I need to go to sleep because it is my last sleep in New Zealand. That's one of many precious things that Gilly and Greg say, "only 3 more sleeps 'til Emily Rose gets home," or "only 2 more sleeps until your birthday!" So, only one more sleep in NZ. It's strange because I've realized that New Zealand is really the only home outside of school that I've ever known. I spent my whole life up until this past year in school, but this was my first year of life where I made my own home, my own routines, my own life from scratch. Friends I graduated with have spent this year establishing lives in cities across America and growing settled there, calling those places home. Though my life here has been semi-nomadic and based out of backpacks, it is still the only life I've ever had for myself in the vast, wide open, post-college world. In that sense, leaving feels like it might feel to take a leap and quit your job, pack up all your things, and move half way across the world, instead of simply returning from a trip.

September 1st marked the first day of spring here, and the sun sang out its new season proudly. The sky was cloudless, the breeze warm, and the trees blossoming. I took the bus trip with Ron for two days this week. We paid a daylight visit to the giant fig tree that dad and I only saw under the cover of darkness, then spent the night out on a beautiful beach in Northland. We got there in time to walk on the beach, where we took a hike up a steep hill to a lookout. On the way back down Ron led the way down this slippery, muddy chute of a path and slid the whole way down. I was clinging to the grass behind him, yelling out about how he better not die because if I kill him, Margaret will kill me. Ron made a legit dinner and I saw a lovely sky of stars, which I hadn't seen in so long because there hadn't been a clear night in so long. I slept on the little couch in his "living room" and woke up at the perfect moment to peak out the curtain and see a brilliant sunrise. I wriggled my sleeping bag over to the windshield and pulled up the blinds, then snuggled back in to watch the scene from the warmth of my "bed." It was awesome. We also stopped in and met some of Ron's campervan safari friends and they were just lovely. The man writes and sings country music about traveling in New Zealand and he gave me one of his cds, which will be my soundtrack of choice for my next road trip. We also went to the country's only oil refinery where they have a perfectly scaled model of the entire plant, down to each and every valve. The model was used to built the plant in the days before computers and it is easily one of the most incredible feats of human engineering I've ever seen. It was one of those things that I'm so glad isn't my job. It seems an utterly impossible thing for my brain to produce. Anyway, we had a great trip and I'm completely sold on the idea of campervan/buses now. If your house is on wheels, you are always at home. I don't really understand why we don't all do it.

I spent all day today hiking Rangitoto, the picturesque volcano in the Auckland Harbor, with the Shine Family Daughters and their partners. It is always exciting to walk across lava paths and craters. One of the warning signs on the map at the wharf said, "Caution: the heat rays from the lava can be very intense." Hikers in New Zealand need never worry about the hazards of snake bite or bear attack, but do watch out for the lava flow.

Tomorrow I pick Maggie up at the airport at midday, take her back to the Shine home for a big party in celebration of: our going away, Emily heading back to school, Becky heading to her 8 week work experience in Samoa, Greg's birthday, which is today, and Ron's six-months left to live date. After a few hours of celebrating our many joys, Maggie and I will head back to the airport and take off for the Cook Islands. I can't believe it. I'm so excited about everything. EVERYTHING! I feel terribly sad when I think about all the goodbyes that come with leaving New Zealand, but I'm overcome with gratitude for all that I've encountered. I couldn't possibly have the words to express the depth of my thanks. So, instead of focusing on the sad things about leaving, I want tot concentrate on the exciting things. I'm so excited about his party at the Shine's, and the Cook Islands, and then that feeling of landing in America and staying with Katherine and Jodi, and then to North Carolina, my most established home. There are so many beloved faces to see in the coming weeks!!! Thus, I will focus on the excitement to come, and my gratitude for all that I've learned and loved this year.

Plus, I still think I'm coming back to be a logger. Seriously. But I'll still explain that later. I'll write more, but not until America.

AH! I leave New Zealand in 8 days!! I can't believe it! Then I head to the Cook Islands, then LA, then NC! All things to look forward to. Currently, I am at Gilly and Greg's for one final week of wwoofing and Shine Family Friendship before I head out. After Dad left I spent a week at Carolyn's with a couple of logging days in there, then a week with Maggie and Tim Riggins (all we did was watch the first season of Friday Night Lights on repeat), and now a week with Gilly and Greg. It's great to be here. Ron is doing very well. Yesterday he and I worked on a fence because that's all we ever do together and ate cup-o-soups in his bus. Next week he is going to take me on a trip in his bus!! That is going to rock. His six-months-left-to-live-is-up on September 4th, the day Mags and I head to the Cooks, and he said he is going to have a big party. He'll wave bye to us on the plane, but he says he'll be drunk. Good on him. Also, if he makes it until the 4th, he owes his nephew 50 bucks because they made a bet about his survival. I wish I'd thought to make a bet, because of course Ron is going to live on. I mean, it's Ron.

It's lambing season, so every drive means lamb watching and oh.my.god they are the cutest babies in all the land. One of Gilly's lambs got its tail bitten off by its mom. No joke. When I was at Carolyn's I spent a day hunting with Katy (from logging) and her brother (who is a logger and sheep farmer) and her cousin (who is very sweet.) We went to visit his sheep in the afternoon and check for new lambs and I was out of control, just pointing out every lamb we passed as if each one were a surprise. Everyone was rolling their eyes, and then I posed the question, "how do you do anything other than sit here watching the lambs?!" They gave each other sidelong looks and said it was abundantly clear that I'd never actually taken part in the lambing process. Then I remembered Jodi telling me about pulling off a lamb's leg once when trying to help with a birth gone terribly wrong. I'll stick to going all mushy-hearted from a far.

Oh, I may have forgotten to mention that at this point my plan is to spend a few weeks at home and then....head back to New Zealand and work logging for the next year or so. Surprise!!

I'll explain later.

I put up more pictures!! I even added handy captions. Enjoy!

I have been remiss in my storysharing. Here is the first half’s other half:

IX. One day dad and I were in a lovely little clearing overlooking Lake Tawawera. We were the only people around, just looking at lake and woods. Anytime we are exploring wilderness of any sort, one of Dad's favorite things to do is daydream about the Maori chieftains who have passed this way before us. Equally thrilling for him is the thought of Captain Cook. "Ah, now this is just what Captain Cook saw," he sighs every time our line of vision is clear of anything built since the Industrial Revolution. So while sitting in this particular spot he gave his usual Maori/Cook thoughts before surprising me with, "Just think how many princesses have sat in this very spot." "Excuse me?" "Princesses." "Princesses? ....Dad the number of princesses who have sat right here is definitely zero." "Nope. Definitely princesses." "Nope." "That's exactly what Meta would say, 'what are you talking about princesses, how weird are you?'" "Yeah, she would be right. That's what I say, too.... What would Katherine say?" (long pause, quiet response with the tone of a begrudging child) "....princesses." So I ask you, Katherine, what truly say you?

X. We spent one night as the lone occupants of a hostel in a quiet inlet in Anakiwa, in the Marlborough Sounds. At night we played chess and then walked down a track that starts in the driveway of the hostel and carries on for 30 kms through the Sounds. We went in search of glowworms and sure enough, when we got to the bridge over the first creek, the banks lit up around us. I can't imagine that glowworms could ever cease to amaze me. I don't want to give the wrong impression about them. They don't glow bright and large like fireflies. They don't blink on and off; they wouldn't light up a room. They simply shine like pin pricks of light through blankets of total darkness. They shine exactly like the stars. Dad swears they mirror constellations, but I think that is his yearning for pure romance talking. We saw them at our hostel last night as well and he swore that he could see Scorpio in the sky above us and along the bank beside us. I can't say I saw it, though what I did see was no less impressive. We've seen them in daylight and it looks like a single drop of dew hanging from a thread akin to spider's silk. I need to re-watch that Planet Earth episode about them to understand how they work. The day after the glowworms we took the hostel's kayaks around the Sounds, which are always so still and gentle that I'm fooled into thinking it must be a lake, then surprised to find star fish, mussels, and other salty sea friends. Later that day we hiked to a water fall that we agreed stretched our expectations of the word "waterfall." But after adjusting to our new definition we both found it beautiful. It was like a lace curtain of water. The water was dripping down a giant rock wall covered in ferns and moss, and though it was never more than a drip, it happened constantly and from so many angles, making so many soft, watery sounds. The falling water mimicked the strands of glowworms we discovered under the mossy overhangs, so I'm certain that this place is nothing short of magical at night. I don't want to keep bringing up Avatar, but seriously, y'all. It's the closest description I can use to make you understand.

XI. Dad and I did the beginning of the Heaphy track, which wanders through rainforest and past remote beaches, hugging coastline only accessible by foot or wing. We'd been walking in silence for a long while when Dad stopped in his tracks and said only this, "Life: a tiny island in an infinite ocean of death." Thank you, Dad, for always keeping it real. The day he presents his glass as half full is the day I'll start to worry. That is when I know something has gone horribly wrong.

