Iowegians in New Zealand

Back from Thailand, Cambodia and Laos

2012-01-22T21:32:00.003+13:00

Our Christmas break for this year was to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. You might recall that NZ basically closes down over the Christmas holidays, so it is a great time to get away for a long vacation. We met up with some friends from Iowa that have been traveling in Thailand for a year. Their son who is a Senior at Iowa also traveled with us. We were gone for just over 3 weeks and we had a wonderful time.

Trip Pictures

Here are some highlights of the trip:
* Bangkok - we spent the first 3 days of our trip in Bangkok seeing the sites. We took a trip on a long tailed boat up the river, visited some of the temples, had a really nice dinner at the Mandarin Oriental and went to a number of markets. If you ever go to Bangkok, be prepared for a reallllly big city!
* Siem Reap, Cambodia- the attraction of Siem Reap are the temples of Angkor Wat. We spent 3 days seeing temples and could have been at it for another 3 more. The area was built up around the 8th century and the temples are magnificent. Our favorite ones were the Indiana Jones style with the trees growing through the rocks.
* Back to Bangkok for New Years Eve- we watched fireworks from our hotel along the river
* Chaing Mai- Chaing Mai is in northern Thailand, which is a more mountainous area of the country. This is also a much smaller city then Bangkok and we found it more enjoyable. We had an opportunity to rent motorcycles for a day here and ride to a Hmong hilltribe village, a mountain temple and to a river rafting excursion. We also did a cooking class and went on a zip line tour that was lots of fun.
* Hilltribe trek in the mountains - We took an overnight hilltribe trek out of Chaing Mai that was very interesting. The trek started about 4 hours out of Chaing Mai. We started off with a half day walk to a hilltribe village. We spent the night with the locals sleeping on the hardwood floor and drinking the local rice whiskey. The next day we hiked back out of the village and spent most of the day in the river valley. The hike ended by walking in a river through a bat cave using flaming bamboo to light the way. It is one of those things we are glad we did but won't be rushing to do a second time.
* Elephant Nature Park - this is one of our most favorite activities on our vacation. This is a nature preserve for elephants that have been abused by tourist parks and logging camps. Most of the elephants have been injured in some way. We got to feed the elephants, wash them in the river and watch their activities for the day.
* Mekong River - from Chaing Mai, we went to Chaing Rai for a night and then on to Huay Xai Laos to take a 2 day boat ride down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang Laos. The river had some beautiful areas. I was surprised at the number of people making a living off the river.
* Luang Prabang, Laos - After all our traveling, we found that Luang Prabang was very relaxing. It is a laid back town with a French influence. We spent 4 nights here. Our favorite site was a waterfall outside of town. It was a beautiful multi-tiered waterfall that had a really unique color of blue water.

We have been back in Auckland for a week now and are back to work. Our next holiday is next weekend. We have a 3 day weekend this coming week and a 3 day weekend the following week due to national holidays. We hope to take the boat out for the long weekends and explore some of the Auckland coastal area.

Checking in from Bangkok

2011-12-26T14:19:00.002+13:00

Hello fromThailand too difficult to blog from phone so this may be the last post for some time

Bike ride over the Auckland Harbour Bridge

2011-12-13T21:05:00.003+13:00

Sunday morning there was an inaugural bike ride (race) over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. John had his cruiser bike all souped up from the ride. This is the first time that bikes have been allowed on the Harbour Bridge, so it was quite a big deal. Bike organizations around the city are trying to get the city to add a bike lane underneath the bridge so that bikes and pedestrians can go over any time they want. We hope to see the new bike lane completed in the next couple years.

In the meantime though, 2 lanes of the bridge were closed to traffic - one lane was for 160 parked buses and the other for bikers. The city parked something like 160 buses over the bridge and up the motor way to add a barrier to protect the cyclists from traffic that might go out of control at the sight of bikes on the bridge. After the bridge the remainder of the ride was on a dedicated bus road. We road the 15k option but there was also a 110k option for the hardcore riders. 15k's isn't much until you add a 35k headwind for the ride and John on his one speed cruiser bike!

Check out the link below to see some pictures from the ride. John is about 1/2 way down - the one with the horns on the front of the bike.

http://cyclingauckland.co.nz/events/2011/12/coathanger-conquered/

You will also note that medals were provided for completing the ride. New Zealand doesn't do organized social bar to bar rides ---- they just do races. That means that massive organization is required, fees are paid to ride and medals are given out.

Jackie's trip to NZ

2011-11-06T12:30:00.003+13:00

As many of you know, our friend Jackie visited us for the last few weeks from Iowa. John had a drinking partner for a few weeks and we had a opportunity to take some time off work and show her around. As it was Jackie's 2nd trip to NZ, we visited a few places slightly off the tourist track.

The visit started off with attending the Bronze final game for the Rugby World Cup between Wales and Australia (Ozzy won unfortunately) where Jackie got an appreciation for the finer points of rugby and a little insight into the national craze for rugby. For the RWC final game (NZ vs France), we headed into Auckland city and watched the game with at least 200,000 of our closest friends. The bars had queues of a least 50 people deep to get in and all the fan zones were filled to capacity. You literately heard a collective gasps from the entire city when something good or bad happened. The All Blacks kept the country on the edge of the seat until the last seconds and thankfully pulled out a win. The Viaduct erupted into a mass of revelers and was the biggest crowd I have ever been in. The next day, we attended the victory parade with that same crowd.

By this time, we were ready to get out of Auckland crowds and see some of the real New Zealand. We flew to Blenheim and did an eco walking tour along the coast and a bike ride around the vineyards in the rain. From Blenheim, we went into the Marborough Sound and stayed in Endeavour Inlet at the Furneaux Lodge. We walked one section of the Queen Charlotte Track and spent a day doing a short walk around the Lodge and kayaking. Next we headed to Wellington to take in the capital city on Halloween weekend. John and I had to go back to work than while Jackie headed on to Napier for a few days of R&R.

Here is a link to pictures for those interested

Our next big adventure: Thailand at Christmas!

New Zeland in the RWC Finals

2011-10-18T21:46:00.002+13:00

New Zealand has finally broken a 20+ year curse and has made it to the final game of the Rugby World Cup. They will be playing France this coming Sunday. The All Blacks beat Australia (our number 1 enemy) last weekend to make it to the final. It has been a good week for all the Kiwi's. We just have to see if they can win the final this week (which is also a holiday weekend here)- if so there will be some partying going on.

NZ campaigned to hold the RWC here on the premise that we would have a stadium of 4 million people - meaning that the games would be held throughout the country and everyone would get involved. Turnout for the games has impressed everyone and the nation has really gotten behind all the international teams. Each of the towns where games were being played have adopted a county to support. I would image the experience with the RWC would be somewhat like being in the host country for the soccer world cup or the Olympics.

In not so good news, NZ had its worst maritime disaster last week. A cargo ship ran into a reef in the Bay of Pleanty outside of Tauranga. It has been spewing oil all over the gulf for over a week. Removing the oil from the ship has proven difficult and the weather has been prohibitive. There have also been cargo containers falling into the ocean and washing up on the beaches and the ship has a big rip of the side of it and is close to breaking apart. We have our own little Exxon Valdez going on down here and it is killing the 'clean green' image of NZ. The one positive is that there have been lobbyists to start drilling for oil in the gulf lately (which Green Peace has been protesting). Bet the lobbyists go away for a few years since the oil spill incident has happened.....

The games are on!

2011-10-05T21:17:00.003+13:00

You might be wondering where we have been the last few weeks..... watching rugby! The first round of games are now over and the top 8 teams start on round 2 this weekend. NZ is currently the leader but they have just lost the number 1 player due to injury. We watched the 4 USA games but they are now out of the tournament. The US is considered one of the 'minnow' teams- along with Russia, Georgia, Fiji, etc. They weren't expected to do much for the tournament but the general consensus from those in the know is that the US should be a top contender for the next tournament in a few years.

John has also been working on the new boat. We moved it to the marina by our house a couple weekends back. John has been working on the engine and doing some tidy up. The interesting tidbit about Opal is that it was the model boat for the Davidson 28 sales brochure. Davidson's were sold as kit boats for the 'do it yourselfer'. It is a cruiser style boat that has a 4 beths, head and galley area. John is looking forward to some weekends away in the gulf.

We are also looking forward to our friend Jackie coming to town in a couple weeks. She is going to be here for finals weekend and we are going down to the south island for a week as well.

The Tournament Has Begun!

2011-09-11T21:45:00.002+12:00

We went to the opening ceremony and game on Friday night. The opening was brilliant and the downtown party areas are hopping. Here are YouTube videos of the opening- watch them in order. It is worth the 20 min.

#1- http://www.youtube.com/user/missownz#p/c/B7A12F26FF0482BE/0/5GkXpQhc51g
#2- http://www.youtube.com/user/missownz#p/c/B7A12F26FF0482BE/1/VKOQ07B22_Y
#3- http://www.youtube.com/user/missownz#p/c/B7A12F26FF0482BE/2/_GQAYGzi_TQ
#4- http://www.youtube.com/user/missownz#p/c/B7A12F26FF0482BE/3/BRmtXGIgckY

Seen a couple other games at a bar since then. Argentina lost against England (it was close), and the USA lost against Ireland (not close).

RWC Excitment at is Peak!

2011-09-09T14:43:00.002+12:00

Wow. I cannot believe all that is going on here in Auckland for the start of the Rugby World Cup. It is HUGE. Nobody is working very had today (Friday). It is going to be a long night!

The last week...snow and sea

2011-08-28T19:55:00.004+12:00

The skiing went well. Good snow. At bit croweded by Mt Hutt standards, but not bad at all. Hardly even fell down.
While google navigator on the new phone is really helpful, it can take you on some questionable routes in the South Island.
Finalized the boat purchase and we even went out for a sail yesterday. Went really well for the most part. There is a few bits and pieces that need to be worked on, but that is to be expected. Moving to the marina by our house in a couple weeks. It will be much easier to work on then.

We survived the snow

2011-08-15T21:01:00.002+12:00

NZ has been going through an extreme cold front for the last couple days. Today, there was snow in downtown Auckland for the first time since July 1939. This was just a short snow shower, but it was enough to get everyone looking out the windows at work for a few minutes. This will hopefully be the last of winter storms for this year - especially since John hopes to close on our new boat in the next few days. After much looking at boat options, we settled on a 28ft Davidson sail boat. The out of water inspection for the boat is scheduled for tomorrow. If that goes well, it should be ours by the end of the week. The boat sleeps 6 so there is plenty of room for visitors.

John and I are off to take advantage of all the snow this weekend. We are heading to Mt Hutt outside of Christchurch to go skiing. This will be our first time out skiing in a couple years. Our trip last year was cancelled as this was scheduled for the weekend when the first big earthquake hit.

Interesting stuff seen at work

2011-08-02T20:21:00.003+12:00

Everyone once in a while I see somthing a bit odd or interesting while either at work or on my way to work. I usaully snap a picture of it on my cell phone so I can share it with Lisa. Well, I got a new phone and just cleared off the photos on the old one. Seemed like a good time to share some of those photos with you.

Dolphins during the ferry ride into work.

There was some big sendoff for those traditional style Maori ships that were off to Hawaii or something.

A mig jet in a cafe parking lot.

For the big Melborne horse race they decorated some horse statues.

This was one of the oddest things I saw while walking to work... a BIG rubber duckie.

Attempting Social Networking

2011-08-01T20:24:00.002+12:00

I'm not an overly social guy. Thus, you will not find me on facebook. Well, I decided to give Google+ a shot. You can find me on there. If you want an invite, let me know. -John.

Latest from NZ

2011-07-24T15:37:00.002+12:00

Hi all. Sorry that I have not been very good about updating the blog recently. I have a good excuse though.... John is on the computer every night looking at sail boats. We have spent the last couple weekends looking at boats and have somewhat narrowed down the design that we are interested in. We are looking at around 28 ft that is more of the cruiser style then the racing style. We want to use the boat for weekends around the Gulf. Looking at boats usually means me taking a 5 min cursory view of the layout and interior condition and John spending an hour examining the bilge and motor and intricate details. We found one that we were interested in but unfortunately someone beat us to making an offer.

In the last couple weeks it has turned to a full fledged winter in NZ. The ski fields have finally been able to open, there have been record lows in the South Island and sailing has been cancelled the last couple weekends for John due to gale force winds. In another 4 weeks we should be well on our way into Spring. I noticed the magnolia trees were actually in bloom already.

Last night we went to the USA vs Canada ice hockey game. The US and Canada NHL are putting on 3 expedition games in NZ and the funds are going to Christchurch. There are a few local social hockey teams teams around but there are not any professional level teams in NZ or Australia. The game was held in Auckland at Vector Arena for a sold out crowd of 10,000. The organizers had to import a $4 million ice rink for the matches. Most everyone at the game was either dressed to support the US or Canada. Sadly, the Canadians out numbered the Americans by 2 to 1 (don't forget Canada is another Common Wealth country) and Canada ended up beating the US in sudden death OT. Overall though, everyone had a good time and hopefully hockey will come back around again.

The NZ dollar is the big news right now. The NZ dollar is running around 85 cents to the US dollar. Basically, the value of the US dollar has gotten so low due to the horrible economy and the NZ economy seems to be charging ahead. There is talk that the NZ dollar may be on par with the US dollar in the next few months. This is great for the importers but bad news for the exporters and those wanting to take a holiday in NZ.

Happy Feet

2011-06-30T21:52:00.002+12:00

One of the things we heard when we were first moving to NZ is that there is often not much news to really keep a paper going each day so a lot of human interest stories become big news. There are always lots of 'fireman saving the cat' type of stories in the news. You might remember by Shrek posting from a couple weeks ago. Shrek now has a rival for the spotlight--- Happy Feet.

Happy Feet is an Emperor penguin that arrived on a beach on the North Island from Antarctica --- about 4,000 km from his home. This is only the 2nd time that an Emperor penguin has arrived in NZ. Happy Feet ended up eating sand off the beach in an attempt to keep cool. This type of penguin cools itself by eating snow and ice normally. The DOC ended up taking him in and he has now been through 3 or 4 rounds of surgery to remove the sand and sticks from his stomach and intestines. It appears that Happy Feet is going to pull through but the big question now is how to get him back to Antarctica? Antarctica is closed to all travel as it is currently 24 hrs of darkness down there and is the height of winter. So, what do you do with a penguin that likes it - 20 below and living on ice burgs until travel season starts in Antarctica?

Ash clouds and earthquakes

2011-06-21T21:28:00.002+12:00

NZ is on the 2nd round of the ash cloud from the Chilean volcano. Flights were distrusted last week due to the ash cloud. The cloud then cleared and things were back to normal for a couple days until the 'Roaring 40's' winds blew it around to Australia and NZ for a second time. Flights are now disrupted again for most of the airlines. Air New Zealand has made the decision to keep flying though. They have been flying at a lower altitude and flying extra distance to go around the ash where as the other major airlines have just been cancelling the flights as it is not economical to fly lower and to fly the extra distance. It is a good thing that Air NZ has been flying as I attended the Agile Australia conference in Sydney last week. If Air NZ wasn't flying, I would have been stuck in Auckland and missed the whole thing!

In addition to ash clouds, Christchurch received their 3rd major earthquake last week. Another 100+ buildings were declared uninhabitable in downtown Christchurch due to the 3rd major earthquake and they received another round of liquefaction as well. The NZ Army and the Farmy Army have been back on the job again with clean up. The Farmy Army is a huge group of farmer volunteers that bring in their big John Deere tractors to help clear all the liquefaction silt from the streets.

Today is the shortest day of the year in NZ. We have had a very mild winter this year. It has been in the 50's and 60's during the day and is only getting down to the 40's and 50's during the night. The ski fields down south are all still closed as they are not getting any snow. The weather is good for us but bad for the winter vacation economy. Australia has more snow then NZ right now!

Since the weather has been so nice, John and I took the ferry to Tiritiri Matangi Island this weekend. The island is about a 1 hour ferry ride from downtown Auckland and is a bird sanctuary. There are volunteer tour guides on the island that take you through the walks and tell you all about the birds and trees. Tiritiri is a pest free island that has some very rare birds, with some of them thought to be extinct at one time. If you are ever in NZ, it is a worth while trip.

