What we've been up to...

Hello family and friends!

We've been posting a lot about our exciting adventures and fun things we are experiencing. It does sound quite exciting to live in New Zealand, but besides our occasional jaunts to cool places, we lead lives pretty similar to our lives back home. We thought we would write a blog about the not so exciting part of our lives here: our daily lives. Here's a boring description to give you more of an idea of what we are doing halfway around the world!

 Will goes to work every day (surprise!), so nothing to report there. Since moving here I was only able to find part time work, so during the 3 week days that I'm not working you can find me hitting the gym (this one really is a surprise!), cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, going to the library, planning any trips and crafting. The main difference to my daily life is that everything takes a little longer to do. We live downtown so it is pointless to drive anywhere and I do a lot of walking which makes a trip to library take about an hour. Also cooking is more intense as New Zealand has very few mixes and shortcuts, so everything is from scratch. Our dryer is useless so I line dry our clothes which just takes longer. We don't have a lot of the amazing products that make cleaning easier (like disposable toilet bowl cleaning wands and Swiffers) so I have to do a lot of cleaning the old fashion way.

Tuesday evenings we have our small group where we have dinner and lately we've been watching the Truth Series. Wednesday evening Will has piano lessons. Since we only have one car, I often have to pick him up from work and take him there. During his hour-long lesson I sit in the car and read my book like all the other moms :)

Friday night we like to either make pizza, get takeaway or eat out. Saturday mornings we've been either going to the gym or a local farmer's market. After the market we'll either go out and explore a new area of Auckland, or more likely, I'll sit around while Will does some work :) Saturday night we try to be social and do something with friends. Sunday we go to church and spend time together and just relax.

So that is our boring life. Of course we love that we are so close to so many beautiful things, but just like everyone in the world, we don't always get the time to enjoy because the boring parts of life get in the way!

Windy Welly

This past weekend Will and I went for a trip to Wellington, the capitol of NZ. Will is working there this week, so we thought we'd take advantage of his free flight and make a holiday of it. We had a great time, despite the gale force winds.

We left Auckland Friday after work. The airport was really easy to navigate and they are much less tense than airports in the US. I went from Auckland-Wellington and then Wellington-Auckland without ever showing any form of ID! Crazy! We got into Wellington about 7:30 and hit the streets immediately. I read about a night market on Cuba street, which is the uber-trendy, hipster district. The website said it had numerous craft and food stalls, but that night it was mostly food. I was kind of bummed as I was hoping for some cool handmade items. Regardless, street food is always good! Our favorite was chicken and cilantro pot stickers.

Entrance to the night market

MMM potstickers

Will eating the yummy cilantro chicken pot-stickers

Saturday we had planned to go for some nice walks around town to see the sights, but mother nature had a different plan for us. So we braved the weather just long enough to walk to the waterfront for another market (this one called the underground market) which was located in a basement parking garage. More food stalls! This time our favorite was a nutella crepe! Since we were obviously not going to stroll along the waterfront, we decided to take camp in the Museum of New Zealand, known as Te Papa. It was an amazing 6 story museum with some really cool exhibits including an earthquake simulator and a piano carved in Maori style with a short concert. Saturday I learned that Will and I have different museum going tactics. I walk through exhibits, getting more an overall feel for the story the exhibit is telling, and maybe stepping aside and reading closely about a few items that spark my interest per room. Will likes to read every single plaque and look at every single picture. I guess that's the top-down/bottom-up processing differences in our brains! To end the night we went to a pub to have some fish and chips and watch the All Blacks win, again. We're actually knowledgeable enough now that our cringes of a missed play are in time with the rest of the crowd! Score! This was my first time watching the All Blacks in a crowd and was a lot of fun!

Windy Welly at the waterfront. Sailing anyone?

Wellington Underground Market

Getting my nutella crepe. This was taken just before Will insulted the crepe maker asking if this was his hobby...

My hair pretty much sums up our weekend :)

An early Maori whare (pronounced far-ay) meaning building

Sunday turned out to be a much nicer day, compared to Saturday. It was still pretty windy, but it wasn't raining and the sun made it feel a little warmer. So what do you do on a nice Sunday morning anywhere in the world? We went to more markets :) There was an outdoor farmers market with traditional food stands (curry, churros, crepes, noodles) and an indoor city market with more upscale artisan foods (chocolate, organic dairy, cheese). We found a good Mexican booth in the cheap-o market with no signage and the guy spoke Spanish to everyone (even though he could speak English). He was a lot of fun, especially when he told me he thought I was 17! He even had Will go behind the counter and put his own money in the register to help him out while he helped the next customer! Will said the tacos were near the best he's ever had! After lunch we took a ride in the cable car to the top of the Botanic Gardens, then walked down through the gardens and got to see/smell/learn about Kiwi trees and flowers. And what would a stroll through the gardens be without a cuppa (cup of tea/coffee) and a scone? Our last stop in Wellington was the Old St. Paul's church which was built in 1866 from exclusively native timber. The inside was very ornate, like cathedrals of Europe, but being made from wood gave it a unique look, separating it from all the other churches you see.

Will playing banker at the Mexican food stand

Tally in front of "The Bee Hive" AKA Parliament building

Will on the antique cable car 

Will wanted to swing on the swing set at the Botanic Gardens, but rules are rules....

Smelling the blossoms. They smelled like honey suckle, but I'm not sure what they were 

Our hotel had a pillow menu! For no extra cost you could special order your pillow. I went with the relaxing package with lavender, Will ordered the "V" pillow good for sitting up in bed working :)

Old St. Pauls

Overall we had a great time in Windy Welly, though if we go back, we will make sure to bring more scarves/hats to keep warm from all the wind gusts.

Cheers