The Ciaccias

We're Published!

2009-10-10T09:32:00.003-04:00

As you know, on March 29, 2009, Jeremy and I set off on the adventure of a lifetime. We travelled for seven weeks through Japan, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, and Germany (with a few other small stops along the way). I kept a journal and Jeremy took thousands of photos. Over the past couple of months, we compiled all of this into a book which is finally finished! If you have some free time (it's almost 200 pages) follow this link to preview our book: Fifty Days of No Work, Simply Fun. Click on the image where it says "Preview Book" and enjoy! (I recommend viewing it in full screen mode so you can read the text.)

Tall Ships

2009-07-11T10:08:00.005-04:00

After way too many days of rain or clouds and cold temperatures, summer may have finally arrived in Boston. (Fingers crossed!) We took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to visit the Tall Ships which are currently on display in Boston Harbor. Jeremy had won 4 "VIP" tickets to the ships last week so we invited Dennis and Dianne to join us. Well, VIP probably isn't the right term, as they decided to give out free tickets to probably everyone in Boston, so it was very crowded! In addition to people, there were so many boats in the harbor trying to get a look at the ships. We were able to board the Russian ship which was the largest in the port, and we were amazed at how young the crew looked.

It was a great afternoon in the sun! That evening Meg and Andy came over and were our first official dinner guests. Meg had to catch a flight at 8:20, so we had a speedy dinner of Jambalaya and home-made mint chocolate chip ice cream for desert. Yummy!

Freedom Trail

2009-06-28T09:05:00.009-04:00

It was an absolutely beautiful day in Boston yesterday. The weather has been pretty bad for the past several weeks, so we took advantage of the great day. Jeremy had suggested earlier in the week that we walk the Freedom Trail, Boston's historical walk through significant sites related to events of the Revolutionary era. The route starts in Boston Common which is by the Public Gardens, where we had our wedding photos taken, so we stopped there to see some of the beautiful flowers first. The trail itself is 3 miles long and takes you through Boston Common to the Massachusetts State House.
Just down the road is the Park Street Church which was built in 1809. Just behind the church is the Granary Burying Ground, established in 1660. Some famous people are buried here are John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin's parents, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. Around the corner from the burying ground is King's Chapel and Burying Ground. This site was originally a tiny church used by the King's men who occupied Boston to enforce British law. After the congregation outgrew the church, a new church was built around the original wood structure, which was then taken apart and the scraps were thrown out the window of the new church. Outside in the burying ground is the town of Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off the Mayflower.

Behind the church is the original site for the Boston Latin School, America's oldest public school. Boston Latin is now located behind Fenway Park. Some famous people who attended the original school include Benjamin Franklin, who was actually a high school dropout!

Further down the road, we visited the Old South Meeting House which was the site for many events leading up to the American Revolution.

Down the street from the meeting house is the Old State House. This is where Massachusetts' first Governor, John Hancock's office was located. The Declaration of Independence was also read from the balcony of the building in 1776. Just outside the building is where the Boston Massacre occurred, resulting in the death of 5 men. The next stop on the tour was Faneuil Hall. It was here that Americans first protested the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act. It was also here that my brother Jake, was officially sworn in as a lawyer in Massachusetts.
After a short walk through Boston's North End, we arrived at Paul Revere's house. Paul lived here with his 16 children after he purchased the house for 53 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence in 1770. It was also from here that he departed on his momentous ride to Lexington.

Also in the North End is Old North Church, Boston's oldest standing church which opened its doors on December 29, 1723. It is still and active Episcopal Church. It was here that two lanterns were hung to warn patriots that the British were coming across the Charles River. (One of by land, two if by sea.)
We stopped for lunch in Charlestown to rejuvenate ourselves for the last few stops on the tour.
The USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides for her strength during the War of 1812. She is berthed in the Charlestown Navy Yard and makes a few trips out to Boston Harbor during the year. The final stop on the trail is the Bunker Hill Monument. The Battle of Bunker Hill is known as the first major battle of the Revolutionary War. We climbed the 294 steps to the top of the tower, which was built in 1842.
We really enjoyed our tour of historical Boston. There were so many sites that we see every day, but never appreciated for the history they held.

