Update from Aotearoa

[this was originally written as an email, sent to friends and family on March 7, 2008]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aotearoa

I'm alive. Travis and I stopped in Vancouver for a few days before we headed down to Auckland.... and then we went to Fiji for 5 days. Fiji was excellent. I highly recommend staying where we did if you come down to visit us :) - The Funky Fish resort on Malolo Island http://www.funkyfishresort.com/. The weather was great, even though I was scared it was going to rain the whole time. It only rained one afternoon.

Snorkeling was killer... thousands of fish everywhere! I'd never snorkeled before, either, and I was REALLY freaked out for the first 15 minutes or so (mostly cuz my mask didn't fit and kept filling up with water). I even lost Travis's snorkel and mask (and he's good enough he could dive down amongst the coral to get it, unfortunately he hurt his eardrum retrieving it.) The food was awesome, the people were great, and I even played a bit of beach volleyball. Travis and I were the most experienced players (along with the locals) so it made for an interesting game.

Now we're in Auckland, and I've spent money on trying to furnish a house..... all the big furnishings were here - but we needed dishes and cutlery and pots and pans and all that good stuff. It's starting to look like we live here now! Our flat is super cool. It's a bi-level apartment, and it has 2 balconies - one off the 2 bedrooms, and one out of the living room - one facing east, and one west. It's awesome. Apartments are REALLY small here.... our kitchen table doesn't really fit in the kitchen properly. The people who furnished this place obviously didn't know anything about interior design for small spaces (I've read many magazines on the topic). Anywhooooo..... we've found a place, and it's great. 15 minutes for Trav to walk to work - if he's slow. Here's a map of where we live.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=20+upper+queen+st+newton+auckland,+nz&sll=-36.868772,174.775143&sspn=0.007399,0.013475&ie=UTF8&ll=-36.857699,174.760938&spn=0.0074,0.013475&t=h&z=16&iwloc=addr

Travis is finishing his first week of work. We're going to his boss's place tonight for supper when he gets back from doing some field work, and, because Stuart's house is kinda far away and it would cost us a billion dollars in cab fare to get back home tonight, we're staying over at their place.

We're busy for the next 2 or 3 weekends going to a place called Leigh. It's north of Auckland, and there's a Marine reserve there. I guess it's kind of like a national park. We're going there for fun this Sunday, and next weekend Trav's going for work. Actually, he doesn't have to work - we're just catching a ride out there with a university class. My friend Emma (who used to live in Canada with my family) has invited us for Easter to her parents' "bach" (pronounced "batch" - basically a beach front home or cabin). Emma has asked me to take a hip hop class with her on Thursdays, and my other friend Helen has asked me to do a triathlon with her on April 6. I don't even have a bike!!! (but of course I'm going to do it!)

I think we've found a local pub, too. Where we live (just off bohemian K-Road) there are lots of pubs, but Helen and her group of friends go to a pub called The Dogs Bollix. On Monday night it's Quiz Night and it's an evening of intense quiz questions, beer, and prizes. :) Travis won a Guinness t-shirt, and I somehow won a Jagermeister lanyard. Whatever.... But it's definitely a quaint neighbourhood pub.

For now I'm using stolen internet, and it's a little slow, so I don't go on it very often. Hopefully I'll have some substantial internet by the end of next week. Internet here is ridiculous. You NEED a connected telephone line to get internet. I've heard the spiel from quite a few people about how NZ in an internet revolution at the moment, but we're just a few months too early to get good deals and "Naked DSL", which means you don't need a phone line. They're really behind here.....

I'll throw some pictures on Flickr sometime - but they'll be from Travis's camera. [I unfortunately don't have my camera anymore. :( it's gone. I have no idea where it is. I had pictures from xmas on there because I lost my connector cable for it. now I bought a new cable and it's in Saskatoon, but my camera is nowhere to be found. :( sniff sniff. that's a pisser.]