Seafood Festival

This weekend we went to the Auckland Seafood Festival. We started the morning off with Mimosas and then walked to the fish market where we enjoyed wine and different types of seafood from area restaurants. The weather was great, so we stayed at the festival all day long until we met up with some additional friends for dinner and a play in the evening.

This morning New Zealand "sprung forward" for daylight savings. Now we are one hour further ahead of everyone back home. Horray for Spring long sun-shining days!

Eruption

Big news down here in New Zealand. There was a volcano eruption last night.

Remember how Erin and I went skiing on Mt. Ruapehu a couple months ago which is an active volcano. WELL...last night it erupted, a pretty scary thought for sure. Thankfully only 1 person was injured, but some of the pictures are pretty cool. Please check out the following link.

On Sunday, the weather was amazing! We were very excited that Spring had finally arrived that we decided to pack a picnic and go for a walk up One Tree Hill. One Tree Hill is a dormant volcanic cone and was the site of the largest prehistoric Maori settlement in the area. One Tree Hill was named after the solitary tree that was placed on its summit in 1640. Protestors have attacked the succession of single trees, so the last one was removed in 2000.

When we finally reached the top of One Tree Hill we were very sad because the weather "turned to custard" (that's a new saying I've learned here), it started to rain and our picnic quickly came to an end! I was lucky enough to snap a quick photo of Jeremy at the top and the view of the city.




After we reached the base of One Tree Hill, we decided to drive to the top of Mount Eden which is the highest volcanic cone in Auckland and is 643 feet tall. The views were great but the rain was coming down hard, so we'll have to go back to get some pictures soon!

Minus 5

Friday night was the last day for a co-worker who was here on secondment from Fiji. He had been here for 21 months and was heading back to the PwC Fiji office. We had a good night out, which took us to many different bars including our first experience at the bar Minus 5 Degrees.

It's an ice bar here in Auckland and there are a few more around New Zealand and Australia. Before you go in you have to bundle up in jackets, gloves, and ladies who have exposed toes (Erin) have to put on booties. We were allowed to stay in there for 30 mins and had 1 drink each. Except for Kaushick who was heading back to Fiji, as you can see from the pictures below, he did a shot of Jagermeister through an ice sculpture.

This weekend I went for a makeup class with my friend Mascha. The class focused on accentuating your eyes. Here is my finished product:

It's a bit much for the day time, but looked nice at night!

The rest of our weekend was spent relaxing and rooting for the All Blacks. They beat Portugal 108 - 13!

Sickness

It's been a tough past two days here for both Erin and myself. On Monday night we made some very nice salads for dinner with smoked Salmon and all sorts of goodies. It tasted wonderful going down, but about 5 hours later it came back up for me. I spent the night in and out of the bathroom and felt terrible. The next morning it hit Erin and she was in and out of the bathroom as well.

We both missed work yesterday and stayed home today as well. It was our first sick days in NZ and the first time we have both been sick at the same time (not fun). Needless to say, we are probably not going to be having Salmon anytime in the near future.

World Cup of Rugby

The World Cup has finally arrived and the NZ is very excited. I know that we have blogged about the All Blacks in the past, but I figured I would give you guys a little refresher.

The All Blacks are the New Zealand National Rugby team. The origin of the name is still up for debate as to whether it came from the color of their uniforms when they first toured the world in 1905 (black with a silver fern) or a spelling mistake in the paper which was writing about how the team was made up of "all backs" (A back is a position on the rugby team). Not only are they ranked number 1 in the world, they are also know for the Maori traditional war dance called the Haka which is performed prior to any match and is awesome to watch.

The Rugby World Cup is in France and I spent my Saturday parked in front of the TV watching various games. It started out at 7:30am watching France v Argentina (Argentina had a big upset). The All Blacks v. Italy started at 11:45pm (NZ crushed them). At 2am in the morning Australia v. Japan started and it wasn't even close, as Japan looked like a little children playing against full grown men. At 4am USA v. England started. I was unaware that the US had a team, but they played pretty well against England who won the World Cup back in 2003. Unfortunately they ended up losing.

So opening weekend for the NFL and the BFL were non-existent for me as I'm fully wrapped up in the opening of the Rugby World Cup. Stay tuned for regular updates.

Who's heard of Panraven?

As you know we just got back from our trip to Fiji which was our Summer Vacation as well as our 1 Year Wedding Anniversary celebration. We had an amazing time and have captured our pictures and experiences using a Panraven album. We have made our album available to the public so you don't have to become a member, but becoming a member has great benefits.

Please click on the link below and it will take you to Panraven where you can view our album. Just click on the page to make it bigger so you are able to read and see the pictures and use the scroll buttons at the bottom to change pages.

Erin and Jeremy's Fiji Trip