Christchurch

This past tuesday, Gigi and I went on our way to leave Wellington to go down to Hayley's place for some serious thesis writing. We have all been really busy lately since our deadline is due next week, so we haven't had much time to travel around and see the area yet, but Gigi and I however did have a few hours in Christchurch before we were on our way to Dunedin, since our flight wasn't direct.

So, we decided to go to town after landing in Christchurch and see what the earthquakes early last year had done to this once so big and beautiful city.

I would have loved to say a lot of nice things about this town, but truth is, it's a giant dump. The centre of the city is completely demolished with everything falling apart, construction work going on everywhere, but no people. It mostly reminded me of parts of Poland and eastern Germany with buildings left unattended since WW2 where they were bombed to smithereens.

Amidst all the tragic ruins, I did however find reason for laughter! I'm telling you, someone's got their priorities wrong in Christchurch, apparently putting together an emergency shopping centre was a lot more important than, let's just say, restoring the many year old historical church in the centre of the city?

For more pictures, flick through my gallery here: http://imgur.com/a/dcyC3

Showering in the Elevators

So today at around 10:10am here on 50 Manners Street (Check Location), the fire alarm went off. My first thought, learning from last time when we had a fire drill, was to grap my gadgets and then get out. So I did.

10 minutes earlier, I could swear someone was showering on the other side of the wall, I set next to the service shaft and it really sounded like there was water in there.

I wasn't wrong. I walked down the fire exit and on my way out, I saw the elevators getting full of water... Once I got outside I talked to Gilles, who told me that he had been downstairs to grap a coffee, and when he was, he saw everyone from the 11th floor coming down soaking wet, reason: A water pipe had burst. Note: You can easily recognize people from the 11th floor because that's where the Spanish Embassy is.

And then came the fire brigade, 4 trucks loaded with firefighters, ironic, when all we needed was a plumber. Anyways, some pictures:

Those little amazing things... A tribute to Metlink!

On the buses, everyone says "Good day" (or morning or evening) when they get on the bus, and "Thanks driver!" when they get off.

You always know when the police or fire brigade is coming before you can even hear them: The buses stop, blovk the road for cars and makes space for them.

When your card isn't working you get to ride for free! (Happened to me once and the busdriver sees me every morning).

The busdrivers are always friendly and very talkative! I get off at the second last stop on my route so it's very handy for me.

They're not on time, but got precise GPS estimates of arrival so you don't have to worry how long it will take.

Update:
So I've been told that a friend of mine passed this on to Metlink, you're welcome to contact me guys!

On second thought, maybe the ones I should thank is GoWellington? I don't know which is the parent company or if they are related at all, both deal with transport in Wellington and I'm just a tourist.

It never ends!

New Zealand that is. Turn around a random corner and you see something new, exciting, pretty, weird or just amazing in some other way.

In the middle of Wellington Harbour, formed long ago, before the time of Kupe, when Te Ika-a-Māui was just fished from the depths of the ocean, lived two taniwha, Ngake and Whātaita, lies Matui or Somes Island.

Somes Island served pretty much the same role as Ellis Island in New York, just off Manhattan. While New Zealand never really screened immigrants to the same extension, the local farmers were worried about diseases and so Somes Island had one of (and at several times THE) the worlds most secure animal health checkpoint. One feature being that noone ever wrote notes, instead notes were recorded with a microphone on an external tape recorder outside the security zone. Quite clever.

There was more than animals out there, or so they say: During WW2 Italians were held prisoner on the island because their weird language made them spies. Thick accent+gibberish=spy. Good thing security was low and the Italians could go swimming, make money creating sea-shell jewellery and meet their families 2 times a month. Italians were imprisoned on Matui for 2-4 years, many never found out why.

In 1956, a chinese man was put in detention on a small rock (calling it an island is really an overstatement!) just north of Matui. He was believed to have leprocy and was put there for that reason. When possible, the lighthouse keeper would row out with food, and apparently more. After the chinese man had died 3 months later, they found furniture made from shipping crates and more. They never found out why died, but today the small island goes by the name Leper Island.