XII. Did I forget to say that I took my first ever flight in a glider?! It was way awesome. Dad really wanted me to and I felt unsure about whether it was something that I could enjoy without feeling freaked out. Turns out, it was. It was on an area of plains in the North Island, and from up in the air I could see both coasts of the island and each of their oceans. I could see volcanoes in the distance, one of which looked like a model volcano, so perfectly round at the base and rising to a sharp point at the summit. It must have been God's blue ribbon science fair project one year. I was flying in the front seat with the instructor, Roger, sitting behind me. He was an older guy with a glider addiction who spends his time teaching lessons and gliding about. He was a great teacher and by the end of the time he was letting me completely fly the plane. It was terrifying and thrilling. Roger stayed remarkably calm as he watched me maneuver the plane in the direction of the airport. I only began to question his judgment when it came time to land the plane and he continued instructing me, rather than taking over control. I sort of figured he was probably really controlling it and I was like the kid in the shopping cart car pretending to drive while the parent holds that plastic handle on the back. But as we crept up on the runway he said calmly, but firmly, “ok, you are flying this plane, now stay steady...” That dude actually let me land the plane. Seemed kind of rough to me, but he said it was a pretty solid landing. It was such a cool experience, I can see how people (with heaps of spare cash floating about) might make a habit of it.

XIII. One day we chased a small dot on our map labeled, “limestone arches.” After an hour of winding gravel roads we arrived at a parking lot and proceeded on our hike to the arches. The hike was just gorgeous. I’m always amazed by the presence of rainforest in cool climes, no matter how much I know it will be there. Like many of the hikes we’ve taken on the South Island, this one was drenched in moss. It looked like maybe God threw up moss all over the entire forest, leaving the trees laden with green drapery and mysterious mossy lumps. Then Dr. Seuss and James Cameron went there together on vay-cay and found the inspiration for their tales. Every inch is green and lush, including the stones that appear to be a mound of green rock, until you follow a chain leading you down a hole and come out at the arches, where you find big limestone caverns that open along a crystal clear river. Per usual, Dad and I were the only people there. Winter rocks.

14 (I have a very limited knowledge of roman numerals). One of the other people in our hostel room here, in Milford Sound, is the world’s most excitable man, Alisdair. He is incredibly nice, as anyone would be with that kind of zeal for every element of their life. Last night he nearly jumped out of his skin telling Dad and I to be sure to check out the “glowworm grotto” and this morning he referred to the hike we were taking as a “green goblin land.” Last night he was already asleep with the lights out by the time dad and I got back to the room. When we walked in he immediately awoke with a flurry of apologies and turned on his own personal light so that we could find our things. This morning he was so excited to tell Dad and I about his car’s dead battery that he pulled us over to his car and dug out the receipt for the battery so that we too could share in the silliness of defunct new batteries. Our last morning in Fiordland we took a hike with him and after we’d said our goodbyes Dad and I drove away and after minutes of silence Dad just said, “He could be an Avatar.“ Ha. You know, like an alien trying to fit-in in a human suit. He has a great point. Alisdair’s disposition is peculiar enough that it could be the result of studying a text book about human behavior. Memorizing definitions of concepts like, “kind,“ “friendly,“ “polite,“ “cheerful.“ But those definitions generally unfold differently in practice. His infinite capacity for enthusiasm is truly remarkable, and though at first it left me a bit frightened, I’m beginning to appreciate the sheer volume of energy required to maintain such zest.

XV (right?). Dad has taken to reading me passages from his book about Zen Buddhism while I drive. I can’t say I’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response. I make few comments, with the mind that one can’t force those deep, meaning-of-life conversations on people. It has to flow. Instead, I make snide remarks about the golden nature of silence while he continues reading. The first time it happened, I expected darkness to provide the silence I sought, but he pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and kept going. He also read a poem aloud to me, which I’ve written the first two stanzas of below, but please excuse any alterations to the format, as I can‘t make it work on my blog. It just so happens that I was already well familiar with this poem because it spent my childhood hanging on the wall beside Dad's bed, so it's possible I read it thousands of times as I learned to read and later to attempted to decipher the pieces of Dad pasted on every wall. It is by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, so you can look it up if you’d like to see the rest.
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing all the time.

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
You get the just. I do not like this poem. If I were to re-write it, say as an exercise in one of Katherine’s creative writing workshops, this would be my version:

“The world is a beautiful place to be born into.”

I know that it’s easy for me to say. My world is extraordinarily beautiful and privileged. But I’ve experienced (or maybe I can only say witnessed?) the flip side of my life. The side where people don’t have enough food or adequate housing, or they live life under the burden of sickness. People I love have experienced an undue share of sorrow. But these people are some of the most joyful I’ve encountered. They sing, laugh, and share. They remain capable of gratitude despite all odds. They smile constantly, flashing their white teeth as beacons of strength in situations when weakness would be a suitable response by anyone’s standards. I cannot interpret this as anything short of beautiful.

Little stories piling up in my head, in two parts:

I. Do you know what to do in the event of an anaconda attack? I do. Do you know about Hogzilla? You're about to. One afternoon Thomas and I were passing the time by talking about crazy things, I guess, because these were the two foci of our conversation. He knew how to handle anacondas, but I didn't believe him, so we had to turn to the source of ultimate truth, google, and sure enough. There it was, written in clear steps reading something like this:
1. When you see an anaconda coming, don't run, you cannot outrun it. Lie on the ground, feet facing the approaching anaconda's head and be sure to have your knife(!) out and at the ready. Apparently you will always have a knife on your person if you are in anaconda territory.
2. Don't panic!
3. Allow the anaconda to begin swallowing you feet first.
4. But seriously, don't panic!
5. Once the anaconda has swallowed you to above your waist, stab upwards with your knife and cut off its head from the inside out.
6. Crawl out of the snake.
7. Have a great day.No joke. These are (basically) the steps. The only thing crazier might be.....HOGZILLA. (image from http://thegreatwhitehunter.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/hogzilla3.jpg, not me!) This pig actually lived and was actually killed by hunters in actually Georgia. GEORGIA. The South. My home state. Maybe we even crossed paths in the woods once upon a time. Imagine being out on a hunt and realizing that the movement you see is this pig. I mean, since Hogzilla exists, I probably believe in Sasquatch.
II. One day Dad and I paid a visit to Gilly's brother, Doug. Or Dug, rather, since that's what he has officially changed his name to. Dug lives to die, which for him is dying to live, since it is all about decomposition and the cycling of life to death to life again. He makes his living on compost. Fish compost. He lives near a seaside town and gets fish scraps delivered daily from the fish and chips shops nearby, which means that he has a sky high mound of the richest, most nutritious, most odiferous compost in the land. Gilly and her sister Billie, who Dad and I stayed with during our visit to the Bay of Islands, warned us about Dug with phrases like, "He is pretty out there," and, "A visit to Dug's would certainly be....an experience." Well, any of you who know Dad can imagine how eagerly he jumped at the opportunity to visit with a self-proclaimed hermit and compost master of the Kiwi boonies. By "self-proclaimed" I mean Dad-proclaimed. Dad called him a hermit the whole time, but no one else does. Dug was certainly full of radical rants and "interesting" life style choices, but he turned out to be such a gracious host. He immediately offered us a brew of kawakawa tea from the leaves on the tree outside, with honey from the hives outside. It was delicious. His house is built around trees with mud floors and old posts and pieces of paper covering every inch of wall space. Much like Dad's house would look if he, too, were left to his own devices for 20 years. Dug only eats what he can grow, so if it isn't growing, he's not eating, which I think is a remarkable commitment. I'm not sure how much of it is due to the fact that he is preparing for the imminent collapse of civilization on December 23, 2012, and how much is due to the fact that growing your own food is a healthy, good thing to do. My favorite part was a visit to Dug's favorite tree, an ancient puriri tree with branches the size of old trees themselves that hold up a hut he built as though they were pillars of stone. I definitely learned things from my visit to Dug's and came away grateful for his hospitality. In some ways, Dug and I are fairly similar. We both appreciate the beauty in the way our earth recycles energy, and we both see comfort in the fact that life is born again and again through death. But I wondered if in focusing so steadily on the death part of the cycle, Dug relinquishes some of his appreciation for the glorious life side of the equation. The visit reminded me how grateful I am for my own fleeting, yet rich, energetic time on the life cycle.

III. Dad keeps referring to my ipod as "those tapes." Not just "the tape," because it is clearly too many hours of music to fit on a tape, so instead it is many tapes. I made a playlist while he drove the other day and he couldn't believe how quickly I could churn out dozens of mixed tapes tailored to his musical tastes. He says I'll have to make him copies of "those tapes" when I get home. I will focus on his praise of my music selection, instead of my frustration about my dad being elderly. He also keeps pronouncing Mauri "may-or-ee" and referring to any house that a Mauri person might live in as a "village," even though they are just normal houses on a street. I think at this point he is just doing this to vex me because it can't still be happening for real.