Relocation Management Specialist

2009-06-25T23:17:00.001-04:00

We've been back in Boston for almost six weeks now. I can honestly say we have been busy ever since our arrival into Logan Airport! Jeremy started back to work almost immediately (he had a day to rest!) and I've been looking for a job and what I like to call, employed as the Ciaccia's Relocation Manager, getting our life in Boston into order.

We spent our first week living with Jeremy's parents. They were so kind to let us stay with them, as they are renovating their house and don't even have their own bedroom to sleep in! That weekend we went off camping for Memorial Day. This year was the crew's 40th anniversary of camping together. Amazing! (Obviously some of us weren't alive back then.)

Here we are with our shirts from the event:

Here we are, taking Avery, JJ, and Will to the playground. They loved it there!

Our next two weeks were spent living in a hotel about a ten minute walk from our condo. The hotel, The Courtyard Marriott Copley, was great! The staff was very friendly and knew us by our first names almost immediately. They provided us with a fridge for groceries and there were always fresh chocolate chip cookies in the lobby at 4pm. Unfortunately for Jeremy, now that we are in our place, I haven't provided him with freshly baked goods.

We moved back into our condo the second week of June and it certainly is good to be home! We decided before moving in that we wanted hard wood floors throughout our condo, so we hired someone to rip up the bedroom carpet and fix up the rest of the floors. We are so happy with our decision as the place feels a bit new again! We also decided to repaint all of the walls and trim. If you've been to our place before, the colors are very similar, but a bit warmer and relaxing. The task took me almost two weeks but I had the help of Jeremy's dad and Jeremy when he was able to get home from work early. Some other minor upgrades: My mom helped us to pick out drapes for the bedroom and our friends Brian and Jaynie gave us a slip cover that they never used. So our gross white couch is now beige and not an eye sore!

The kitchen gadgets were the first thing I wanted to unpack and I've been busy refining my culinary skills in my free time. I've been looking for budget friendly recipes as money doesn't flow freely these days, but it been fun trying new things! One of our favorites so far was Spinach Pesto and Pasta.

Jeremy celebrated his 31st birthday yesterday. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!) I wanted to treat him to blueberry pancakes for breakfast. I was so excited that I even dreampt about pancakes. I got up and got working only to fail miserably! With tears running down my face, Jeremy ate pancake scraps that I was able to pull from the pan and eggs. He was a good sport! On Sunday he'll enjoy a belated birthday dinner of meatballs (his favorite!), so hopefully I will redeem myself in the kitchen!

Well, that's it for now. Time to prep the house for some last minute drinks for the birthday boy. Check back soon as we'll update regularly with our adventures - even though they might only be as exciting as making ice cream - no more bungee jumping or helicoptor rides over glaciers for us for a while. And yes, I am actively looking for a job as an internal recruiter - if you know anyone who is looking for a recruiter, please let me know!

Home at Last!

2009-05-26T11:55:00.002-04:00

It was not our intention at all to skip blogging about the end of our travels. Sorry for the delay.

After a couple more days in the Stuttgart area, we headed out of town on our way to Munich, where Jochen, Susanne, Jeremy and I planned to meet up with some friends from our time in New Zealand - a little Kiwi reunion! We stopped at Lake Constance for the night to enjoy beers and dinner with Jochen's cousin. The lake touches Switzerland and is close to Austria, so we were able to add two more countries to our list of "Places We Have Been".

Susanne and I enjoyed wine schorles (wine and sparkling water) and the boys enjoyed beers while we ate our fair share of sausages, pretzels and other delicious food. We took a gondola to the highest point in Germany, Zugspitze which is 2962 meters high. It was cold up top, but the views were great for a few minutes, before the clouds rolled in. We also stopped to see Neuschwanstein, the castle that Cinderella's castle is modeled after. Once in Munich we met up with Mascha, Jeroen, Stuart, Sander, and Mirjam for more food and lots of visits to the famous beer gardens.

We flew back to Boston on Sunday the 17th, gathered our overstuffed bags and headed through customs. We saw Jeremy's mom waiting for us with a huge welcome home sign. What we didn't notice immediately was that we had 15 other friends and family members waiting for us cheering and waving flags. It was a great, unexpected welcome home! We were whisked off to a local bar for some more drinks to wrap up our amazing adventure.

