The Intern Experience

Again, I'm behind with the blogging. Blame the nice weather and good friends for my being busy on my days off an not having time to sit in front of a computer!

A few weeks ago we had an intern from Pwc US come to visit us. It's part of a new program they are doing to help keep good recruits engaged with Pwc. Will was approached about being a host a few months ago and after seeing our friends Drew and Katie have an intern in March, we knew it was a sweet deal! Plus, we found out that he was from UNI and in SAA, so I knew he was good people.

Totally want to see this movie...and it ties in nicely with our topic for today!

Jake arrived on Sunday and as I recovered from a bad cold in bed, they went to our church for the 9am service (thats a way to beat jet lag!) After that we all went to Devonport for brunch, where Jake could embrace the Auckland "cafe culture". We let Jake relax in his room for a bit, but not too long, because we were off to the Auckland Museum to see a Maori cultural performance. We'd been to one in Rotorua, but were excited to see if the Museum's was better. To be honest, not much difference, but a big difference in price!

I'm pretty sure I'd be awesome doing the haka...

Will and Jake doing their whatero (tongue protrusion)

Jake went to work with Will making copies and doing all that normal intern stuff, and during the evenings we got to go out to eat to some of our favorite restaurants and even got to have dinner on top of the sky tower! Jake got to experience Masala, our favorite Indian restaurant as well.

At the top of sky tower

Thursday happened to be the 4th of July so to celebrate, we invited Will's co-workers who were either American, whose counties were adjacent to American (one Canadian) and those Kiwis who we really felt embraced American culture. It was a very exclusive group! We "grilled" sausages, had drinks and got into teams to compete in an American Quiz. I was worried about one of Will's Kiwi co-workers who seems to know everything, and in the end, his team took home Gold. If he ever wants to immigrate to the US, I will gladly be his sponsor as I know he would be a model US citizen :)

Discussing American things like baseball, apple pie and guns

3 cool UNI panthers decked out for 'Merica!

Heisman Candidate 2013!

Friday we took a trip down to Hobbiton so Jake could embrace his inner geek and cry seeing Bilbo Baggins house. Disclaimer: he did not actually cry. 

The group in a hobbit hole! UNI should totally use this in promo materials...I'm just stayin...

Of course, we would find the kitty at Hobbiton. Apparently it's a stray who has been adopted by the caretakers 

Looking up at the "million dollar tree"

Have a cider at the Green Dragon!

Looking across the lake to the Green Dragon

Sam's hobbit hole

After that we sadly had to put him on a plane back to the US. It was a short trip, but hopefully he had a great time and got to see what it is like to be an accountant in a foreign land.

Cheers!
Will and Tally (but let's be honest, mostly Tally...)

American Superheroes in New Zealand!

We've had a lot of fun celebrating Independence Day for the past week here in New Zealand. I think this week has been the most patriotic week I've had in a long time!

It all started off on Monday night when we were invited to the Ambassador's Independence Day Event because, let's be honest, we are pretty high profile Americans. The event was a reception with some musical performances by small children (always a classic for patriotic events) and a speech by the Ambassador. I have to say, I'm not much into political events or formal gatherings of any kind, but this was actually a good time. The Ambassador's speech was very good. He compared the USA (both the country as a whole and the people) to various superheroes and they made surprisingly good parallels. In Spiderman we have the reluctant hero that just wants to be left alone, but who cannot sit back and watch injustice. In Ironman you see the hero who is a bit eccentric, and not well understood by outsiders, but who nonetheless comes in to save the day. In Batman, the hero who fights injustice with no pomp and circumstance and even dislike from his community. And Superman, the outsider who rises up to be just what we need. Overall, it made me proud to be American!

Cute little boy's choir singing The National Anthem

The Ambassador's speech, sorry for the crappy lighting in the pic!

On Thursday we had the 2nd Annual Pwc 4th of July party. We had several of Will's co-workers over for a good ol (winter) BBQ. We had lots of fun decorations (thanks to Katie Sleeman) and lots of good food. In true American fashion 3/4 of the dishes were dessert :) I also made a 4th of July Quiz with some tough political, sports and pop culture questions. The winners were a team of 2 Americans and 2 Kiwis--Congrats to Marshall, Nathan, Danielle and Mel! At the end of night we had a "photo booth" with fun props for everyone to dress up in and get their picture taken. I'm sure we took more than a few new Facebook profile pics.

Full house of people who LOVE America!

They lit up the sky tower in red, white and blue just for my party! --photo courtesy Drew Peters :) 

THEN on Saturday we had our Independence Day celebration with Team America where we played football and rugby and had a picnic outside in the lovely Auckland winter weather. The football game ended in a tie, and the rugby game was won by the team with the South African, so we might have had a slight advantage. I learned that rugby is very hard mentally and physically. Mentally it's hard to remember to stay behind the ball and stay in your zone of defense. Physically it is non-stop running for however long you play with lots of switching directions, and starting/stopping. I will say I was sweating a lot more from rugby than football. Craig promised to have "rugby school" for us Americans so we can learn more strategy to the game for the future (currently our strategy was just to "do something"). Overall we had a pretty darn good Independence Week.

Safe to to say we are all proud to be, be married/engaged to or friends with an American!