Kiwi Imposters

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T20:00:00.006+13:00

In case anyone was wondering what the holidays are like on the other side of the world... you could probably just say much warmer... other than that they are quite similar. Since it is our summer here we decided to embrace this warm weather and head to the beach for New Years. We headed north to a region called Coromandel Peninsula. Here's some pics...

The town/beach where we were staying was Whangamata. This is the beach. It's pretty sweet. It was named one of the best beaches in NZ. According to the tourist stuff it is most famous because of the white sand beach, and the combination of the beach and rain forest that surrounds it (you can sort of see it on that island in the pic).

We rented kayaks one of the days to go around some of the islands and stuff... it was pretty cool, but sort of tiring. Sorry, someone should have warned you about the gun show!

This is a tree on one of the islands. Sweet pose Cassie!

This is the view from the island we kayaked to. The weather wasn't the best this day, but it never rained and was warm so it wasn't too bad (It was the only day of clouds, so can't complain).

This is hot water beach. It's a pretty famous (and popular) beach in NZ. Not the most picture-esque beach we went to, but it was cool. The smartest person I know can explain it better than I can. Check out the link...

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

The last beach we went to was called Cathedral Cove. You had to park and hike for about 45 min to get there and this was the view from parking lot (that's not actually cathedral cove down there... its a different beach).

This is the view from the start of the hike. Cathedral cove is the beaches down there by those boats.

These are pics of Cathedral Cove. There are essentially two beaches and you have to go underneath a natural rock bridge to get between the two.

Well that was pretty much our trip... who wants to visit now?? It was a great time, but our holidays weren't the same without our family and friends. Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-24T08:24:00.003+13:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Well it sure is weird not coming home for Christmas, but just in case you were wondering... it doesn't really feel so much like the holiday season here anyways! It's been sunny and warm everyday the past week or so, so needless to say it's nothing quite like the cold of Christmas at home! Just in case you all were wondering we are going to go to the beach on Christmas day... I guess it is somewhat of a Kiwi tradition... you just go to the beach on Christmas... We aren't going to complain :)

Anyways here are some pics of what we've been doing... nothing too exciting really... we are going to the beach in New Zealand on the 27th through Jan 2nd... so we'll have some more exciting pics soon...

So in order to get in the holiday spirit we made some cookies (sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, and peanut blossoms (I think that's what they're called)). Everything turned out great and we had way too many on our hands (both of the containers behind the plate were stuffed full!). Luckily, we've given a bunch of the cookies away. The ladies at Cassie's work LOVE snickerdoodles... Did you know that snickerdoodles and peanut butter cookies are American cookies? That's your random fact of the day!

Well here is the Christmas tree once again, but this time it's surrounded by packages! I think that they mail man knows we're American after all of the packages from the States arrived! Thanks to everyone who sent us something!

After spending the past year without cell phones, we decided to get ourselves phones for Christmas... the cell phone concept is quite a bit different here (it's all pay as you go). It's amazing how weird it is going back to cell phones after not having them for a while... you just tend to forget it a lot of the time... oh well, I'm sure we'll adjust! Just in case you were wondering these phones are pretty much the lowest technology phones that we've ever had... it pretty much calls and sends texts and that it... but really what else do you really need?

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving and Feliz Navidad!!

2009-12-02T19:54:00.006+13:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! So we have gotten a few requests to post some pics to show what our Thanksgiving was like... so here is how it went...

Here's our spread... looks pretty good huh?? It was pretty awesome!

Dessert! Pumpkin pie and pecan pie (From Scratch!)... yes they tasted as good
as they look!

These are a few of the Thanksgiving virgins we had on our hands... they loved it and couldn't understand why their country (Zimbabwe - the 3 guys on the left) didn't have a holiday where you are supposed to eat as much as possible!

Last but not least here is our mini (4 ft high) Christmas tree...

Auckland

2009-11-30T18:20:00.004+13:00

Well, I'm sorry that we've been away for so long so here's a little update and some pics!