It really is great to be home. We had an awesome time traveling and hope we get to explore some more of the world someday soon. For now though, it's back to the real world!

Bonjour

2009-05-12T02:07:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in the last update, Jochen and Susanne organised a great BBQ on Sunday. We went out to Jochen's parents 'Estate' as thez call it, which is a piece of land they own, where they have BBQ's, etc. The weather was nice and sunny and we ate Pork Belly, Hamburgers, Steak, Chicken, Sausage, and various kinds of salad. We played some soccer as well and it was a great time. They all spoke some English which was good, because our German it's poor.

Our friends Mascha and Jeroen who live in the Netherlands were vacationing in France this week and we decided that it would be fun to meet up for a day. Susanne had to work, but Jochen, Erin, and I drove to Colmar, France which is a little over 2 hours from here and had lunch and hung out with them. We also got to meet Sophie again who is almost turning 1 years old. Colmar was a very cute town. We then headed to another small town very close (can't remember the name right now), but they are one of the best regions in France for wine. We tasted a few wines from Hugel which was the same kind that was served to Michelle Obama at the NATO summit. It was very good and Jochen bought a few bottles as well as Jeroen. We also ate some Flammkuchen which is kind of like a pizza.

We considered staying the night in Freiburg, Germany, but decided to head back home and just drove through Freiburg as well as the Black Forest.

Stuttgart

2009-05-10T03:19:00.003-04:00

We've arrived in Germany and have been having a great time the past couple of days. Our flight landed in Frankfurt and we had the day to explore the city before our train ride to Stuttgart to meet up with Jochen and Susanne. We stored our bags at the train station and then walked around the town. We had some gulausch and a beer for lunch which was very tasty. Then while walking through the streets there was a man with a portable sausage grill on his shoulders. It was very cool, so I got 1 euro 30 out of my pocket and then bought a very good sausage...Erin got a picture of me which was great.

The train ride to Stuttgart was 1 and 1\2 hours and when we arrived Jochen was waiting right there to greet us and it was great to see him (partly because my bags were heavey and he helped out...haha). That night we relaxed with him and Susanne at their place in Köugen which is a smaller town outside of Stuttgart. (If you don't remember Jochen he was on secondment in New Zealand but came back to Germany 1 year ago.)

Germany has been great so far and although our German language skills are extremely poor, most people speak English so we've been able to get around. Although most people speak English, very little is written in English which is very different from all the Asian country's we travelled to, where many things were written in English.

Yesterday, Jochen and his Dad were able to use some of the connections to get us football tickets. Tickets are always very hard to get over here, but especially right now as the season is coming to a close. VfB Stuttgart is currently in 4th place and were playing VfL Wolfsburg who were in 1st place. So after they pulled some strings, they got us all tickets for the game and they were great seats (and free). The game was very exciting with Stuttgart winning 4-1. We then headed into the city to walk around, have a few beers and eat some dinner. They took us to a place which specializes in Swabian food (Swabian is the region of Germany that they live in). The food was delicious!!

Today we are having a BBQ with their families and hopefully the weather will cooperate.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all the MOMs or MUMs out there.

Zàijiàn, Sayoonara, Chum riep leah, Xin chào, Joi gin, Adeus, Good-bye to Asia

2009-05-07T08:46:00.005-04:00

We can't believe that our time here in Asia has come to a close. We've had an amazing time here and the almost 6 weeks has absolutely sped by. Including New Zealand we've been to 6 different countries and 2 Special Administration Regions and been exposed to many different languages.

The last couple of days we spent in Hong Kong and then last night we spent in Macau. Our final 1/2 day in Hong Kong we relaxed and spent some time at the pool on the roof deck, then packed up and boarded the 1 hour ferry to Macau. We had booked accommodation at the Rio which was a good price and included buffet breakfast so we were looking forward to it. The Rio wasn't too bad, but compared to the Sheraton, it wasn't up to what we were hoping for. The hotel was slightly dated, but only a few years, so not too bad. At night we decided to check out the SPA floor, upon arriving a man came up to us and told us that it was only for MEN (you can all figure out what that means). I then said that we should check out the club and maybe have a drink...upon getting off the elevator a lady came up to us and say that it was an escort club and pushed the up elevator button for us to go back to our room...hahaha

We walked around the city and visited the ruins of St. Paul Cathedral, the War Barracks, as well as Macau Museum. Our last formal dinner in Asia was great and we ate at a Portuguese restaurant which was GREAT!! (for those who don't know Macau it is Portuguese) It's very interesting because all the signs are in Portuguese, but most people speak Cantonese.

