond flour!  So 2 liters of almond milk (that actually tastes pretty good) and enough almond flour for baking with only cost us $4.50.  Buying one liter in the store is about $7 and it's loaded with sugar.

5) Caught up with friends and ate at Corelli's! They are willing to accommodate my vegan needs :)

Next step: Get a job!  I've been sending in some applications this week and now I will be able to tick the box that I have a work visa, so hopefully things will go a bit more smoothly!

It turned out last week, Jacques only had to be away Mon-Wed and they changed their flights and he surprised me when he walked in the door on Wednesday night! I had no idea and thought I was going to have to wait another 24 hours.  So that was a nice change of plans!

Saturday, we drove out west to look at some natural bed/futon places.  I felt like we had come across a bed farm...they place looked like a run down barn and we couldn't quite tell where people were living or working or what.  The woman coming to open the display room was about 10 minutes late and she just pulled out the key from underneath the porch to open the door.  Fortunately, we decided to consider other options besides futons and went looking at furniture stores right around the corner on Sunday afternoon after Mother's Day lunch.  That's where we found our Black Diamond and it was basically all decided right then and there.  Hopefully we'll be sleeping on it in the next couple of nights! Very excited!

All Settled In

For those of you who have not already heard, I landed safely in Auckland on Friday morning, May 4, at 5:20am, ahead of schedule.  That seemed to be the trend with all my flights on the trip over, fortunately.  Jacques had arrived at the airport for 5am so he was eagerly waiting when I came through through customs!  In fact, I think I managed to get more sleep than he did the previous night.  I had an entire row of 3 seats to myself on the plane, including the extra blankets and pillows.  I was either laying down or sleeping for about 8 hours of the 12 hour flight.  I also watched We Bought a Zoo and the Vow to keep me busy.  In LAX, I met a Swiss girl traveling to Hastings, NZ to work as an au pair for the first time.  I saw a girl by herself with a backpack and thought that looked familiar so I asked her where she was headed.  We went through security together and sat and chatted until I had to board the plane.  She ended up being on the flight that departed 45 minutes after mine.  When I headed over to my gate to see what seat numbers they called, I asked a girl who looked like she was wondering the same thing, and so we chatted and got in line together.  She was headed back to NZ for only a month to see her boyfriend down in Christchurch where they had been working on the their PhD's.  Then June 1st, she's off to Woods Hole on the Cape to complete her studies for her Marine Biology degree.  Crazy enough, she was in the seat across the isle from me, so I chose a good person to befriend before getting on the plane.  At least we both had someone to talk to when we were awake.

Friday morning, the I got to see the beautiful sunrise over the city as we drove home from the airport.  Luckily, Jacques' new job (where he had only worked 4 days) knew I was arriving and allowed him to come in late to work and even leave early!  So we had a little bit of time to relax before I had to get reacquainted with driving on the left side of the road to drop him at the bus.  Either from excitement of being back or have a decent sleep on the plane, I felt energized and like it was any other normal day.  I completely unpacked and moved in and then headed down to Devonport to see Jess and Ariel before the school pick-up.  I had a nice vegan green smoothie (with kale) call "Shrek".  Apparently there is only one supermarket in the country where you can buy kale, and fortunately it is on the North Shore (close-by).  The downside is that they don't always carry it!  Perhaps I need some seeds to grow my own!

On my way back north, I stopped in at the Clinton household to see the kids.  They were surprised, however Tessa has apparently been talking about me all day, knowing I was arriving in the country that day.  Then she played shy when she saw me! Had to hold Julia's hand and hide behind her.  It was pretty cute actually, but only lasted about 10 minutes until she was pulling on my hand to go play in her room.  Libby was her usual energetic self jumping all over me and running in and out of the room trying to make loud noises and surprise us.  Reuben took a minute from his play date and lego building to give me a hug.

As my phone was not working yet, I borrowed a phone to call Jacques and see if he wanted to be picked up from the bus.  Turns out he had gotten out of work early and was locked out of the house because I had his keys and no one was home so was waiting at the mall for someone to come home.  One thing I certainly did not miss is rush-hour traffic on the motorway.  It took much longer than usual to get up to the mall.  We got a few things including replacement hangers because I had raided the house of all spare ones I could find.  We ate dinner and had a quiet evening, watching the American Idol I had missed on Wed night on the plane.

Saturday, I woke up a bit earlier than I would have liked, but we got our errands done before Jacques had to be at CrossFit at noon.  Later we had a "bring a plate" dinner at Matt's so I could see Matt, Sam, Nick and Marc.  By the end of Saturday night, I really felt like I could have only been gone 8 days and not 8 months.  Everything is so familiar, it's almost like I'd never left.

Sunday, I got to see the views from Jacques' new office building! 37th floor of the 2nd tallest building in Auckland (next to the sky tower).  It was another nice sunny day so the views were very pretty.  Then we printed out all the documents we needed to prove our partnership so that I can submit my application for my work visa this week.  We also went grocery shopping to make sure I had some vegan food to eat in this household full of meat and egg eaters.  We discovered there is a MUCH smaller selection of all things but especially almond milk or rice milk.  Both are very expensive and also very sweet! I'm still looking for unsweetened versions!  So vegan eating will be a bit more difficult here, but I'm managing so far.

This morning I drove Jacques to the bus for 5:30am so he could catch it to the airport for his flight to Gisborne, where he will be until Thursday night for work.  Really not the best timing, but he had to learn the ropes down there and being only his 2nd week of work there really wasn't any way around it. At least he shouldn't have to go back for awhile.

My stuff....did a bit better with the packing this time

Obie trying to protest my leaving

My row on the plane :)

Nice sunny day to welcome me back :) View from the bedroom

Overall, I am very happy to be back.  I can't wait to catch up with other friends I still need to see in the next few weeks!  I also can't wait to see Tessa dancing at toddler toes tomorrow.  She and her friend Katerina are so adorable together!