IV. One day in logging world we'd been torn up by a few rough batches of logs, leaving our hands cut and bleeding. While we were standing there catching our breath and waiting for the chains to head back down the hill I noticed that Katy was drawing a big smiley face on her hand using her own blood. It was terrifying and badass and funny, all rolled into one.

V. Two encounters, both with giant trees: One night Dad and I were driving to our destination in the dark, but saw a little dot on our map labeled, "Giant Fig Tree." The dot was at the very tip of a small peninsula that we would otherwise drive past and we decided that it was worth the stop. We'd just be in its presence and maybe shine our headlights on it. We got to the fig and, sure enough, it was giant. This is a massive tree. And it has amazing snaky roots and strong, thick limbs perfect for climbing. Sort of like a magnolia on steroids. We pulled up the car to shine our headlights on it and see what we could see and while we were walking around it, another car pulled up, situated its headlights beside ours, and a family equipped with headlamps got out to look at the tree as well. I just couldn't believe that more than one car load of people would think it worthwhile to go see a tree, in the middle of winter, in the dark, by the lights of their headlights. It was beautiful surrounded by stars, but I've got to try to get back to it in sunlight. The other old tree was also an unplanned stop for a dot on the map, this time labeled, "2,000 year old Puriri tree." This time, we found the tree in a forest park that was a patch of old, native forest surrounded by farm land. This little patch of forest turned out to be one of the most beautiful pieces of forest I've ever seen. Think Avatar, but without the glowing and without a single thing that can hurt you. Not so much as a tick. The highlight of the forest is, in fact, a 2,000 year old Puriri tree with a huge hollow at its base that used to be a sacred burial place, and while it is still sacred, the bones have been relocated. It was amazing. Definitely makes one feel small. Dad and I were the only people there, standing in the presence of this life that has lived as a contemporary to everyone from Jesus to Shakespeare and Colombus to Cook, and now my dad and me. And it will probably outlive us all. Just as we were about to walk away, two Tui birds flitting around in the branches above us began their mating routine, letting us watch as the male danced away, unable to secure the female's affection. Tui birds sing the best song of all the birds. It makes a walk through a forest like that all the more magical. That recording hardly explains it, but it's a start. I'm so glad Dad is finally here to witness this place.

VI. We got to watch this sunset over the East Cape a few nights ago:











VII. One day at Gilly and Greg's, Dad went out on a boating adventure with Greg and Gilly and I spent the entire afternoon walking to the tip top ridge of a farm near the beach and then down a trail along those glorious west coast beaches. The farm was vivid green because rain has come back for winter. Along the way we were surprised to see a flock of peacocks, and then at the top of the hill all of the farm's horses were grazing and quickly surrounded us in hopes of treats. Standing on that hill, surrounded by beach and green grass and friendly horses felt like floating through a drugged, dream world. Couldn't possibly be real. It was dark and freezing by the time we got home, and we rushed over to Margaret's to watch the All Blacks play South Africa in rugby. Great game, they won. Watching with Margaret was awesome because you don't expect such a sweet looking 83 year old to be so into rugby, but she was feeling it. Then we went back to Gilly's for lamb stew and bedtime. I thank you God for most this amazing day!!!!!

VIII. Today dad and I were on a hike and he was looking at a big tree and said, "Could you handle that? Being a tree? Stuck in one place for the entirety of your life?" "If I were a tree, I don't think I'd see it that way," I said. "Infinite patience," he said. "That's what trees have." I thought that was lovely, infinite patience. He went on to tell me that if ever I'm in prison and know I'll be there for a long, long time, I must think of myself as a tree, at peace with being rooted in my one place. Though I wonder why he thinks I need prison advice and though I have a tendency toward wanderlust, I feel weirdly relieved to have a meditation to get me through prison, if ever I need one.

There's just no chance that I could tell all of the stories that I want to tell. There's not enough time, you'd get sick of reading, and first hand accounts are way more fun for everyone. So I'll go with a bare minimum. First and foremost, Dad is here now! He arrived on Sunday morning and I flew up to Auckland to meet him. We've been staying with Gilly and Greg, who have been the most generous hosts imaginable and Gilly has spent the last two days taking us through the highlights of Waitakere scenery. It's great to be back here, and I know that I'll have to spend a quality amount of time here before I leave. I started here and it only makes sense to finish here. Dad brought me some bags of dark chocolate reeses, one of which Tansy promptly disposed of, tin foil and all. This is the second dog-attack I've faced with imported dark chocolate reeses and you'd better believe it's not going to happen again. I can't believe I'd be so negligent of something I care about so deeply. It's fun to be around Ron again. Did I ever talk about how Ron has cancer? He found out soon after we left the last time that he has cancer of the esophagus and the doctors estimate six months more to live. He's already past three, but he just bought his sons tickets to visit him for Christmas and Ron is the epitome of determination, so I fully expect him to be around for a long while. In the meantime he is just doing his thing. Laughing, working constantly, mocking me. He bought a tractor while he was in the hospital finding out that he is sick. A brand new, hard working tractor. You can't get more Ron than that.

So I went logging. Whoa. That's one hell of a leap from Greenpeace. The thing is, it is heavily managed logging that is monitored by the Department of Forestry and harvested with the idea of renewability. We're not going all swidden over here. I think it is great for me to take part in that kind of work. The kind where liberal, idealistic Robin who loves living in world peace fantasy land has to toughen up and do things that people have to do and will keep doing. I can't pretend I don't use wood. Even when I'm not I wish was. For instance, right now I'm writing on a blog instead of on paper. But those of you have been with me since day one may remember how I feel about blogs. I hate them. I wish I was using trees right now and writing you all letters about my life. Instead I've sucked away all the "pure romance," as dad would say, and smeared my thoughts on this blog. My point is, trees are a great resource that I love using, so it's about time I took some responsibility for my resource use.

I started the job as a "poleman." We changed the spelling to "polemyn" to make it more lady-friendly, but really there is nothing about this industry that makes a point to appeal to women. This job as poleman involves unhooking chains from the trees once they are pulled up the hill and safely onto the skid site. Basically I stand near the hauler, the big machine pulling them up the hill, wait for the load to get there, get the go ahead, unhook the trees (takes an average of about 30 seconds), get out of the way, give a go ahead, and stay away until the next load gets there. That's the job. It would be wholly uneventful if I weren't working in the Marlborough Sounds. But fortunately for me I was working in the Sounds, in one of the most beautiful landscapes I can imagine, watching the sun rise and the sea wake up every single day. That kept it interesting. This picture is of the town closest to the Sounds, but doesn't at all do it justice or show the heart of the area. It's just all I have because I'd lose street cred if I brought my camera to work. Wayne (Carolyn's husband and owner of the business) and Katy (the one girl who works there) were supposed to be my safety net in my first days; however, Katy left because she was sick and Wayne hurt his foot before morning tea on my first day, so they were both out for the count. That meant meant that my first day I was taking my breaks in the tiny, dark, metal shed called "the container," sitting on oil buckets with my 8 bushmen co-workers sipping tea and talking about pig hunting. What? I'm sure they were all wondering how that American girl in the corner got there. Though they look tough, they all turned out to be so nice. The first few days a few of them sheepishly apologized for cursing in front of me and by my second week they accepted my presence without much ado.

After two days my career as poleman was cut short when Wayne announced that we were headed down the hill. I swung my boot up on a tire while he knelt down and strapped crampons on my feet, and away we went. I felt like a twisted sort of Cinderella. Modern day, working girl Cinderella getting Bushman Charming to strap the perfect spikes on her feet and lead her away down the muddy hillside. You know, this is my second experience with crampons in New Zealand? I'd never even heard of them before and now I've actually be required to wear them on more than one occasion. Before I came here if someone had asked what size crampon I wore I would have thought them very crude. Anyway. Thus began my career "breaking out." This job is the part of logging that makes it one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. It is also the part that hones super human strength. So the breaker outers work on the hillsides where trees have already been felled, hooking chains to the trees and directing the hauler to pull them up. Time is of the essence, so you do it all as fast as you possibly can, which means a lot of running straight up mountain sides. The chains come down the hill, you race to untangle them, figure out how to get them around a tree or two, race to a safe distance, and call the hauler to pull them up. You just move down the hill till the bottom, move the ropes, then walk back to the top and start the next line down. It's completely hard physically, but it is kind of fun because each time is like a little timed puzzle. It is so dangerous because if I log slips or chains or ropes break, your survival is only a matter of luck because you couldn't possibly get away from a falling log fast enough. That part makes it scary, and probably not worth it, even though I liked it and want to take on a whole season of it and see if I can get really good. It tore me up. I am covered in bruises, scrapes and cuts over muscles (or places where muscles should be) that won't stop being sore. Oh, but at the end of the day you feel so accomplished. Like you won a big race, every day.