Shrek the Sheep

2011-06-08T21:02:00.002+12:00

If you are a Kiwi, you have heard of the Shrek the famous Merino sheep. Shrek avoided muster for 6 years by hiding in a cave and generally getting himself lost when muster time came around. When Shrek was finally found, he had 6 years of Merino wool on him. This is 5 more years then normal for a sheep. He became an instant celebrity in New Zealand. This BBC article says he had enough wool for 20 mens suits when he was found. There have been books written about him and he has been used to raise money for kids charities ever since he was found. Sadly, Shrek's life has come to an end as he was put down on Monday due to old age.

Also, the news everyone wants to know: did we make it back to NZ with all that wine? Yes, we did! We got a case of wine checked as luggage on the plane with no problem. We also somehow managed to get through Customs without paying any duties/GST taxes as well. So, for anyone coming this way, we need more California Zinfandel! For some reason (which I am sure has to do with cost), NZ doesn't import wine from the US.

We also greatly enjoyed our trip back to the US though our time went by much to fast. We struggled to get around to see everyone. But thanks to those who came out and meet us at Wellman's. We had a great evening out.

We are back into the hum drum winter in NZ-- though it hasn't been much of a winter yet. The temperatures are still pretty warm for this time of year. The ski fields have had to delay their opening as it hasn't been cold enough to snow.

visit back to Iowa coming to a close

2011-05-27T15:30:00.001+12:00

good friends, new friends, great times. Headed home soon. Sure do miss these folks.

In california

2011-05-18T13:46:00.002+12:00

Mmmmm.....California red wines.....

We are going to be in Des Moines for holiday!

2011-05-10T21:25:00.002+12:00

John and I are making a trip back to the US to see friends and family over the next couple weeks. We will be starting off with a week in California and then a week in Iowa. As it will be about impossible to get around to see everyone while we are back, we are you hoping you will come to us. We have arranged for a get together on Thursday May 26 at Wellman's Pub in West Des Moines.

When: Thur May 26, 4:30 - ???
Where: Wellman's Pub and Rooftop Bar, 597 Market Street, West Des Moines (in the Jordan Creek area, across from Funny Bone)

Hope to see you there.

Tornado in Auckland

2011-05-04T21:41:00.002+12:00

There was a big news day yesterday--- a tornado went through northern Auckland. One person was killed and there were a number of injuries. Most of the damage was done around Albany mall. A number of roofs were ripped off around the mall, cars were turned over, street lights down, etc. This is a VERY rare event in NZ. They get little twister clouds every so often, but nothing that causes any real damage. There is not really enough land mass in NZ to get the heating effect like in the US. The last tornado in Auckland that did any damage was in 1991. NZ doesn't have the infrastructure to handle tornadoes-- there is no warning system or sirens in place and the kids are not taught in school about what to do for a tornado. One of the guys I work with said he kids where just told to stand in the hallway at school. They didn't know about the whole sit and cover you get taught in the US schools. Morning radio had a big discussion on if you should really take cover in a bathtub--- people thought this was a really funny concept.

Tornado path

Easter in Sydney

2011-05-01T16:49:00.004+12:00

For the long Easter weekend, we had the pleasure of visiting Sydney for a few days. NZ has Good Friday and Easter Monday as public holidays. Easter Monday also coincided with Anzac Day this year (Australia got Tue off work as well for Anzac Day which NZ was very jealous about).

More pictures

On Friday, we walked around the city and saw the Opera House, Botanical Gardens, Sydney Bridge and did a wine and tapas sail aboard a tall ship in the evening.

Saturday we went to the Royal Easter Show, which is the commonwealth countries name for the state fair. They even had a big slide--- we could have been in Iowa! But, it was raining all day so the big slide was closed. We also checked out most of the animal barns and saw the biggest cow in Australia.

Sunday we took the train to the Blue Mountains for the day. The Blue Mountains are called that as the area is full of eucalyptus trees and all the tress make a haze in the air. It was a very pretty area but was extremely busy with tourists. There are a lot of hiking trails around the area and we tried to stay off the boardwalk trails and to the more difficult ones to keep out of the way of all the strollers. We were somewhat disappointed as the Blue Mountains park is not kept up very well compared to the NZ National Parks. You rarely see litter in NZ parks and the trails are generally pretty will maintained. You can't say the same for the Blue Mountains.

Monday we spent most of the morning at the Anzac Day Parade. Anzac Day is the same as Veterans Day but they make a much bigger deal about it down here. The parade was 4 hours (I am not joking about the length!) of military units-- EVERYBODY was represented. About every 10 minutes there was a bag pipe band through. After hearing the same song 20 times on the bag pipes, we came to the conclusion that there is really only 1 song for the bag pipes.

We have been back hard at work this week. I have a big project that was finally wrapped up last week and John is busy on his project to change over the systems at the new Auckland jail.

In local news, it is all about politics and rebuilding in Christchurch. The tornadoes in the US have also been making the news down here. Hope everyone that reads this blog is well.

Our new castle and mode of transport

2011-04-07T20:50:00.004+12:00

Last weekend we tried out our new home away from home in Raglan. We have been feeling very outclassed in the Kiwi campgrounds with our tiny little 2 person tent that John used on Ragbrai for years. To fit in, we needed the deluxe model Kathmandu (Eddie Bauer of NZ) with a bedroom and a veranda. Believe it or not, this is actually one of the smaller models. Some people have massive 2 or 3 room structures. I just like being able to stand up and not having to crawl in and out of bed! The back part by John is the bedroom and the front dome part is the porch area. The sides all roll up so you can have a full sun porch if you like. Downside is that it takes a good 1/2 hour to put up vs the 15 min with the old small tent.

Since we were on the shopping spree, we also bought a Stand Up Paddle Board (SUP). John and I had taken a lessen a few weeks back and really enjoyed it. It is very easy to learn how to do and in about an hour you can feel pretty comfortable on the board. There is much less of a learning curve than trying to learn to surf or to kite board, which we have both tried over the years. The SUP we bought is a blow up model so it rolls up for transportation. You can use a SUP in any calm water or some people also use them like a surf board. I wouldn't be to surprised if you saw them around Saylorville one of these days.

Our other highlight of the weekend was meeting up with Naomi from Iowa. Naomi is an ex-Kiwi that now lives in Des Moines with her family. She was back in Auckland for a visit and made contact so we meet up for a coffee. Naomi got onto the blog from a friend of a friend and it was the first time that we have meet. It was great to hear a little of the news from home and talk about the experiences of living in a different country. Sounds like there is a good little kiwi community is Des Moines.

The weather has turned 'squally' this week with strong southerly winds ---- the long way to say it has turned rainy and cold. It appears that our long summer is starting to come to an end......

Signs of Easter...

2011-03-30T20:48:00.004+13:00

Driving home from work the other day, it struck me that there is a very different sign of Easter in NZ than in North America. In Iowa anyway, you normally associate Easter with spring and tulips and warm weather. In NZ, you associate Easter with hot cross buns....... one of John's favorite foods that comes in plain or if you want to really get fancy, chocolate. This is a seasonal type item that mainly comes out at Easter. Grocery store start stocking the entry displays with hot cross buns and you see cafe advertisements on the streets announcing their buns are hot and in stock. Wikipedia says this is tied to Easter because Elizabeth I banned the buns and said they could only be sold at Easter time. Wikipedia has an interesting little history on how they came about for those interested.

NZ has Good Friday and Easter Monday as public holidays. This means a 4 day weekend and we are off to Sydney to see what is going on in Oz. We don't have much planned yet for the trip, but I would like to check out the Royal Easter Show, which appears to be the Australian version of the state fair.

Earthquakes

2011-03-13T20:52:00.003+13:00

We were watching Glee Friday night when the Japan earthquake and tsunami hit. The show was interrupted for live breaking footage of the waves hitting Japans shores. The effects of the waves hit northern NZ around 6:00am Saturday morning. There was minor damage done to boats and the shoreline. The Japan quake has now knocked the Christchurch cleanup off the NZ headlines. The international rescue workers were just starting to pack up shop in Christchurch and it sounds like a number of the countries are sending their people directly from Christchurch to Japan. NZ is even sending a small team as the Japanese were in Christchurch helping us out. Christchurch is going to end up with around 180 people dead and with something like a $15 billion bill to rebuild. It sounds like whole neighborhoods are going to be bulldozed and relocated. The papers here say the quakes are unrelated but you have to wonder.

The paper ran a story last week about the likelihood of a major earthquake happening in Auckland. Auckland is not on a fault line and if an earthquake was to happen, Auckland is mostly built on rock so there would be less impact to infrastructure. Christchurch is mostly built on reclaimed land so they are having a heck of a time with the liquefaction (mud spewing up out of the ground).

In other news, I have been keeping very busy with work. I have a large project that has to deliver new software to the market on March 31. This is creating lots of long hours for myself as well as the project team. We have been making it out for a little fun though. Tuesday night we went to a dinner and short take movie night at a local brewery. I won this through Dish Magazine, the local foodie magazine. If anyone wants a unique gift idea, I would recommend this magazine. They have very good articles, unique recipes and great pictures. I like this magazine better than the US food mags as I think there is more relevant information that someone would actually use. Also, this is the 2nd thing I have won from them, so that always makes a happy customer as well.

We are officially in Autumn here and last week it felt like it. All of a sudden it went from the height of summer to needing a 2nd blanket on the bed. It warmed up this weekend though so we got some beach time and swimming in at my favorite beach in NZ, Tawharanui Regional Park. This is a bird sanctuary and I think a marine reserve as well. There was a huge stingray swimming around with us even.

I also walked in the Round the Bays fun run with 70,000 of my closest friends this morning. This is a 8.3k (5.15 miles) run or walk from downtown and out around the harbour. Funny thing is it took me about 1 1/2 hrs to do the walk and about 3 hrs to get back home on public transport! Oh, public transport in Auckland is so wonderful......

CHCH Earthquake update

2011-03-01T20:36:00.004+13:00

The only news around here is the Christchurch earthquake, and for good reason. They predict the death toll to reach 240 and the financial toll to be staggering.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/
In the midst of all of this I have been awe struck by everyone here. Everyone is very selfless and helping in any way they can. Opening their wallets and their homes. It makes me proud to be here and be a part of it.
New Zealand is a beautiful country, but it is the people that make it really special.
For those of you who would like to help, there are several organizations that would put your donations to good use. Better yet, come visit this wonderful country!

Latest News

2011-02-22T21:50:00.002+13:00

First, I'm sure you all are wondering about the Christchurch earthquake. It has not effected us directly, but emotionally it is a pretty big hit for the entire country. Like with 9/11, you feel helpless and desperately want to help in some way, but there really isn't much we can do at this point, except perhaps donate blood.

In other "no so cheery" news, two of our very good friends, Grant and Dean, are moving back to Canada this week. They will be missed.

Other news: Lisa and I tried out Stand Up Paddle Surfing (SUP) a couple weeks ago. It was just an introductory one hour deal. Good fun. It is not too hard. Just balance on the board and paddle. Looking at perhaps getting a board.

I've been at my new job for a little over a month now. It has been great. No regrets. Much more fulfilling work.

Last Saturday we went to the Davenport Wine Festival with Grant and Dean. Lisa used her two powers of persuasion to convince some guy that had scored some "free" wine to share. That quickly took us down the path of "too drunk to drive home so we'll crash here". Good times.

-John

NZI 7's - Let It All Out

2011-02-08T20:27:00.003+13:00

Over the weekend John and I attended the NZI 7's rugby tournament in Wellington. This is an international rugby tournament that is played in various locations around the world every year. The next stop for the tournament is Las Vegas this coming weekend. The Wellington tournament is known as a 48 hour party event and for some reason, there is a history of those attending the event (and even those not attending in some cases) dressing in costume. The more elaborate the costume the better! We went as the cowboy and Indians theme. Our artistic props got us photographed a number of times and we made the tournament website photo gallery even. Check out all the different costumes here - pictures.

There were 16 teams that participated in the tournament (USA, Canada, England, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Somoa, Argentina, etc. NZ won the tournament over England and the US beat France to win the 4th place game. The US didn't embarrass us to bad - someday the US might become a rugby playing nation. The games are played with 7 players on the field for each side and the time is shortened down to 20 minutes so they are very fast paced. It was a great 2 days of people watching!

Wilma

2011-02-02T22:17:00.002+13:00

Picture - big rubber duck on the harbour in downtown Auckland. The big duck showed up yesterday when John was on his way to work.

This past weekend was Auckland Anniversary Weekend. AKA, another 3 day weekend and the last long holiday weekend until Easter. The holiday weekend was kicked off with Cyclone Wilma hitting NZ on Friday. Wilma is the first cyclone (same as a hurricane but it spins the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere) to hit NZ since we have been here. We have had plenty of storms, but they are normally downgraded to a tropical depression by the time they get to our shores. Wilma caused the most destruction north of Auckland and in the Coramandel area. We had high winds and we received 2 months worth of rain in 24 hours. This all caused lots of flooding, road slips, loss of power and water treatment plants, etc. This also caused John's sailing plans to be canceled on Friday.

You may have also heard the Jimmy Buffett fell off the stage in Sydney last week and knocked himself out for 10 min. We were supposed to go to the Buffett concert in Auckland on Saturday night but it was canceled due to his accident. So, not a good start to the weekend .....

It all worked out in the end though. As Auckland Anniversary is normally celebrated around the harbour area, John went sailing Saturday to Monday and I spent time with some friends at the harbour watching the fireworks, tug boat races and sailboat races and sunning at the beach. The most amazing yacht to watch was the new catamaran America's Cup yacht that is being trialed for the next America's Cup series. You wouldn't believe how fast a sail boat can make it down the harbour until you have seen the new America's Cup boat!

This weekend we are off to the NZ 7's tournament in Wellington. This is an international rugby tournament where the games are only 20 min long. It is also expected that you come in costume to the tournament and it generally has a reputation for to much partying over two days. John and I and a couple friends are going as cowboys and indians.

Wild weather and more

2011-01-23T20:03:00.004+13:00

It has been a wild weather weekend in Auckland and we have been stuck inside for the last 36 hours. Kind of like an Iowa snowstorm but much warmer! Yesterday afternoon it started raining and still hasn't stopped. The heavy rain is being caused by a huge front which is bringing gale force winds and very high humidity (high enough that the all the mirrors in the house are fogged up). The gale force winds are creating big on shore waves. On top of the winds and the big waves, we are at king tide (the full moon high tide, which is the highest of the high tides) which is leading to flooding in low lying areas, evacuations, power outages, closing of the motorway from our house and other fun. Sounds like the weather should improve tomorrow- just in time to start the work week.

My parents left Auckland last Monday. We had a nice time showing them around the country. On our little adventure we saw penguins, seals, whales, kiwi, dolphins, lots of lakes and rivers, mountains and gorges, remnants of active volcanoes, glaciers and icebergs, waterfalls, rare birds, and visited a number of vineyards and a couple breweries along the way. I am sure there is much more that I am forgetting......

Pictures

John started a new job on Tuesday. He is now working for Gen-i, which is the IT division of Telecom (local NZ phone & internet provider). Gen-i focuses on outsourced IT services for businesses. John's role will still be in the security architecture area. He is loving the fact that he no longer has to drive to work. His office is downtown so he is catching the ferry to town.

Jimmy Buffett is going to be in Auckland this coming weekend. We have 2 extra tickets if anyone wants to do a roadtrip. I know there are some die hard parrot heads that read this blog!

This coming weekend is Auckland Anniversary Weekend, so we have 3 day weekend. More adventures forthcoming......

Going through the list

2011-01-03T10:25:00.003+13:00

Queenstown... check
luge... check
new years in QT... check
Cardrona... check
Wanaka... check
stumble upon an excellent tiny winery with great Pinot... check
Doubtful Sound... check
Mt Cook... check

about half way through the list...

1300 km, 2 flooded roads and .......

2010-12-28T21:15:00.003+13:00

We have made it to Wananka after spending most of the day thinking we might be spending the night in the car. Here's that stats so far....