At the start of November we went to Auckland. Cassie did a half-marathon and we did some sightseeing and hit up the American Store. The drive from Palmy to Auckland was also sweet! Check out some of the pics below...

This is one of the views on the drive up to Auckland. This is lake Taupo - the largest lake in NZ, and the mountain in the distance is actually an active volcano named Mt Ruapehu - the largest mountain on the north island.

The view from the ground of the SkyTower in Auckland. It is something like the 14th highest tower in the world... it's pretty much the space needle! That speck is actually a person... you can zipline/bungy jump to the bottom of the SkyTower... it was a bit more intense than we could do.

This is one of the views from the top of the skytower... this is the main harbor and the bridge is the Auckland Harbor Bridge (Cassie had to run over that... it was miserable because it is just a big, long hill...).

They had glass flooring in parts of the skytower... this was the view straight down.

This is our stuff we got at the American store in Auckland... it's amazing what you miss... Yes we do actually have somethings left (we are rationing things!).

Welp... until next time!

Sydney

2009-08-08T20:01:00.006+12:00

Alright, before there is an uprising... we are sorry for not posting for almost exactly 2 months, but somehow things have been super busy... also we haven't done much traveling or anything so you haven't missed much!

However, during July we went to Sydney, Australia for the first time! Zac had a conference, and visited some laboratories in the Sydney area for about a week and a half then Cassie came over after the conference was finished up. So now you know the 'official' reason for the trip...

So here are a bunch of the pics that we took over there, of course there are a bunch more, but this should give you all a good idea of what we did!

The conference Zac went to was at a resort in the Blue Mountains (to the west of Sydney). He had some time to kill before the conference so he did the touristy walks (or bush walks as they say around here). Interesting fact... they are called the Blue Mountains because of the Eucalyptus trees that make up the forest. These trees emit some chemical (no clue what) which reflects light from the sun (or something like that) in a blue-ish haze. You can sort of see it here in this picture.

To be quite honest, while the Blue Mountains were cool... I don't know if I would really classify them as mountains...

This is a picture of the Laurel Cascades which were along the trails in the Blue Mountains...

This is Witches Leap... you can sort of see why it is referred to as witch... you can see the profile of a witch.

This is a pic of the most famous landmark in the Blue Mountains... the Three Sisters... they are the three peaks...

So Zac had finished all of the walks in one day except one... it turned out to be the Giant Stairway that he missed, nothing like saving the best for last... really it wasn't too bad though. This is comprised of 900 steps (and the word step is used loosely)... I thought this sign was sort of funny... careful there are many steps down the GIANT stairway... isn't that what makes it giant?

Of course... the world famous Sydney Opera House...

Not sure what we thought it would be covered it, but it is covered in ivory and white tiles...

This is the Sydney Harbor Bridge... it is the longest single span bridge in the world (if I remember correctly)... We actually climbed to the top (see the flags on top!)... however they wouldn't let us bring a camera so we don't have any pics from up there... it was an awesome experience, but a bit scary at certain parts though!

This is what was known during the 2000 Summer Olympics as Stadium Australia (aka. Olympic Stadium). However, now it obviously has a new name. The whole Olympic park and this stadium was pretty cool... pictures don't really do it much justice...

This was part of a pretty cool sculpture in Olympic Park... That is a textbook free throw... not sure if she made it though...

We also visited the zoo in Sydney (no not the zoo that the Crocodile Hunter was at... that's in Brisbane and we will go in the near future!). It was pretty sweet... there was a big emphasis on Australian animals (obviously) but also Asian animals, which was really sweet. This is a pic of some monkeys just chillin'.

That's right... Zac is the exact height of a new born giraffe!

Cassie's foot is between the foot size of the smallest bear in the world and the largest...

For the first time ever... Zac is shorter than the world's tallest bear!

This is the wing span of the condor (the biggest span)... oh yeah and that's Cassie's wingspan as well...