Women don't typically have this job. It is highly unusual, which makes it all the more awesome that I was doing the job with a woman. I worked with Katy, a woman who is seriously not five feet tall and who weighs approximately as much as one of my legs. She smokes like a chimney and speaks like a sailor. On more than one occasion she was rolling a cigarette while racing down the mountain or dragging along chains. Breathing was a constant struggle for me doing that job and I've never smoked a single cigarette, so I can't understand how she does it. But she does it, and she's good at it, and she reckons that we are the only two women breaker outers in the whole of the South Island. Wayne worked with us most of the time, too, which was really nice because I got some quality time Wayne time. We took our lunch and snacks down the hill with us each day because it would take your whole break to walk all the way to the top of the hill, and I swear to you that Wayne accidentally made his instant soup in his tea thermos instead of his hot water thermos everyday. And everyday he said, "oh, I've done it again" and ate it up. Love that guy.

During the week most of the crew lives in a little cabin in the forest we work in, so I'd go home early each day and make dinner for everyone and then we would sit around talking or reading until bed time, then get up at 5:30 each morning and do it again. We don't have a TV, but I told them about those DVDs at home of fireplaces burning and so now we pretend that our real fire is a DVD that we are watching. It makes us feel more modern, less isolated. One night this conversation happened after a silent few minutes of fire-watching:
Katy: I wonder what's people are watching on TV right now.
Gavin: I think Underbelly is on right now.
Roydon: Oh, how is that show? I hear it's good.
Gavin: Don't know, never seen it.
All of us: Yeah, neither.
Silence continued.
Don't let the word "cabin" fool you into a false sense of rustic-quaint. Remember that this house is occupied by six lumberjacks, who co-habitate remarkably well with rodents and spiders of all shapes and sizes. One night early on I was horrified to wake up to find my head actually touching the pillow. It was meant to stay fully encased in my sleeping bag at all times. Then I got over myself and embraced the grime, making me a much easier, if not happier, camper.

After all of that it might sound like I didn't like that experience at all, but I actually sort of loved it. I hope I can do it more in August. It was so different from the life I generally imagine for myself, it felt sort of like I was reinventing my whole persona. Like Halloween, but real life. Real, lucky life.

On to the next adventure with Papa Fail on board. And so it goes!

Ok, so I'm not a logger yet. I've been more of a wwoofer this past week. BUT BUT BUT tonight at six I leave for the Marlborough Sounds to jump start my logging career. It'll only be a two-week long career at the moment because dad comes in two weeks, but one never knows where leads like this will take me. Carolyn and I spent the last week doing farmy things and making-over Thomas' room and watching him play rugby. Thursday marked 6 days since I'd seen Maggie and in a miraculous surprise she just walked in the kitchen while I was cooking dinner that night! I was so surprised that I forgot to smile; instead I went with a disgusted "who the hell do you think you are" sort of look. Then my brain caught up and we hugged and talked for 3 days straight. It was great. I didn't realize how much I only felt half-present. The Lentz fam mailed Carolyn a bunch of Martha Steward Living magazines and we spent an inordinate amount of time studying their pages, memorizing tricks to add seasonal spice to our homes this fall and lusting after the cake recipes. It was actually sort of weird how into it I was. But I mean, pumpkin vases?! Christmas light jack-o-lanterns?! Snow votives?!!? Score. I drove Mags to the airport this morning for her commute to Wellington to get her to work on time. It was so worth being up for sunrise because the sky was cloudy pink with a bright rainbow trapped in the pink that made it an illuminated hot pink streak in the sky. Words don't work as well as eyes, in cases such as these.

One night this week Thomas took me on my first pig hunt! Whoa, right?! He was just going one evening and I think he was joking when he invited me, but I ended up going, so careful when you joke with me because I might take you too seriously. We went up to this ridge near their house and the drive there was a four-wheel drive adventure that was sort of an appetizer to the redneck-badass fun. We went through one padlocked gate to get there and when I locked it after us Thomas seemed to disapprove. When I offered to get out and leave it unlocked he just mumbled something about, "no she'll be right, it was just in case we need to get out of here in a hurry." He didn't elaborate on why we'd need to get out in such a hurry, but it gave me a little extra kick of fear to get me started. Thomas gave me no instruction ahead of time, but sometimes he'd just hold up a hand to get me to shut up and listen. We took two of his dogs and went up to a hill top and then just sat under the trees with the dogs, just listening, waiting for it to get totally dark. After a few minutes the dogs started freaking out and we let them off their ropes and they shot away into the woods. Then we got ready to run and listened for their barks. They did manage to bail a pig and brought it close enough for us to chase it at one point, but we didn't get there in time, probably on account of the "bloody slow yank" trailing behind. But I think it was great fun because we didn't catch anything. I didn't have to see how I'd respond to the trauma of actually killing something, and instead I got to run through the woods at night with a gun slung over my shoulder, which is neither something I've done, nor is it something I could have imagined myself doing a year ago. Eventually the dogs got too far away and the barking died down and we headed back to the car and waited. Thomas called them and whistled for them and sure enough, about 15 minutes later Blaise hobbled back. Then we drove down the main road with me holding tracking gear out the window and listened for the beep that meant Swazi was somewhere near by and eventually she found us, too. It was so cool to actually use my ears. So much of it was just hard listening and I can't think of another time that I've had to practice being so quiet or so aware of exercising my hearing. I'd do it again, at least until we actually kill something and I scream and cry and commit myself to veganism.

Thank you Carolyn for inviting me back! Thank you Thomas for taking me hunting! Thank you Maggie for visiting! Thank you sky for pink sunrise rainbows! Thank you Martha for the handy home-making tips! Thank you Wayne for your abundance of laugh lines around your eyes! Thank you world for being so full of life and surprise!

I leave for Carolyn's tomorrow! I'm going to go be a logger! What? I can't explain how the things in my life happen, but they keep happening! This means a break in the adventures of Maggie and Robin as an item. You know, like a couple. Like a committed couple. So I kiss that goodbye, and show you how cool we are:
I had a great week with the girls. One night we went out to dinner in celebration of...I don't know...friendship? We turned Marocka into a place to share a bottle of wine and dance the night away, which was way more fun than using it to sell clothes! It also explains why the owners might have been hesitant to hire a 23 year old manager. Don't worry, everything is perfectly in tact and they'll never, ever do better than Maggie. Nor will I, as it turns out.

Did I tell you that I got fired from Greenpeace? I don't think I've written that yet. I got fired from Greenpeace. First few minutes of my last morning were filled with a man threatening to slap me in the face if I said one more word to him, which didn't keep me loving the job. The thing is, I didn't meet my weekly quota. Nor did anyone I got hired with, so we all joined the ranks of Wellington's unemployed again. It makes sense that Greenpeace only gives you a week to make the quota because they are a nonprofit and can never afford to employ fundlosers. However, none of us realized that the one week was our limit, so we were all a bit surprised to receive the "you can't continue on" phone call after work Friday. I got another day of chance, but it didn't work out. So...

So, given that I only have a month until Dad comes for a month, (yay!) by the time I get a job it would be just about time to give my two weeks notice. Meanwhile Wellington's gloomy frigidity isn't doing me any favors while I hunt for jobs and wait for my lovely roommates to get home. Instead, I'm going to head to Carolyn's next week for the 3 weeks until Dad arrives, then travel with him. I'm so excited for his trip! I'm completely unexcited about the fact of leaving Maggie, but it doesn't exactly make sense for me to be here right now. I won't talk about the leaving Maggie part because then I'll cry on my computer. Right after I decided to go Maggie and I watched Brokedown Palace, in which the girls say the exact words, "at least we're together," in trying to cope with their unfortunate traveling situation. Then we judged the one girl for abandoning her friend and I tried hard to ignore the parallels. On the bright side, Wellington is completely unlike Thai prison. So there's that!

My home life is wonderful when the girls are home, despite its remarkable resemblance to a retirement home. One day Caroline and I were both at home, but both too cold and tired to leave our beds, so we stayed in our own separate bedrooms reading our books and texting each other with important updates. Another night we were all sitting in the living room passing around a hot water bottle as others of our generation might pass around cigarettes or beer. The ultimate sign of our "age" came out last night while trying to plan which night we can all have dinner together before I leave. Tuesday seemed the clear choice, but Eva was extremely hesitant on the basis that she has to work on Wednesday. After a tempt at feigned understanding, Caroline said, "so you can't go out to dinner on Tuesday because you have to work the next morning??" She was afraid of being up too late. As a compromise we've agreed to find an early bird special.