Now, this place is beautiful! Just look at the picture, enough history!

Featherston French Fair

This weekend was awesome!

So Hayley was coming, which in itself is pretty cool since I haven't seen her since her housewarming way back on January 20th.

Friday night we went out and played pool, luckily Hayley and I both suck really hard at it so noone really won a game, rather we would take turns losing for pouching the 8-ball too early. After a few games we met up with Hayley's friends and went clubbing until 1:30. When we went home we sort of talked a bit too much and forgot to get off, so we had to walk for 30 minutes to get home.

The next morning we were going to visit Gigi in Masterton to go to a French Fair in Featherston. We got on the train and went to Solway Station where Gigi met us and walked us back to the Copthorne Hotel and Resort. We dropped off our bags and went to the playground for the kids (Gigi and Hayley) to play.

After that we went to KFC, while there we planned the rest of the day: Go to French Fair, go back to Masterton, go shopping for me to cook again, go home and watch TV and drink loads of New Zealand wine. Pretty good plan we thought.

Girls and their bags and hats...

Pizza-machine!

"Market trash"

So on to the busstop, get on bus and go to French Fair. As expected we forgot to get off (again), and so we thought we had to walk but didn't. Because as it turned out, Rick the busdriver (who's going to play a major role later on!), offered to go back that way after stopping at Featherston station, we kindly accepted! 20 minutes later we were at the French Fair and could check out the attractions. Rick said he'd be back at 5-10 past 5 which gave us about 3 hours at the fair.

Personally I don't think it was awesome, but there was a lot of what I would call regular market trash for sale. They did have a fucking (and this is AWESOME!) mobile pizza-bakery! That's like, amazing! A car with a giant wood-fired pizza-oven on the back of it! Oh well. I bought a gift for Marta and the girls went shopping too and got a few things. The coolest thing was probably the Betty Boob coasters that Hayley got. How she can call them girly I have no idea about!

French Fair. That was the name. While people did dress up like stereotypical french people, we didn't meet any. 7-finger chocolate man was from Belgium and the apple-juice man from Romania. The rest were presumably Kiwis.

Eventually it was time to go and so we left, waiting for the bus. Rick did come back, but he was going the wrong way! Well: He had misunderstood us or we had misunderstood him, so he thought we were going back to Martinborough and not Masterton. Whoops! We got on the bus anyways because we did not want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere at a closed French Fair without french people.


We got to Featherston station where we would have to wait for 3 hours for the train to arrive. Rick saw that we were in a kinda sucky position and gave us an amazing offer again:

Featherston

He would go to Martinborough, come back and fuel up, park the bus, and take another bus home and drop us off at Copthorne because he lives in Masterton and Solway is on the way there. We couldn't really say no to such a great offer and got off in Featherston.

Back in Featherston we went shopping for groceries and got an ice cream while waiting for Rick to get back. Rick got there and fueled his bus, we got on, he parked it, and boarded the smaller slightly broken schoolbus. On the way back we had some great discussions on the development of the whole area where he's lived most of his life, spending 18 years in Australia since there was no work in New Zealand.

Bus 199 before departure to Solway

So Greytown, which we passed through on our way back, was the first inland town in New Zealand. It was created when all the rich people had bought the good land along the coasts mostly on the South Island, so poor people had no options for starting up. For 25 pounds they could but 1 acte land in Greytown to build a house on, and get 25 acres of land to grow to grow crops on somewhere around the city. With no money however, they couldn't afford to clear off the bush and start growing crops so after a few years you had a small town with a whole lot of poor people with big houses and no land because it had all been sold to the rich people. Masterton and Carterton which are nearby, were named after the two people behind this seemingly great initiative, Masters and Carter.

Anyways, we got back to Copthorne and thanked Rick many times for being so damn amazing throughout our day (which without him would have gone terribly wrong!). And I started cooking.

Pasta with a sauce made of: leak, carrots, beans, capcicum, tomato sauce and then some fried bacon. The girls loved it and it was truly amazing!

That was my weekend! Tomorrow back to Welly and work on project and relax! It was great seeing Hayley again and we had a great experience just, messing up our entire plan for saturday!