You can't really see it here, but this cat looks a lot like Divi! So we had to post it... I don't know, but I think Divi may have met her match with this cat!

Of course... last but not least here are the kangaroos and wallabies (which look very similar to kangaroos)!

The Queen's B-Day... To Hawke's Bay!!

2009-06-05T20:49:00.006+12:00

Hello!!! So sorry for taking so long to post anything. Things have been pretty busy here and we haven't had much of a moment to do much. However, the queen's b-day weekend we were able to make a little trip...

We went to Hawke's Bay... Hawke's Bay is part of the wine country of NZ, now we were not able to go on the wine tours (we were only there for the day and did not want to spend the night... we will soon enough) we snapped a few picks on the way there (it's only ~2hrs away). The drive is over the mountains from Palmy so there were some decent pics. Hawke's Bay normally gets the best weather in NZ, so we will have to give everyone some better pic's as the weather wasn't the best when we were there... nevertheless, it was quite awesome...

This is part of "downtown" Napier... one of the cities that make's up the Hawke's Bay region...

Downtown Napier once again... it was a pretty nice place...

Hawke's Bay from Napier... the beach is pebble.
Another pic of the pebbled beach of Napier.

Part of the drive from Palmy to Napier... we have to go over the Ruahine Moutain range... this is a pic of the Manawatu Gorge

We had an up-close look at some of the windmills just outside Palmy on top of the mountains...

When they do road construction they don't close the road, you just drive on a sort of gravel road, it's not the most fun to drive on....

Part of the drive to Napier... nice huh?

Part of Manawatu Gorge... I think we can get a bit better pic than this... more to come next time we visit the Gorge!!!

Rugby

2009-05-04T19:48:00.003+12:00

On Friday night we went with some friends to a rugby game in Wellington. We watched the Wellington Hurricanes play the Auckland Blues - Hurricanes (we were cheering for them) won 45 to 27!! It was a really fun game and the stadium was really cool - also our seats ROCKED!!!!

This is a picture of the stadium - it was pretty full, but didn't sell out.

The Auckland Blues in a huddle before the game starting.

Player for the Hurricane's trying for the extra point (he was successful)!!

These are pictures of the Hurricane's warming up before going into the game - they were right in front of us and it was cool watching them. We were in the second row from half field.

Science and Orange Juice

2009-04-29T20:41:00.004+12:00

I (Zac) have been a subject in a few studies both at IU and since arriving down here... however, as a participant I have never encountered as fun a study as the one I am participating in. I know it is sort of dorky to post this but I figured I would share... so here is the story...

Rugby players are infamous for their drinking habits. They play a game and are seen starting fights at the pub later that night. So this study looks at the effects of alcohol on muscle recovery (obviously a hot topic around here)!

So yesterday after a battery of tests, and working my right leg so hard that I can't walk normally (I actually almost collapsed half a dozen times today), I got to drink screwdrivers!! Actually I drank 1 double (two shots of vodka, the rest O.J.) every 15 min for an hour and a half. After about an hour, lets just say it was a pretty good time.

The only bad thing is that in three weeks I have to do it all over again and just drink O.J. afterwords... oh well you can't win them all....

This is Bob, he is a grad student in nutrition/physiology, and he was my drinking buddy during the study. He is "damaging" his left leg, by doing 300 leg curls... sort of.

This is what his legs looked like when he was finished "damaging" his leg... it is a bit swollen, huh?

This is about half way through the drinking... the jug was full with screwdriver.

Success!!! The jug is gone!!

I figured most of you at IU would appreciate this! Nothing quite like combining 2 all-time favorites... science and... orange juice...

Weekend Entertainment!!

2009-04-26T14:29:00.004+12:00

For a girl whose athletic prowess includes making a boy cry (4th grade basketball) and playing collegiate soccer, I believe that I may have seen one of Cassie's more awesome moments...