The other big news is that Kichi, the dog we take care of who has no idea he is a dog, surprised us all. He always sleeps on the couch, smearing his hair and his smell all over it so as to transform the couch into an enlarged, lifeless version of himself. When we all are in the living room, we are usually annoyed with him for taking up a valuable seat, and we try in vain to get him to lie on the floor. We've been trying to teach him how to lie on the floor for weeks now with no signs of progress. Until last night. Caroline and I were crammed on the couch with him watching a movie and suddenly, with no apparent impetus, he woke up, jumped down, and fell fast asleep on the floor. We had to pause the movie to gape. We still can't understand it, but it felt like progress.

Off to Carolyn's soon, though I can't remember the last time my "plan" determined my actions, so stay tuned for infinite opportunities for surprise.

So I finished my first week of work with Greenpeace, and am not entirely sure if I will have another. There is a target of member sign-ups that we have to get in a week to be able to move on to the next week, and I didn't exactly make that target. I was one short, so I have one more day to prove myself, or else I'm back to the job hunt. I have very mixed feelings about that. It is disappointing because I want to be able to do it and I so desperately need a job that it will be a real problem if I lose one so soon. On the other hand, that job is extremely hard, and I really might not be cut out for it.

Basically me and three other members of the "Street Team" go to a different Wellington location everyday and try to get people to sign-up as Greenpeace members. It is very cold and rainy, and usually the day is an emotional roller coaster. I go from feeling hopeful and really enthusiastic about people, to being really disheartened and miserable about people. The more I've learned about Greenpeace, the more I've grown to appreciate them, which keeps me glad that I am working for them. I find it really hard to ask for money and I have to work to muster the courage and enthusiasm to approach every single person who walks past me. I don't think this is the type of job I'm meant to have long term, but I would like to get better at it. My team leader is incredibly nice and the other two people who got hired with me are great too; unfortunately, they did not make their goals this week so they are done.

For all of the rude remarks and times I was ignored this week, there were so many times when someone thanked me for doing my job, or passed me by but came back a second later once they realized what I said, or signed-up even though they are unemployed or on benefits. I've met some incredibly kind souls this week, often in the most unexpected bodies. It has been a valuable lesson for me on judging books by their covers. For that I am grateful.

You should sign our Save the Whale petition! NZ parliament votes Wednesday on whether or not to legalize whaling again. I voted no:
http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/action/iwc/action.asp

Peace out.

I got a full time job today! With Greenpeace! I am a "frontliner" (aka street fundraiser.) This has always been a job that I am glad people do, and even more glad that I don't do. Mostly because it requires an assertiveness that I will probably have to work hard to muster. But it'll be a good fear to face. I feel so awkward about having to ask people for money, even though I know that it is the purpose of my job, and it is money for a cause that I support. I have lots more to say about it, but don't feel like it right now, so I'll try again tomorrow! In the meantime, just know that the financial downfall is coming to an end and Maggie and I both have full time working girl jobs! G'night.

Five nights ago as Maggie and I laid in our car talking before sleep we realized that it was the one year anniversary of our graduation. One year! And what were we doing? We were in our car with the seats back, bundled up in sleeping bags, parked on the darkest cul-de-sac we could find, hoping no one would notice us spending the night there. We were even pulled up as close as we could get to a trailer in front of us, so as to be better hidden within its shadow. It was sure to be the utter opposite of what the University of North Carolina hopes for its bright young graduates. Vagabond girls sporting university sweatshirts and sweatpants (so as to advertise the fine education the preceded the current bout of homelessness,) clean because of stealthily snuck camp ground showers, trying to fall asleep unnoticed by the unsuspecting residents of Picton. But what they don’t know about the situation is that we could not be happier to be there. That we are there laughing and feeling grateful for the many opportunities people have given us. They don’t know that we saw 3 shooting starts within the first 10 minutes of lying there, before the stars disappeared beneath the fog of our breath on the glass. They don’t know that peanut butter and jelly is our favorite food, so eating it every day actually works out pretty well. They don’t know that I couldn’t imagine an alternative course that my life could have taken up until that moment, and that a bed is great, but in the end I’d wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else.

That was five nights ago. Four nights ago we slept in a tent in the middle of downtown Wellington. Tomorrow, Maggie has her first day of work as the new manager of a trendy little store on Cuba St. in downtown Wellington. I know, right?!!? After much self-mockery about how far a year has taken us (sneaky sleeping in our car), we set out on our Wellington job search. Little did we know where two days would take us. Maggie and I have long since learned that we only have to make a plan to have a plan-changing opportunity sneak up on us. Maggie applied for a sales position at this store, and next thing she knew she was the replacement for the manager who is leaving. She is even going to be buying the clothes for the store because they owners "don't have much of a fashion sense." It's incredible. It is just so ridiculous and exciting and amazing. They don't know that Maggie has $33 dollars in her bank account, which is not enough to buy her outfit from the store for the first day of work, but now she has a yearly salary. They don't know that this job means we finally get to fill up our car with gas, which we were waiting to do until we got jobs. She went from an unemployed car-sleeper whose dream job was a checkout girl at New World (grocery store: think Harris Teeter quality) to a big city manager with a career, a car, a house. Whoa. This was def not our decided plan, but it is bigger and better. Maggie will be able to get sponsorship, then residency, ultimately sealing her stay in New Zealand.

What does this mean for us, you might wonder? For us, the not-gay-together-maggie-and-robin couple? It means that really, the end of our New Zealand journey together has come to an end. It is very sad. We spent much of today mourning its loss, along with the loss of Maggie's youth and freedom. We got a few solid hours of crying over each other done today. I don't think we realized the sick depth of our co-dependency until separation became imminent. Since I still have to say my goodbyes to NZ (and Carolyn's and Gilly and Greg's) I still want to go to those places for my final time, even if Mags can't come along. I'm not entirely sure how long I'll stay in Wellington, but I'll just try to save up a little money. I will at the very least be here until Dad visits in early July. Living with Caroline and Eva is perfect. It seems like we have all known everything about each other forever and get weirdly dramatic about everything together. Girlfriends. Gurlfryndz.

Since I started this blog post Eva got home and said she got me a job today. See? You NEVER know what is going to happen! It is at Kapai (think Subway, but salads and healthier and better) where Eva has worked for a few months. It won't be full time, but it will hold me over for the moment. It is fantastic. Plus, one of the stores is in a food court, and some days we will get to work there together. Then, some day when we are career women we can laugh together over cocktails about the days when we worked at that subway for salads in a food court. I'm pumped.

You never, ever know.

Ok, end of the suspense. I have my hair. All of my hair. I don't have $1000. After so much anxst, so many polls, so much consideration, we never heard back from the people doing the project and our plans mean that we can't be in Dunedin on the dates when it happens. I suppose it wasn't meant to be. I appreciate the encouragement, though. I really like to think that I would have done it, had the opportunity arisen in the end. I felt silly about all of my dramatic deliberation because I had conversations about it with multiple female friends of mine, only to find out later that they had already done it and it was no big deal. Heidi failed to mention it completely in our whole convo and then emailed me later with a picture of her bald head. It was so not a big deal that she didn't even need to mention it. Jessie, a friend from UNC who is also in NZ, received an email with a link to the ad and then I saw her the other day and was surprsied to see her short hair. She jumped the gun and shaved it off 6 months ago because she was in Singapore and it was hot. These women are perfectly capable of maintaining perfect cool about it, whereas I fear that I would use mine as a badge of cool for the rest of my life. They are truly the cool ones.

Maggie and I finally have a winter plan! We can't promise that it will stick, since our plans rarely do, but it is our "plan." We leave Queenstown tomorrow and go to Dunedin to spend a night with a friend. Then we head back up to the ferry and jump over to Wellington. We've now said bye to the North Island 3 times, but for some reason it is always a lie. We received an awesome offer from Caroline, Eva, and Eva's cousin Laura to come live in Laura's house for free until the end of June while Laura is out of town. It is a great house, in a cool neighborhood and we like Wellington and will seek out jobs for that time. We have to work, and we figure we've got the best chance of getting jobs in a bigger city. Plus, living with Caroline and Eva is just about the most fun I can think of, so that works out pretty well. THEN on the last day of June (maybe) we head to Nelson for our final weeks at Carolyn's. We aren't AT ALL ready to let go of that place yet. So we will work there as well and leave in mid-August in time to sell our car and visit Gilly and Greg again. Dad is coming for all of July, so that will let me have the flexibility to travel a bit with him. Carolyn said that we can work as cleaners and cooks at the house where the lumberjacks of their logging business live during the work week. I don't know why people give us such incredible offers, but we keep accepting them and it has yet to be a mistake.

Queenstown has been a lovely place to spend two weeks. We only had to work a week of our two here, but we got to remain at our hostel for free. Our boss even gave us tickets to the movies, which is a big time treat for us right now. Being in Queenstown is a lot like being back in college. A lot of young, social people working and playing and drinking a lot. It's strange to fall into this world after so many months in a totally different life. I've gotten so accustomed to rural life that I surprise myself with my reclusive tendencies now. I think I'm not so good at being a socialite anymore. I can see it changing if I stayed longer, but I'm happy with the idea of spending winter with the people and places I've come to love most in this country.