1 ocean crossing in gall force winds from the North to South island
2 flooded roads that we had to drive through - think of the news reports with the cars being swept away
1 mountain slip plus countless other 'minor' incidents along the side of the road
3 days of non-stop rain
3 stops at the iSites for road closure updates
1 single lane bridge with a railroad track also in the car lane
2 roundabouts with railroad tracks going down the middle
5 long and winding gorges
15 mountain passes
235 single lane bridges
429 camper vans
1300 miles of driving from Auckland

With all that, we have made it to Wanaka (one of my favorite places in NZ) after 3 days of driving. We have a couple hours left to go to pick up my parents tomorrow at Noon from Queenstown. Their stats will be 24 hours of flying and 5 airports later they are on the other side of the world. Lets just hope things get a little easier the rest of the trip!

Christmas down under

2010-12-19T20:48:00.002+13:00

We are 5 days from Christmas. So, what is it like for Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere you might ask?

* The malls stay open every day of the week until 9:00 or 10:00. Other times of the year the malls are closed by 6:00 expect on Thursday, which is late night shopping.

* You see a lady at the local grocery store store with 1/2 a hog in the grocery cart with the legs sticking up. Guess she is feeding an army!

* You hope for the rain to quit so that you can have a BBQ on the beach for Christmas lunch. It has been raining for 5 days straight and the weather people say it may stop by Christmas day.

* Boxing Day is a national holiday and you hear the radio make fun of those in the US that have to work on the day after Christmas. And, you also listen to everyone making their holiday plans during the company shutdown periods until Jan 10.

* You plan out which sun dress you are going to wear to midnight mass and revel in the fact that you don't have to wear a heavy coat and boots.

* You watch the news and see airports closed in England and lighthouses covered in ice in the US and wonder how people live like that.

* You wait until it finally gets dark at 9:00pm to go see the Christmas lights on the houses in the neighborhood. And, you think the inflatable snowmen really look funny amongst the palm trees.

But most of all, we think of our friends and family and wish everyone a merry Christmas.

Always wear your helmet

2010-12-02T20:22:00.003+13:00

Here in NZ, it is against the law for bicyclist to not wear a helmet, and for good reason. The drivers here (especially in Auckland) are not all that great. Today someone pulled out in front of me while I was on my way home. I'm OK. Just a sore shoulder. Nothing broken. The bike came out of it pretty well too, nothing bent or needing replaced. Cannot say the same for the lady's car. Looks like she needs a new door. Hopefully she will be more careful in the future.

The Mo is No More

2010-12-01T21:21:00.003+13:00

Movember is over. I shaved it off a day early. I was really getting sick of it. It really sucks when you have a cold and it was not comfortable during the ride. During the shaving off process, I experimented with a few different looks.

Lake Taupo Ride

2010-11-28T21:52:00.004+13:00

Done. Barely. It was tough.
We drove down the day before. It appears that all of the "regular" riders book a hotel many months in advance. We ended up sleeping in a tent at the top-10 campground. Because of the traffic getting out of Auckland, we setup the tent in the dark, missed the pasta feed, and just had PB+J sandwiches at the campground. To top it all off, I'm getting over a cold for the last week and I'm at the point where I'm congested and constantly coughing. No good nights sleep for us or the occupants of the neighboring tents.
The start was much like a marathon, with all the staging and what not. Everyone was serious, all with numbered bibs and back pockets full of various sugary gel things... This was definitely a race and not a ride.
So, I was off. Thankfully, the coughing subsides when I ride, but is constant when I'm resting. I was in the next to last staged group, so there were no real group or pelatons at that point. We started off with a very long climb, but it was very gradual and the legs were fresh, so it went well. Then a fair bit of rolling hills. Not much for scenery, just farm fields and sheep. The goal was to finish in 8 hours. So that meant half way by 1 pm. Checking my watch and the cheeky kilometer markers they have along the way shows that I'm doing well less that a forth of a way into it.
Climbing up a small hill, I see a little cafe/bar on the right. Great, real food. I pull in while a couple bikers are leaving... "the Tui is cold, and will help you get up the Tehoi hill!". Then a little devil appears on my sholder, and he looks a lot like Dave Anderson "What would John Marshall do?". One Mince and Cheese pie and a cold Tui beer please. That killed my goal of finishing in 8 hours.
Thankfully, that was the last I saw of the little devil.
After that, it was just hot, hilly, and endless. Eventually the tar seal on the road was melting and it sounded like we were riding through water. Tires sticking to the road does not make you go faster.
I drank endless bottles of water, eat my One Square Meal bars, and even had one of awful gooey syrup things. Whenever I stopped I texted my progress to Lisa, secreting hoping she would drive up to meet me along the way so I could quit.
I was rather disappointed in the scenery. We did not see the lake until well past half way. The last hill was the worst. I did not review the profile map before the ride, so I was not aware of it until someone mentioned it while at the last waterstop before it. It was hot, the road was gooey and there was no breeze. By this point I sacrificed half of one of my water bottles through a hole in the top of my helmet just to keep from getting over heated.
The last part was flatish, but I was totally spent when I finished. Lisa was there to cheer a few hundred meeting before the finish...that helped. Went straight to the massage tent.
Will I do it again? Probably not.

U2 Concert

2010-11-28T21:39:00.004+13:00

Amazing stage. Excellent show. Played all their good songs.

Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge

2010-11-22T22:14:00.002+13:00

This weekend we will be heading down to Lake Taupo so that John can participate in the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge on Saturday. This is a 1 day 100 mile ride around Lake Taupo. About half the ride will be through mountains and the other half will be somewhat flat for NZ. John has ridden 100 mile days before but he says 'never without plenty of beers along the way'. This is a timed ride with staggered starts based on your expected time to complete the course. There is one town in 100 miles that will have food. This is also the biggest bike ride in NZ with about 15,000 people participating. He also has to be done by 6:00 pm to get a chance at winning a new car. I may meet him towards the end of the route but will not be putting in 100 miles!

We are also off to see U2 this week in concert at one of the outdoor stadiums. Tickets were rather expensive but seeing U2 live is a once in a lifetime event. We get a kick out of the number of old music groups that end up in NZ. But, I guess they all need a tax free vacation at some point. George Thorogood just announced he will be here in January.

For all the Lance Armstrong fans, Lance announced today that he is doing a triathlon in Rotorua which is a couple hours from Auckland. The event coordinators announced today that they have had a sudden surge of interest in the event :) Normally, they only get around 300 people participating.

You may have also heard on the US news about the coal mine explosion around Greymouth in the South Island that happened on Friday. There are still 29 guys trapped in the mine and a rescue attempt has not been started due to fears of gases in the mine. There is concern that if a rescue is tried another explosion may be sparked. It has been 4 days of waiting for the families to find out if anyone is alive in the mine. The news said they hope to send in a robot tomorrow.

Movember

2010-11-09T21:54:00.000+13:00

November is known as Movember in NZ and Australia (and I hear some parts of Canada as well). Movember is the month where guys don't shave for the month. This is a fundraiser for mens health awareness. John is 9 days into Movember and is getting pretty hairy....

Over the weekend, we attended a Rugby League doubles game and saw England beat Papa New Guinea and Australia beat New Zealand. Rugby League is a lower level then the All Blacks and has a lot rowdier crowd. There was a lot of booing the other team and beer bottles being thrown during the wave. The papers say it was the rowdiest game ever in NZ (and equivalent to a Europe soccer match). There are discussions now on how to better handle the crowds for the Rugby World Cup in a year.

Speaking of the World Cup, we have ended up with 8 tickets to the Bronze finale game in Auckland in Eden Park stadium. Let us know if anyone out there might be interested in coming down for the games.

The other news is that Hillary Clinton was here last week and visited Wellington (also just voted the #4 best city to visit in the world by Lonely Planet) and Christchurch. She made a good impression on NZ and John Key, the Prime Minister, even called her the President by mistake. There has also been lots of discussion on last weeks US elections. The general tone of the international media is 'what the hell is the US thinking'. The media view is the US political system is pretty messed up and the Tea Party group is a bunch of wackos. A few articles have been saying that having the Republicans regain power is a good thing as this gives Obama someone to shift the blame to and it might help him get re-elected for another term. It is pretty interesting watching the US political system as an outside observer.

Summer is in full swing in NZ. We have been busy every weekend and are looking forward to my parents visiting for 3 weeks at Christmas. We will be taking them on a tour of the South and North Islands for a couple weeks.

Gisborne weekend & Hobbittland

2010-10-28T21:24:00.004+13:00

We had a wonderful weekend in Gisborne. The highlights of the weekend were feeding the stingrays and the food and wine fest. Feeding the stingrays was a unique experience. There is a company in Gisborne that organizes this. You go at low tide and walk out a ways into the ocean (they give you fly fishing waders to keep dry). They put some chum in the water and attract the fish. Next thing you know, they stingrays come around as well. You feed them kind of like feeding a house. They suck up fish pieces from their underside like a really strong vacuum. You can also pet them and they like to have a spot around their front lip rubbed.

The wine and food fest was held a few minutes outside of town in a farm field. To get into the event, you have to walk through an ancient podocarp forest. There was a lot of good wine, food and music for the day.

The pictures above are of John and friends at the wine fest and one overlooking the Gisborne harbour (called Poverty Bay). Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Poverty Bay

The first European known to have set foot in New Zealand, Captain James Cook, did so here on October 7, 1769. This first meeting led to the deaths of 6 local Maori during skirmishes with the crew, due to a misinterpretation of the traditional Maori challenge. Cook was unable to gain many of the provisions he and his crew needed at the bay, and for this reason gave it its name.

The big news in NZ the last couple days is the Hobbitt movies. Warner Brothers was threatening to pull out of making the movies in NZ due to some actor labor disputes and incentive money. The Warner Brother execs were in NZ the last couple days meeting with John Key, the Prime Minister, over this. A settlement was reached that the filming would stay in NZ and a labor law would be changed. It was officially announced in the late breaking headline news that the Hobbitt movies would be filmed here and NZ would continue to be 'middle earth'. The comments at work today is that only in NZ is the late breaking news that we are keeping the Hobbitt movies and not another disaster or war. This is good news to the economy and tourism as NZ has been milking the Lord of the Rings movies for 10 years now.

We have also hit our 2 year point in NZ. We are now officially permanent, permanent residents. For the fist 2 years, we had a limited visa of 2 years to be able to travel in and out of the country. We now have a lifetime visa to be able to come and go. At this point, we don't need to do anything else with our visa's or residence unless we decide to apply for citizenship. We qualify for citizenship after we have been here for 5 years. But, the only thing extra that citizenship gets us is a NZ passport (and the ability to travel to Cuba!). If we were to become a NZ citizen, we could also then move to other commonwealth countries (like Australia or the UK) without any visa issues.

Live from Canberra

2010-10-21T09:52:00.002+13:00

It has been a busy week for John and I. I am currently in Canberra Australia for work meetings. I got here yesterday afternoon and leave later this afternoon. Canberra is the capital of Australia and is in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Orion has an office with a few developers here. The capital area is set up much like Washington DC. The ACT area covers around Canberra city only and there is a pedestrian mall area with the monuments and grand buildings like in DC. The city is very FLAT! We have gotten so used to constantly going up hills in Auckland (you get pretty good at the 2 footed lift your foot off the brake and apply the gas at the same time so you don't roll backwards stop light starts in NZ). Canberra is very biker friendly. The main roads have bike lanes and there is a nice bike lane area along the river that runs through town. I saw hundreds of people biking home from work yesterday when I was out for a walk.

John is also traveling this week and he is in Wellington training 8 people up on Fortinet firewalls.

This weekend we are going to Gisborne with some friends. It is Labour Day weekend here and Monday is a holiday. We have a bach rented at the beach and we are going to feed the stingrays on Saturday. On Sunday, we are attending the Gisborne Food and Wine Festival. I am sure I will have pictures to share next week.

It also appears that we have been picked on the World Cup Rugby ticket lottery for tickets to the bronze final for the games. So, we now officially have some tickets but we have missed out getting tickets for when New Zealand plays.

Whales & Bay of Islands

2010-10-11T21:04:00.003+13:00

John and I headed north to the Bay of Islands area over the weekend. Our first stop was in Warkworth for the town celebration weekend where we saw the start of the kayak race and checked out the street vendors. From there, where took the long, scenic road around the coast to Russell. Russell is the site of the first European settlement in NZ and is a historic whaling town. Back in the day, Russell was know as the 'wild west' of this part of the world. In Russell, we happened to catch the down hill derby races. The races were powered under gravity only.

From Russell, we took the car ferry across to Opua, which is a 10 min ferry ride. Here is when the highlight of the weekend occurred. People go all over the world to try and track down whales, and right there in the bay with the car ferry there were 3 or 4 whales playing around. They were just lazily swimming about in no big rush to go anywhere. A few weeks ago John and I went on a whale and dolphin watching cruise out of Auckland and didn't see any whales. And here we are just on a car ferry and they are right there! John said we were pretty lucky to be in a country where your car ferry cruise becomes your whale watching cruise. I was just disappointed the ferry trip was over so fast! If you look close in the 2nd picture, just below the triangle navigation marker there is a bump in the water - we believe they were orca whales.

Once the excitement of the whales was past, we headed for our hotel in Piahia which is the main resort town in Bay of Islands. Our room at the resort looked right out on to the ocean- we couldn't ask for a better view. We were also right next door to the Wiatangi Treaty Grounds where the agreement between the British and Maori to end the wars was signed. The last picture is one of the waka, which is a Maori canoe. This is a canoe that holds something like 80 men. They are mostly used for ceremonial purposes now.

Our last stop for the weekend was the Kerikeri farmers market where we got some native bushes to plant around the house. It was a very nice weekend in the Bay of Islands - prices where still on low season and the weather was great.

In other news, the Commonwealth Games are going on in Delhi, India. NZ is ranked 12 place currently for medals. Australia is trouncing everyone on the medal count. Not sure if the games make the US news, but they are similar to the Olympics and only held between all the British commonwealth countries. NZ rugby trounced the Canadian rugby team today.

1st day of a new job

2010-09-27T21:38:00.002+13:00

Today was my first day of my new job with Orion Health as a Development Project Manager. I was thrown all kinds of wobblies (NZ for 'curve balls') today. Orion issued me a Mac computer and they don't use Windows software so I have spent most of the day trying to figure out a new operating system. Everything is also done through an inhouse version of Wikipedia as well. If you want to know anything, you go to the Wiki. Orion is also quite a bit more informal than Eagle was - they operate under a casual dress code (shorts, jeans and t-shirts are ok), they provide breakfast every day, and there are not set office hours. Orion's goal is to be the default medical information system world over and they are growing fairly quickly to accommodate that goal (currently at 350 employees). I am working on a team with 4 development project managers and they are looking for a 5th person.

John spent the weekend learning to kite board. He had two 8 hours lessons over the weekend. He learned how to fly the kite and also was able to get up on the board for a bit as well. I think he will be going back for a 3rd all day lesson next weekend. It was good that he was able to get the lessons in last weekend. NZ was hit with a massive winter storm last week. We had 7 days straight with extremely high winds (they clocked 150km down by the Auckland airport at a couple points). Along with the winds, there was a lot of snow and cold down south. It is estimated that 500,000 lambs died in the storms in just the southern end of the South Island and the news tonight said that dairy milk production dropped by 20% during the week of the storms. There was also a number of instances of building roof collapsing from the weight of the snow in Invercargil and one of the sports arenas was completely destroyed from a roof collapse. We changed to daylight savings on Sunday though and the weather today was beautiful.

Katherine Truner came for a visit

2010-09-14T21:48:00.002+12:00

Lisa is just getting over a cold. I did not catch it.. maybe because I got a flu shot earlier in the year.
She had a deep voice during it and I would tease her that she sounded sexy like Katherine Turner, but then the sneezing/hacking/coughing would start and it was not so sexy anymore.
Anyway, she is feeling better now and back at work.
Other news: Bathroom remodel is complete. That should be the last of the expensive projects for this house... hopefully we can start allocating funds towards a boat.
Lisa starts her new job in a couple weeks. She is looking forward to that.
We canceled our plans for skiing at Mt Hutt (near Christchurch) last weekend. My business trip to Christchurch was canceled because of the quake and she was still not feeling well, so we decided against it.