So on Sundays Cassie plays on a women's soccer team here in Palmy. They won 4 -3 which is great, and Cas had a goal (the winning one!) and 2 assists (I think), so she played really well... however, the awesomest thing happened though.

So midway through the second half one of Cassie's teammates went into a tackle with number 11 on the other team and fell over the ball. Well, instead of trying to kick the ball this number 11 started to kick Cas's teammate and yelled at her to get off the ball. Needless to say Cassie was in the area and came to her teammates rescue. Cassie accidentally on purpose clipped the girl's ankles while number 11 was kicking her teammate. Number 11 did not like this and decided to punch Cassie in the face. Cas did not take to this and as number 11 was walking away she grabbed number 11's jersey and threw a few haymakers. By this time Cassie's coach broke up the fight...

The funniest thing about this is that the ref saw none of this, so no cards were handed out and they both got to play the rest of the game (she was not the best of ref's and was friends with the other team). Also this league has girls from 18 to 40+, so number 11's mom was on the sidelines and started talking s**t to Cas (the 'grown women') about how she was picking fights with girls (18 yr olds). Cassie made sure to remind the mother that she probably should have raised her daughter not to pick fights and punch people, and that if she wasn't old enough to take it she shouldn't be on the field.

Besides Cassie getting mad props from her teammates for getting into a fight for protecting her teammate, there are a few other things we can take away from this...
1) You can fight in soccer games in NZ and not get thrown out
2) Girl fights here do not include: slapping, hair pulling, scratching, or any other cat like fighting sounds or tactics... when they fight they get after it
3) A knot on the head (see pics... I think they turned out ok)
5) and last but not least... Cassie's first appearance in a picture on the blog!!

Winter Dress Code

2009-04-24T19:30:00.002+12:00

So Zac and I tried to go to a bar after work today for a few drinks, but we were told we couldn't get it because we weren't in the winter dress code - we had on flip flops! Apparently they don't let people in with gandals (sandals).

It was 60 degrees out today.... so I guess we won't be going back until summer.

run in with the law

2009-04-21T18:28:00.002+12:00

Well I got my first ticket the other day - and it just came in the mail! Yeah that's right I couldn't even try to talk my way out of it! They have speed cameras that capture your speed - I was going 61 km/hr in a 50 km/hr area - that's like going 42 in a 35 or so! And the cameras have an error of 5 km/hr, so really i could have been only going 5 over and yeah it's for $80!

Happy Easter!!

2009-04-13T16:29:00.004+12:00

Happy Easter everyone!! So Easter is a major holiday down here... schools get 2 weeks off (mid-semester break), both Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays and on Good Friday and Easter Sunday nothing is open. So since we had a 4 day weekend we had a chance to go to the beach, Wellington, and a basketball game! So check out the pics...

One thing that we did that is not documented in the pics is we went to a professional basketball game... the Manawatu Jets! Let's just put it this way... it is not the highest quality basketball and they play (the word play is used loosely) in a high school gym. But it was a good time and we will probably do it again. Unfortunately, I (Zac) forgot the camera and you can't actually see what it was like.

This is the colossal squid... it is at Museum of New Zealand in Wellington... it is the largest squid known. It weighs something like 1000 lbs and its eyes are the size of a soccer ball. It was caught south of NZ near Antarctica (I think). It is pretty sweet, and the rest of the museum is pretty cool too.

Well as you can see this is me in front of Mac's Brewery (killer pose, huh?)... Mac's is a NZ brewing company. It is probably the best beer we've had over here... it is pretty good (not great).

That is Cassie sitting on a blanket reading on the beach... way down there by our car.

We spent a day at the beach just hangin' out, so I climbed one of the dunes and took these pics. I thought they were pretty cool

This should be an advertisement for the late nineties Honda Civic Hatchback... The beach here is pretty cool... you can drive on it!

Alright, until next time. Happy Easter!

