Preparations

Every week we head up to Vic University to learn a bit of Italian.

It is slow going for a variety of reasons. I am just so much more into doing things one last time here in New Zealand. Every day I check the water to see if its rowable. I would love to feel comfortable in the single before I am trying to rowing in a shipping lane in Genova. But instead I just make very very modest gains in Italian and rowing and packing and everything else I'm trying to do before I go.

Counting the Days

I've been rather infrequent at posting here... there are a few excuses. The attack of the varied viruses from Swine flu to something that felt a lot like Mono. I quit my job. I started training 2 times a day.

But mostly, I've been preparing myself for our upcoming move to Italy. Yes yes I know, WOW how exciting, but I have to remind you that New Zealand is to me, what Italy seems to be to everyone we meet. Everyone seems to want to live or visit Italy. Even people who live here. I am sure it is lovely, and I am super keen to learn another language, but I LOVE it here and my life here and all that here represents to me.

So for those who haven't heard, my husband has been offered a 3 year post in Italy. I'll be doing a PhD in gesture recognition or something like that in the human machine interface area of the institute. It is all a great adventure.. or something.

Ah well, so now that we have less than a month left in NZ and I can finally think about the move without gut breaking sobs, I am going to try to post a bit more to document for myself these final days.

So today... the Poles going away party.

Our neighbors have been hosting two Polish folks the past month and tonight we enjoyed their food.

The walk up...

The food prep...



And the joy of sharing food around a kitchen island.

Man I'll miss it here.

Wellington Champs

This year we stayed at home and attended the Wellington Champs. It was a lovely sunny day, and the water was nice for the most part...
It started like any other day, well actually a bit earlier at 5:45 because first races were at 6:45. It was a bit stressful in the boathouse. The first crews rowed their boats over to the racing, and while you gotta love getting out of boating rigging and trailer loading, when some of the boats have problems it's tricky when no one is around cuz they are already at the races.

But man, isn't the harbour lovely early in the morning.
I will so miss this. What makes it even nicer is that you know that you get to share it with people you know, that they are waiting for you while you drag yourself out of bed and down the hill to morning training.

Then comes the heat and waiting around of race day.

Here is our coach giving our new coxswain some pointers.

And we eat...
And at this regatta dogs are allowed... too bad that just about when this photo was taken, Traveler accidentally side swiped one of our rower's parent's cars!

Owen hopped in the boat for a 'dry' row to check his feet. And then they raced in our mighty mixed crew... too bad the officials didn't let them acutally race and they had to race down the outside of the course. There was only one other crew in the final for this one, so rather silly that they were turned away at the start.

And the mighty club women modeling their guns and new crew gear.
Not the best of racing for my crews this day, but I still walked away thinking, Man this is the last time I race on our home water with my crew. It's like senior year all over again. Everything feels like a "last."

Horses!!!

BABY horse appeared when we return to our house one day!

kapiti island trip

We finally made it to Kapiti Island.

....Finally...

as in I had one place I really wanted to visit on my list of "MUST DO BEFORE WE LEAVE NZ" I figured one place was a reasonable goal. I also say finally because my friend Susan and I had been talking about doing this for months, and my ability to book a trip was a bit lack luster. But it was lovely.

The native birds come right up to you

.
We went for a guided walk and learned all about the plants, Maori history, animal life, and DOC projects.


There were paths by the sea...

and through the grassy flat lands....And up through the forested steep hills...
And plenty of places to just sit and wait for the birds to come and share some space with you...
The younger set did get a tad restless of sitting and waiting for birds to dazzle them, so we got out my camera and played around with its high burst setting. I had no idea how fun this can be!




We finished up the day playing in the warm sea water.
It has been said that once, in the not so distant past, the water between the island and the mainland -- all 5 km -- was so full of whales that it would keep you up at night!
And the trees were in bloom!
Better still we got to share the experience with our dear friend from Australia!

Stream walk

While our friend Emma was here, we tried to fit in as much wonderful Wellington adventure between my 6 am training and 5 pm training. One day we took her through the Korokoro stream area of Belmont Park. It is really our backyard, and super cool.

A start is looking out at the harbour from the water tower.

First we went down to the falls and checked out the wildlife behind the dam

Trav and Emma were rather into their geometric algebra discussions -- I got a bit a lost somewhere towards the start of them:)





Then we decided to take a shortcut and follow the stream. We knew the stream was easier than going off the trail and it ends up at the bottom of the farm. It was probably less than a km, but it sure was a long km of good fun.