A weekend to remember

2010-09-06T20:38:00.002+12:00

As many of you have heard, there was a 7.1 earthquake that hit Christchurch in the South Island on Saturday morning at about 4:30 am. Christchurch is close to a previously unknown fault line (until Sat morning it was unknown anyway). The quake was the same size as the one that hit Haiti a few months back. While the quake was the same magnitude, there has been no loss of life with the NZ quake and the loss of property has been less. This is attributed to the much better quality of building and the much lower population density. It is estimated that up to 100,000 buildings have been impacted with the Christchurch earthquake (out of 160,000 in the area). Whole streets are being bulldozed down and people have houses that have cracked apart, whole sides of houses with gaping holes and fissures through their yards. Water, sewer and electric is still off in some parts of town that was hardest hit. Since Saturday morning, there have been nearly 100 aftershocks in Christchurch- one around 4:30 pm today was a 4.8. The city is still in lock down. John's work is holding a conference in Christchurch starting next Monday and John and I are supposed to be flying to Christchurch for the weekend to go skiing. We are unsure at this time if we will be making the trip.

Here is a map that my work has put out to track what is going on in Christchurch. If you hoover over the blue dots you can see what is going on around town and also were the epicenter was.

http://s1.demos.eaglegis.co.nz/Flex/earthquake-christchurch/

Here is a link to photos as well

To top off the earthquake, there was also a plane crash at Fox Glacier that killed 9 people on Saturday. The plane that went down was a sky diving plane that had 5 locals and 4 international tourists. Some local elite sky divers were also on the plane. It could be up to a year before authorities determine why the plane went down.

And, on top off this the weather has been nasty the last 48 hours. One part of the South Island had 190 km wind gusts. The southern end of the North Island is experiencing severe flooding right now and one town has lost their water treatment plant (sound familiar???). There are also news reports of the lambs drowning in farm fields that are flooded out. All very sad and not a nice way to officially start off Spring. Let's hope for a better weekend coming up.

No Earthquake for us

2010-09-04T08:25:00.002+12:00

For those of you who are not aware, we live in Auckland. Which is a long ways away from where the earthquake hit near Christchurch. We felt nothing here.
Our plans have us traveling there in 6 days for a ski trip. We'll let you know if those plans change or what we experience and see while we are there.

First day of Spring

2010-09-01T22:33:00.002+12:00

Today, Sept 1, is the first day of spring in NZ. Today is also the first day in about 4 weeks that it has not rained. The park down the road from my work is also full of new baby lambs romping around in the paddocks. There are a number of non-active volcano cones around Auckland that are parks. There is to much land here to mow, so sheep and cows are raised in the parks. Cornwell Park (which is in the center of town and I think is one of the best parks in Auckland) has acres of paddocks with paths. The park is very popular for walking and running and the paths lead right through the paddocks. You just have to watch out for sheep and cow poo on the paths and don't go to close to the bulls. It makes you feel like you are in the country when it is the center of town.

On other good news, I (Lisa) have accepted a new job. I am going to be working for Orion Health as a Development Project Manager. Orion Health is an international company that is headquartered in Auckland. Orion creates software to integrate medical information and provide a way to pass that information between medical providers and insurance companies. The core product development is done from the Auckland office and I will be involved in managing development for quarterly product bug fixes and enhancements. I am excited about the new opportunity and will be starting the end of September.

John and I spent all last week in Wellington and were very busy for work. We attended Beervana on Saturday night. There were around 25 micro breweries from around NZ at the show and you could go around and sample their brew. John found a few new favorites from NZ. There were also a couple places importing micro brew from the US. We both thought the NZ beer was much better then the US beer.

Hopefully we can spend this weekend enjoying some spring weather.

Outrageous Fortune

2010-08-23T21:16:00.002+12:00

I was glancing at the KCCI website last week and noticed that a show called 'Scoundrels' is playing. I thought everyone would be interested to know that Scoundrels is a remake of a NZ show called Outrageous Fortune. This show has been playing in NZ for 5 or 6 seasons and they have sold the rights to the US. The US then redid the show with a local cast and more US centric characters. Outrageous Fortune is in the last season here and it one of those shows that everyone talks about the next day. The producers also go for the 'shock' value. The public tv regulations are much more lax here then in the US. Nudity, profanity and adult themes are very common for public 'free to view' shows after 8:00. Outrageous Fortune usually doesn't make it through 5 min without the F word being used a few times. I would give you a link but the TV show can only be played on demand to NZ viewers. If interested, I am sure it can be downloaded from Bit Torrent.

John and I are both in Wellington for work this week. I am attending a project management conference for 3 days and John is teaching a Fortinet security class for the week. I have been doing quite a bit of work to help organize the project management conference. Myself and another lady have been updating the conference web site on pretty much a daily basis with new information. You can check out our handy work - http://www.pminzconference.com/

We are also sticking around for the weekend to attend 'Beervana' which is a beer festival with a local focus. NZ has a very strong foundation of local brewers. The show gives you the chance to sample beers from a bunch of different local brewers and to also talk with the brewers. There are a few big brands through the country such as Speights, Lion, Steinlager, and Monteiths. You don't see any Bud or Miller around here!

We also attended a couple shows last week. We attended the musical Grease which was very good. We really enjoyed the 10 minutes audience participation segment at the end. We also attended a small town local show by Te Radar (a kiwi) called Eating the Dog. The show was basically stories about NZ history with a lot of comedy involved as well. Eating the Dog is from a story he told about the early settlers being 184 days into the journey through the bush in the South Island in search of the green open plains finally deciding the situation was so desperate they had to eat the loyal companion. It was a very funny show.

Super City Campaign Time

2010-08-09T20:16:00.002+12:00

It is Super City campaign time. If you recall, Auckland is currently broken into 4 cities (Auckland, North Shore, Waitakere, and Manukau) and is being combined into 1 big city as of Nov 1. Due to this amalgamation, a new mayor is being elected for the super city. What platform does a super city mayor campaign on? The biggies are:

* Transportation- A number one concern of Auckland residents is improvement to public transportation and roads. This includes building a new way over the harbor from Auckland central to the north shore. Leading ideas are putting tunnels under the water - one for cars and a separate one for rail. There are lots of promises to have designs agreed to in a couple years and something built in 10 - 15 years.

* Leaky homes - In the early 1990's, thousands of houses were built to sub standards. Whole areas were built with no waterproof siding and with untreated timber. The city councils did not properly regulate the building. Now, these houses have the walls rotting out and it is extremely costly to fix. There are lawsuits against the builders and against the city councils. The government is forming a trust to help people fix the houses but it is believed that a substantial part of the funding is going to be coming from taxpayers.

* Property Taxes (rates)- Today, each city has their own property tax structure. Under the supercity, everyone will have the same property tax structure. Due to this, there is speculation that property tax can increase up to 25% in some areas of the city.

There are 3 main candidates running for mayor and elections start towards the end of Sept so we will see who can live up to the promises. In NZ, there is always a bit on animosity between Auckland, Wellington and the rest of the country. People from Auckland think Wellington gets the biggest slice of the government funding pot but people from Wellington resent the size of Auckland and the city complaining all the time there is not enough government funding. Everyone else around the county just says they could care less what is going on in Auckland and they don't care if there are huge traffic jams- Auckland made there own problems. Which is true because in the 1970's there was an Auckland mayor that wanted to put in a light rail system and everyone said it was to expensive and would never be needed.

On a separate topic, we attended the Food and Wine show last weekend and discovered 3 more products being imported from the US to NZ. There is a new distributor of Jones soda, Jiffy baking products and wine aerators (the one's Hy Vee pushes out the door). I now have a source to Root Beer and corn break and muffin mix.

It is almost Spring

2010-07-27T08:31:00.002+12:00

After a month of cold nights, the weather is starting to come around in NZ. The weather reporters are talking about signs of an early spring this year. We had a really nice weekend with no rain on Saturday and just a brief shower on Sunday. On Saturday, we were able to get in a 40k bike ride downtown for a beer at the harbour and back.

We have finally got all the tile and fixtures picked out for the new bathroom and we are waiting for the guy to start the work in a couple weeks. As I have mentioned before, shopping in NZ involves going to multiple stores to find what you want....no such thing as one stop shopping.

Good luck to all those doing Ragbrai this week and have a great time on the ride. John and I are planning a trip to the South Island for skiing in Sept for a weekend. We are also going to be in Wellington for a week mid-August for work. While in Welly, we will also be attending Beervana.

This weekend the Food and Wine show is on in Auckland. This is the best Food and Wine show that I have been to. There are loads of booths and samples of both food and wine. It is so good, I might even go twice!

Sledding Kiwi Style

2010-07-14T21:02:00.004+12:00

We finally had a nice weekend and so far, this week has been nice as well. There hasn't been a cloud in the sky, but on the bad side, it has been very cold. The weather pattern is blowing up from Antarctica and bringing in temps around freezing at night for the last week. This all sounds ok until you live in houses without heat! We have been keeping the fireplace stoked up at night and the electric heaters going. Good thing though is this cold spell should be short lived and only last a few days- not 3 or 4 months like in Iowa.

On Sunday, we took the opportunity to do a little site seeing in the Waitakere Ranges. The Waitake's is the mountain range that runs along the West coast (Tasman Sea). I see the Waitake's everyday coming and going from work. One thing that I really enjoy about NZ is that there is always something unexpected around the corner. Our exploring on Sunday found a couple places of interest. The first spot was a short walk to a waterfall. The second spot was black sand dunes that you could sand sled down. Way cool! We had down some sand sledding along 90 Mile Beach last year but we had no idea there were dunes big enough to sled down so close to our house. Sand sledding basically consists of hiking to a top of a sand dune with your boogie board and taking a ride down. A warning though- walking up sand dunes is much harder then walking up snow hills.

Picture 1- There was probably a 1/2 square mile of nothing but sand. It felt like you were walking across a desert. The sand dunes were also inland from the sea.

Picture 2- This is looking down a sand dune. If you expand the picture, notice the little head towards the bottom.

Picture 3- A family with their boogie boards

Emissions Trading Sceme

2010-06-30T21:28:00.002+12:00

Effective tomorrow, the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) goes into effect in NZ. The ETS will apply to transport fuels, electricity and industry. I believe I heard that NZ is the first country to implement the ETS into 'production' within the economy. It is anticipated that the price of gas and energy will increase tomorrow to account for the ETS going into effect in the range of 4% - 5%. While NZ is largely powered by hydro electric energy, emissions from the agriculture industry are one of the highest in the world. While the rest of the world is still learning what ETS stands for, NZ will be experiencing how the ETS will impact the economy first hand.

John and I are definitely not contributing to the 'green' lifestyle this week. We have started the remodel on the last room to be touched in the house- the main bathroom! There will be a big trip to the garbage dump soon. We are gutting the main bath down to the studs and starting fresh. John is excited to have something to keep him occupied after work again. We were doing way to much tv watching for a few weeks there as we are well into winter. It is raining every day and you rejoice if the sun is out for a couple hours.

Happy 4th of July this weekend. We will be thinking of everyone. Our next NZ holiday is Labour Day on Oct 25. That is a really loooooong time off.

Trip Report- Final Installment

2010-06-20T17:29:00.002+12:00

After the bike ride and cruise, John and I had 5 days of travel on our own. We rented a car and drove from Trogir to Zagreb with a stop in Plitvice Lakes National Park. From Zagreb, we took the train to Ljubljana, Slovenia, on to Lake Bled, Slovenia by bus, and then by train on to Munich.

Plitvice Lakes National Park- Plitvice Lakes was one of the highlights of our trip. If you are going to Croatia, you need to make sure and stop here. The National Park is made up of 16 lakes that are all connected by waterfalls. There is a boardwalk system between all the lakes. The water is very clear and is 'hard' water so it calcifies the grass and forms interesting waterfalls between the lakes. John asked if this place was one of the '7 wonders of the world' it was that neat. Only thing is if you are to go, make sure it is first thing in the morning or late in the day as there had to be 100 tour buses at the park the same time we were. It was also a pleasant drive to the park. We went through a tunnel that was something like 5k's long. There were also ladies with a table and umbrella set up about every mile selling cheese along side the road. You had a to buy a whole round of cheese but we managed to make our way through most of it. The cheese in Croatia was amazing- it had a really nice salty flavor. I read somewhere this was because the livestock ate the grass that was saturated with salt along the coast.

Zagreb- Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia. We did a short walking tour of the city. The highlights were the old town area. Zagreb was originally two walled towns- Gradec and Kaptol that were separated by a river. The most interesting sites were the Church of St. Mark that had a tiled roof with two coats of arms and the city market.

Before we leave Croatia, a couple observations to pass on. I would say that 75%+ of the visitors to Croatia were on a BIG cruise ship or tour bus. They were whisked into each town for a few hours and then moved on. If you ever go to Croatia, go on your own so you can go at your own pace. I would suggest doing a small boat island cruise like what we did. It would have taken weeks to get to all the islands that we saw by using public ferry transportation. We were able to go to some smaller islands and coastal towns that most people wouldn't make it to by being on the small boat cruise. Also note that Croatia is still very much a cash based society. It was difficult to find someone that would take a credit card. We made lots of trips to the ATM machine. Also make sure to talk with the locals about the war. We heard some interesting stories while in Bosnia and Croatia. One of our Croatian bike guides told a story about how her town's mayor walked out of the town to face the Bosnian tanks and bluffed them that the town what armed and ready to fight. The tanks turned around and the town actually only had a handful of men and weapons.

Slovenia- From Croatia, we went to Ljubljana and Lake Bled in Slovenia. Slovenia reminded us a lot of Germany and Austria. Croatia was about the coast and water where Slovenia was more about the mountains. Slovenia would be an excellent biking destination. Slovenia is overlooked by those going to Italy and Germany but is worth a stop. Ljubljana is the capital city of Slovenia and has another historic old town area. There is a river that runs through the center of town and there are a number of interesting bridges over the river. There is also a castle that over looks the town. The town has a very vibrant cafe scene and also the best gellato this side of Italy.

Lake Bled is about an hour out of Ljubljana and is one of the most picturesque towns you will ever go to. It is 6k's to walk around the lake. There is an island with a church on the lake and there is a castle that sits on a cliff top over looking the lake. The lake doesn't allow any power boats and the 2010 World Cup Rowing had been held there the weekend before we arrived. John also saved a little duckling while we were on Lake Bled. It had gotten trapped on the other side of a barrier and momma duck was making a racket and had drawn a group of spectators. John got in the water and rescued the duck. Funny thing was we heard someone talking about it on the bus the next day.

Our last stop of the trip was Munich, which is where we flew home from. I have been craving a Radler beer and a German pretzel for a year so this was a particularly important stop. It was our 3rd time in Munich so we were not to fussed about seeing all the sites. We did spend the morning touring the Residenz Palace and seeing the crown jewels. We also made a visit to the Haufbrauhouse and to the Summer Garden beer garden. We also made a few other beer garden stops along the way and I think I had 4 big pretzels. Should tide me over for another year!

The flight home was pleasant. We had time to go to the Air NZ lounge in Hong Kong and get a shower and freshen up and then from Hong Kong to Auckland we were able to upgrade to business class. Jet lag has been a killer though and especially the change in amount of daylight. We went from the longest days of the year to the shortest days of the year. Last night was the first night we made it up past 9:30.

We had a great trip and can't wait for the next vacation.

PS- The All Blacks trounced Wales last night in the last game at the old stadium in Dunedin. And, the college in Dunedin had a game of NUDE rugby to celebrate the All Blacks game (there were even pictures of nude rugby in todays paper).