So Anders, what does Kiwis eat?

Fish and Chips,
Fish and Chips, and
Fish and Chips...

No really, that's all I've had this past two weeks, for tea at least (that's what my scottish heritage host family calls the evening meal). The reason being that Callum, the son of the house, has a science experiment going on, testing different types of packaging for delivering Fish and Chips.

So for the sake of science, we've been Fish and Chips. Callum had set up 5 different contraptions for packaging/wrapping the chips

• Pre-heated Crock-Pot
• Aluminum foil
• Woolen sweater
• Polystyrene box (aka Thermocole or Flamingo)
• Control (whatever packaging the shop supplied, a paper bag basically)

Upon the arrival of the Fish and Chips we would sit and wait for 5-10 minutes for Callum to measure the temperature as it was falling in each of the 5 wrappings and eventually we would get to eat and rate the transportation methods and their impact on the quality of our chips.

Consistently, the aluminum foil kept the chips hot, but soggy as there was no way for the water to escape the packaging. The polystyrene box was quite big, and seemed to keep the item warmer, and crunchier than regular packaging, but not a practical solution. The pre-heated crock-pot, would have the same effect as the aluminum foil when closed. However, if the original packaging was broken (happened on one occasion by accident) the chips would stay warm and crunchy, really good. The one solution to win the award of the best solution for keeping chips warm and crunchy however goes to the woolen sweater. While temperature was slightly lower than the pre-heated crock-pot, the chips stayed crunchy and most importantly: It's practical and requires no effort.

The control performed terrible: Crunchy but cold after just 5 minutes.

Those Wellingtonians

So on the bus morning, I noticed something quite peculiar, and since the traffic was slow I had plenty of time to ponder for the reason of it.

All the way in, the areas outlined with yellow stripes for the buses to park in had trash in them. It's most likely trash collecting day, but why would it all be in the bus stop areas?

Well, suburban Wellingtonians probably agree that parking is quite a hassle and also very expensive. The city council recently announced that prices will increase, again!

So to avoid blocking their drive-way or ruining a perfectly good parking spot, people simply dump their trash in the busstops, because these people have a car anyways and don't care about the buses. Smart eh?

Tramping trip to Otaki Forks!

So as I mentioned I'd post about my trampint trip

Mike, our guide

Robyn, my previous host, knows a guy called Mike who has been tramping in New Zealand for more than 40 years, written books on the bush and its huts, held seminars and speeches about tramping and probably a lot lot more. Robyn suggested that I went tramping with him some time ago and I decided that it was probably a good idea, especially considering that he'd do it for free!

Big slid, we had to travel all the way around it!

If he was going to take me anyways, I might as well bring some friends, so I invited all the people from work and quite a few of the interns at companies incubated at Creative HQ decided to come, so Mike, Robyn and I were accompanied by Gunhild, Gigi, Andrew, Gilles and Walker on our tour.

Mike was a great guide, besides being well-equipped with gear and food, he had legs that would make any professional biker jealous. He knew a lot about the bush and was telling us about several different plants and trees, some of them edible, but could cause diarrhea, others good against diarrhea!

Our trip started at 10 in the morning and went from a parking area with a little hut and into the wild where we would go see a boiler, used to drive an engine some 100 years ago, dragging cartloads of wood back and forth. On our way, the parts that hadn't slid away, we would sometimes see iron tracks which were only used for the corners, for the straight pieces they used wooden tracks back then. On our way we would besides steep hills, small rivers flowing down the hills (that we had to wade through) also encounter bridges. The one here is the second longest in the Tararua Forest Park (the area in which Otaki Forks lies).



I can only recommend going on a tramping trip, the most amazing thing was that there are no fences, no must-do tracks or anything. You are on your own and can go anywhere you like. It's not like Denmark or the US where they close everything that's slightly dangerous. The bush is dangerous, not because of it's animals or trees or anything. The big killer is the weather, and not being prepared for rain, snow, sun or anything in between can be lethal if you suddenly get stuck out there. Mike was telling us how these mountains have their own weather and how it can change from one type to another in minutes if the wind starts blowing in a different direction.