Wellington

2009-04-05T18:19:00.003+12:00

Well this past week I went to Wellington for the day to take someone to the airport. Wellington was amazing and Zac and I are going back this weekend for the day because he hasn't been yet. Wellington is only about 1.5 hours from Palmy and we ended up taking the train back to Palmy and that was really easy too.

Wellington was really pretty and the day I was there it was 70 and sunny. Apparently that was not typically Wellington weather because it is usually really windy and can get pretty cold. I can't wait to go back and explore more and I really can't wait to take people there (looks like we will be able to take some people in August!!)

I will take more pictures next time but this time I didn't want to seem too touristy with Rachel!

This is a picture of the Wellington Airport runaway. You can see that if you miss the runway you will be in the water!

These are all pictures from Wellington I took from the biggest hill in Wellington. It really reminded me of San Francisco because it is hilly and on the water.

Rugby

2009-03-29T14:21:00.005+13:00

So we had our first official Rugby experience! For the first time in over 2 years high level professional rugby was played in Palmy. The league that these teams were in is called the Super 14 and includes teams from Australia, NZ, and S. Africa. Check out the website links if you are interested. It is actually pretty cool and there is no love lost between the teams!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_14

http://www.super14.com/

We saw a match between the Highlanders (from Dunedin, NZ on the south island) and the Bulls (from somewhere in S. Africa). Despite not knowing all of the rules it was a great time, think a combo between football and soccer. There are 15 players on the field at any given time so there is a lot of off the ball runs and a battle for field position, but when people have the ball they get absolutely drilled. It is pretty exciting to watch. Anyways the Highlanders (the home team in this instance) won the game 35 to 12 (I think) so the atmosphere in the stadium was pretty cool.

It was pretty interesting the accommodations that these professional athletes get compared to what they get in the States. Let's just say for them playing the most popular sport in NZ they don't get the same luxuries as pro football, baseball or basketball players do. Although, I guess if you are a rugby player you are so tough that you don't need any pads so who needs luxuries, right?

The view from the stadium was pretty cool... it is pretty much the highest point in Palmy so you can see all the mountains, etc.

The game ball was flown in by helicopter. The kid is running with it from the helicopter to the referee.

So this is the players sideline accommodations. If you look closely you can see a huge guy in a kilt without a shirt... that is the 'highlander.' Supposedly there is a large Scottish population down there in Otago (the region where Dunedin is located).

Movies!

2009-03-23T15:57:00.002+13:00

We are pretty happy with the movies that come out here - some release dates are later than the states, some are the same, and some not at all, but I tend to make Zac go to a lot of movies - he will be happy when I have someone go see chick flicks with me! This is a our American movie theater (it is on top of a plaza), they do have European films at another theater, but we haven't been there, I am not too keen on subtitles.

This past weekend we went to see Duplicity - it was really good and Julia looked gorgeous during the whole film - we both really enjoyed it!

Downtown

2009-03-21T15:15:00.002+13:00

We went downtown this morning/afternoon to get some bagels! We found a great place - it's no BBC in B-town, but good! So i decided to take a picture of the fountain outside the bagel place that is in the square. I should take one when it is dark because it is so pretty, but still it's a great place to sit for awhile under a tree. Today in the square they were have an international food festival and the American table had hot dogs - disappointing, I was hoping for some fried chicken or BBQ, but we settled for ice cream instead.

This is a picture of the library - which is my lifeline these days - it's not the best library, but it works and you can rent some pretty good movies!

Happy St. Patty's Day

2009-03-17T20:53:00.002+13:00

Yes Kiwis celebrate St. Patty's Day, but instead of going to one of the Irish pubs we opted to stay home and save our money for the weekend! Today was a very beautiful day and I thought the sunset from our window was very pretty and I wanted to share with everyone!

Car!

2009-03-12T17:08:00.004+13:00

Well we finally got a car - sorry mom it took me so long to get the pictures posted here! These are the best pictures I could take while it was parked in our spot. I am finding it very difficult driving on the other side of the road - ask Zac he is terrified to ride with me! But this car is like my old white lightning so I am sure I will become comfortable soon.