Trip Report- Part 2

2010-06-17T17:44:00.004+12:00

One of the many reasons for our trip to Croatia was to celebrate my 0 something birthday with friends from Iowa. This day was celebrated on June 3, which was 3 months after my actual birthday. I was given the traveling birthday hat for the day and carried that on my bike. I also had a really big birthday sundae at one of our town stops. Then, I got back to the boat and found that a 'Welcome Bikers to Lisa's Bar' sign had been hung on the side of the boat. The captain was very proud of his new sign! I then found out what the group had really been planning. My birthday was an Iowa theme- everyone had brought along their bib overalls and farmers caps for the party. John and I were of course presented with a pair of bibs as well. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the group in overalls--- but I am sure someone from the trip will be happy to share. The day was also commemorated with a song- one of Jackie's best ever! Here it is (song to the tune of Green Acres).

Iowa was Lisa's place to be
Farm living was not the life for she
Land spreading out so far and wide
No sea coasts so goodbye countryside

New Zealand is where she'd rather stay
John and her have places to play
She just adorers the ocean view
Lisa we love you and happy birthday too

Sail boats
The bikes
The trips
The hikes

Lisa is John's wife
Goodbye Iowa life
New Zealand they are there

During dinner, I got to ring the ships bell, which was the sign you were buying a round of drinks for the boat. I was also presented with Iowa themed gifts and now have a nice selection of Iowa t-shirts, a new cookbook of Iowa recipes and also Trish's Herkey the Hawk that was hauled around Greece for 3 weeks a few years back. The night was capped off with a visit to a local establishment. Overall, a great belated birthday!

PS- The All Whites scored their first point in World Cup football (soccer) the other day and tied Slovakia. This means they move on to the next round. This has been HUGE news in NZ. The guy that scored the point is the new national hero. NZ was supposed to be an easy beat for Slovakia. In case you didn't know, the US tied in their game and moves on to the next round as well. The US was also slated to lose in the first round.

European Holiday Trip Report- Part 1

2010-06-14T21:10:00.003+12:00

Trip Pictures

We have come back to winter in NZ! All reports from friends and neighbors (and Air New Zealand crew as well) is that winter has hit in full force- wind and rain in the north and snow in the south. The ski runs are open and it is gearing up to be a good season. Oh well, at least it won’t be any where comparable to a winter in Iowa.

We had a wonderful time in Europe and are about 50% over the jet lag. I was asleep on the couch by 5:30 the first night home and 8:00 last night. I hope to make it to 8:30 tonight Here is the first installment of the trip highlights:

Our holiday started with a few days in London. The main purpose of the visit to London was to attend our friends Rod and Sarah-Jane’s wedding in Epping, a suburb outside of London. The wedding was everything a wedding should be. Sarah and Rod were married in an historic church, the minister asked for anyone who objected to the wedding to speak up or forever hold your peace (which I thought only happened in the movies), they were chauffeured in a Bentley, the reception was held in a historic barn built in the 1600’s which was at an English countryside mansion with sweeping lawns and fields of rapeseed, and there was a formal dinner with elaborate dinner speeches. It was pretty similar to an America wedding but with a distinct English twist. The wedding was a multinational affair. There were people from NZ, the US, China, Bermuda, around England, and I believe a few Europe representatives as well for good measure. While in London we also had a day of touring the city and also saw the show Jersey Boys.

Our first stop in Croatia was Dubrovnik, a wonderful walled city on the Dalmatian coast. The highlight of Dubrovnik was walking the 2k of walls around the city and meeting up with our friends Jackie, Anita and Trish from the States. John had the pleasure of escorting the 4 girls around for 5 days before we met up with the rest of the Iowa group in Split.

From Dubrovnik, John escorted the girls to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a visit to the medieval town of Mostar. Mostar is another historic town with a slight twist. The town has a strong Muslim culture and around 15 Muslim churches. You hear the call to prayers over the church load speakers 5 times a day. There is also a famous bridge in the old town area over the Neretva River. The bridge was heavily damaged, along with the rest of the town, during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990’s. The bridge has been replaced with a replica and the old town area has been restored from the wars. There are still many visible signs of the war though. There are bombed out buildings next to new tourist hotels and many building still show mortar damage on the walls. While this all sounds a little unnerving, Mostar was actually one of the highlights of our vacation.

From Mostar, we headed back to Croatia to meet up with the rest of the Iowa group in Split. Split is the 2^nd largest city in Croatia and is much more industrial then Dubrovnik but there is an old town area that is very impressive. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built a massive retirement palace in Split in AD 293. The palace area has been ‘remodeled’ over the years to become the old town area. The old town still holds many of the original structures from the original Diocletian palace.

From Split, we moved to Trogir to begin our bike and cruise trip. Trogir is another walled city also worth time investigating but we were most interested in finding our boat at the city harbor. Our boat for the week was Kapetan Jure. The boat had a 15 rooms (30 guests max), a large dining area and plenty of room for laying around. The boat consisted of 11 Iowans, 2 ex- Iowans, 1 girl from New York that was traveling on her own, and 15 Germans. We also had 2 multilingual guides, 3 kitchen/dining staff, 2 general boat staff and the captain. We were feed overly well with 3 hearty Croatian meals each day.

While on the boat we visited a number of islands within a small radius of the Trogir port. The towns on the islands were somewhat similar- each had a small port area, at least one historic church, the local restaurant and quite a lot of character and charm. All the towns we visited had a least one bench of old guys that spent the day watching the world go by.

We biked every day of the week long cruise. Biking always started at sea level and climbed up to a high point on the island. We would then speed back down to sea level. While the distances were short, the climbs were steep. One day we did 5 miles at an AVERAGE of a 10% grade. If you don’t think this sounds like much, trying actually biking a 10% grade. We had beautiful scenery each day, good weather for the most part, and interesting stops along the way.

Check back in a couple days for part 2.

where in the world are John and Lisa?

2010-06-08T04:57:00.002+12:00

At the moment, Lake Bled in Slovenia. Before that, London, Croatia (lots of places there), and Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Munich tomorrow, which is good, am about ready for a beer ;)
More details to come after we get home (Friday) and get caught up on laundry and sleep.
-John

How to prepare for super jet-lag (wish I knew)

2010-05-20T18:53:00.002+12:00

We are about to leave on our most distant trip ever. I just checked, and the current time there is 11 hours before us. We will be flying for about 21 hours to get there. You cannot get much further away.
We'll have lots of info and details later, but we may not post anything until we return 3 weeks from now.

Cost of living in NZ

2010-05-17T18:50:00.001+12:00

We just sent in our US taxes (found out we don't have to file until June 15 since we are expats) which got me thinking about the financial impact of moving to NZ. I know there are a few people thinking about moving to NZ that read this site so the topic might be of some interest. John and I are fortunate enough that we have been able to maintain basically the same income level in US dollars with the move to NZ. Where we have taken a hit is on retirement savings, employment benefits and the cost of living.

Retirement savings- John and I both had a pension program with the companies we worked for. We both also had a significant company match on our 401k's. In addition, we have our US Pension program and tax deductible IRA's. In NZ we don't have company sponsored pension programs. We do have the option to participate in Kiwi Saver, which is kind of like a 401k program. Kiwi Saver only requires an employer contribution of $1,000 per year though. The government also kicks in $1,000 per year but the employee portion is deducted post tax. Also, if we leave NZ we lose out on the government contribution. There would also be a NZ pension program if we are here at age 65. In this category we are down a pension program and down on employer contributions to 401k. I assume the government pension programs are somewhat comparable.
Employment benefits- It is not normal for employers to provide paid benefits beyond the mandatory vacation. John's company in NZ provides a small life insurance package but mine doesn't provide anything. We also both have the option to purchase extended health coverage (which boosts up the government health program) if we choose to pay for it ourselves. The government also provides an Accident Compensation Program which is like disability insurance. What we lost when moving to NZ is private medical insurance and private short term and long term disability coverage which are a little more generous then the NZ government funded programs. We also took a hit on the employer paid life insurance packages, and extra incentives such as profit sharing bonuses and on site gyms. I also took a hit on vacation time as Principal was on a PTO system and I was making out pretty good under that system since I never took sick days. Here, if you don't use your sick days (5 days a year), then you lose them.
Cost of living- This area has the biggest impact to daily life. The average house price in Auckland is NZ$500,000 (US$350,000). The average salary in NZ is around NZ $50,000 (US $35,000). The average salary in NZ is comparable to that in the US yet the house prices are about 3 times higher then those in the US. A large portion of NZ rents as they can't save up enough cash for a down payment on a house purchase. A couple other examples:

Gas- converted to gallons and US $, it is currently running US $4.70 for a gallon of gas
Meat- 2- 3 whole chicken breasts will run you around US $8.50. I find meat very expensive compared to Iowa.
Bread and milk- bread will run around US $3.15 for a loaf. Milk is around US $3.50 a gallon.
Fruit & veg- as long as you buy in season locally grown produce, prices are comparable to the US
Utilities- electric runs around US $100/mo for electric only, water around US $50/year, phone land line around US $35/mo and internet (you are restricted on the gigs per month) around US$35/mo

Taxes-

Income taxes are at a flat rate based on your individual salary. If you earned over $50k - $70k you are taxed at 33%. If you earn over $70k, you are taxed at 38%
All purchases include a 12.5% GST (even food items)
We pay property taxes to our local city based on the value of the house. This runs around US$1,000 a year.
We also pay regional taxes once a year based on the value of the house which is around US $350

In the US you get all kinds of tax breaks for home ownerships, kids, etc which are not offered in NZ. I have never sat down and figured it out, but I am guessing we are worse off on taxes with the move to NZ.

As long as you don't dwell on what it is costing you $ wise to live in NZ (and how many more years of work it is going to take to make up the $), it is a great place to be!

Your NZ culture for the week

2010-05-12T18:51:00.002+12:00

There is a movie called Boy out now. The movie was made in NZ and used local NZ talent. It is now the #1 grossing NZ comedy. The movie also won a Sundance award this year. You might be able to get it through NetFlix if you looked. John and I saw the movie a few weeks back and it is pretty funny. It is set in the Bay of Pleanty area in a small Maori town and is about a couple Maori boys growing up. The movie gives you some insight into living in small town NZ. The you tube movie trailer will give you a laugh- movie video

There is a story behind the background song in the movie trailer as well. The song is called Poi E and is by the Patea Maori Club. This song was a NZ one hit wonder in the early 80's and is a cult classic. As a result of the movie Boy, the song is making a resurgence and is currently #22 on the NZ charts. The music video for the song (obviously created in the 80's) provides a good example of traditional Maori costumes and dance. You can also see a traditional meeting house at the start of the video (every town has a meeting house). The song Poi E combines a traditional Maori chant with pop music. The song is kind of catchy--- you might want to listen to it all day. song video

Whats up in NZ

2010-05-05T20:40:00.004+12:00

We have had an exciting couple of weeks on the other side of the world. Here are the highlights-

* Spandau Ballet/Tears for Fears concert- Anyone remember these bands from the 80's? They had a reunion tour and played the last show of the tour in Auckland. It appears that Spandau Ballet was much more popular in the UK and NZ than in the US. Most everyone at the sold out show knew the words to all the songs. We just knew the two US hits.

* Coromandel weekend- John and I made a quick road trip to Coromandel over the weekend. I biked around this area last year but John had not been there. Coromandel is still one of my favorite areas in NZ. I think the area is one of the best examples of the NZ bach culture on the North Island and the scenery ranks up at the top as well. Saturday we stopped at Hot Water Beach. The beach is in an old valcanic area where hot water bubles up through the sand. You bring along a shovel and dig a hole in the sand to make your own hot tub. We were all ready to go for our beach hot tub outing----- except the tour bus beat us to the location. So, we just watched a bunch of 20 year olds enjoy the beach hot tub. On Sunday, the town we stayed in had a tractor ralley. Bach's often have a tractor to take their boat in/out on the beach. Tractors were dressed up for the tractor rally. There as a jaws tractor, a sunflower, the smurfs, also a Porchse brand tractor and so really old Farmhalls as well (no John Deeres though!). We also hiked down to Cathedral Cove and spent time on the beach there as well. We had also planned to do some biking but the derailer on my bike broke before we left town so that put an end to that activity.

John is in Christchurch for work this week and I am posting this message from Wellington. We are counting down the days until our Europe trip!

PS- I was going to post a couple pictures but I seem to have used all up the picture space I am alloted on the blog! I will have to figure that one out.

Visitors Welcome

2010-04-26T19:10:00.002+12:00

On occasion we hear from someone who visited NZ, thought about contacting us, but thought we might be too busy to entertain others.
Let us be the judge of that.
We may be too busy to take you on a driving tour or go out to dinner, but then again, we may not. If nothing else we would be happy to answer questions and give advice.
Anyone planning a trip over here is welcome to post a comment with your contact information and info. We will respond when we can with our contact info. I will delete comments that contain email addresses so you don't have to worry about it getting spammed.

Fall in NZ

2010-04-21T21:32:00.002+12:00

Last weekend Fall fully arrived in NZ. It was the first weekend where it was to chilly for the beach. We have also gone into daylight savings time so it is dark by 6:00. It continues to be very dry here. The Northland area (north of Auckland) is in a severe drought and the Auckland area was asked to start conserving water last week. Sounds like this is the lowest rainfall totals in a lot of years.

For anyone interested, tickets open for the 2011 World Cup Rugby on April 27. The first tickets you can apply for are venue packs and team packs. If demand exceeds supply there is a drawing to see who can buy tickets. As I said before, hosting World Cup Rugby is like having the Olympics in town. The USA team has qualified to play in the cup. Ticket Info

Other thing on the minds here is the unpronounceable volcano disrupting travel. My friend Sarah is starting to worry about getting to London for her wedding in a couple weeks and we are wondering about our trip to Europe as well. It is estimated there are 2,000 travelers stuck in NZ right now and there are 1,000 Kiwis stuck in the UK alone. I hope things get back to normal soon!

This Sunday is Anzac Day, which is similar to Veterans Day.

Not for the faint of heart

2010-04-13T19:18:00.003+12:00

Anyone know what this is an image of? Take a good look before you click on the link to the article. News article

The other news of interest is that John Key is in Washington DC at the nuclear summit that Obama is hosting. This is another sign that nuclear relations between NZ and the US are softening. NZ and the US have had a standoff going since 1986. NZ is nuclear free and told the US back in the mid 80's that they had to disclose if a nuclear ship was entering a NZ port. The US said that they wouldn't disclose what ships were nuclear. NZ responded that the ships couldn't enter the ports then. So, the US military has not been able to bring a ship or sub to NZ since 1986. Obama is taking a harder stance on reducing nuclear stockpiles. In exchange, NZ is taking baby steps to open up military relations again. Little NZ with the 3 military ships and 5 or 6 planes taking on the gigantic US military makes for good news reporting down here. I also saw that John Key had lunch with Vilsack today to talk about free trade agreements.

Easter Weekend

2010-04-07T21:46:00.002+12:00

Trip pictures

We had four days off for the Easter weekend so it was a good opportunity to get out of town. This was the first weekend we have left town since Christmas. If we look back at last year at this time, we were gone about every weekend. Over the course of the year, we have become more engrained in life in NZ and the calendar is not as empty as it used to be. Seems like there is something keeping us in town quite often now.

Thursday after work we drove to Whakatane and camped right on the beach at Ohope Beach. All the tourists get a kick out of Whakatane. In Maori, a ‘Wh’ is pronounced as an ‘f’. Therefore, the pronunciation of Whakatane is ‘fuck-a-tan-e’. The first few times you say the town you think you are swearing.

From Whakatane, we drove around the east coast knob that sticks out to Gisborne. This is about a 6 hour drive and it goes through small Maori beach side communities. It is a pretty remote area of the county where long line fishing is the most popular sport. Long line fishing is done from the beach with a pretty extensive set up. There is generally some sort of spinner on the line that takes it out to sea and a motor to haul the line back in. There are also baited fish hooks about every foot off the main line. Using long line you can catch a bunch of fish at one time.

From Gisborne we drove south to Napier which is also on the east coast. Downtown Napier was destroyed in the 1930’s by an earthquake. As a result, the town was rebuilt in the Art Deco style popular at that time. I believe it is one of the best examples of an Art Deco town in the world.

Napier is also located within the Hawke’s Bay region which is known for its vineyards. For Easter, we did a biking trip around a few of the vineyards. Napier is one of the few areas in NZ that has some decent biking trails. There is around 10 miles of paved trails around Napier and then another 10 – 20 miles of crushed gravel trails that lead out to the vineyards. On the crushed gravel sections, there are cattle gates. I think we went through at least 50 of them! Cattle gates are quite the process on a bike. See the pictures for the 5 steps to get a bike through the gate.