We also headed to visit a bunch of the casino's and went to the Wynn, MGM, and Grand Lisboa (we gambled a little, and Erin was successful, but I was not).

Today we took it easy in the morning and then went over to Taipa which is an island attached by a 3.5km bridge. The Venetian is on that island and is the largest casino in the world (3400 slot machines, and 800 gaming tables)...it was absolutely huge. We spent about 4 hours there and really loved it, it was great.

We're now at the Hong Kong airport in the Cathy Pacific lounge waiting for our flight to Germany. We are very excited to see Germany and in particular Jochen and Susanne.

GOODBYE ASIA!!!

Hong Kong

2009-05-05T08:49:00.002-04:00

We arrived safe and sound here in Hong Kong. It was late at night around 11pm when we finally made it through immigration and got our bags. We managed to figure out how to get to the hotel using the train which was nice and fast. We are staying at the Sheraton Hong Kong Towers which is very nice. Although we loved our trips through Cambodia and Vietnam, the hotels we were staying at were generally 1 star ones and the showers were not very good. We were very pleased when arriving here.

Day 1: We hit the ground running early in the morning and jumped on the Star Ferry which took us 7 minutes across the water to Central Hong Kong. After a little bit of a struggle, we managed to find the correct bus which took us to Ocean Park. It's an amusment park which is on the south side of the island in a place called Aberdeen. The park was so much fun and not crowded at all. We of course did all the fun rides including a roller coaster that went upside down 3 times. We also saw Panda Bears!
We then went up to the Night market and walked around through the various street vendors looking for some nice goods (We've purchased so much already, that we didn't end up getting anything). We then headed back to the harbour to watch the light show. Every night there is a really cool light show that happens from 8pm to 8:15pm on all of the buildings. We then had dinner at a pub on the water.

Hong Kong is MUCH more expensive than Cambodia and Vietnam and even mainland China. It's much similar to Japan, so luckily we aren't staying here for too long.

Day 2:
We decided to head to one of the surrounding islands and went to Lamma Island. It's a very small island and there aren't any cars on it. We walked 4k's from 1 village to another over the mountains, it was a lot of fun and the sun was shinning brightly. We then had some seafood lunch before jumping on the ferry back to the main island.
One of the highlights of Hong Kong is the Peak Tram. We decided to do this today as it was very sunny and would provide us with great views of the city skyline. WOW! that's what I have to say, there are so many buildings and the view is amazing. We took some nice pictures and then headed back down the tram. We went to some more outside markets and then back to our hotel to have a few drinks up on the bar which overlooks the harbour. We were able to watch the light show one more time, while having some drinks.

It's off to Macau tomorrow, and we'll probably head over around mid-day.

If you haven't been to Hong Kong, it's an unreal place. People always talk about all the shopping that's here, but I didn't really understand until I walked around a little bit. There are so many different stores, it's almost silly. Overall, we've really like our time here in Hong Kong and are looking forward to spending 1/2 day here tomorrow before hitting Macau.

Vietnam Done

2009-05-03T07:09:00.003-04:00

I can't believe how long it's been since we last did a blog update. Sorry to all our faithful readers, but we have been very busy. Not only that, but the hotels where we have been staying do have computers, but they are in the lobby without air conditioning and it's difficult to sit there for too long.

We have just finished our time here in Vietnam and have had a blast. We are currently sitting in the Vietnam Airlines Lounge, waiting for our flight to Hong Kong. We are looking forward to heading north to cooler climate that's for sure.