Well Zac took the car the other day to first aid class and he forgot to turn off the lights, so yesterday when I tired to go soccer practice (in the rain, so glad I didn't have to ride) the battery was dead. So now we know that there is not a dinging sounds when you turn off the car and the lights are still on! No worries though we just had to jump it and the battery is fine.

Now we can start taking trips - we are going to start planning a trip soon to either Wellington or Hawke's Bay!

Happy Birthday Zac

2009-03-09T20:58:00.002+13:00

Sorry all that it has been so long since our last post - we have been consumed with finding a car. We do have one and pictures will come once we pick it up (thanks Dad for the help with the car!!)

Here is the birthday cake and coffee cake that I made for Zac's birthday!

Fellow American

2009-02-24T20:14:00.003+13:00

I met my first American here yesterday, Zac has met 2 Americans at Massey. I had to buy a new umbrella because I didn't pack one so I ran into town to get one and she was the store manager. We asked where I was from and I said "the states" and she said "yeah but where" then I realized oh a fellow American. She was actually from Indy, but has been here 8 years. I ended up talking with her for about 45 minutes about differences and things we miss. People keep saying us what are things we miss - most are little things, but here are a few things!

Q-tips (thanks Kristin for sending us some!)
Ketchup (thanks Mom for sending us some!)
Screens on windows
TV - ESPN (Zac) and ALOT of shows for Cassie
cheap beer - Natty Light, Keystone, buying a 12 pack for $10 or less
Discount Stores - TjMax, Marshalls, Nordstroms Rack room
Shopping Online!!
American breakfast - doughnuts, pancakes, waffles
Mexican restaurants
Happy Hour at Kilroys - mini pitchers!
Pepperoni, bacon, sausage
Kroger - and Kroger brand, we are doubling our grocery bill from the states - yikes!
Cell phones - not tlaking or texting people whenever we want!
Big jars of jalapenos and taco sauce
Dryers - for clothes
Nice shampoo - they have it here but wow not cheap!

Obviously we miss our families, friends and of course Divi , but we love seeing them on Skype and don't feel like are are missing all our nieces and nephew grow!! We are doing our best not comparing everything and we do love it here; here are some of reason we love it here.

Cereal - it is so good - best ever!
Tea - we have taken the Kiwi and British approach by adding milk- delicious!
Trails - all the outdoor opportunities and bike lanes
The weather!!
People- everyone is super friendly
The food - so much variety and we are trying all kinds of great cuisine - the Cambodian restaurant was great the other day
The time is takes my straightener and iron to get hot - only like 5 seconds!!
No tipping at restaurants
Rugby- we are so amazed!

Those are just a few things that we wanted to share with you that we missed, but also things we love!!

Massey University

2009-02-20T11:18:00.004+13:00

So I finally made it up to Massey the other day - it is about a 30 bike ride from our apartment, but the ride is along the river and very pretty. Massey is a very beautiful campus - a lot of trees and many trails.

This is the road into Massey - the university is built on the circle.

Throughout the campus there are so many trails. Here a few of them. It's really cool you can take a trail between buildings or to the parking lot.

They have a million rugby fields - you can't really see all of them in the picture.

These are some of the dorms - I thought they looked cool because seem like bungalows.

This is the center of campus. In front is the student center - there is a bank, coffee shops, a pharmacy and lot of other things. Everywhere on campus they have so many trees.

Here is Zac in his office. He shares it with 5 other people but only on person, Rachel is the only one who is there often. I am actually going to start playing in a soccer league with Zac's office mate Rachel.

Thanks Kristin here pictures you sent!!

Tramping

2009-02-15T20:00:00.005+13:00

Today we went tramping (kiwi word for hiking) .. well we actually just walked on the trail, but we have some cool pictures to share. We are noticing that the pictures are not doing NZ justice because every where you look it is amazing and the pictures are capturing it the way it should.