Our touring of Napier was cut short on Monday due to rain. We camped in Napier for two nights and we ended up having to pack of the tent all wet. On the way back to Auckland, we stopped at Lake Taupo for a break. There is an outflow from the lake that is damned up. Three or four times a day, the gates are opened on the damn and you get to watch a mass of water flood the downstream gorge. Not to unlike what you would see if they suddenly opened the gates are Saylorville!

At this point, I think we are home until we head to Europe in May. Highlight of this week is the Crowded House concert we are going to tomorrow night.

Critical Mass and Hens Night Out

2010-03-29T22:14:00.002+13:00

John has been waiting all summer to go on the Critical Mass ride in Auckland. Critical Mass is a grass roots biking organization that started in San Francisco in 1992. It has grown throughout the world with organizations in other cities. The goal of the organization is to promote awareness of cyclists. More info This was an interesting experience and one we probably won't do again. We did not have enough piercings or tattoos for the group and also don't have a Green Peace or other radical t-shirt. There were probably around 25 people on the ride. We started by going through downtown Auckland where a motorist got impatient and actually ran into one of the guys in our group and knocked him off his bike. He was fine but he had a few words with the motorist.

On Saturday, I went to my first Hens Night for my friend Sarah who is getting married in London in May. Hens Night is the English term for a bachelorette party. Sarah was dressed up as Wonder Women for the day and the other girls had red devil horns. We kicked off the afternoon by parading Sarah around a couple bars downtown. A limo then picked us up for a cruise along the harbor and the evening was ended with a cabaret show.

We have 4 days off work for Easter- we get Good Friday and Easter Monday as public holidays. We are going to drive over to the Gisbone and Hawke's Bay area for the weekend. Check back for pictures next week.

Happy Easter and may you get pleanty of Chocolate!

PS---- big announcement in NZ---- we are getting Doritos for the first time! But, they are being made by a NZ company so not sure they will taste quite the same.

Life in the big city- Part 2

2010-03-24T20:53:00.002+13:00

Living in the city, you have to take the bad along with the good. After work on Friday we met some friends downtown for the evening. We got home around 11:30 to find that our house had been broken into--- though nothing was taken. We have an awning window on the right side of our sliding glass door in our bedroom. The awning window opens outwards and is big enough for someone to step through. The burglar used something to pry open the awning window and to break the latches for the window. They came into our bedroom and turned on the light on John's side of the bed and started going through his sock drawer. At that time, it looks like the house alarm went off and the neighbor’s dog started barking. The burglar was scared off and did not take anything. We had a sleepless night Friday night and spent Saturday getting the window latches fixed and talking to the police and insurance company.

All that, along with doing US taxes on Saturday. US taxes are somewhat of a challenge down here as the NZ tax year is April 1 to March 31. The only way to get calendar year info is to find all your pay stubs and bank statements and manually add everything up. As long as we are US citizens, we still have to file US taxes. We also have to file IA state taxes as well. We are just crossing our fingers we don’t actually owe any money on taxes. Wouldn’t that stink to be paying taxes in the US and not even benefiting from anything our money is going to!

Congratulations to Obama for passing the health care bill the other day. I have had a couple conversations with people down here about the US healthcare system and they can’t believe that in a county with the wealth of the US not everyone is covered. NZ has had public healthcare for years. With the healthcare system here, you pick a primary physician you want to see. The cost to see the physician is subsidized based on income. We pay NZ$60 for a check up visit but we don't pay any healthcare premiums throughout the year.

Life in the big city

2010-03-15T22:53:00.000+13:00

Hope everyone was not to disappointed by the missed blog last week. It has been a busy few weeks down here with work and social activities. The highlights:

John was in Fiji for 5 days doing training and sales meetings for work. The trip went well until he got back to NZ. Midnight Friday night NZ customs confiscated all his firewall and computer equipment as the equipment was valued over $1000 and he did not have documentation to prove that it had been purchased in NZ. Customs was worried the equipment had been purchased over seas and he was trying to bring it into the county without paying taxes. After a couple trips to the airport, John was able to get everything back today by providing proof of purchase and a $25 handling fee. Lesson learned- if you take something out of the country valued at over $700 and want to bring it back in without issues, fill out an Export Form at the airport prior to turning in your luggage with the airline.

Avatar -We went to see Avatar in 3D over the weekend. The 3D was awesome. What you might not know is that a company called Weta out of Wellington did all the 3D animation for the film. If you see the movie, you should look for the NZ inspiration in the film. We picked out a few things- the tree where the blue people lived resembled a Kauri tree, the nose greeting the main avatar and main blue lady did is the traditional Mauri greeting, and the tattoos on the blue warriors resembled Mauri tattoos. Go see this movie while you can still see it in 3D and think of NZ!

Around the Bays - I did a 5 mile walk around the bays on Sunday along with a couple friends and 80,000 other people. The walk started downtown and went along the harbor. John Key (NZ Prime Minister) kicked off the event. What is pretty cool is that John Key is in the same position as a president and he takes time to come to these types of events. He also stands in front of the crowd with no body guards and bullet proof glass and is very accessible. For those that ran the Auckland Marathon in October, the walking route was the same bay route that you ran- except we only had to walk it one way.

We are counting down the days until our 4 day break at Easter. We are planning to take a driving tour over to Gisborne and Napier on the east coast of the North Island. Gisborne's claim to fame is that they are the first town to see sunrise in the new day (they are the closest town to the date line). We are also looking forward to our trip to London and Croatia in May. What I am not looking forward to is getting our info turned in for US taxes. We are procrastinating on that one---- only 30 days to go so we better get on it. Even though we no longer live in the US we still have to file taxes since we are US citizens. We also have to file IA taxes as that is considered our home state still.

One last item is something you might see in the news there. A kiwi guy became the first person to row a boat from Australia to NZ over the weekend. It took his a couple months and 4,000km of rowing to get it done. He was also capsized 2 times in one night, had a broken machine to make water and ran into all kinds of other issues. Hopefully the US news picks the story up because it is a good one.

waves, lights, and birthday cake

2010-03-01T22:28:00.004+13:00

As you are all aware, the devastating quake in Chile had caused tsunami warnings all over the Pacific. There was lots of warnings here and the Civil Defense kicked in all of their plans. Turned out to be mostly a non-event, but it is re-assuring that NZ is well prepared and organized.

There is a very diverse cultural population here in Auckland. That includes a large Chinese population. Consequently, there are some large Chinese New Year celebrations to ring in the year of the tiger. Last weekend there was a light festival. Pretty cool. It reminded me of the Xmas light festival at Water Works park back in Des Moines, minus the cold and snow.

Some friends invited us over for a BBQ with some friends. So I took advantage of the opportunity to embarrass Lisa with everyone singing Happy Birthday.
-John

One thing you are sure of - taxation

2010-02-25T20:32:00.003+13:00

The hot topic in the news right now is the very good possibility that the GST (Goods and Service Tax) is going to be raised for 12.5% to 15%. Pretty much anything you purchase includes GST. Normally, the GST portion is included in the total price. If something is marked as $10.00, the $10.00 covers the cost of the item and the GST tax.

While the government is looking to increase GST, they are looking to drop the personal tax liability for high income earners (over $70,00). Currently high income earners are taxed at 38% of their wages and it looks like this will be dropped to 33%. This move is being taken as one means to get NZ in step with Australia. NZ has a real problem with losing talented people to Australia as wages are higher their and there is more opportunity for a higher standard of living. These changes have not yet been passed into legislation but the signs are showing this is the direction this government is moving.

Besides worrying about taxes, we continue to enjoy the summer. We have been making it to the beach for a swim after work at least once a week. Season wise, we are probably equivalent to August. It is continues to be humid (though still only getting to the low 80's), drought conditions continue up north and there have been a few forest fires in the last week. Some of the vineyards are starting to harvest the grapes as well. We have about another 1 1/2 months of summer left before it starts turning chilly and rainy.

For you wine connoisseurs, the new wine release for the season is a sauvignon gris varietal. It is marketed as an ancient grape from Bordeaux region of France. You will have to ask Dennis to get some in for a try. Montana is the winery.Also, the harvest reports are that the grape tonnage will be down there year from the last couple years. Buy your NZ wine now before the price goes up!

New experiences

2010-02-17T21:17:00.000+13:00

This is the week of new experiences:

Tennis- I am taking tennis lessons with my friend Sarah. I have not swung a racket since I was in jr high. In lesson 1 I learned that I have problems following through on the swing. We will see how lesson 2 goes. I don't hold much hope in being the next pro.

Indian cooking- John and I have signed up for an Indian cooking class. The only Indian food I have ever cooked has involved sauce out of a jar. We made Roti in the first class. Roti involves making bread dough and pan frying it into tortilla like disks- there is also a process you go through to make it puff up in the pan. You also make curry potatoes and wrap them up in the pan friend bread. There is an Indian restaurant on every corner down here so we signed up for the class to get more familiar with the food and learn what the different names and ingredients are.

Teaching- John is instructing his first full class on Fortinet firewalls this week. It is a 3 day class being held in Hamilton for Fonterra (they are the dairy processors and distributors in NZ).

Dentist- I broke a corner off my tooth last week and had to make a visit to the dentist. Interesting part was that he used a little pen to take a photo of my tooth and then put it up on the computer screen so I could see what he was talking about. I got to see the before and after shots of the work. This is quite an advancement from prior dental treatments. On the other hand, I saw the eye doctor last month and they were manually pulling lenses out of a box to determine my prescription vs using a machine to flip through lenses.

Weather wise it is humid. It is only getting to the low 80's during the day, but we have been running at 98% humidity for the last week. The radio today said that northern NZ was registering 100% humidity. The humidity is being generated by the cyclones that are running through the islands right now. A cyclone is the same thing as a hurricane. Interesting tid bit- the cyclone winds spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. NZ is occasionally effected by cyclones but I believe major impact is rare. One of the most devastating NZ cyclones was Cyclone Bola in 1988. They had torrential rain for 3 days.

PS- encase you did not figure it out, the bottom flag in last weeks post is the NZ flag.

A new flag for NZ?

2010-02-10T21:07:00.004+13:00

Last Sunday was Waitangi Day, which celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the peace treaty between the English and Mauri and founding document of NZ. The NZ Herald has used the holiday as the opportunity to get some weight behind discussions for a new national flag. The NZ flag and Australian flag are very similar and people feel that NZ needs a new flag that represents the identity of the country (and gets away from the British union jack). So, who out there knows the difference between the NZ flag and Australian flag? Is the top or bottom image the NZ flag?

Over the weekend, John and I attended the More FM Winery Tour concert in Matakana. Dave Dobbyn, Bic Runga and Tim Finn were the headlining acts. These are three iconic kiwi singers that everyone around here has grown up listening to. Here is a Dave Dobbyn classic.

After the concert we headed north another hour and spent a couple nights at our friends bach on the beach. We had a nice time playing in the surf and relaxing on the beach. Bach is the kiwi term for a cabin. Traditionally a bach has been a rustic cabin and is where you take all the second hand furniture and discards you can find.

Sailing to Kawau Island

2010-02-02T22:02:00.003+13:00

More Pictures

Kawau Island was our destination over the weekend. The island is 45km north of Auckland and is where the mansion of the first governor of NZ is located. There are only a few permanent residents on the island. It is a big boatie destination.

We sailed to the island with Stuart and his brother in law Gary. Staurt and Gary are who John goes racing with a couple times a month. We left Friday night after work at 7:00 pm. We arrived at the finish line at 12:45 am. The sail was pleasant with not to heavy winds or seas and a full moon.

On Saturday, John and I hiked around the island where there are some pretty nice trails. We also visited the beach. In the evening there was a BBQ with the yacht club. Race results were also provided and our boat came in #4 out of 12 yachts.

We had to motor all the way back to Auckland on Sunday as the wind was blowing against us and there was a strong tide in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go.

Monday was Auckland Anniversary Day. Unfortunately, the weather was poor with rain and high winds so we didn't make it out to check out the yachts on the harbour.

Cuddle Class for your next visit to NZ

2010-01-27T20:50:00.002+13:00

No more stresses with flying long haul routes! Air New Zealand made a big announcement yesterday. Starting later this year with the new Boeing 777's Air NZ has purchased, you will be able to fly 'cuddle class'. Essentially, Air NZ is putting in a seat configuration in economy class that will allow you to lie flat. The deal will be that two people will buy seat tickets and then Air NZ will sell you a 3rd seat at a reduced price. The new seats then have extra parts that can be made into a bed (kind of like transformer seats). Air NZ will be the first airline to offer lie flat options in economy class. Guess this is why they were voted airline of the year a few weeks back. To bad this won't be in place in time for our trip to London and Croatia in a few months!

More info: http://www.examiner.com/x-29076-SF-World-Travel-Examiner~y2010m1d26-Top-News-Economy-Class-now-called-Cuddle-Class-on-Air-New-Zealand

This weekend is Auckland Anniversary Weekend. We are off work Monday for the holiday. We plan to go for a 2 day sailing excursion with the guy that John races with. I am sure I will have some great pictures to post next week.

Beach time

2010-01-18T22:11:00.003+13:00

It is the height of summer, the humidity is picking up and people are migrating to the beaches. We have been going a couple times a week- usually a night after work and again on the weekend. We have a pretty good choice of beaches within 20 min of our house and you get your pick of white sand or black sand. The east coast beaches are white sand and the west coast beaches are black sand.

We also saw the new George Clooney movie, Up in the Air over the weekend (probably been out for months in the US). I gave it 2 thumbs up--- John was so so.

We are still getting Christmas cards in the mail. Just got one today that was mailed on Dec 8. Guess the post offices got a little backed up.

Work is back into full swing with most everyone getting back today. John has all kinds of business trips coming up over the next few weeks.

We are looking forward to our next public holiday in 2 weeks. It is Auckland Anniversary weekend and we get Monday off work. I think we are going sailing for the weekend with the guy that John races with.

In the news is the royalty- Prince William has been in the country for the last few days doing a meet and greet. Hillary Clinton was also supposed to be here over the weekend but that was canceled due to the Haiti earthquake.

Also for the America's Next Top Model fans---they were filming in Auckland a couple weeks back. You will have to watch the show next season and see the NZ highlights.There were lots of Tyra Banks spottings.

Work, sun, beach, xmas

2010-01-12T22:33:00.002+13:00

No too much new. Back to work (yuck). Spent last Sunday at the west coast beach at Piha. Piha is famous for it's rough surf. They have a reality show about the volunteer life guards there. They had a free concert there and we felt really old next to all of the 17-20 year olds.
The xmas cards are finally arriving in the mail... the post office here is probably just returning to work after the holidays ;-). Thanks for the cards and letters.

Abel Tasman National Park, Farewell Spit and Marlborough Sound

2010-01-04T21:48:00.002+13:00

Updated pictures-
here

We have arrived back in Auckland and have to go back to work tomorrow. Here are the highlights of the remainder of our Christmas holidays.

Abel Tasman National Park- We stayed in the town of Motueka, which is a few minutes outside of Abel Tasman National Park at a backpackers hotel. We actually tented in the yard (along with a bunch of other people) as I was very late in making reservations for the area. We found that Christmas is a busy time to travel in NZ and I should have done a little more planning. The NP is along the northern coast of the South Island. The area is known for the beaches and the 4- 5 day tramp to get from one end of the park to the other. There are a number of tour operators and water taxi services that offer day trips, kayaking, guided hikes, etc. We did a multi sport option- we kayaked in the morning, took a water taxi along the coastal trail and then got dropped off at one of the beaches. We walked about 2 hours of the NP trail and then got picked up by another water taxi for the ride back. The beaches were beautiful and I would love to go back and spend more time here when it was not so busy.

