Adventures in Piha

Yesterday (Saturday), we were finally settled in enough that we could head out from the city and see some of the awesome nature stuff, which was the entire point of our coming to this strange country where they spell center with the last two letters swapped and everyone puts avocado on everything.

We were already renting a car to take care of some errands that were a bit difficult using public transit (chief among them: the purchase of a BBQ grill), so we got our errands done in a brutal 5 hour retail marathon and headed out to the West.

Our chosen destination was Piha, a small beach town on the west coast, not far from Auckland:

View Larger Map
After a few navigational adventures, we finally made it to the beach, where we immediately determined that our hiking boots had been a bad idea and ditched them so that we could walk across the black sand beach to stand in the surf. At this point, we somewhat regretted not bringing swim wear.

However, there was plenty of awesome scenery on which to climb, especially Lion Rock, which was a land mark of some significance to the Maori people who lived here.

We climbed up as high as we could, before the "Danger: You Will Die Horribly If You Go Past This Sign" sign (that may not be what the sign actually said, but you get the gist), and got a pretty breathtaking view of the surrounding area.

After climbing down, we decided to secure ourselves a nice patch of beach from which to watch the sunset (which was one of the goals of the trip). We found such a place and hunkered down for some people (and dog) watching while the sun slid towards the horizon.

The Kiwifruit Kiwi paid us a visit, which was a little surprising, given how far we had traveled. I suspect that he stowed away in our car for the trip out, then went and played in the sand dunes while Jen and I were on Lion Rock.



Then we got the payoff: Sunset over the Pacific.

KiwiFruit Kiwi Photo Essay

This KiwiFruit Kiwi Essay has been made possible by Gabe and Jess.

Adventures in Cooking Upsidedown

So, as Jen mentions below, last night I tried to make minestrone. We headed to the local food stores (went to a separate store for veggies, which was had a good selection of locally grown produce for very low prices) where I ran into a bit of a surprise. Nowhere could I find, in the entire grocery store, either stock or broth or bullion or consume of any flavor. None. Nadda. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

This makes my minestrone recipe, which has as primary ingredients a couple of the above options. The closest I could find was a prepackaged "beef broth soup" envelope, which was a sad substitute. I soldiered on valiantly, however, and decided that the needed flavour could be obtained with the addition of a beer (Monteith's Black Beer, if you were curious).

It was only partially successful.

Locally grown produce: A+
Improvised beer-based broth: C
Total Grade: B

Cold Food Storage! But alas no internet...

Hey All,

Figured that it has been more than a week, so better just give a quick update about us not being dead or anything. We have been frantically working on our house and on filling it up with needed stuff like couches and a table and FINALLY a refrigerator! There is nothing like basking in the glow of cold food storage when you have gone for more than a week without it! The inaugural meal of perishable food was burgers, but last night it was Scott's signature minestrone, mmmmmmmm! We are nearing complete moved-in-ed-ness, which will be completely undone when the builders tear out our living room wall to put in french doors out to our brand new deck! This will wreak havoc, but we were lucky to have moved in before all the improvements, because the rent would undoubtedly have gone up after them. We are also dealing with a slight ant invasion at the moment despite are being extremely meticulous with garbage, food, and dishes...grumble...
My classes are starting to weigh heavily and I am currently struggling to keep my head above water and have just added a study group and a bunch of helpful seminars given by the Student Learning Center to the mix which will make my free time a bit limited in the near future, so it will likely be Scott posting for a while...providing we get internet access at home anytime soon! Another grumble...
Scott is going to fencing tonight for the first time at the Recreation Center on campus, so that should be interesting. I will be sure to tell him to give a full report on Kiwi's with swords.
Before I sign off for a bit, I do want to advertise that Earth Hour is coming up on Saturday, March 28th, at 8:30pm for anyone interested in loving the earth a bit. All it requires you to do is to shut off all lights and all possible electrical appliances (like the TV) for one hour (8:30pm to 9:30pm) to save a little energy and help sponsor awareness of global power consumption. This has been a public service announcement sponsored by Jen.

Cheers!
Jen (& Scott)

Mouses and Classes and Utilities Oh My!

Hey all!

I'm here at the U A (not the U of A, according to the sweatshirts in the student bookstore) and taking advantage of free internet instead of doing my homework, so unfortunately no pictures today.

On the home-front, moved in over the weekend and started a deep-cleaning process that is still basically stymied by what we discovered in the kitchen. In addition to odd, old "cooling" vents to the outside in 2 of the cabinets, there was also a significant lack of cleaning between applications of contact paper in one of the drawers, and a strange odor issuing from the cabinet above the water heater. Scott had to "borrow" one of the painting crew ladders to reach the top shelf of that particular cabinet and low and behold, the odor seemed to be due to an old rib? bone and a large amount of mouse feces. Yay :( Fortunately, some of it appears quite dessicated, so there is a faint glimmer of hope that there is not still an ongoing rodent issue. We shall see, but we did take that opportunity to break in our new Bissel Bagless vacuum which is awesome!

The bed is still a bit firm despite our purchasing a wool under cushy-thingy and both of us had a bit of trouble sleeping last night. We may need to get another mattress. We also had quite a time purchasing all of our bedding needs as the department store, called Farmers, in our new favorite mall (the New Lynn Mall) was having a very confusing dual sale with some items 2 for 30% off and some items buy one get one free!

Since we moved in on the weekend, we still are lacking in utilities and Scott had to work from the hostel today, and perhaps an internet cafe tomorrow.

Now on the school-front. I just had my first course today and so far I am NOT completely confused. Huzzah! I met 4 people in my class and two had an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science (both from NZ), and two were chemists here on scholarship from Malaysia that had been working in forensic-type labs for several years! They don't have any specific forensic undergraduate courses here, so at least I'm not behind the 8 ball in that respect. My professor in Environmental Forensic Science is nice and it turns out the course is about 50% environmental law (for all of you lawyers and law professors out there). Law, chemistry, and statistics...what have I gotten myself into?

Well, time for dinner here, then back to the house for some more deep cleansing.

Cheers,
Jen (and Scott)