Weekend

I was chatting with a good friend from Oregon the other night. He was mentioning all the photos on my blog.. I must point out to all the people who actually come here to see what we are up to that I selectively post. I don't have photos of the doctors appointments, cleaning the house, the heart ache, and the really really hard days. I mentioned this to my friend, and he wisely pointed out that things can't be all that bad if you have this many good moments to selectively post about.

well put mate

So here are some more selective photos from the past week. As I nurse a lovely white wine (villa maria sauvignon blanc from marlborough- - YUM!) I look back on a week that exhausted me and see that yes, I am living a good life full of wonderful moments.

Plus, I have this new fancy smancy camera Traveler bought me for Rowing Nationals. It takes great photos, fits in my pocket (mostly) and has a kick a** 10x zoom.


Oh I thought that photo actually showed the camera.. oh well, you can just see the mess that is my room and my fun new rowing vest shirt I wear nearly everyday.

On Saturday night we went to the Jackson Street fiesta. People here often pronouns tortilla 'tort till ya' but they seem to pronounce fiesta ok. Here were some folks who didn't even leave their house for the street party...

Traveler caught a street musician with some friends:
And this kid tried to get into the act with his magic leg...



I am afraid of magicians and clowns, so I went to watch the people playing with unicycles and fire... because I find that strangely calming and unlikely to involve much audience participation.
Then the bands started... this is a converted bus. It is an old city bus that now folds out into a stage. I LOVE THIS IDEA.... In front is a bunch of people with white clothes on that do the greatest purcusion and get everyone dancing in the street....
Then there was the 'supergroup' that includes NZ's Fat Freddy's Drop. I had a great couple dances with Traveler and enjoyed the music, lyrics, and atmosphere.
The next day we attacked the problem of the tomato crop... SALSA!!!!
And our little wee pepper plant that was growing beneath our dying xmas tree (yes I did get rid of that a few weeks ago) has produced its first pepper... and in the 2 days since picking it there have been 3 more! You wouldn't guess it, but this pepper spiced a vat of salsa single handedly. Yes, it was that spicy!!!

We also have a foal at our house. It is our neighbors, but I really enjoy watching Traveler work his horse magic with the animals.


We also took some time to hang out at the creek at the bottom of our landlord's property. I must say we very much lucked out (US meaning, not NZ meaning which I gather is more like 'i lucked out at the races and lost all my money) with securing this rental. I hope we bring them a bit of fun and joy too... we did throw some hay for them this week. I still don't know if the hay bales are less heavy here or if rowing has made me that much stronger!I did ice my ankle which has been giving me heaps of issues this year. The dr says I have very weak hips, hmmm at least ACC is covering my treament. Got to love universal health and accident coverage!


And then it was time for a few beers and salsa on our deck with the international folks staying at the big house. I know.. suffer suffer suffer:)


And since I have a month off of rowing, I had to go down to the Petone waterfront to at least walk along the water. The water was so calm and lovely and almost painful to see and not row on, but I suspect my coach has a valid point about taking a bit of rest for the body now and then.
We even got to enjoy the fine company of Linde from Holland on our walk. Our rental not only comes with a view but fine company that passes through the big house.
So yes, although my weeks are sometime difficult and my heart heavy, I am very glad that I have such wonderfully photographic moment interspersed. It could be worse and I am very very glad that it is not.

And for those of you that email and comment, I really do love hearing from people. I know my blog is a bit lame at times, but I do it so that those I left back in the States have a way of experiencing what we are experiencing first hand down under.

Much love,
Shannon

PS do excuse the typos... it is my signature voice, but I've also had a couple drinks tonight:)

Rowing...

A whole month before I can start rowing again.  All I can do is look at photos. Here is one from the internet. My four is in the background (back when we were still winning the race) and the other four from my club is in the foreground.

Rowing Nationals

As many of you know, I've been quite busy the past few months training for rowing. Last week we headed down for Nationals in Twizel. It is a really amazing place for rowing with green-blue glacial water in the high country of the South Island. My four won a bronze medal and we were in the lead for a good portion of the race. Our eight was only 4 seconds behind 3rd place. It was a great season for me and I am already missing it!

Here are a few photos:

Photo phone moments

And because I can't seem to do anything coherent or sensible in my cold induced brain fog, here are some random photos from my phone camera. My real camera was broken as I took a photo of Mt Taranaki a few days ago (and one post ago). Perhaps it is time to invest in a new one. Just like I did the week before leaving Boston when I killed that camera by dropping my keys on to the screen. I am a very good technology tester, so long as you are looking to test out rugedness... phew that I mostly use a toughbook for work now!

