The Longest Saturday Ever

The plan for Saturday was to check something off of our NZ must do list (see right column) seeing as we had been engulfed with buying cars and getting work for the rest of the week.  We decided on the black sand beach Piha on the west coast.  We make our way out west on the motorways and once in the vicinity of the beach find ourselves on winding roads.  Not just any winding roads, these were so convoluted that I couldn't tell you which direction we were driving or where we had come from...but then again I am the directionally impaired one of the group.

We finally break out to the beach and have to pull over to take some scenic pictures.

Now as you can tell from this picture, weather was not ideal.  In fact it had been pouring and raining for our entire drive out to the beach.  We find parking at the beach front and get out to find the sun is just breaking through...what timing!

We wander the beach for a bit and then begin to climb Lion rock (the big one on the left of the photo above).  After a short hike we sit and eat our packed lunch and enjoy the scenery. 

 

                    

We climb back down and walk up and down the beach and then decide to go to the next beach, just south of the Piha.  This one took a little more work to reach, crossing raging rivers (not really raging) and perilous sand dunes (not really perilous) until it opened up into beach and we found a place to sit and observe.  

On the way back we discovered a half buried hut and decided it was too good of a photo opportunity to pass up.

We make our way back home so that Anna and Jackie can go to work for their last "trial" night. Several hours later, I venture on my way into Aukland to meet up with the girls seeing as we have planned to go out afterwards.  At 11:15 when I arrive at La Zeppa, I am informed that they are nowhere near done and so I leave to explore downtown Aukland a bit.  In my hour of time wasting I was accompanied down the street by an older gentleman inquiring as to what I was doing that night, observed the "Turkish" security guard we had met the other night at the wharf tell two attractive women he was from Austria, got a high five from a passerby, and talked to two young gentlemen who were waiting on their friend, and then received the text from the working waitresses that they were done.

I joined them all at the restaurant and we enjoyed some drinks with their coworkers celebrating two birthdays.  After we were kicked out of La Zeppa we headed to K road (the happening place on Saturday nights) and went to a gay bar called "Family". 

Our new friends/coworkers

Now keep in mind we got to this bar at about 2:30am, so it was only logical that we would stay till 5:30am.  After, as we found our way back to Queen St. we encountered several boisterous groups of people one of which commented on the fact we were American, and what else should ensue but a debate about which football team will win the Superbowl? 

Our night ended in Burger King where we acquired various greasy treats, used the bathroom and had some intense conversations with fellow late night (early morning) clubbers. As we left, the sun was on its way up and we made our way to the wharf to catch the 7am ferry and make our way home. Quite the night.

Sunrise from the Wharf

Cheers,

Alissa, Anna and Jackie

Job Updates

It has been brought to our attention that we never explained exactly what it is that we are doing to make a pseudo-living here in NZ. soooo.... while Alissa is out on her first interview for a lifeguarding position, we will take a few minutes to tell you what we are doing.

The restaurant is called La Zeppa and it is in the Central Business District in downtown Auckland. Andrew Clements' long time friends own a few restaurants, and while eating at one of them, we were offered a "trial" at one of the others for last week wednesday-saturday nights.

La Zeppa is a bar and restaurant, that offers amazing tapas and potent drinks. (we get a drink after every shift!) From the minute we started working last Wednesday we were thrown into the middle of everything. On our first nights we learned how to take orders/memorized the menu/delivered drinks.... and by our second night, we were working our own sections of the restaurant alone. On paper, we are SUPER underqualified for this job (everyone has worked for YEARS in the industry), but in practice we are doing really well; if we do say so ourselves. this also proves that its really not so much what you know, but who you know. AND WE GOT OFFERED THE JOBS... we think?...

.... after work Saturday they gave us "congratulations shots" and put us on the schedule for this upcoming week, but never technically said "you got the job"...

soooo. you've got yourselves some waitresses... and hopefully a swim instructor.

here is the site if you want to make some reservations  - www.lazeppa.co.nz

Anna and Jackie getting ready for our first day of work!

And you get a new car! And you get a new car!

We got a new (ok new only to us) car! ...If only Oprah was here to gift it to us.

After test drives of different cars, and of our left side of the road driving skills, we settled on a blue(?), green(?), greyish blue(?) Toyota Sprinter to get us around this lovely country. We are currently accepting suggestions for the car's name. We are thinking it should be a man's name since, as Jackie correctly pointed out, it should be a male car "because we need a man in our lives." Keep in mind this name must start with an S as the model of the car is a Sprinter.