I gotta go find a job.

PLEASE VOTE ON MY POLL TO THE RIGHT!

Two examples of how I am a changed woman and one important plea for advice:

1. I was a vegetarian when I came here. Well, a vegetarian-ish. I hardly ever ate meat and probably hadn’t eaten red meat in 6 years. Now, not only do I load up my plate with Mr. Rankin sausages (even though I used to feed that pig!) and venison that Carolyn’s family killed, but I crave meat when I don’t have it. We laugh at the leg of venison wrapped up in the freezer labeled, “Bambi,“ because it was accidentally a casualty before its time. Maggie and I want steak all the time. What?

2. The other day Thomas was telling us about how you can get $100 a kilo for possom fur because possoms are problems here and their fur mixes well with merino wool. He sets traps and collects their fur, and when we were asking him about how it works, he invited us to join in on the action. The traps are leg traps and when asked how he kills them he said he used to beat them to death, but that “got a bit dodgy,” so now he shoots them. The next night Mags and I were walking down our driveway at night when our headlamps illuminated a possom on a tree right in front of us. These possoms are cute, y’all. These aren’t the Rodents of Unusual Size o’possums of home. These are more like rodent-ish koala bears. Months ago I would have seen one and ooo-ed and ahh-ed about how cute it was and maybe tried to touch it. Now, my immediate response was, “how do I kill it?” I looked at that possum and saw the money I could make if I could just figure out a way to end its life with my bare hands. Before I’d even spoken aloud Maggie spoke up about how we should catch it. Who are we?

1 plea for advice: Maggie and I need money. We are in the process of getting jobs, and we just picked grapes, so we’ll be fine. It isn’t exactly life or death, but it needs to be had. Yesterday I found an ad on the NZ version of Craig’s List asking for 2 women with long hair who would be willing to shave their heads and take part in a photo shoot. Something about how women can still be beautiful without hair. The pay? $1000 cash. One thousand dollars. So, if you were in our shoes, would you do it?

Surprise! We are in Queenstown now. Way more has happened since last i wrote than should have happened. So we were picking grapes and living at Carolyn's. Grape picking remained a great job, but it finished on Friday. On Thursday morning we arrived at work and were waiting around for David, our boss who I mentioned was super nice, to come tell us where to pick. After a while the owner of the place came out and told us that on Wednesday afternoon David was killed in an accident while pulling the nets off the grapes we were to pick the next day. It was a total freak accident involving this machinery that we'd seen him use everyday. This happened on the one day that he did not work on the same vineyard as us, and it was a really shocking loss. The whole vineyard is a small family operation, so David was one of five employees. It was very sad. We drove home and spent the day working in Carolyn's garden and trying to understand how to feel as appreciative as we could. We were both very grateful to be with Carolyn's family, since this is the first time we've really sought comfort since our year began. The next day we went back and finished picking the grapes on that vineyard, so at least that family can be done with that land for a while.

The same day that we found out about David, we were thinking about what on earth our next move would be. Whether to stay on at Carolyn's, or go ahead and check out Queenstown for jobs, figure out winter, etc. That morning we got a text from, Fiona, a friend I made on Milford Track who manages a hostel in Queenstown. She said they were looking for a couple of cleaners in exchange for accomodation starting Monday, so as grape picking ended, we packed our bags and headed down South. It is the perfect opportunity to live in Queenstown for free while we make our plan. The fates seem to be in our favor. We started cleaning today and it is great. We just work 3 hours a day as part of their biannual spring clean. The hostel is right on the lake and a two minute walk from town. Just lovely.

We had a great final weekend at Carolyn's house. The weekend before we'd moved from our cottage down to their house to make room for a couple of wwoofers who were coming (since we were wwoofers with jobs, which makes us useless wwoofers.) We've slowly crept into this family's life to the point that now we just live in their house. Even after the wwoofers left, we stayed in their house because we didn't want to leave. As Carolyn says, we've "wormed our way in." On Saturday we got to go to Thomas' first rugby game of the season. It was so much fun and unbelievably rough. Maggie and I kept screaming and covering our eyes. At one point Thomas was on the bottom of a tackle and the three of us were covering our faces and yelling, "watch his head! don't hurt him! watch his eyes!" Not cool. He ended up breaking his nose. We didn't know until the end of the game because he hid it so that he could keep playing. What? I know. His consolation prize (even though he was more excited than upset) was the best dinner ever and movies and rice pudding. It was a cozy weekend. We miss them, but this hostel "job" was too timely an opportunity to pass up.

Who knows where we'll be next week.

Love,
Robin

Ok, the rest of my pictures are up. In large part, they are up to date, at least for the moment.

Currently, Maggie and I are back at Carolyn's. I know this might strike you as ridiculous. Like what are we thinking because aren't we here to see a whole country and isn't this family tired of us yet? But we've seen a lot and will see more and this family is the best family, giving us no impetus to leave, unless they come out and express their dissatisfaction with our many happy returns. This time things are different because we are here more as renters than wwoofers, staying at their house and going to work on the vineyard every day! The vineyard we work for is called Greenhough (http://www.greenhough.co.nz/our-wines) and the two vineyards we work in are in beautiful places where you can see mountain and ocean all at once. This differs from apple-picking in a number of significant ways.
1) Our boss is so nice.
2) We are paid hourly, so not only is it pressure-free, but we even get breaks! Rules.
3) Though tough on the back and clipper hand, there are no ladders and you aren't carrying any weight, which makes the whole thing far more bearable.
4) We get to return home to a lovely home at Carolyn's. Though I "loved" the caravan, this is better.
5) We mostly work with older people who we think are just friends of the owner, so comparatively we seem like we are in stellar shape, which gives us a nice ego boost and makes us work on without complaint, so as not to spoil a perfectly good facade.

Yesterday Maggie and I were purring about the cush life of grape picking versus apple, and I thought Maggie summed it up well:
"Trying to make apple-picking sound good is like trying to sell this workout to people: do the stairmaster for 8 hours, as fast as you can, with 50 pounds weights strapped on your front. But don't worry, it isn't straight steps...between every few steps we'll pick up the stairmaster and move it a few feet."

Now, things are wonderful all around.

i finally posted a couple more picture albums! milford track and mom's visit. others will come soon...ish!

grape picking rules. apple picking drools.

love,
robin

I must have seen at least a thousand waterfalls in the past week. I didn't think that something as magical as a waterfall could ever become routine, but I had to keep walking and stop taking pictures, so eventually I basically ignored them. I can't believe it, but if I didn't let them go then I'd still be there, staring and starving. So a few days ago I finished hiking the Milford Track. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Maggie did not end up going on the hike, so it was just me, which made it four days of thought and consideration.

The hike is very regulated because of its high demand, so only 40 people are allowed to start each day and you have to stay in the huts provided. This means that you get to know the people in your group, but since everyone takes the day at their own pace, I usually felt like I was the only person in the world on the hike. Of my group of 40, 4 of them were a family from Charlotte! It was crazy. I didn't meet them until the last day, only to learn that they live 10 minutes from my home in Charlotte. Tiny world. It was just the most amazing scenery. It looked like the floating mountains of waterfalls in Avatar. There were even helicopters sometimes. The hike takes you through Fiordland and you have to get to and from the trail by boat. Fiordland gets more annual rainfall than anywhere in the world except a spot in Hawaii, so fresh water is in abundance. I constantly walked along brooks, streams, lakes, rivers and waterfalls of all sorts. Part of the walk takes you through a valley surrounded by steep fjords running with waterfalls streaming from the snow on top. At one point I stopped on a bridge above a waterfall and counted how many waterfalls I could see in my surround view of the weeping mountains. I could see 43! Just from one spot!

One day I realized that by 5:00 the only thing I'd said aloud was, "hold it for ten seconds" in reference to the button on the gas stove. I'd also said "hello" twice, but both were to birds, so I don't think that counts. It was nice not to complain about my feet hurting or say things like, "this is pretty" about views that embodied magnificence. Twice I was caught laughing aloud when I stumbled upon another hiker, and another time I was caught practicing my Irish accent aloud. That one made me seem a little crazy.

After the hike I happily reunited with Maggie, who broke the news that we have mice in our car. She'd spent the last night in terror trying to catch the mice. Though this makes us seem extremely unclean, we were told that this "happens all the time" at this time of year because they seek out warmth. That must be it.

We spent a couple of nights around Queenstown investigating job possibilities. Then a night at Mt. Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ, where it looks like the glacier is crawling down the mountain. We went into a fancy hotel and drank tea and pretended to belong there instead of our tent in the rain. On the drive away we passed a hitchhiker that looked an awful lot like our friend Eddie, who we'd left apple picking on the North Island. We turned around and sure enough, there was Eddie under all those bags, so we drove him for a while screaming about the feats of great timing. Then we spent a night along a beach in Kaikoura where the full moon reflected perfectly on the water and the next morning greeted us with a huge pod of the most active dolphins I've ever seen. We sat on the beach to eat dinner and watched the ocean for a moment and then I raised my arms and said, "Whales, commence!" Immediately we noticed the dolphins leaping out of the air. Really close second. Perfect New Zealand. The dolphins hung around for hours, continually leaping and backflipping out of the water. It looked like a Sea World show.

