I ate a lamb chop today and then I ate second one! I also saw a lot of lambs today and couldn't believe how cute they are. The essence of innocence, right there. Now happily digesting in my vegetarian belly. Tonight is just a Sunday night and without any warning Gilly created an absolutely superb feast for dinner tonight. It was the first night of the season that it has been warm enough to have a bbq outside, so Greg grilled lamb chops, steak, chicken and prawns. Add roasted potatoes, homegrown pumpkin, fresh home grown salad, fresh home-baked-from-scratch-by-us-today bread, home-brewed wine from home-grown fruits, home-brewed beer, and caramelized bananas with chocolate ice cream and you've got yourself quite the Sunday dinner.
Maggie and I arrived here on Thursday evening and from the first moments it was a warm, welcome home. Gilly and Greg live out in the suburbs of Auckland, far enough from others that one feels completely isolated in country side when working outside. Their home is lovely and cluttered, making it easy to really make myself at home. They've got two dogs, Tansy and Dobby, cats, horses, chickens, a few black lambs, and a plentitude of plants. They've also got the pleasure of two octogenarians, Margaret and Ron, who live on the property as well. Margaret is Gilly's mother, and both she and Ron are unfathomably fit and energetic. This morning Ron came in during our breakfast and when we offered him french toast he laughed at the thought, having eaten hours earlier. When digging the other day, Ron watched us for a moment, took over, and finished our job of hours in minutes flat. Margaret used to be a florist and now lives out her days in her garden, making it a miraculous fairyland. Everything is the richest baby green and flowers hang all over the garden. Callalillies the size of my head are the weeds. Margaret is who I'd love to be at 82. She is sharp and fierce and funny, and clearly quite kind. Upon meeting Maggie she grimaced, saying she's never been able to stand that name. Stuck with Margaret, she did. Great first meeting moment.
There is another couple of wwoofers here, Malcom and Lindsay, both of whom are from Virginia and just graduated from school. It has been fun to have them around and the meals all feel like we are a happy little hodge-podge family. Maggie and I spent the entire first day mucking the stables! Maybe that's what it was called...really it was digging out manure to prepare the spring gardens with fertilizer and make clean beds for the horses. It was hard work - exactly what we wanted. By the end of the day my shoulders ached and I was bruised to the bone on my blistered hands. And I was happy as a clam. We've fed chickens and collected eggs, weeded the garden, cooked, etc. This is sort of the ideal work hard, play hard scenario. Working is physical and outside and makes you tired, and playing is physical and outside and makes you tired. The landscape out here is unbelievable. Today we went to another farm to load up a trailor with bales of hay and we had perfect views of valleys and green rolling hills dotted with sheep, and the ocean in the background to boot. We could even see a fine orange glow on the horizon of the Australian dust creeping our way. The green is the greenest green that ever greened. Words fail.
Gilly and Greg have also given us some fantastic cooking lessons. We've baked bread each day from scratch. Today we really went all out with the sweet loaves, adding every sweet, fruity, spicy bit we could find and dotting the top of the loves with chocolate buttons. Yesterday Gilly showed us how to make sherbet with oranges, limes and grapefruit from her garden. Saturday morning Greg made all of us poached eggs (fresh from the coup) on toast (fresh from the oven), and Sunday it was french toast with homemade plum sauce (from the plum tree outside.) THIS is how I hope to feed myself some day. It actually works!
After work yesterday Greg and Gilly took us to the beach nearest their house. It is a black sand beach called Bethels beach. It is one of those places where you can easily pretend that you are the only person on earth. It is rugged and vivid with flawless, soft black sand. We watched the sunset and hiked back to the car through the incoming tide. Tansy almost drowned because she wouldn't drop the rock in her mouth. (Tansy is obsessed with rocks. Greg walks through the house collecting rocks, reminding her that that is his driveway.) Our jeans were soaked and we encountered a group of horses who offered Tansy her second brush with death that evening. We were wet and freezing to the bone by the time we made it to the car, but all filled with happy.
So it's good. I wish my words held more power. I wish they could paint pictures for you. OR I wish that they invoked teleportation. Alas. Guess you'll all just have to come visit.
I DO miss you all. Home is always a wonderful place to be.