Look how excited we are to be driving our very own vehicle. Its hard to see in the picture but the fun meter is approaching dangerous levels of fun!

The past couple days have been spent getting settled and pulling our new New Zealand lives together. We have been exploring our neighborhood, discovering hidden beaches, wandering through nearby Devonport and Takapuna, and crashing random kids' karaoke parties in the city (no we do not make this stuff up).

The "secret" beach by our house

A view of the volcano we climbed last week...

In addition, we now have New Zealand bank accounts and are working our way up to full team employment! Jackie started yesterday, I start today, and Alissa is hot on the trail of some guarding jobs at local pools.

Oh also, we preformed minor surgery to remove the stitches from Alissa's biospsy this last weekend.
Jackie and I have work tonight wooo. I have no idea what I'm getting myself into but my theme for the day is fake it till you make it.

Sending you all lots of kiwi love,
Anna, Jackie, and Alissa

A blog and three bottles of wine

Here we sit, passing the computer around, 8:15, blasting music, three bottles of wine down, dinner made and eaten, in our own house.

...well kind of our own house... We have moved into the house that we will be house sitting for the next three weeks. 11 Seacliffe Avenue, Belmont, NZ 0622. (Feel free to send us all the love and packages you would like for the next three weeks) Everyone has unpacked their bags and taken over a room, spread their things out, and started to be settled for the first time this trip.

Monday was back into the city for us. We had to head to downtown to meet Jan (the woman whose house we are watching.) Anna test drove our first car, (almost dying only twice), made our way back to see the house we are now living at, and making our way back to the Mulholland household before we got caught running home in the dark to make it home.

Auckland City is a lot like Seattle. The conversation has been had a few times so far about how strange it is moving out of the suburbs of a city that is SO much like the city that we are moving in to. Life here is a lot like it is in Seattle, but as if we were living right downtown... and with a bit of a English twist; Tea all the time, hanging out with mates, and accents we have to strain to catch sometimes. Auckland from the Ferry

Tuesday we woke up with high expectations- renting a car, getting a few hours out of the city to go hiking and swimming in the ocean, and staying at a hostel. We failed MISERABLY. ....... so to the beach we went. We hung on the beach, read magazines, walked around the town, and made our way back to the Mulholland household for dinner. They took such good care of us. (mother, your good deeds are being passed on, and we are on the other end of everything.)

Wednesday we headed to Rangitoto, an island off the mainland of Auckland, the youngest volcano in the region; only 600 years old. We packed lunch and a bottle of wine of course, and headed upward to the summit. At the top, we met three women- one from Victoria, Canada- one from Manhatten, New York- and the last from Scotland. All of our friends from New Zealand so far are from out of the country. Friendship requests are happening daily though. Whenever our phone rings... we know it has to be one of the three adult friends we have saved in our cellphone. (In other words, we're getting too popular in this country.) It was though, our first successfully planned day thus far. From wake up to arriving home, we did everything right. Caught the correct buses, ferries, walked the right directions, and came home without a single hitch. SOLID. Exploring the Lava Caves

College Day at the Volcano

Thursday we moved into Jan's house. Mother Debbie Mulholland (happily) dropped us off at our new place of residence, hugged us goodbye, and sped away. I think they were ready to have us out of their house. Later that night after dropping off our bags, we went to a taping of a NZ television show called 7Days back downtown Auckland. (the program recaps the last 7 days in news/pop culture and a panel of comedians comment/joke about clips taken from the past week. The son of the Mulholland family worked for the station and hooked us up with tickets)Preparing to Enjoy the 7Days showing...behind a car downtown Auckland... Money can't buy class.

We slept in today, caught up on emails, resumes (CV's they're called here) and unpacked our things. We took the bus into town to grab groceries....and made our way home for this dinner/drinking/blogging event.

We miss you all.... kind of... like how you would miss your parents if you they were leaving town when you were in high school and you had a big fat party planned in a few days... not that we ever did that.

Love.
Jackie, Anna, and Alissa.

International Fashions with Jackie, Anna, and Alissa

We would like to take this time to interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you a new segment that we like to call; International Fashions with your Travelling Fashionistas.

Most of you know, if not Alissa, then definitely Anna and Jackie as some of the most fashionable people on Earth; always hip to the current trends as the young people might say.

This segment will be about noticing, pointing out, documenting, and then judging various fashions that we find throughout the world. As fashion is the most important indicator for success in life that we can find in our modern world. Believe us, there are two econ majors in the this group and our mothers will vouch for our fashion sense.