Now Maggie and I are happily settled in Wellington visiting Eva and Caroline for a week of absolute chill time. It's exactly what we want. They have a kitchen and electricity and hot water! Maybe I'll even put up some pictures.

We just finished up another wonderful 10 days of life with Carolyn and family. Unfortunately we were well organized enough back in October to book this so-called "Milford Track" so now we have to go do that. Carolyn's was productive and fun, plus it involved a birthday surprise visit by Malcolm and Lindsay who snuck their way to the South Island. Today we drive South and camp for two nights before hopefully starting Milford. Yesterday there was a giant storm in Fiordland, so right now Milford is actually closed, but they said it might be re-open by Thursday. That will be followed by a few days in Queenstown trying to set up our winter lives and then a bit more sight seeing before returning to Carolyn's for a 3 week project before moving to Queenstown for the winter. It is just starting to feel like fall and I suspect that it will turn into winter as we drive South today. That's all the time we have, folks! Hope spring is in the air in some parts.

Maggie and I continue to use the phrase "just our luck" at least 3 times a day everyday because something wonderfully lucky happens. Like pulling up to a parking space and having someone hop out of their car and hand you their parking ticket with another hour left on it. Or dropping Jacob off at the airport at the exact same time that Kota showed up there to pick up his girlfriend, so we got to run hug him goodbye! Or getting to go out on a giant catamaran with a few Germans and a Jacob to sail around the island of Auckland! You know, lucky things! That boat trip was perfectly wonderful, you should read about it more in depth on Maggie's blog. Some of the highlights included phosphorescent water at night and Julian, our German captain, diving for scallops that he promptly opened, cooked, and served. He dove for like an hour while Maggie and I worked really hard at reading our books on the catamaran's sunny nets. Best scallops I've ever tasted. It was the complete opposite of apple-picking. Julian dropped us off on the beach closest to the house where Jacob stays, but it was low tide so the dingy could only go so far, leaving a fair stretch of beach for us to wade through. Turns out, Jacob's host parents were waiting for us on the beach and so we had to meet them fresh out of the water. I found it difficult to be taken seriously when I look like I've just come from a shipwreck: I was wading calf-deep in sandy muck, wearing a bathing suit with a giant laundry sack stuffed with me and Maggie's belongings slung over my shoulder. I looked a little more like a beached mermaid who had just pillaged a lovely ship than a sweet American visitor who merits an invitation into one's home.

One good reason why traveling is exhausting:
A list of where I’ve slept each night of the past week:
Day 1: caravan
Day 2: catamaranDay 3: Jacob’s host parent’s house
Day 4 AND 5: my homey Gilly and Greg bed!
Day 6: hotel in Rotorua
Day 7: caravan
Tonight: somewhere in Wellington
See?

The great news is that some of those nights were spent with the Lentz family, which made those nights a blast. I’ve included a Lentz Family Pic for your viewing pleasure. They arrived on Sunday and we took them to our favorite beach. Then they took the Shine family out for dinner where we had a lovely evening. the next day we all went to Rotorua, a town built run on geothermal energy that smells like sulphur. The smell is admittedly off-putting; however, the thermal vents, boiling mud pools, and geysers make you far more focused on your eyes than your nose. Now they are exploring the South Island and I’m making my way down in our car. We’ll have a happy reunion at Carolyn’s house in Nelson on Saturday.

lessons learned

I’ve been thinking about apple-picking a lot since stopping. This might be because I still feel the ache in my spine and can’t turn my head it’s full rotation, but I think that it is also because it has been the one unpleasant section of our time in New Zealand, so certainly there must be something to learn from it.

The most obvious lesson, which I realized early on, was that even tasks that hard have a bright side. For instance, despite that every day was really really hard work for really really poor pay, I laughed hard and long at some point every day. Living with Maggie, Malcolm and Lindsay was always fun. One day Maggie found an apple blossom still in bloom on her tree and she brought it over to me and when I smelled it it was so fresh and sweet. I realized that that was the first moment that day that I’d actually felt happy, and I was refreshed by the realization that pieces of such simple beauty can spark happiness. Thank goodness for that.

I’ve also realized another lesson with an unexpected link to my learnings during my time in South Africa. While I was in Cape Town I worked for SAEP, an organization that worked on environmental education programs in township high schools. I entered that experience gung-ho about the possibilities for environmental change after classes at Carolina that taught us how the simplest technologies and behavioral changes can lead to critical improvements in environmental health. Once I got there and started trying to teach, I realized how any unrealistic and unfair it is for us in the developed world to impress our environmental standards on those in impoverished situations. I often use the example of expecting someone who cannot afford electricity, plumbing, or clean water to invest in compact florescent light bulbs. Perhaps you could teach them to throw trash in trash cans instead of the streets, but that depends on trustworthy infrastructure and governmental organization that so many places lack. So in that case I learned through observation that poverty and environmental health are inextricably linked.

I did not expect to expand upon that lesson during my year in New Zealand. General world knowledge of NZ tends to be about sheep, Lord of the Rings, or how great it is at being Green with a capital “G.” Turns out, there are some really disappointing things, like a total lack of public recycling, that crack its Green façade. There are still many ways in which it is ahead of the U.S. in environmental health, but it isn’t perfect either. Anyway, that was more observation. Then, I started apple-picking and living in that caravan. That’s when I learned through experience how poverty lends itself to environmental negligence. (I know that my “poverty” is not comparable to most of the world’s impoverished in any realistic way, but it was close enough to generate some empathy.) It is all part of the package of being exhausted, having limited options, and sacrificing some basic principals for the necessity of making a little money. For instance, our caravan was equipped with a “kitchen” sink of sorts, but that sink drain emptied directly onto the ground outside our window. So anything that went down that drain, from water to toothpaste to oatmeal, collected in a little pile of gunk on the ground outside our window. At first this seemed disgusting and we would force ourselves into the shed sink where are least our waste was hidden from us and we could tell ourselves that it was cleanly disposed of. It is amazing how easily I can convince myself that my waste ceases to exist once I can’t see it. That worked for a few days, but as we got more and more tired we got more and more lazy. Eventually it got to the point where any waste that might go down that sink drain might as well go straight out the window. So while we sat around our caravan we’d just toss apple cores or avocado skins right out the window, leaving the outside resembling more of a caveman’s lair than a welcoming home. Sure the things we tossed were biodegradable and blah blah blah - we just know a little better than to throw the other stuff our the window. But it is that mentality that scares me. We were just one throw away from becoming people who are completely negligent of their waste because we are tired and lack proper means of disposal. Apparently “knowing better” doesn’t cut it. Just eating the apples we worked with everyday is another example. They are covered in poison and we’d just munch away because it is a free, fast option. Free and fast were the most important, because that enabled us to save money while making money (not paying for that food and being able to keep picking instead of taking a break to eat.) It wasn’t McDonald’s, but you can see how it could be in different circumstances.

What’s almost more upsetting is how that work led me to abandon my basic moral code time after time. You are only supposed to pick from your side of the tree. At first I strictly picked the apples that were clearly mine. But after my side being raided time and time again by those ahead of me on the other side, I learned that my crates filled a lot faster when I stretched across the wire a little further. I felt guilty every time, but I didn’t stop. Also, the bosses were so much nicer to us English-speaking Americans than all of the other workers. In fact they were downright nasty to most of them. But did I stick up for them ever? Did I use my powers of English for good? Nope. That would have made the bosses mean to me, made my job harder, or gotten me fired. I needed the money and made more of it when the bosses liked me, so I stayed quiet. Shame on me.

It was just incredible for me to realize the extent to which one’s behavior relates to one’s wealth. I would love to think that I care about money less than many. But that is because I usually have it. As soon as I was put in a position of desperation, I cared about money more than basic things like respect for both my peers and my environment. It makes sense, but I don’t know that I could ever have recognized that side of myself if I hadn’t lived in a way that made it surface. The thing is, I neither liked nor respected that side of myself; however, I couldn’t blame myself for it. At the time, circumstances seemed to require such behavior. My point is, I’ve got a lot to think about. Somehow I’ve been granted the powers of America, English, relative wealth, education and motivation. Figuring out how to use them is another matter entirely.

Time to say goodbye to apple-picking. What a shame. Yesterday was our last day. In a burst of determination (and lunacy) I wanted to beat my own record, so I picked 5 crates and then wanted to die. (See how HUGE they are?!!!)