I've included only a few of the pictures taken on the trip here, to see them all go to THIS WEBSITE.

But, I think everyone enjoyed it! And I would definitely go again, which I am planning on. Might just take the same group somewhere else if they're all up to it, and Mike doesn't mind leading us :D

Just a warning

Despite the lack of updates, life hasn't stopped down here, quite the opposite actually!

New Zealand is heading towards wintertime and now you may ask me: "Why don't you just say fall?" - Well New Zealand doesn't really have 'fall'. The term describes what happens in that period of time, the leaves fall from the trees. New Zealand however, feature mainly evergreens, meaning that the trees here don't drop their leaves. They do replace their leaves, most often by growing taller and sacrificing the lower leaves to make new ones that are higher up and can get more sun.

So now the weather is more like the Danish, we have days with heaps of sun and no wind, and we have days with with and rain. So while people keep telling me the weather is awful here, I can only shrug and say: "Just like home!".

This past weekend, which I'll describe in detail in the next post with pictures and so forth, Gigi came to visit me here in Wellington where we went tramping in Otaki Forks!

So, it has been a while...

... And not much has happened. Wednesday 22nd I moved to a different place, with a guy called Murray in Miramar. Basically the reason for this is that I was a bit annoyed with the buses to and from Belmont, Lower Hutt. Miramar offers buses all week until midnight, which means I can stay in the city and hang out with people a lot longer than before.

In relation to work it's been moving forward a lot. I've been working on improving our communication with potential customers and the results seem to be great. More people open our emails and more people click our links after we changed the headline and the contents of the emails.
Currently I'm making video tutoriaæs for existing customers so it's easier for them to start using our software, not that it's hard to use at all, but hopefully this means that we will receive less phonecalls with very simple questions.

Other than that I'm doing fine, starting to miss the family at home and the girlfriend in the US. Luckily I get to see all of them over the summer break and after that I have no plans yet.

I wish there was more to tell but as of right now, life is pretty stable here. Summer is ending, it's raining a lot more and it's quite chilly in the evenings. Though the coldest it'll ever get is like 9•C, and that's a cold winter :) It's so windy though that it feels like it's a lot colder.

A weekend in Karori

So this weekend was definitely not boring!

Friday after work, Gunhild (another Dane who works on the same floor as me) and I went to the train station to wait for Gigi and Sara who were on the train from Masterton. The train however was so full, that they dumped a bunch of passengers including Sara into buses so they could drive over the mountains instead. All this moving people around delayed the train which Gigi was still in by an hour and 15 minutes, but at 6:15 we were finally gathered in Wellington and ln our way towards the bus towarda Gunhild's place.

The girls got ready, with their showers, makeup, clothes swapping and shoe picking, and eventually we were ready to go back into the city and party all night long, and so we did.

We didn't really know where to go except around Courtney Place, which was a great idea. There is nothing but clubs and bars in that area, so we had fun all night walking around and trying most of them. We got drunk and danced, and that's about all that went on friday night/saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon was spent in the garden, playing badminton and other beach games that Jenn and Barry, Gunhild's hosts, had in a little bag full of toys. Since noone else was home to do it, us danes decided took some potatoes and a really good Danish persille-sovs, om nom nom!

After we had eaten, Jenn took us all to Zealandia, a sanctuary for some of New Zealands hunted wild like the Kiwi, that can't defend itself against cats, dogs and other animals imported by the Brits back some few hundred years ago. It was a really great trip but unfortunately it's hard to take good pictures on a nightwalk, which is when the Kiwi is out, together with their indigigeneous reptile, frog and the glow worm. A funny little fella that glows bright blue at night to attract little insects and eat them.

Sunday we spent sleeping late again, except for Gigi who got up early and went home. The rest of went on a drive down the south end of the north island with Barry as our tour guide, telling us a lot about the earthquake fault lines in Wellington. Then we dropped Nena, a german backpacker, off at a cloister or something, at least she was handed over to Sister Lucy. Barry then told us it was a community that used to have schools, daycare, hospital, church and much more but have had to cut down due to the decreasing amount sisters in community.