This is actually the outside of our apartment building.

Our apartment is the top one on the left.

This is a view from the window.

And another view from the window - this is the downtown.

Below are pictures from the trail.

You can't see the windmills all that clearly in this picture but they are there. They use windmills to power all of this region - they are pretty cool!

The trail run along the river and it is the same trail Zac takes to Massey.

We wanted to see how deep the water in the river is and Zac got into it, not too deep, but really cold - he's a trooper!

Apartment

2009-02-10T18:25:00.008+13:00

Since everyone has been asking to see pictures of the apartment here it is!! I am not sure if people want to see the apartment itself or the fact that apartments are the one thing we were extremely taken back by and we were so vocal about our surprise! As you can see we need to put up more pictures because the walls are bare, but that will come with time! Our address is below and it is written as you would address the envelope.

5/16 Freyberg St
Palmerston North 4414
New Zealand

The 5/16 means we live at 16 Freyberg st in flat number 5 ... in case anyone was wondering! More outside pictures to come, but today is raining so we couldn't take any.

So below is the first bedroom. It is actually the biggest, but it is right off the front door so we are using it as a closet and bike room so we don't have to trek the bikes to the back bedroom. I use the closet in this room. Also you can see our classy dresser, but this is actually the easiest and the cheapest way to get all our clothes organized. We are finding that furniture is pretty expensive, so this works while we are here!

This is the living room. We really need to put something on the walls here because we spend most of our time here. We only have a love seat and a chair, but since there are so many doors, I am not sure if we could have fit in a bigger couch.

This is the bathroom. It is pretty small, but works and by far the nicest and cleanest bathroom we saw.

This is the back bedroom, the room we sleep in. The room is not very big so we only have our queen bed and Zac uses the closet in this room for the things that need to be hung up. I wished that we had a different color duvet cover, but I am so glad I brought all our linens here. We found they are really expensive for the good sheets - and many (especially the people I have bought them for) know how I feel about Egyptian cotton sheets and nice linens!!

And here is the kitchen. All the kitchens we saw were small - also they don't come with fridges or microwaves, so we had to buy one. As you can tell the fridge is small -all fridges are smaller than the ones in the states, Kiwis go the grocery more frequently. At the back of the kitchen is a nice deck. We tend to eat mostly out here. we are on the 2nd floor and the desk is the best part of the apartment by far!

Oh yes and something else great are the laundry facilities. We have 4 washers and 1 dryer (if we want). The back common area is all clothes lines so right now we opt for that instead of the dryer. Also not to mention that dryer costs money.

The beach

2009-02-08T12:08:00.004+13:00

Yesterday we went to the beach it ended up taking us a little longer to get there than we originally thought, but we saw some of the beautiful countryside on the drive. Yesterday it was cloudy when we got to the beach, but since we got here everyday has been both cloudy and sunny and the weather changes quickly.

People had 4-wheelers and such to ride all the dunes.

Here is the Pacific!! I am not sure how these people are in the water because it was really cold.

This is the lifeguard stand.

There wasn't a parking lot you can drive on the entire beach.

These are all pictures of the country-side. These are the ranges that are near palmy. Hopefully you can see them I took these pictures while Zac was driving. He is getting extremely good at drive on the other side of the road - I still have not driven yet!

Happy Waitangi Day!!

2009-02-06T20:05:00.003+13:00

So today is Waitangi Day in NZ - below is the link to Wiki for the explanation, but basically it is their independence day (and you know how much i love Wiki, since he is the smartest person I know :))

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

The majority of kiwis are on holiday today and we took advantage of the free concert the city center. They have numerous games and inflatable activities for the kids (Cate and Milla would have had a great time)! It was a good time, but we used Toby's (Zac's advisor) car for the day to run errands. We found a place similar to Lowe's and Home Depot that was right next to our place - it was great!!

This is one on the many exhibits.

This is the concert stage, we didn't stay for the main act, but we saw some good local talent.