Deep love,
REF
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Aucks
Friends! Hello! Great news: we are still alive. Greatest news: no bad news! We are still in Auckland, but tomorrow we leave for our first farm! It belongs to a couple named Gilly and Greg, who seem slightly crazy and mostly wonderful. We know nothing about their place, except that it is 20 minutes outside of Auckland, they have 3 grown kids, they have "naughty" chickens, and ponies. They recently had a Virginian couple at their place, but we don't know if they will still be there. We think that Greg will help us with the car-buying endeavour, which has put our search for a car on hold. (Daddy, I know you don't want us to buy one, but trust me, I'll explain later!!)
We've spent the past few nights in our quiet hostel. We bought a lot of fresh groceries at a large store like a Harris Teeter and without even trying EVERY item we bought (save for the English tea) was a product of New Zealand. It was refreshing. Now we have to work to get through all of the fresh food before we head out tomorrow. The avocado in my bag keeps rolling out onto the floor, which looks suspicious to everyone else in theis internet place.
So far the most surprising thing about Auckland is how internation it is. The streets almost seem more full of foreigners than New Zealanders and with each step you hear a new language spoken. It's great to get the diversity while still being expected to speak English. Everday I find myself relieved to be a native English speaker and ashamed at being ONLY an English speaker (again, sorry Daddy, I'll try Spanish again when I get back.)
Maggie and I have set up bank accounts and officially filed with the tax system. Feels responsible. So far our NZ BFFs are a couple from Chile who work at our hostel. They are really really nice and we've spent hours sharing homeland stories. Today a conversation with a Scottish man quickly died when I said something about my apocalyptic fear of running out of resources and he said that it is all America's fault. He was sort of kidding, but I didn't know where to take the convo from there.
I have to interrupt myself because at the moment the place we are in just errupted with excitement at a parade going down the busiest street of Auckland that consists primarily of topless women in American flag underwear riding motorcycles and streaming American flags behind them. People keep asking us if today is a major American holiday. Is it? This is sort of embarrassing. It seems kind of like an official parade though. Hmm.
Ok, we gotta go find out the deal.
Love to all.
REF
We've spent the past few nights in our quiet hostel. We bought a lot of fresh groceries at a large store like a Harris Teeter and without even trying EVERY item we bought (save for the English tea) was a product of New Zealand. It was refreshing. Now we have to work to get through all of the fresh food before we head out tomorrow. The avocado in my bag keeps rolling out onto the floor, which looks suspicious to everyone else in theis internet place.
So far the most surprising thing about Auckland is how internation it is. The streets almost seem more full of foreigners than New Zealanders and with each step you hear a new language spoken. It's great to get the diversity while still being expected to speak English. Everday I find myself relieved to be a native English speaker and ashamed at being ONLY an English speaker (again, sorry Daddy, I'll try Spanish again when I get back.)
Maggie and I have set up bank accounts and officially filed with the tax system. Feels responsible. So far our NZ BFFs are a couple from Chile who work at our hostel. They are really really nice and we've spent hours sharing homeland stories. Today a conversation with a Scottish man quickly died when I said something about my apocalyptic fear of running out of resources and he said that it is all America's fault. He was sort of kidding, but I didn't know where to take the convo from there.
I have to interrupt myself because at the moment the place we are in just errupted with excitement at a parade going down the busiest street of Auckland that consists primarily of topless women in American flag underwear riding motorcycles and streaming American flags behind them. People keep asking us if today is a major American holiday. Is it? This is sort of embarrassing. It seems kind of like an official parade though. Hmm.
Ok, we gotta go find out the deal.
Love to all.
REF
Monday, September 21, 2009
Pictures now!
There are some pictures up now! Don't look if you don't like trees. Also re-think your thinking if you don't like trees.
Also! Maggie made a blog and there is a link in the list of links to your right! Goody!
Also! Maggie made a blog and there is a link in the list of links to your right! Goody!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Here we are!
I am here! I am here in the first country in the world to see the rising sun each day, the first country to give women the right to vote, and a country that is 100% nuclear free despite its production of the scientist who first split an atom. Auckland also happens to be a city that can sustain flora from just about any region you could want. We've seen wisteria in full bloom beside palm trees beside blossoming cherry trees planted near sidewalks lined with kauri trees and gardens of yucca and camellias. The trees in the city parks are ginormous and people just walk past them as though it were completely normal to have thousand year old trees lining your path.