Farewell Spit- From Abel Tasman, we drove out to the most northern point of the South Island. The area is called Farewell Spit, Think of a sand finger that extends out into the Cook Strait and that is the Spit. The Spit has its own little micro climate. It drizzled and blew all day while we were there (while the rest of the area was sunny and hot). We did a couple tramps in the area and saw lots of fur seals. We found one area were there was a cave that was full of momma seals and the pups. They pups were all playing around and crying--- they were quite fun to watch. While we were in the area around 125 whales were beached on the Spit. The Spit area has a history of whale beachings as it forms a shallow cove. The whales get in the cove and have a hard time getting out. We did not see the whales, just heard about it on the radio.

Sky Line- A roadsign and spur of the moment decision took us to the Sky Line. This is a extreme version of a ski chair lift with a free fall both forwards and backwards. It was so much fun I went twice!

Marlborough Sound- NZ is the first country to move over to the new year. For New Years Eve, we stayed at Punga Cove along the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sound. To get to Punga Cove, you take a 1 1/2 hour water taxi ride. We spent New Years Eve at the beach bar where there was a DJ playing. The night was beautiful with a full moon. The following day we walked 4 hours of the Queen Charlotte Track. We had planned to stay for a 3rd day but ended up leaving early as it became extremely windy. The night of Jan 1 we had gall force winds through the Sound. The winds were howling so much that we were kept awake most of the night. The water taxi back to Picton ended up taking twice as long as it should have--- the driver forgot to drop of a couple people and didn't discover it until he was half the way back to Picton. What should have been a 1 1/2 hour trip took 3 hours.

The remaining couple days were spent making our way back to Auckland. We spent a night at a B&B outside of Picton. The last couple days have continued to be very windy so the ferry crossing back to Wellington was windyer and rougher then the first crossing. Last night was stayed at a very plush backpackers lodge in Wanganui. Tonight--- back home in our own bed and back to work tomorrow.

Ferry to Picton and Blenheim

2009-12-27T19:08:00.003+13:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/2009ChristmasRoadTrip?feat=directlink

Boxing Day we drove further south to Wellington. On the drive south, we went along the River Road, which is a tourist route to Wanganui. The River Road is basically a single lane gravel carriage road in some places. There are some small towns along the road that were booming during the river barge days and are now tiny villages. Wanganui is famous in NZ as well. There has been a debate for a couple years if the town name should be spelled with an 'h' in it. The Mauri want the 'h' added, otherwise the name doesn't mean anything to them. A couple weeks back the government made a decision to remain neutral and said that it could be spelled either way. Big controversy over it all.

We took the ferry to the South Island from Wellington. To get to Picton on the South Island, you have to cross the Cook Strait. This strait is notorious for windy weather. The winds blow from Australia across the Tasman Sea and don't run into anything until they hit NZ. Once at NZ, they winds get funneled down the Cook Strait, which splits the North and South Islands. I would guess that winds were over 50 knots on the boat. It was windy enough that you had a hard time standing upright and you were blown away from the railing if you were not holding on. Thankfully, the seas weren't rolling to much for the crossing. People also have a history of getting sea sick on the passage.

Today we biked around Blenheim, which is in the Marlborough region at the top of the South Island. We stopped at some vineyards and also the local farmers market. It was windy biking but at least the roads were flat! We are staying at a boutique hotel in Blenheim. It used to be a bank that has been converted to a hotel.

Tomorrow we are off to the Abel Tasman National Park where we will do some more hiking and probably kayak as well.

Tongariro Crossing

2009-12-25T20:02:00.002+13:00

We are currently in the middle of the North Island at Whakapapa and it is Christmas Day. We did a 7 hr hike today that has both of us very tired. The hike was called the Tongariro Crossing. It starts with an hour of marsh land, then you climb up a volcanic mountain that is barren for 1 hr. From there, you go through a volcanic crater, then a steep climb up the other side of the crater. From here, you spend an hour climbing up volcanic ash and get to the peak. On the other side there are 5 sulphur lakes that you walk past, then another crater to go through. After that, it is all down hill for the next 2 1/2 hours. What a way to spend Christmas Day!

We head to Wellington tomorrow to catch the ferry to the South Island. The ferry ports in Picton, which is in the Marlborough Sounds area. The Marlborough Sounds area is famous for wine and is were a lot of the Saviougn Blanc is grown. We plan to spend Sunday riding our bikes and touring the vineyards.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/2009ChristmasRoadTrip#

Iowa in the news

2009-12-23T22:52:00.002+13:00

Iowa (or people with Iowa ties) has made the NZ news twice in the last month. First time was the first big snow storm that you had. There was actually mention of Des Moines in the article about all the snow in the midwest. Second time was Tom Vilsack. Vilsack got some NZ tv face time last week during the global warming conference. I believe Vilsack is representing the US on the committee NZ also sits on to talk about agriculture impacts to global warming.

We are off for our Christmas holidays tomorrow. We are driving down to the South Island (taking the ferry over actually from Wellington). We plan to do some camping, hiking, kayaking, and are taking the bikes along as well. I will post pictures of the trip.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Years. We will be thinking of you shoveling snow and scraping car windows while we are enjoying the beach.

2009-12-15T20:08:00.004+13:00

New Zealand has a long history of holding outdoor summer concerts. We attended two over the weekend. Saturday night there was an outdoor Christmas concert at the Auckland Domain, which is a very large park downtown. There were 250,000+ people there and it is billed as the largest free outdoor concert in the world. All the Christmas classics were played along with Santa arriving and fireworks. On Sunday, we saw the B-52's and the Proclaimers (sing the I would walk 500 miles for you song) at a local vineyard. The really nice thing about outdoor events in NZ is that you can bring drinks, a picnic, chairs or whatever you are willing to carry. For the free shows you can take wine, beer, pop or water. For the paid shows you can normally take food but generally have to purchase alcohol from the event.

John also returned from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday. No it is not a chocolate factory in Australia where Willy Wanker has a bunch of bears singing while they work.... it is a city in Malaysia. He had to go over and help lead a training class on firewall products so that he could get certified to teach classes in New Zealand. KL was very done up for the holidays compared to NZ. In NZ you see a few Christmas things out here and there. But in KL, John said all the stores were decorated along with the streets.

Pictures: Christmas tree in Malaysia with soap bubble snow and B-52's concert

Christmas holidays are here

2009-12-06T19:57:00.000+13:00

The weather is getting very nice down here and Christmas decorations are going up and the parties are happening. It is customary for work to hold Christmas parties for customers and staff. John and I have been to a couple parties for vendors that we work with. My office Christmas party was last weekend at the race track. This time of year there are a number of 'race days'. Everyone gets dressed up like what you see at the Kentucky Derby with classy outfits and hats. The best dressed usually make the society page of the paper. John's Christmas party was last night. His work sponsored a harbour dinner cruise and dance. Highlight of the cruise was seeing an orca whale breach in the harbour, though we didn't get to see much of it.

Our work shuts down from Dec 24 to Jan 5. Most people will actually be off until Jan 18 but we don't have vacation to be gone that long. From Dec 24 to Jan 5 we have to take 3 days of vacation and the rest is public holidays so we still get paid. We are jumping in the car and heading south for the holidays. First stop will be National Park for the Tongariro Crossing on Christmas day. This is an all day trek that goes through volcanic areas. From National Park, we are going to Wellington and taking the interisland ferry over to the South Island. It is a 3 1/2 hour crossing in good weather. On the South Island, we are going to check out the Marlborough Sound wine region, tramp in Abel Tasman National Park, do some biking and most likely some boating as well. We are taking the tent and the bikes and planning to rough it for a couple weeks.

In other news, the All Blacks lost the final game of the season today. But, the All Whites (national soccer team) qualified for the World Cup a few weeks back, which was a unexpected accomplishment. I spent the day working on my tan at the beach and John left for Malaysa for a week for work. We also both spent a few days in Wellington for work last week. So, we are raking up the frequent flier miles.... soon to be an Air New Zealand top customer!

Favorite NZ Recipe

2009-11-24T21:48:00.000+13:00

I have collected a few NZ recipes since moving down here. Scallops with Spaghetti and Crisp Bacon Crumbs is one of my favorite. I made this for the Iowa group when they were down last week and everyone loved it so I thought I would share. This comes from Dish magazine, which is a NZ produced cooking magazine.

Scallops with Spaghetti and Crisp Bacon Crumbs

500 gram fresh scallops
3 tbl olive oil
knob of butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 punnet cherry tomatoes (mix of yellow and red if available)
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2 handfuls baby spinach leaves
1 lemon

Crumbs
1 tbl olive oil
knob of butter
100 grams streaky bacon, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh white breadcrumbs
1 glove garlic, crushed
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
pinch of chili flakes
finely grated zest 1 lemon

To serve
hot, cooked spaghetti

1> Crumbs: Heat the olive oil and butter in a saute pan and cook the bacon until crisp and golden. Add the breadcrumbs, garlic, flat leaf parsley and the chili and cook, stirring constantly, until the breadcrumbs are crisp. Stir in the lemon zest and season. Set aside.

2> Scallops: Heat a saute plan with the olive oil and drop in the butter and garlic. Season the scallops and cook for 1-2 minutes each side. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and cover to keep warm.

Add the tomatoes and stock to the pan and cook over high heat until the tomatoes just start to burst. Add the spinach and a good squeeze of lemon juice and turn to wilt. Season. Add the cooked pasta, half the bacon crumbs and the scallops and gently turn to combine.

Tip into a large serving bowl and sprinkle with the remaining crumbs.

Serves 4

Vacation recovery

2009-11-16T20:01:00.003+13:00

More vacation pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/IowaGroupVisitNov2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCIKTyOOq5dGXYA#

We had a group of 9 friends from Iowa with us for two weeks (Matt, Dorenda, Jim, Ron, Beth, Jackie, Anita, Cindy and Trish). We had great fun spending time with everyone. People came and went over the two weeks so the entire group was only together for a few days. Here are highlights from the trip:

* Jim, Ron and Beth ran the Auckland Marathon and Cindy ran the 1/4 Marathon. The spectators had a great time...... Jim, Ron and Beth said it was the hardest marathon they have done. Lesson learned- never run a marathon that doesn't provide an elevation chart.

* We rented a 'Eurotrash' people mover van to get everyone around in. We went from Auckland, north to Cape Reinga, and back down through the Kauri Forrest.

* We chartered a sailboat in the Bay of Islands for one night. We saw dolphins, seals, a whale, fish and lots of bird life. Moby was the boats mascot. Moby was a quite dog until a dolphin, fish or whale came along. He is renowned for jumping on the back of an orca whale one time and bitting his fin! We also celebrated Jackie's birthday on the boat with lots of signing and laughing to a cd of songs we made for her birthday and special lyrics Ron developed for the 'Jeremiah was a bullfrog' song. Jim also brought back a special Jackie shirt that everyone on the Greece trip will know well. And, Jackie continues to spread Joy to the world one person at a time.

* Anita's birthday was celebrated with a private vineyard tour and dinner with a 50's theme. Anita did a great rendition as Marilyn Monroe of the 'Happy Birthday to Me' song. The Pink Ladies also made a presence at the party.

*We took a bus trip to the most northern point in NZ, Cape Reinga. This is the point that the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet up. You can actually see a difference in each oceans color and see the turbulence where they come together. We also went 'sand dune surfing' on the 90 Mile Beach.

* We spent one night at a Top 10 Holiday Park in the Kauri Forrest area (where Matt made a great grilled dinner). We took a night nature walk and saw glow worms (Cool Tina!), a carnivore snail, and a weta. We had hoped to also see a kiwi but we were only able to hear their calls.

* We met up with Richard and Pippa from PedalTours for lunch and talked about some bike club trip options. We also had a nice afternoon with Matt, Dorenda and Anita relaxing at a couple vineyards and on a beach.

* We flew to Queenstown and got a new minivan with Jackie, Beth, Trish, Cindy and Ron. We drove south and spent a night in Milford Sound and took the morning cruise on the Sound. In the Sound we saw more dolphins, seals and also a penguin. We also did a very strenuous hike up a mountain to a beautiful lake and had a nice picnic lunch.

* A visit was paid to the Minus 5 Ice Bar where we got dressed up in snow jackets and boots and drank in the cold (could have done that in Iowa!). Afterwards, we visited the fireplace bar next door which had a music video system. Unfortunate for the bar tender, he allowed us to pick the videos for the night. And, there was a poll.........As Beth said the next morning......... "what the hell happened last night?"

* John, Beth and Trish did the Shotover Jet Boats in Queenstown, where they run you up against canyon walls at 100 miles and hour. Afterwards, we spent a relaxing afternoon at Rippon Vineyard in Wanaka sampling the local wine (the most photographed vineyard in NZ).

* Jackie, Cindy and Trish took a helicopter ride around Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers and made an ice landing. John, Trish, Cindy and Beth also did the glacier hike and Beth's "mustache man" paid a visit in Franz Josef.

* Two weeks with only a couple hours of rain!

1 year ago today....

2009-10-27T22:25:00.003+13:00

One year ago today John and I stepped on the plane to move to New Zealand. We left Des Moines on Monday Oct 27, 2008. Some of our friends saw us off at the airport that morning (and watched us argue to get all the luggage on the plane) and from there we moved into the next phase of the journey. John and I have had many great experiences in our year down here. We have met a lot of great people, have had new experiences, made new friends and have visited a bunch of wonderful places. While we continue to miss our friends and family, we are overall glad that we made the move. It has been a good experience and one that everyone should try for at least a little while (yes, there is life outside of Iowa). Auckland is starting to feel a little bit more like home every day.

Holidays are Coming....

2009-10-22T07:59:00.002+13:00

We have been keeping very busy the last couple weeks with work. John has been on the road a number of days to various places in New Zealand. I have also been doing some traveling for work with a new project in Hamilton. I am currently in Christchurch for a project management conference.

Holidays are coming though. This coming Monday is Labour Day here and is a public holiday. Labour Day is a good sign of summer as the ocean surf rescue patrols start this weekend.

Next Friday friends start to arrive from the US. We will be showing 9 people around the country for 2 weeks. The Auckland Marathon is Sunday Nov 1. Three friends are running the full marathon and one is doing the half. From Auckland, we will be going north to Bay of Islands, Cape Reinga, and the Kauri forest area. We will also be going to Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka and Franz Joeseph glacier on the South Island.

For fun the other night we attended a wine club night. A representative from Duval-Leroy Champagne house was presenting. Four bottles of high end champagne were included in the show, whith one bottle being NZ $214 a bottle! All to pricey for our budget.....

Other big news in NZ is the exchange rate. The NZ dollar is becoming very strong and is up to US $1 = NZ $.76. The exporters are becoming concerned about the rate but the importers are loving it.

Weekend Sailing Races

2009-10-11T19:10:00.006+13:00

John here. I thought that some of you may be interested in hearing about my sailing experience here. About every other weekend I crew for a member of the RNZAF Base Auckland Yacht Club during a race.
Stewart has a Whiting, I believe about 28'. The hull is made of Kauri (like LOTS of older sailboats here) and glassed over. Her name is Stinger.
Crew often consists of Stewart's brother in law Gary and I with Stewart at the helm. A typical race is limited to about 3.5 hours. We race rain or shine, as long as there is not a gale warning.
Start and finish is at the club. The channel is fairly narrow there and there are LOTS of moored boats, so the start is usually rather interesting. I'm glad it is not me at the helm.
After the race we her back to the marina a couple blocks from my house, then drive back to the club house to hear the results and tip a couple.

View Typical sailing race in a larger map

Samoa Tsunami

2009-10-06T21:03:00.000+13:00

There has been a lot of news in NZ about the Samoa tsunami last week. NZ had a tsunami warning issued for a couple hours last Wednesday morning. There were a number of people waiting for a big wave to hit, but by the time it got here there wasn't anything left in the surge. NZ has a large Somoa population. A lot of people come from the Islands to find jobs in NZ. I heard somewhere there as many people in NZ from Somoa as people living in Somoa. Not sure if that is 100% accurate, but it gives you a sense of the population here. There have been many articles on people in NZ losing large portions of their families to the tsunami. The tv news also had coverage the other night on the difference in assistance between American Somoa and Western Somoa. America Somoa has the US military showing up along with ships and planes, big government funding, and everything they need to recover. Western Somoa has few resources and are relying on international aid to recover. It will be interesting to watch how this aspect plays out in world politics.