Today, monday, it's time for another week of work! But it won't be boring, that's for sure.

Pictures will come a little later.

Rugby - Hurricanes vs Crusaders

So, as I posted earlier, Gigi and I was going to a Rugby match,
The busride there was pretty average, nothing big happened. So we got out and found ourselves at Tui brewery, I never heard of it before, but whatever. Gigi and I walked over to the bar and found a big sign: "NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES HERE - COFFEE SODAS AND MORE"... Bugger. Apparently that was all in the tent a little away. So we went and got ourselves a can of Tui, 440ml 4% ale, really good taste. Then we followed the masses towards the stadium. Everywhere around us we saw that the local rednecks had emptied their fields for sheep to put up signs saying: "CARPARKING $5".
We finished our beer and walked inside (no liquids allowed upon entering), and saw a lady selling yellow and orange buckets with slits cut into them so people could wear them as hats, which apparently quite a few people decided to do.

Not knowing what to do, with still another 90 minutes to go before the match would start, we went and got 6 beers to share, oh yeah and 1 more each from the free voucher we got on the bus. We found a spot and sat down as close to the field as possible, with our noses touching the string that marked 'no trespassing' line. A game between two 'for fun' teams was going on but ended shortly after we got there.
As we got closer to kick-off, we got more and more aware of how good an idea it was to get a spot early on. People were gathering and now in 3 layers all the way around as Hurricanes and Crusaders started getting on the field to warm up.
Right before kick-off, the two mascots arrived by helicopter to the middle of the field, they came out and greeted their teams (opposite from where we were of course :s). Anyways, quite spectacular.

Initially, the game wasn't actually that interesting, both Gigi and I spent more time talking to people around us, especially one lady who sat down next to us. Her name is Jay and she owns a bar in Petone (really close to where I live in Belmont) right across the street from Domino's. So I have to go there at some point and say hi. The game went on, after an initial lead by the Hurricanes 3-0, the Crusaders quickly made field goal to a lead of 3-7. From then on, it went pretty bad for the Hurricanes, but, we still had fun after chucking down 3 or 4 beers each at this point, and people around us probably a little ahead, the mood was good. During the break, there was lots of fun things going on.

First a guy ran in and climbed the goal until security shook it and he decided to come down, he did however manage to complete his goal, putting a yellow bucket on the top of the pole. Meanwhile some guys were undressing and ran into the field to start doing the a haka. Security wasn't too harsh on them so a couple of their friends joined in including a bunch of girls. Eventually they gave up and wandered back to their spots, but nice intermission. When they were discussing a proper consequence with the guards, a group of sumo-wrestlers attempted to fill the field and dance to LFMAO's "Sexy and I know it", but once again security spoiled the fun and they didn't even make it out of the pit. Would have loved to see that though. 2 made it out on the field and started dancing but security punctured their blown-up suits and walked them back to the pit.

It looks like I'm not enjoying it but the sun was in my eyes

The game resumed and quickly it turned into 19-3, then 19-8 and stayed there till the end of the match. Gigi and I continued with our beer. We decided to ditch the game at that point and go get some food, a hotdog, Kiwi-style. Bread cut open in the top, add fried onions, put in sausage and then a thick line of ketchup and mustard in a zig-zag line down the top of the sausage. Spiced with a Tui, you got a good meal!

After that we started heading home. We went to the bus where we waited for a while, I was still disappointed that the merchandise store was closed all day (possible there was one in the VIP-area but I wouldn't know, couldn't go there), so I couldn't get a Hurricanes jersey. I know they lost but they're from Wellington so I'd like to support them.

Gigi and I went home and went to KFC for another well-deserved meal there, oh yeah, that's where we ate breakfast. After that, we headed on down to Liquorland (by this time Gigi was calling it Legoland 'cause she was quite drunk) because from the tickets we had discount coupons for a crate of TUI beer. It wasn't until we were in the cool room that we found out what size of beer it was we had a discount coupon for, a crate of 12 x 745ml glass bottled-in-a-wooden-box beer. That was heavy. So we walked out and found a bench to sit and enjoy my birthday cake.
After that, we dragged the cake home, and just hung out the rest of the evening. Today which is my birthday by the way (at least here in New Zealand), I'm going to spend going home to Belmont, and get ready for work tomorrow.