Maggie and I finally arrived in the city around noon on Friday after many hours in the air. We had to land in Christchurch because of fog in Auckland, then wait, then fly back to Auckland. Maggie and I embarrassed ourselves with a minor panic about how we would now have to reschedule everything to now start on the South Island, forgetting that Qantas OBVIOUSLY can not just leave us in Christchurch. We weren't thinking clearly.
After we got into the city we found our hostel and spent the entire day wandering around, forcing ourselves to stay awake until a reasonable bed time. We made it until 8:30. We found the International Exchange Program office, which we thought would be like a desk with brochures, but turns out it is a really nice office with tons of computers and bulletin boards and people to help you figure out where to go. It was absolutely teeming with young travelers, none of whom were American, and it seems like it will be really helpful. It's great to feel like you have a place to go where someone will actually help you. Though most everyone we've encountered has been really friendly. Especially a bank teller who changed money for us, but also told us about every cell phone company, every bank, every internet cafe, etc. The people in line were not as thrilled with our friendly helper as we were, but we were glad to have him.
The hostel that we are staying in right now is kind of like a creepy youth club farm. That doesn't make sense. So it is right in the center of downtown on the hipster cool shopping street, in a high rise that seems really nice. But it is completely geared toward being young and cool and wanting to stay out late and drink a lot and see party-auckland. Maggie and I are in a small room with 6 boys that smells like a small space with 6 boys. We haven't met all of them yet, but we did wake all of them up when we got up at 6:30 this morning after a great 10 hour sleep. (As you can imagine, none of them were there when we went to bed at 8:30.) We were unimpressed with one a few minutes ago who told us that he has been here for 3 months and worked 2 days, but now lost his job and just took a "boring road trip." Hm. The others seem perfectly nice, but we spent much of the morning scouting out a new hostel for tomorrow. And we found a great one, outside of the city center with a sweet French man running it who let us make the reservation on a promise, since we didn't have a phone number, address, or money to give him. We're looking forward to the move.
So far we've found 2 music guardian angels. The first was yesterday, when we passed a man playing a banjo, the second was at a farmer's market this morning when a guy was playing the guitar and singing James Taylor. Oh, I forgot about our third! We also found a group of Hare Krishnas dancing their way down the street. Maggie was so excited by our find that she started giggling and dancing and singing with them. It was sweet as pie.
Maggie keeps forgetting that this is not West Africa, so everytime we buy something she is really suspicious and demands to know the return policy. She just bought minutes to top up her cell phone and the clerk was really confused when she asked about a return policy since they just give you a receipt with a serial number. When he said there isn't one she almost yelled, "well then will you put the minutes on my phone right now?!" I pulled her away as the man promised that it would work. Hope it works.
This morning we found a farmer's market and bought apples, oranges, bread, cheese, and a pastry. I also found God in a container of homemade olives, sundried tomatoes, feta and olive oil that we bought from an Israeli man. If it wasn't perfection it was remarkably close. We've walked everywhere, which feels great. So far the cheapest food we've found is Subway, which is a disappointment indeed. Oh! Except for dinner last night we were wandering and found a little booth on a corner surrounded by Asian people who turned out to be Korean, buying Korean pancakes. Maggie and I bought veggie pancakes that tasted infinitely better than they sound. Turns out, Korean pancakes are delicious! They even had a sign on the booth stating that "for health reasons they only use olive oil or grapseed oil." And they are even cheaper than Subway.
We think the plan for now is to hang out in Auckland long enough to figure out our car situation, then head to a farm about 20 minutes outside of the city to stay with a couple named Gilly and Greg who sound perfectly wonderful in their emails. After that, we are thinking of heading to the South Island until summer peaks in the North. But who knows what will really happen.
Hope everyone of you is happy.
REF
Maggie and I finally arrived in the city around noon on Friday after many hours in the air. We had to land in Christchurch because of fog in Auckland, then wait, then fly back to Auckland. Maggie and I embarrassed ourselves with a minor panic about how we would now have to reschedule everything to now start on the South Island, forgetting that Qantas OBVIOUSLY can not just leave us in Christchurch. We weren't thinking clearly.