This week we bring you the latest fashions from the Auckland airport. This style is applicable not only on the individual but on the family level as well. In our traveling experience (which, let me tell you, is extensive) we find it best to dress like your traveling companions to avoid confusion in the busy international airport terminals that you are bound to encounter. To this end, we commend the following family on their forward thinking and amazing fashion sense. Kudos!Cheers!
Anna, Alissa, and Jackie

For the Love of the Father...

...its our first weekend in New Zealand!! We mark our first weekend here with some extensive exploration...of the Aukland area. After our Saturday rendezvous with the Clements' family and a lazy Sunday morning at the Mulholland's residence we accepted William's offer to escort him in a drive to the farm to check on the horses.

We took a scenic route through the Whangaparaoa peninsula on the way and stopped for a very fancy lunch at none other than...McDonalds. In all honesty though, the McDonalds in New Zealand are way more decked out than those in the states--nice decor, seperate McDonalds cafe, and they take your order in line when it gets too long.After our extensive feasting, we departed on our way to the farm...a five-hundred acre estate complete with four-wheel drive offroading courses. William keeps the family horses here at his friend's property and checks up on them every now and then. As he leases various properties in the area, William knows his way around and we make our way through the farm off of the off roading paths :) In this fashion we approach a particularly steep and slippery slope in which William declares he needs to make a run at it. We back the truck up and on the first try barely make it half-way...and so we back up further. This run was a little more successful, just as we were about to crest the hill we slid out and began to slide horizontally down the hill and with William's clutch (haha) driving we recover and get another go...third times a charm and we finally make it over the hill to continue on and greet the horses.On the way home William feels the compulsion to pull over and turn around, and after the second or third time we all realize he is scoping out future scrap metal endeavors. With several pit stops, we finally make it home for dinner--a plethora of meat and potatoes Irish style. Following dinner Debbie proposes a beach walk, and so all the girls pile into the car and we're on our way. To top the night off we go to a local pub at Bayswater and grab a drink, as well as the inspiration for a late night poker game with the family.

Love,
Alissa, Anna, and Jackie

Potentially Homeless in the Land Down Under

Jackie, Alissa, and I have officially arrived in Kiwi-land as I, and I'm pretty surely only I, call it in my head from time to time. We are far from settled in one place but we are beginning to feel that that is going to become the norm of this trip. Something that is both an exciting prospect and keeps us on our toes.

The flight down was uneventful and even went by pretty quickly for 12.5 hours worth of flying. Things were going a little too smoothly though as we turned up at the airport with zero out of two people waiting for us at the airport to meet us. After a quick scramble on our new Kiwi phone and the internet we at least had a place to go with all our stuff and a place to stay while we figured out housing.

We are currently staying at the family home of one of the girls I worked with this summer. Debbie, the mom is hilariously Irish and incredibly nice. She uses the word lovely about every other sentence, calls us pet, and has hilarious Irish exclamations such as "For the love of the Father!", or something like that. Her daughter Kathryn is 15, irish dances, and is also incredibly nice. William the dad is much quieter than his wife, very blunt and cynical, but has been very hospitable. Gary, their oldest is the same age as us and works for the Kiwi equivalent of our MTV. He's taken us out on the town and introduced us to some of his friends which has been nice to get to know the locals.

Its incredibly hard to believe that we have only been here for only two full days. Our first day we went out to lunch with Debbie and out to a bar with Gary later that night. His friends that he introduced us to were really funny and we all enjoyed making fun of each others accents and ended the night with a dance party at one of their houses.

Yesterday we met up with good family friends the Clements for lunch. We started getting a taste for all of the exciting adventures we may be finding ourselves on other the course of the next couple of months. Black water rafting? Rappelling into a huge cave? Skydiving? Bungee jumping? Working for a paintball company? House sitting near the beach? Yes please!

But seriously; we are going to house sit. Andrew Clement's secretary is going out of town for three weeks so she has been kind enough to offer up her house for us to hang out in (and care for her cat) while she is gone. We are really excited about having a place of our own if only for a little bit and not have to worry about imposing on the Mulholland family.

Our plans for now is to not rent and skip from place to place as they open up. (Don't worry, Andrew has a lot of ideas on how to make that work). We're hoping to get some day trips in this weekend and next week we are going to start meeting with people about getting jobs.

Hope everyone is doing well. Look for a good story about learning how to drive on the left side of the road in the upcoming week. We are hoping to have a video to accompany that one.

Love to you all
Anna, Jackie, and Alissa