Weekend with Gigi

So, I'm now in Wairarapa at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort. It's a nice hotel where Gigi is interning. The plan for the weekend is to go see a Rugby match between Hurricanes and Crusaders. Gigi's pretty sure one of the teams are staying at the hotel, but were not sure which one. Possibly the Hurricanes though as the hotel staff is rooting for them.
This hotel is far out in the middle of nowhere, so me being hungry wasn't a good thing last night, as Gigi doesn't really cook, I just had to check out what the fridge had to offer.
2 potatoes, a tomato, an onion, a leek, and a big orange potato-like thing.
I peeled the potatoes and the orange thing and boiled them. Chopped up half an onion and the rest, and fried it all. When the potatoes were done I fried them too.
It was delicious, and whatever that orange thing was, it tasted well. Even for Gigi and I, who both love meat.

Just a garage, nothing to see here

Weekend update

So it's been a wee while since I last updated, I'm not dead, just so you know.

I previously posted about Educa, the company I work for, well Nathan and I are getting along very well and the job is both fun and interesting. Unfortunately I can not share details but I like it there, the environment is great at the office, lots of friendly people.

Wellington is a cool city, and I prefer it over Auckland. Auckland seems very uptight, over-polished and stressed where Wellington is more down to earth and relaxed.

Thursday and friday I worked. Thursday I met up with Gene Brumby, a Pro Tour (Magic: The Gathering) player and his friend Chips (I think was his nickname? Not sure) in Brooklyn where he lives. We played some games and talked about his trip to Honolulu to play and hopefully win a lot! (Best of luck mate!). Friday after work Nathan and I went out for a beer and after that he dropped me off at home (Robyn's place).

Saturday I slept long, because I could, then Robyn was going shopping and took me to the train station, where I then headed off to Wellington. I went to Pulsar Max, a store where geeks who like to play Magic, can hang out. I entered a tourney and had fun with the locals. I met a guy called Charlie, and while we were playing a game, he checked his phone for messages, one his friends have invited him to play at Toi Whakaari, I asked if I could come because my last train had already left. We went there and saw Tom Keeper Passes, a really fun and interesting play about society, very well thought through and played. Despite their low budget (I assume), they did an amazing job!
After the play we went to Charlie's, watched a movie and went to bed. Sunday morning we went back to the store and did another tourney. Eventually Charlie had to leave so I decided to head home, around 5:30 or so.

Now, the only way to ge directly home is to take the schoolbus, schoolbuses naturally don't run on sundays, so I had to take an alternate route. On the 83 to Queensgate, Lower Hutt, from where I'd wait 40 minutes to get on the 150 towards Kelson. The short story is that I wasn't home until 7:40, after walking from Speedy's Reserve and up the hill to Robyn's. Here was Richard, Robyn's friend, with his kids. They only just finished eating so they cooked some more for me which was really nice of them. So I had my own little buffet with salad, rice, sausages, mushrooms, corn and beer.

Monday february 6, was a national holiday, celebrating Waitangi Day, the day when Maori (the people who lived here 'first') came to peace with the brits, accepting the Queen of England as their ruler. So I slept long again.
Around afternoon, Robyn asked if I wanted to go for a drive, I didn't have anything else to do so I went with her, a good choice. We went up a hill, I took some pictures of the landscape and we continued, Robyn was going to say hi to her daughter. So we drove to her place. They had kids all over the place, turned out the pool was out and that's where all the screaming was coming from, 3 kids (around 6-8 I guess) was swimming and jumping in and out, they had fun. In the garden was Robyn's daughter, husband and some of their friends sitting and drinking wine, and 5 minutes later, dinner was server. Quite awesome, considering that we didn't really plan anything for food. We talked lots and had fun, then went back home.