After we got into the city we found our hostel and spent the entire day wandering around, forcing ourselves to stay awake until a reasonable bed time. We made it until 8:30. We found the International Exchange Program office, which we thought would be like a desk with brochures, but turns out it is a really nice office with tons of computers and bulletin boards and people to help you figure out where to go. It was absolutely teeming with young travelers, none of whom were American, and it seems like it will be really helpful. It's great to feel like you have a place to go where someone will actually help you. Though most everyone we've encountered has been really friendly. Especially a bank teller who changed money for us, but also told us about every cell phone company, every bank, every internet cafe, etc. The people in line were not as thrilled with our friendly helper as we were, but we were glad to have him.
The hostel that we are staying in right now is kind of like a creepy youth club farm. That doesn't make sense. So it is right in the center of downtown on the hipster cool shopping street, in a high rise that seems really nice. But it is completely geared toward being young and cool and wanting to stay out late and drink a lot and see party-auckland. Maggie and I are in a small room with 6 boys that smells like a small space with 6 boys. We haven't met all of them yet, but we did wake all of them up when we got up at 6:30 this morning after a great 10 hour sleep. (As you can imagine, none of them were there when we went to bed at 8:30.) We were unimpressed with one a few minutes ago who told us that he has been here for 3 months and worked 2 days, but now lost his job and just took a "boring road trip." Hm. The others seem perfectly nice, but we spent much of the morning scouting out a new hostel for tomorrow. And we found a great one, outside of the city center with a sweet French man running it who let us make the reservation on a promise, since we didn't have a phone number, address, or money to give him. We're looking forward to the move.
So far we've found 2 music guardian angels. The first was yesterday, when we passed a man playing a banjo, the second was at a farmer's market this morning when a guy was playing the guitar and singing James Taylor. Oh, I forgot about our third! We also found a group of Hare Krishnas dancing their way down the street. Maggie was so excited by our find that she started giggling and dancing and singing with them. It was sweet as pie.
Maggie keeps forgetting that this is not West Africa, so everytime we buy something she is really suspicious and demands to know the return policy. She just bought minutes to top up her cell phone and the clerk was really confused when she asked about a return policy since they just give you a receipt with a serial number. When he said there isn't one she almost yelled, "well then will you put the minutes on my phone right now?!" I pulled her away as the man promised that it would work. Hope it works.
This morning we found a farmer's market and bought apples, oranges, bread, cheese, and a pastry. I also found God in a container of homemade olives, sundried tomatoes, feta and olive oil that we bought from an Israeli man. If it wasn't perfection it was remarkably close. We've walked everywhere, which feels great. So far the cheapest food we've found is Subway, which is a disappointment indeed. Oh! Except for dinner last night we were wandering and found a little booth on a corner surrounded by Asian people who turned out to be Korean, buying Korean pancakes. Maggie and I bought veggie pancakes that tasted infinitely better than they sound. Turns out, Korean pancakes are delicious! They even had a sign on the booth stating that "for health reasons they only use olive oil or grapseed oil." And they are even cheaper than Subway.
We think the plan for now is to hang out in Auckland long enough to figure out our car situation, then head to a farm about 20 minutes outside of the city to stay with a couple named Gilly and Greg who sound perfectly wonderful in their emails. After that, we are thinking of heading to the South Island until summer peaks in the North. But who knows what will really happen.
Hope everyone of you is happy.
REF
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
My Address
Though I do not plan to be in any one spot long enough to have a mailing address, Maggie and I do have a PO Box through the International Exchange Program, so we can collect mail periodically:
Robin Fail
C/O IEP - Work NZ, PO Box 1786
Shortland Street, Auckland 1000
New Zealand
Also, if ever we want to talk to each other, the time difference is 16 hours ahead of the East Coast, give or take an hour because of daylight savings. So 6 pm on Wednesday in Charlotte is 10 am on Thursday in Auckland. Hope this helps.