So, goodbye rows of apple trees.
Goodbye heavy ladders I can barely lift and 800 lb. crates.
Goodbye empty bird nests tucked safely in branches of poison.
Goodbye constant scrutiny and criticism from a boss who wonders how we endure a Muslim president!
Goodbye sweaty buckets that make you stink like you’ve only ever backpacked and never ever showered.
Goodbye acute shoulder and back pain and wounds that never heal.
Goodbye 5:30 wake-up calls and 8:30 bed times.
Goodbye shoebox house with lovely friends inside and shed house of Crazians!

Now we head to Auckland for two days, during which we will get to go sailing with our friend Jacob and THEN we get to see Tom and Alice and Marc Lentz!!!! Come one, come all!

Maggie and I have finally accomplished daily earnings of minimum wage! Hooray! This is a huge accomplishment, considering the fact that it means we each pick 3,000 pounds of apples each day. Surely we have super strength by now. Unfortunately everyone we are with shares this strength, so we haven't gotten to test ours quite yet.

One of my favorite things about our current living situation is our 3 neighbors, Eddie from Korea, Isaac from China, and Kota from Japan. We call them the "crazians" and hope that they have an equally inappropriate, friendly name for us. Their English is great, though part of the fun is how many pieces of our conversation are lost in translation's great abyss. For example, this is a snippet from a conversation Kota and I had this morning (with a brief cameo by Malcolm):

R: Kota, when we are in Auckland together, are you going to hang out with me and Maggie?
K: (furrowed brow) Hang out? I do not know this hang out?
R: You don't know 'hang out'? Like, you know...hang out.....um....
Malcolm: Like chillax!
K: (blankness, clearly. starts typing it into his little electronic translator.) H-A-N-G....
......to leave? leave with?
R: No! Hang out. Like to do something with. Like if I sit on this bench with you now, I'm hanging out with you. Or if we go out to dinner we are hanging out. Just being with people. So are you going to?
K: Hang out? I don't know...

See? It doesn't always work, but most of the time it's great. And I'm sure he'll hang out with us in the end. Yesterday we came home from work and they had "decorated" their "house" with a bunch of paua shells and chalk and a sign that said "Welcome Home." It was a great surprise to come home to. AND! Eddie taught us how to make Korean pancakes, which we first loved in Auckland, so we are pleased to hold the secrets.

Happy birthday today to Malcolm - we gotta go try to figure out how to get a slip-n-slide on the beach. And happy almost coming here to the Lentz fam! We can't WAIT!!!!!!

love.

i took a freakin' chill pill!!!

Ok, it has been a few days since I wrote that last post, but I’m just getting to post it. I’ve had some time to cool down and offer a sunnier outlook. Don’t get me wrong - apple-picking is still terrible. But day one Maggie and I got 4 bins together, the next day 5, the next day 6. Granted we have to get 8 together to make min. wage, but the last day and a half of the work week we were put on other tasks around the orchard and paid on hourly since we had picked all of the most pickable apples, so at least we made a little money. We didn’t even have to work on Saturday and I never knew a weekend could feel so long. It rules.
Napier might be my favorite town thus far in NZ. It’s claim to fame is an Art Deco theme that is vaguely present in the main shops and streets of the town. On one weekend every year they have an Art Deco Festival during which everyone in the town dresses up in their finest Art Deco garb and hangs out down town. That festival just so happens to be this weekend, which is just the luckiest timing. There are old cars everywhere and ladies in lipstick and gloves and hats with lacy parasols and pearls. Kids in suspenders and men in suits with canes and vests. Last night we came into town to witness the festivities and it was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Everyone was doing it. As Maggie pointed out, it didn’t feel like Halloween because it was such a uniform theme. It felt like the four of us (who didn’t dress up because our traveller’s budgets don’t allow for play-clothes) had simply stepped into another time period. Malcolm said that he kept expecting the kids to run up to us and try to sell us newspapers or something because you just couldn’t quite accept that they were just normal, modern children. It was crazy. Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop wearing running clothes and typing on a laptop, but everyone around me is wearing boas and hats or suspenders and bowties. It makes me nostalgic for things I never even experienced.

Tomorrow it is back to work, which will unfortunately be painful and non-profitable. For the moment, I’ve got to just people-watch. There is so much to see!

apples of wrath

We’ve started picking apples. We’ve since asked ourselves repeatedly what on earth we were thinking when we approached this new task with such gusto. I wish I remembered, but two days of picking has made it impossible to understand any bright sides to the business. I suppose we were thinking that we need money. And that maybe it sounds a little….fun? It’s sort of a romantic idea, really. We were young and idealistic then. Here is our older, wiser, more realistic picture:

I live in a caravan in an apple orchard. I share this caravan with Maggie, Malcolm and Lindsay. A caravan is like a trailor, but only one room and considerable smaller than any room of any given trailor. It has an oven with alarmingly similar size and effectiveness of Easy Bake ovens. It has a sink with a foot pedal to pump up the water. That’s my favorite feature because it adds an element of humor to the ordinary glass of water. When the water runs dry, you just hook up the garden hose and fill up the tank! So convenient! We have ants and flies, but Maggie has honed her fly-swatting skills, so the fly problem is almost a pleasure for her. All this is our very own (to share with each other) for relatively cheap rent! There is a mug in our “cupboard” that says “You are nobody until somebody loves you.“ We have three neighbors, all of whom share a single bunkhouse room. One is from Korea, one from China, and one from Japan. They are all really nice and more amazing by the day, as you will soon learn. We all share a bathroom and kitchen. The only really unfortunate thing about our set up is that the big refridgerator is located in the bathroom, so you don’t have access to food if any one of the seven people living here are using the bathroom or shower. It’s really too bad, considering we are all only ever home (instead of at work) to eat and bathe.

All of us pick apples at a different orchard. My roomies and I all work for and Enza orchard, which is one of the major NZ fruit suppliers. We are their first ever American workers. A bunch of trail-blazers! We work from 7:30 to 4:30, Monday through Saturday. We are paid based on how much we pick, not on an hourly wage, which we all mistakenly thought would make us rich because of our astounding determination and work ethic. Wrong. We were wrong. Before I tell you how it works, let’s play a game! Given the fact that NZ minimum wage is $12.50/hr and we work for 9 hours, guess how many pounds of apples each one of us would have to pick in one day to make minimum wage. Guess.
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Did you guess? Seriously, just guess a number of pounds.
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Answer: 3,000.

That’s right, folks. Me, myself and I will have to pick 3,000 pounds of apples each day just to make minimum wage. I hope this seems as crazy as it feels in my back muscles right now.

So you get paid between 25 and 40 dollars for each crate that you pick, depending on how difficult that variety is to pick. Generally it is about 30 per crate. Believe it or not, a crate is 800 pounds of apples. Yesterday (day 1) Maggie and I each picked 2 crates. Today, we worked as a team and picked 5 crates. Our team goal for tomorrow is 6. Remember how I said our neighbors are amazing? They each pick 6 crates by themselves each day. The best pickers pick even more than that. I, however, am one of the worst pickers, thus I don’t know if I have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever making it to minimum wage. I have three weeks. We’ll see.

We carry around a bucket strapped to our front that holds about 50 pounds of apples. When you fill it, you walk to your crate and empty it and as you work a man on a tractor comes by every so often and moves your crate further down your row. You have to carry an incredibly heavy tripod ladder and climb to your very-near death on every tree, which takes forever and makes you pray, actually pray to God, that He will use his divine powers to deliver you a solid set of knee-pads. Once an hour or so the bosses, Steve and Mark, come check your crate and tell you if you need to fix something and throw out bad apples. So while you are trying to fill it, there are people simultaneously tossing apples out of your crate as if they were merely beer cans on the floor the morning after a keg party. I try to remain positive, but it is hard to ignore such demoralization. Our backs and shoulders KILL. Today at lunch Maggie and I had to take pain killers just to make it through to the end. When we get off work it is all we can do to shower, cook dinner and watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Not because we like it, but it comes on when we eat dinner and we aren’t capable of doing much else. Everyone is in “bed” reading by 8. Party on.

I so didn’t expect it to be this hard. But now I’m forced to admit that I am lucky. I’m lucky that I’m earning money for my on-going vacation, rather than for an entire family’s food. I’m lucky that living in a caravan with 3 other people is fun and adventuresome because usually I live in houses. It isn’t embarrassing or unsafe or depressing, just good silly fun. I’m lucky that I’m young enough to be ok with this life. I’m lucky that I probably don’t have to spend my whole life working such strenuous labor jobs. I’m lucky to speak English and even luckier to be well-educated. I have options, so this is all an adventure, without having to be my reality for very long.

Tonight on Who Wants to be a Millionaire a young woman won $20,000. When asked what she was going to do with it, she said, “My dad turns 60 in a few weeks, so I’m going to throw him a great party!” We did some calculating. We would need to pick 560,000 pounds of apples to throw that party. It better be one hell of a party.