Sunday, July 10, 2011

Exploring!

Hello!!!

Long time, no update?? Sincerest apologies its been BUSY around here!!! Where to start...

Right now we are preparing for this HUGE expo event so efforts in PR have been on hyper-drive and meetings have been abundant but educational. I am ssoo excited that the south island is starting to get DUMPED on.. skiing ssoo soon I cannot wait!!

Last weekend (I guess 2 weekends ago) we did the touristy stuff around Wellington, touring around parliament and getting some history on the city and LOTS of walking/ hiking. We live at the base of Mt. Victoria and hiked it Sunday morning to get a glimpse of the spectacular view over the city and all of the bays... breathtaking, so worth the hike and the chilled wind at the top, NZ has some of the coolest landscape I have ever seen and getting a bird's eye view was nothing to complain about!! Later that day we did this 8 mile hike/ walk along the red rocks at Island Bay!! Again the scenery was too beautiful for words!! The walk was much longer than we had initially planned but what else is there to do on Sundays!?

This weekend was a blast too. Friday night we went out and I honestly don't even know how to explain the "going out" scene. The bars are an eclectic collection of Irish pubs, jazz clubs, Electric/ Boogie night, and Dubstep. Of course we hit as many as humanly possible and danced to 90's alternative rock with people who couldnt dance (let alone stand) but were having a blast feeling the music and just being happy (I guess thats the recurring theme here... weird concept :) Then we'd cruise over to MJ and Spice Girl throw backs and then over to a dark and PACKED upstairs club/ bar that was cranking dubstep so loud the bass might as well have been the city's heartbeat. So much fun, what would life be without music?? Its hard not to have fun when your dancing... no complaints on my end, we all had an absolute blast!!

Saturday was a nice lazy day, a couple of us went to breakfast at another one of Wellington's unique cafes (there are so many its awesome) and ended up staying for 3 hours just gabbing (oh gal pals!). The sun was out so I napped on the deck and we recovered from a late night with Harry Potter movies (getting ready for the big one Thursday morning at 6:30 am).

Sunday (yesterday) was great because we went to the South Island!!! Took a morning ferry/ cruise ship over to Picton/ Marlborough area where in this 4,000 person town there are around 160 vineyards!! We did a wine tour for the day and enjoyed the country side and obviously the wine! At the last vineyard two of the girls bought wine (never before had they liked any wine) and for the World Cup they did a promotion where you could try to kick a rugby field goal and win their Savignon Blanc (awarded the best in the country, and NZ is known for is Sav Blanc). Sooo, about a 35yrd rugby kick given to me by one of my friends ended with a free bottle of wine for me!! I think the woman as just as shocked as I was when I made it, you only get one shot, no warm up and I guess only 5 other people have made it, none of them girls. Sheer dumb luck is what is came down to but she gave me a little certificate and a free bottle of $75 dollar wine... #WINNING!!

The ferry ride back was calm, the way there was sunny and GORGEOUS (i feel so retarded saying that over and over again so from now on lets just assume that everything here is beautiful). Some parts reminded me of Colorado... can it be winter again now? Anyway long story short things are still going swimmingly down here! the winter weather has started to settle and I can't even begin to put into words how excited I am to get my ski on :) I'm sick of hearing about all the summer stuff going on in Hood and Whistler, I have a LOT of work to do in the next 6 months, this coming season is a HUGE. Thats about it! Still no Kiwi man friend but we have made friends with this crazy guy who owns a pizza/ gelato shop and hooks us up with free pies when we go in "as an appetizer", so funny he's the man. Hope all is well with everyone else!!! Fingers crossed I get outta here without any big natural disaster, we had an earthquake Tuesday it was terrifying.

Sending out positive vibes as usual!!!

Love,

A∞W