Robin Fail
C/O IEP - Work NZ, PO Box 1786
Shortland Street, Auckland 1000
New Zealand
Also, if ever we want to talk to each other, the time difference is 16 hours ahead of the East Coast, give or take an hour because of daylight savings. So 6 pm on Wednesday in Charlotte is 10 am on Thursday in Auckland. Hope this helps.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sorry about "where the hell"
I would like to begin by apologizing for the horrible title of my blog (worst word ever). It happened after much frustration and deliberation. I hoped that it would be some sort of clever pun using my easily pun-able name. I thought about "Failsafe Travel B(Log)," but it lacked a certain something. Katherine suggested "Epic Fail," which I turned into "Epic (of) Fail," but that didn't translate in a web address. As the suggestions went downhill fast ("Rockin'Robin'sBlog, "Robbin'MeBlind," "RobinFail'sDownUnder," "KiwiFruit" (like the fruit of my journey), and something about a bat mobile) my frustrated response was the title and web address you see before you. Sincerest apologies.
The idea of blogging has always made my skin crawl. I hate the fact that I just had to use the word "blogging" and I hate the idea of putting my writing out there for the public eye. The latter issue is really more about the sort-of presumptuous nature of assuming others care what you say, more than it is about any fears that the public who aren't my parents will seek out my writing. But I decided that a blog (shudder) is, in fact, less presumptuous than mass emails, since it the ball is now in YOUR court, my friend. Rather than forcing an email from me into your inboxes, I will let you read my words only as you see fit. My discomfort with this also has a bit to do with the fact that I still don't know basic grammar rules like where to put punctuation near parenthesis or quotes and what commas are, so if those errors are pet-peeveous to you, you may not want to read on.
The idea is that I will update this during my time in New Zealand whenever I have time at a computer. I have absolutely no idea if I will actually do this. Having never kept a blog (gross), it might prove difficult to maintain, but I'll try. For those of you who somehow arrived here without knowing this already, this is intended to be my record of a one year or nine month (or any other amount of time) trip to New Zealand to work on farms and see beautiful things with my friend Maggie, a fellow recipient of an anthropology degree that we haven't yet figured out how to use.
We leave for New Zealand on Wednesday, at which point we leap forward in time and miss the all of Thursday, September 17th to arrive in Auckland on Friday morning. I am trying to ignore my fear that Thursday, September 17th was supposed to be the best day of my life, but I decided to skip out. Fingers crossed that that fear remains irrational.
So this is my introduction. How does one end a blog (still hate it) post? Is it like an email? Do I write my name? You all know my name. Do I say, "sincerely?" Probably not. Bye? Not right either. I'll just stop now.
REF
The idea of blogging has always made my skin crawl. I hate the fact that I just had to use the word "blogging" and I hate the idea of putting my writing out there for the public eye. The latter issue is really more about the sort-of presumptuous nature of assuming others care what you say, more than it is about any fears that the public who aren't my parents will seek out my writing. But I decided that a blog (shudder) is, in fact, less presumptuous than mass emails, since it the ball is now in YOUR court, my friend. Rather than forcing an email from me into your inboxes, I will let you read my words only as you see fit. My discomfort with this also has a bit to do with the fact that I still don't know basic grammar rules like where to put punctuation near parenthesis or quotes and what commas are, so if those errors are pet-peeveous to you, you may not want to read on.
The idea is that I will update this during my time in New Zealand whenever I have time at a computer. I have absolutely no idea if I will actually do this. Having never kept a blog (gross), it might prove difficult to maintain, but I'll try. For those of you who somehow arrived here without knowing this already, this is intended to be my record of a one year or nine month (or any other amount of time) trip to New Zealand to work on farms and see beautiful things with my friend Maggie, a fellow recipient of an anthropology degree that we haven't yet figured out how to use.
We leave for New Zealand on Wednesday, at which point we leap forward in time and miss the all of Thursday, September 17th to arrive in Auckland on Friday morning. I am trying to ignore my fear that Thursday, September 17th was supposed to be the best day of my life, but I decided to skip out. Fingers crossed that that fear remains irrational.
So this is my introduction. How does one end a blog (still hate it) post? Is it like an email? Do I write my name? You all know my name. Do I say, "sincerely?" Probably not. Bye? Not right either. I'll just stop now.
REF
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