Since 1 in 4 people in NZ get skin cancer the cancer society had these stations for free sun screen. I should have used more because I ended up getting burnt. Even though is was only in the high 70's today when the sun is out it is so hot because of the thinness of the ozone layer directly over NZ.

Here is a picture of the booths and such.

Here is the entrance to the center.

Transportation

2009-02-05T20:48:00.003+13:00

Zac finally got his bike yesterday, I got mine last week because I bought a used bike so now we both have transportation. Today was my first real experience of riding with all the "stuff" I bought, if I only had a picture. My basket was full, my back pack was full and I had a big bag full of pillows around my wrist - and the worst part was the wind - people were laughing at me trying to get all the stuff home. It is a really good thing that we only live about 8 minutes from the city center. Zac went to Massey today and the ride was about 30 mins or so, but he doesn't mind because it will be good excerise and a nice ride along the river.

So here are the bikes. You can see that both have kick stands and I have a really cool basket! We are both out of cycling shape, but we are getting more comfortable by the day.

Zac's Bike.

Cassie's bike.

We have arrived!!

2009-02-03T16:39:00.002+13:00

So we did make it here and wow what a trip. We will have to figure something for coming home at Christmas because I am not sure we can handle all those lay overs again! But everything went as smooth as possible with the exception of arriving in Auckland. We went through customs... fine.. but then we got our bags. We maxed out our (American allowance) by taking 6 bags each almost 90lbs, but as we got our boarding passes for the flight from Auckland to Palmerston North (Palmy) the NZ limit is 32 kgs so the check in lady told us we were going to have to rearrange our stuff. We had been traveling for about 30 hours at that point and we (especially Cas) were frustrated. We called all the airlines prior to packing and we were reassured that whatever the Indy regulations were that would carry on for the entire trip. Of course the lady kept saying that the bags couldn’t be over 32 kgs and then of course being the American I am I asked how many lbs is that because I had no clue if we were close or not. Zac very kindly gave me the formula, but of course that didn’t go over all that well at that moment. In the end we got all our bags on the plane and we didn’t even have to pay any additional charges for Air New Zealand – I think she just got tired of us and let us go through.

But when we got to Palmy our bags were the last ones off the plane and the Air New Zealand employee that took the bags off the plane came in to the airport to lectures us (just Cas) about the weight and went on and on about it (for like 5 minutes). Of course I just nodded and smiled. So if you come to NZ do not bring a bag over 32 kg (later I found out 70lbs) for luggage. Other than that small experience everyone has been delightful!

Palmy is very nice and Massey Campus is very pretty. Once we have internet at our apartment that will make this much easier and we can post more pictures!!

This is how we are currently using our spare bedroom, more pictures to come on the apartment. This is the city center, a great place to sit under a tree and read a book - that is what I have been doing since I am currently obsessed with the Twilight Series. The city center again.

2009-01-28T09:05:00.000+13:00

My intentions were to have this blog up and running by the time we moved, however since I am a procrastinator I am creating it while we are on the first leg of our trip in the Indy airport. All I have to say is thank you snow (and mom) without you we wouldn't be here 3 hours before our flight! When we were planning this trip it never crossed our minds that there would be snow and ice - go figure - so we are lucky that our plane is on time... so far :)

Above is a picture of Zac with our carry-on luggage. We ended up checking 6 huge bags - each over the 50 pound limit, but the nice Frontier ladies didn't mind that one was 97lbs. As the lady at the check-in counter said "We made Frontier very rich today" with all the luggage we checked-in. When we pulled up to the Indy Airport there was a random man that helped with our luggage (more to the story, but in true Seinfeld fashion) yada, yada, yada he was unhappy I only tipped him $3, he told me he wanted more than $4.

Our experience so far has been wonderful with Frontier since we got exit row seats without even having to ask - thank you Zac for being tall. Hopefully our exit row luck will continue when we check in to Air Pacific at LAX - if not then the ride from LAX to Fiji will be a long one.