Photo 1 - Ivy. This is the view from my work parking spot. It means a lot to me because well this is what the cover of the marketing book for my college looked liked. I didn't much like my university at times and I have a strong association with the phrase 'bait and switch' with this image. Lately I am really liking Ivy becaus I associate it with my cool job and well yes it is a weed, but it is kind of cool in a way. And I love the way the world Ivy sounds.

Photo 2 - This is my breakfast today. It was shared with lots of people who just showed up to eat with me. Yay living in the country. All the main ingredients were from my garden. My free range eggs from my birthday chickens were the core bit, then fresh green beans, tomatos, swiss chard, basic... I did toss in some store bought onions and garlic though...

Photo 3 - I love my chickens, but I don't take them camping with me.... or to rowing regattas
Photo 4 - My rowing teammates play a game called SPOT IT. It is very simple. Yell spot it and hit the person hear you if you are first to spot a yellow vehicle. It helsp that a main courier company here paints their vans yellow. I like the parking meter bouquet in front myself.
Photo 5 - This is a number 3 bus with no windows going to a bus graveyard. I may have even riden that exact bus when I used to live in the suburb the 3 bus served. I see the most interesting things driving in the middle of the day.



Photo 6 - Like seeing this old fashioned truck full of wood when I was ducking into a shop to buy a new shirt between seeing kids because the first kid spilled stuff all over me and well I didn't really wanted to meet the second kid's mother for the first time splattered with goo. Photo 7 - Yes I don't take my chooks camping with me, but I do love it when they are all waiting at my door for me to come up. It is a very sheltered spot, but I think they just want a chance to get an extra round of food.

recent adventures - dedicated to Laura, Pete and FINLEY!

This post is dedicated to my dearest friend Laura and her husband Pete who just welcomed into the world their wonderful son Finley. I hear Laura is looking for posts here while she is on Mat leave, and so I submit the following thrown together post as I nurse my cold and prepare to fly to Twizel for Rowing Nationals.

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Last weekend was Sevens weekend in Wellington. People dress up to attend the rugby matches. Anything goes, the only rule is to get a bunch of mates together and wear matching outfits. Always entertaining!I spent the weekend up in Wanganuni, about 3 hours north of here along the west coast of the North Island. It is a charming town, although it seems like most of the stores are always closed and I had the worst meal ever here the night before I left. It was nearly $20 for an all you can eat Mongonlian Grill... and well I couldn't even eat and just walked out. Oh well, live and learn.

I was there to row not eat anyways. And row we did. My fours team took 1st place and our eight didn't have a chance to race due to poor water conditions each afternoon.
Actually, I think we did more watching and sunburning than we did rowing...


As is our informal tradition, we stayed in a school hall near the river. I kept looking for the basketball hoops, but I guess basketball and school hall aren't as linked here.

I thoroughly enjoyed my new Christmas present from Traveler to pass the down time. Podcasts from NPR are a godsend when spending hours on end listening to teenagers verbally process life. I find both fascinating, but like to have a chance to alternate between the two forms. Kind of like I like switching between cooked and raw food throughout a meal.

And of course we went grocery shopping where I snapped this photo at Pak N Sav, park of their 'we save you money' campaign. Trolleys are shopping carts. Some use the word trundler as well for this thing. I just miss the bar to rest your foot on that are on American ones.
On the drive home I saw a llama on the back of a truck.. you know, as one does.

The next day I was flying back up the coastline for work. The plan was to fly over Wanganui up to New Plymouth. Unfortunately New Plymouth was covered in fog ALL DAY. So we landed in Wanganui and then were bused north. I was so glad to see this the following day because it meant the ceiling was plenty high enough for me to fly out.

North Island Champsionships

This weekend I was up at Lake Karapiro, home of NZ rowing. Many NZ regattas are held here and next year the world rowing championships will be held here... I just signed up for their volunteer pool, anyone else want to?

It was our first time rowing with buoys (which happens to be a homonym in Kiwi English the word boys, leading my teenage teammates to distinguish between 'penis boys' and 'water buoys' just to make sure everyone is on the same page. I think the fact that their voices tend to become more high pitched whenever boys are talked about makes it perfectly cleared, but hey I guess extra information isn't too dangerous in this case!)
We also frequently walked by the high performance center:

Complete with tree storage and a shipping container that I assume is to transport boats to overseas events:

The attached toilets had open plumbing that allowed you to see the water flowing from the sink, around the room, and down the drain.

Have I mentioned that I love how nonpretentious sports are here. And really, they still are churning out Olympic rowers so who says things need to be flash to make it work!?
And it was pretty cool to see Mahi Drysdale walking around with his sports bag getting ready for races that were happening as we were rowing up for our own races.

We also had a bit of time to just chill out by the water.


Then the long drive home through the desert road at dusk. It is so lovely at that time of night.

looking east
looking west


looking straight on down the road toward home