All in all, lots of things going on all the time, New Zealand is quite fantastic.

I would have liked to attach some images, but the internet is really slow, so, not this time :s

More China

So Robyn's been there and thought she'd get her grandson an amazing little piece of Farreri-branded merchandise, it's a mobile phone yes.

Educa

So for someone like me who never heard of this until now, I just thought I'd introduce this to everyone, so you get a basic understand of what the company I work at does.

Educa is their name, referring to "Education", specifically "Early Childhood Education" or ECE. Many schools, daycares and kindergartens have a system for tracking the learning and growing up of the kids they take care of. This is usually a physical folder with paper and sometimes pictures stored at the institution, rarely accessible to the parents.

Educa is all online, where the parents and the teachers have easy access from any device with internet, can upload pictures and share learning stories that their kids participate in. That way, parents get to track the development of their kid, in an easy way.

If you want to know a little more, check out the website at www.educa.co.nz

Educa is located at 50 Manners Street, as part of Creative HQ. Creative HQ is basically an incubator for small start-up companies in Wellington. They have strategists, marketing people, finance people and other start-uppers in the building with expertise within many different areas to use during a start-up process.

Warm Welcome Wellington - What?!

So Gigi and I got out of bed, rushed to the bus station, and got aboard (considering I was dragging along a female I consider 45 minutes from wake-up to bus station fast).
Auckland to Wellington went smooth, Jetstar hasn't been as terrible as expected. We got to sit on row 2 for some reason so we're pretty good, getting off first and everything. My only problem was the amount of legspace (about 5 cm less than 'normal' airlines), and this weird buzzing sound that the airplane made once the engines turned on. Thanks again to China Southern Airlines for providing me with an airplane survival kit, the earplugs came in handy once again!

In Wellington Gigi and I took a shuttle (cheapest) to the train station. It was pouring rain even before we landed and it is still raining outside (it's 10 in the evening at the time of writing). After I ran across a big street for 2 cheeseburgers for her, we said goodbye to eachother. I then proceeded to Creative HQ where I'll be working for 3 months, to meet up with Nathan and get introduced.

I'll talk more about my job, the things that I'm allowed to say, in case any competitors snaps up my blog, in a later post. It's really exciting and I'm looking forward to get my hands dirty (not like in the picture below though!).
If you want to know more about the company and what they do, check out the website: www.educa.co.nz
Apparently that kinda thing is big down here ('apparently' because I never heard of anything like it existing in Europe or US, maybe because I don't have kids yet.

For now I'll just leave you with this children's book cover I stumbled upon in a magazine, seemingly teaching kids about the great terror that puberty can be for some.

When the weather clears up I'll make sure to take some pictures from the balcony where I live, Robyn's house is amazing.

Goodbye Auckland

So, Gigi and I went our separate ways earlier today, she did wait for me apparently, but she wasn't in front of the store we agreed to meet by. Either way, she didn't waste her day, but went to Waiheke as well and went on a wine tour. She had her fun it seems, so that's all good.
We met up at ACB around 18:00 and went out for bubble tea, Gigi doesn't like it. So after drinking a liter of tea, we went back, Gigi wanted to take a quick nap, and I should wake her up shortly. 40 minutes later I was hungry . But she didn't want to leave. So, McD for me, then back and into bed. Guess it's the best, since we're flying with Nazi Airlines... Ahem... Jetstar, tomorrow.
Jetstar provides you with a 30 minute timeframe to check in and board their airplane, if you're late, you miss your flight. On top of that they have a whole bunch of other regulations, word on the street is (that'll be backpackers and other NZ people I've talked to and mentioned the name Jetstar), that they're horrible. It get's you from A to B, nothing else. The Ryanair of new Zealand so to say. I'm looking forward to see how it actually goes though.
Tomorrow we're getting up early and then heading to the airport. Then I'll take Gigi to her train towards Masterton, and I myself will go meet with Nathan at Creative HQ (the place I'll be working). He'll take me to Robyn's and I'll start working on the 2nd. So I guess this marks the end of my vacation. :(

So far!