It has rained for the last 5 days here and we got a southernly winter blast. The road from Napier to Lake Taupo has been closed for two days due to a late spring snow storm. A couple hundred people got trapped on the road overnight and it has been labeled the worst storm in the area in 25 years. We actually had to start the fireplace last night for the first time in a couple months.

John's been published

2009-09-28T22:39:00.003+13:00

John has been published in the magazine Reseller News. It is a technical magazine focused on resellers of software and hardware. Someone interviewed him for the article/advertisement and wrote it up.

We changed to Daylight Savings on Sunday so we are getting an hour more daylight after work. Only one day into Daylight Savings and I am loving it!

The weather has been 'unsettled' for the last few days. We have had a couple spells of torrential rains. All the trees are in full bloom and asparagus is everywhere. I actually got my bike out for the first time in 4 months on Sunday.

On Sunday I went to a clothes swap party. There were around 12 girls that brought stuff they no longer wanted and you swapped for stuff that you liked. I came home with much better stuff then I went with!

We are counting down the days until our visitors get here from the US..... only 1 month to go! We are on the final push to get things done around the house before they arrive.

Kerikeri

2009-09-24T19:33:00.005+12:00

One thing you will quickly notice in NZ is that there are a lot of towns with Mauri names and they like to repeat words when forming a name- Kerikeri, Matamata, Meremere...... The slogan for Kerikeri is 'It's so nice they named it twice". Kerikeri is in the Bay of Islands area. The town is becoming known for its art and food. The area is also known for being one of the early European settlement areas.

The picture with the buildings includes the Stone Store and Mission House. The stone house is the oldest stone building in NZ. The Mission House is oldest still standing wooden structure in NZ. Both are from the 1830's--- which should remind you that NZ is a young country for European settlements.

The waterfall picture is at Rainbow Falls. The house picture is a Mauri meeting house on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, which is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The Treaty of Waitangi is the agreement signed between the British Crown and the Mauri.

From Wikipedia - "The Treaty established a British governor in New Zealand, recognised Māori ownership of their lands and other properties, and gave Māori the rights of British subjects. However the English and Māori language versions of the Treaty differ significantly, and so there is no consensus as to exactly what was agreed. From the British point of view, the Treaty gave Britain sovereignty over New Zealand, and gave the Governor the right to run the country; Māori seem to have had a range of understandings, many of which conflicted with the British understanding. After the initial signing at Waitangi, copies of the Treaty were taken around New Zealand and over the following months many other chiefs signed." The Treaty of Waitangi is generally considered the founding document of New Zealand as a nation.

There is still much debate around the true meaning of the Treaty. The Mauri have filed many claims against the Crown for breach of the contract and have received significant sums of money to compensate for the breaches. There are still claims and reviews going on today.

Set Your Tivo

2009-09-21T07:15:00.002+12:00

John Key, the New Zealand Prime Minister (kind of like the US President)will be on Letterman Thursday night, US time. We don't get the show here until Monday. Key is also the tourism minister, in addition to the Prime Minister, and is trying to attract more people to New Zealand. He is supposed to be giving the Top 10 for the night. Someone will have to give us a preview on how it goes.

Last room is painted!

2009-09-16T21:04:00.005+12:00

We have hit a major milestone this week and have painted the last room in our plans to redo the house this year. We finished painting the lounge (what a living room is called here) this week. We are also getting new carpet put down in the lounge. I think we are going to get some carpet that has some sort of corn oil component in it and is made in the US. Just doing our part to support the US economy :) The only room left to redo this fall will be the main bathroom and we will end up hiring that done.

On Saturday we went out to watch the All Blacks. They played poorly and lost for the 3rd time in a row to the South African Springbooks by a couple points. The All Blacks almost pulled out a win in the last minute, but it was a case of waiting until much to late in the game to get their act together.

On Sunday, we went to the Auckland Home Show. The Auckland Home Show is basically like the Des Moines Home Show- you get all the vacuum salesman, home and garden construction, and miscellaneous house stuff. One interesting part was the row of homes, which was a couple streets of trailerable baches. If you buy your plot of land, you can trailer in a small bach and hook up the utilities. They pretty much look like a small mobile home. Which buy the way, we have never seen a mobile home park in NZ. Some of the baches were pretty cool with walls that would open up like garage doors to get the outdoor living feeling.

I am also starting to help with the 2010 PMI New Zealand conference planning. The conference will be held in Wellington next August. The project managers reading this blog need to plan to attend the PMI conference here next year instead of Des Moines or New York City!

This coming weekend we are going north to Kerikeri, which is a small town in the Bay of Islands. We will be spending a few days there with a group of friends coming in early November and we are going up to make the arrangements. Hopefully there will be good weather and I will have some good pictures to post next week.

Picture Update

2009-09-07T21:49:00.002+12:00

It is getting back around to weekend travel time again. It has been a beautiful week in NZ. There was not a cloud in the sky all weekend. We spent Saturday working around the house. On Sunday we headed north to Waipu Caves. This is a large cavern with stalactites and stalagmites and glow worms. Glow worms are insect larvae that are on the ceiling of caves or dark and wet areas around NZ. In the Waipu caves, the glow worms look like thousands of tiny stars.

Following are links to pictures from the last few weeks.

Iowa visit- Some of the 'surprise' pictures are blurry but you get the idea.....
http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/IowaTrip2009_08_22?authkey=Gv1sRgCOn9mcjhg9HFvQE#

Las Vegas-http://picasaweb.google.com/jandlmarshall/LasVegas2009_08_29?authkey=Gv1sRgCKehzeqoxee-ngE#

Back home again

2009-09-02T22:29:00.002+12:00

John and I arrived back in Auckland at 5:00 am Sunday morning. It was a quick trip back to the US but we were happy to see all our friends and family. We had a great time in Clear Lake. We also had a picnic with John's family and I went to Cedar Rapids to see my family. On Thursday I flew out to Las Vegas to meet up with John. It was HOT- at midnight is was still 95. We just walked the strip, stopped in a couple of the must see hotels and did a little shopping. We had a pleasant flight back to NZ on Air New Zealand. The only problem with Air NZ is that they are to efficient- I missed out on the ends of my movies both going and coming because they flew to fast.

So, what was it like to be back in the US? We noticed a few more empty buildings in DSM and some areas weren't as tidy as what they might have been. We heard a little about Obama and health care reform but not as much as we thought we might.

We decided we really missed the NZ system of no tipping, especially in Vegas. I also noticed that I ended up with a wallet full of change that amounted to about US $1.25. A wallet full of change in NZ would be at least $10 due to all the $1 and $2 coins. I also decided I like the NZ system of rounding to the nearest dime so they don't have to deal with pennies.

On the other side, I really enjoyed having shopping options. In NZ, you might have 3 stores to choose from and each store carries pretty much the same thing. In the US, you have 10 stores to chose from and each one has distinct items. And also Super Target..... we need one in NZ.

September 1 was the first day of Spring here. I asked around and nobody seemed to know why Sept 1 was the first day of Spring and not Sept 21. The first day of Winter in NZ corresponds to the first day of Summer in the US. Maybe one of the NZ people that follow this blog can answer this question.

Surprise!

2009-08-24T13:50:00.002+12:00

For those that don't yet know, we are in Des Moines, Iowa for a few days (right this minute!). We kept the trip pretty quite as we planned a surprise for our bike group in Clear Lake. And what a surprise it was! We had a lot of shocked people when they saw us- and we got to do the surprise about a dozen times.

John and I arrived in DSM Thursday night. We met up with the O'B's Friday at lunch for a bit. Saturday was spent doing a bike ride/bar ride around Clear Lake. We have spent today with John's family.

Tomorrow morning John is flying to Las Vegas for a work conference (the work conference provided the opportunity for the trip). I will be going to Cedar Rapids on Tue and Wed to see my family. I am then flying out to Las Vegas to met up with John for a night. We leave Las Vegas to fly back to Auckland Friday evening.

A couple quick things on being back in Iowa. There is a lot of corn and beans and really straight roads!!!! And how I have missed Super Target (The Warehouse doesn't even begin to cut it). It also seems like we haven't been gone for the last 10 months. We are just picking up right were we left off.

As you can see this is a whirlwind trip and we are packing in as much as possible. I appologize now for not getting a chance to see everyone.

After living in New Zealand for 10 months….

2009-08-19T08:24:00.000+12:00

1- Driving on the other side of the road becomes natural and you wonder if you will be able to drive properly on the ‘right’ side. You also get really good a flying through the roundabouts.
2- You don’t hit the windshield wipers every time you want to use the turn signal…. and wonder what will happen in a car with the switches on the ‘right’ side
3- All your US credit cards, bank cards and even drivers licenses start to expire ….. and you don’t notice until to late
4- You get slimed in the face from a snail in the mail box when you squish it by accident
5- You get used to composting food and splitting up the paper and recyclables and wonder how you ever produced so much garbage before
6- You look forward to nice weekends when you can hang laundry on the line instead of using the electricity hog dryer
7- It starts to seem natural that it is cold in August
8- You start doing stuff in the rain instead of sitting inside waiting for it to clear off…. you may be waiting awhile
9- You start to wonder if going back to the US will be a culture shock and what it will be like
10- You really miss having a country radio station to listen to

Back on the grid

2009-08-10T17:43:00.003+12:00

We have been living off the grid for the last few weeks and slaving away on renovations. We have put flooring down in 3 bedrooms, the dining room and the living room. Only the hallway and some closets left to do! Our goal is to get all the flooring done by this coming weekend so we can go back to having some fun.

We have been sneaking out a little. Last weekend I attended the Auckland Food Show while John went out sailing. And what a food show it was! It is a gourmet foody heaven---- the DSM wine club group would have LOVED it. The show was held in a convention center. Each stand had free samples (beer, wine, hard alcohol, cheese, ethnic foods, oils, chocolate, etc). I came home with a big bag of goodies. The show is held every year if anyone wants to plan for the next one.....

On Saturday we ventured out to one of the very few Mexican restaurants in town. This is a family owned shop that is only open for lunch a couple days a week and serves authentic Mexican foods (not Carlos O'Kelly's type Mexican, but the real stuff). Apparently we weren't the only ones that thought it was great as they had a constant line to order. A girl that John works with raves about the food so we thought we butter check it out.

This coming weekend we are going to Rangitoto Island for the day. This is a volcanic island (non active) that sits right in the Auckland Harbour. It is not inhabited and is run by the DOC. There was a cheap ticket ferry special this coming weekend so we are going to hike up to the top of the volcano and look down into the crater. Rangitoto Island is a major focal point of the Auckland landscape so it will be neat to get on the island. During the winter months the sun was rising up behind Rangitoto on the way to work so I would see a volcanic mountain with a big halo over it. That made the drive to work a little better.

The weather is definitely turning spring like- think April /May in Iowa. All the trees and flowers are starting to bloom in Auckland and it is not getting so cold at night. We are also going a few days between rains. Last night was really windy --- I kept getting woken up with the wind blowing so hard against the bedroom windows. The weather service is predicting an exciting spring with thunder storms (which are rare here) and tornado's. I never would have guessed that NZ would get tornado's before moving down here. Interesting thing though is that there are not any tornado sirens in the towns. The tornado's I have heard about tend to be very brief- not the creating a mile wide path of destruction type like you get in the Midwest.

The summer outdoor concerts are starting to be announced as well. The B-52's are coming in Dec (which we got tickets to!), there is a Mo Town revival concert in Feb, a number of winery estate concerts being lined up and AC/DC is coming as well. Now is the time to start lining up your NZ summer travel plans.............

NZ Tip #207

2009-08-04T19:06:00.002+12:00

Don't leave your mail in the mailbox for to long........ the snails love envelopes (particularly the white ones). You will have holey mail by the next morning. For some reason snails don't like the glossy advertisements though.....

Latest news in NZ

2009-07-31T16:00:00.000+12:00

We have been spending any free time working on putting down wood flooring in the house. We have 2 rooms done and will start on the 3rd this weekend (we are doing 5 rooms in total). It is starting to turn spring like- the daffodils are up, the rose bush leaves are starting to bud, it isn’t raining so much and we haven’t been keeping the fire stoked up at night. There was a mention on the radio of ‘early spring’ the other day as well.

For fun news, we attended Starlight Express the other night in downtown Auckland. Starlight Express has historically been a permanent show (in London and New York only I believe). Someone from NZ figured out how to make it a touring show for arena venues. The whole show is done on roller skates and is about a competition between trains. John is planning on sailing this weekend with the guy he races with. I am planning to attend the Food Show.

In local news, there are a couple big issues being talked about. A couple years back a law was passed that made it a criminal offense to smack your kids (on the hand or anything). There is a citizens referendum (vote) being held this weekend to determine if the citizens want to keep this law or revoke it. Based on the citizen response, Parliament will make a decision on what to do. This is getting a lot of publicity on both sides of the issue. The other issue is changing the drinking laws. There is talk of raising the drinking age from 18 to 20 and making the bars close at 2:00 am (currently they can be open all night). They are also talking about dropping the blood alcohol level (which is the same as in Iowa right now). NZ at one time thought they would create a European sophisticated drinking culture by allowing drinking at 18. Instead, they have just created more people that get pissed every night. The other hot topic is the parliaments travel spending. Get this---- if you are a member of parliament from about 20 years ago, you have a grandfathered clause that lets you travel anywhere in the world with your spouse for a 90% discount on the tax payers dime! You don’t even have to be in office anymore. Obviously this is getting a few people talking.

All Blacks 22 Wallabies 16

2009-07-20T21:23:00.003+12:00

We attended our first rugby match Saturday with our friends Sarah and Rod. We had great seats, only 3 rows off the pitch. The All Blacks start every game with the Haka. The Haka is a traditional Maori dance and was often used in war. Generally, the opponents watch the Haka at the start of the game. Obviously some of the opponents don't enjoy the ritual as it can be very intimidating (as it is supposed to be). Here is a youtube video from a past All Blacks game of the Haka.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdMCAV6Yd0Y&feature=related

Each side scored at least one try (5 points) and the rest of the points were off drop goals (3 points). The public opinion is that the All Blacks played better then they had in previous games this year but still are not up to speed yet. Check out the rugby for dummies-

http://www.utrugby.com/resources/Rugby%20terms%20for%20Dummies.pdf

In 2011, the Rugby World Cup is being held in New Zealand. This is a HUGE deal for New Zealand. The Rugby World Cup is one of the largest sporting events in the world and in the same class as the Olympics and the soccer world cup. The official World Cup website actually shows it is the biggest sporting event in the world in 2011. Auckland is adding on to the Eden Park stadium for the World Cup and the city has bought Queens Warf downtown and is going to do it up in preparation for the big party. Games will be held all around the country. Start making your plans to visit in Sept/Oct 2011!

http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/destinationnewzealand/index.html

South Island Earthquake

2009-07-16T21:31:00.002+12:00

I woke up this morning to emails asking if we felt the earthquake in the South Island. We did not feel a thing and I didn't even know about it until I got the emails. There has been a lot about it on the news though. The initial earthquake was centered very far south in the South Island. It was a 7.8 quake which is the strongest quake in NZ in 78 years. NZ gets 10,000 to 15,000 quakes a year. Most of them are south of Auckland so we have not felt one yet. Sounds like there was some minor structural damage with the quake last night but nothing major. So, all safe in Auckland!

New Zealand Top U-tube Video

2009-07-15T17:59:00.002+12:00

The NZ Herald had an article over the weekend about the New Zealand videos with the highest number of viewings. The top video is the new Air New Zealand flight safety video. Air NZ is running a 'bare essentials' campaign. The video uses airline employees in body paint. Maybe you can be on the next Air NZ body paint flight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gF8AY_IfTo

If you like it, search for Air New Zealand in u-tube and you can see the tv versions. They are kind of cute.

John and I spent last weekend finishing off the bathroom and buying wood flooring to install in most all the house. A pallet was delivered this afternoon with all the flooring. We are going to start putting down the flooring and see how far we get.

John is jetting around NZ for trade show conferences the next few days. We are also going to the All Blacks vs. Australian Wallabies on Saturday. The game is in Auckland. More next week on the game.....