We spent 10 days on the Intrepid Northbound tour with our leader Tuyen. He was a local from Ha Long Bay originally, but currently resides in Hanoi. Erin gave you all a brief summary on the people in our group and we had a great time hanging out with them. I'll run down some of the highlights:
-Arrived in Hoi An for a couple hectic days of getting our feet and bodies measured to have shoes and clothes made for us. We went to a corner store for our shoes close to our hotel and for our clothes went to Yaly's which is a large place. I got 3 pairs of shoes and Erin got 3 as well. I got 6 work shirts and a suit, while Erin got 2 skirts, a shirt dress, winter jacket, and a dress which she plans to wear to Tim/Jackie's wedding this summer
-We loved Hoi An as it's a very cute town. Erin, Mary, and I took a cooking class and learned how to make some great food and practiced our Chop Chop Chop of vegetables
-While walking through the streets, we saw a 2 year old boy pull his pants down and try and pee off the sidewalk into a puddle. Unfortunatly his balance wasn't so great, and we watched him fall directly into the puddle. We tried to contain our laughter, but when his mom started laughing, we figured it was ok...
-Drove to Hue where we toured the Citadel as it was the old capital of Vietnam. We also did a motorbike ride through the country. It rained a little bit, but this was a great highlight of our trip. I also tried to make an stick of insense, but failed miserably
-We jumped on the overnight train to Hanoi. Erin and I have had experience with these types of trains as you remember from our trip between Beijing and Xi'an. Well this train was very different. It was dirty as ever!!! It was a rather gross train ride, but a great experience for sure. Our bunk room was on train 10, but us and some of our tour mates spent a number of hours on train 0 (the bar train)
-Arriving in Hanoi, our rooms weren't going to be ready until 12pm, but we arrived at 4am. We shared a room with Justin and Zel just to take showers before heading to breakfast.
-We walked around the city and at night we went to the Water Puppet Show which is very famous here in Hanoi. We were in the front row, which I loved as we were right up close for the performance.
-We then headed on a 4 hour bus trip to Ha Long Bay, where we boarded a Junk boat. (It's a bad name, because the boat isn't actually a piece of junk) We spent 2 days and 1 night out in the Bay which is absolutely amazing. The weather was perfect sun the whole time and we were able to jump in the water, relax, and of course drink beers. The cabins were very nice and it was just our group on the boat which was really cool. We ate some very nice seafood dishes both of those days.
-We stopped in the Amazing cave out in the Bay which is a massive cave in a mountain, it was pretty neat, but very crowded with pushy tourists. We had a fun time trying to block them from passing us as they wanted to push through the crowds to get ahead. As you can imagine, Erin and I were good as this and didn't let people pass. Even if someone did get by, we would give them a little nudge and say a few words to let them know we were not pleased with what they were doing.
-Back in Hanoi we had our final dinner with our group and then said our goodbyes. Today we saw Ho Chi Minh's body which is currently being perserved (His wishes were to be cremated, but they obviously didnt listen to that). The security around it was very intense and we waited in line for about 1 hour.

We've had a blast in Vietnam and have enjoyed all of our experiences all the way from our time down in the MeKong to Hanoi.

Hope all is well with everyone and stay healthy.

Group Tour Through Vietnam

2009-04-25T08:47:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy few days for us and we are already into day #2 of our 10 day group tour through Vietnam. Where did we leave off?

Oh yes, we had just finished a two day tour of the Mekong Delta. Our tour was a whirlwind and included finishing in the mud wearing traditional Vietnamese costumes, lots of tropical fruit, and a homestay with a local family. The trip was very nice, but it was hot hot hot, especially as we tried to sleep. At 5am the local announcements came on over the village's PA system. Needless to say, we didn't get much shut-eye, if any. Our second day included more delicious food and tropical fruit, plus a ride on a sampan (boat) through the jungle.

We met up last night with our group here in Ho Chi Minh City. Our group is very nice and consists of 2 Kiwis, 4 Aussies, 1 girl from the UK, one from Germany, and one American, who by chance also works at PwC (although she's living in Sydney). We enjoyed a traditional Vietnamese dinner while our guide Tuyen, taught us how to say cheers - they essentially say 1, 2, 3, Cheers!

This morning we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is where the town and soldiers hid from American soldiers in the "Anti-American War" as they call it here. We got to crawl into tiny hiding spots and through a very claustrobic tunnel, but it was a neat experience!

Tomorrow we take a tour of Ho Chi Minh City on a cyclo before flying to Hoi An, where we hope to get some tailored clothes made. We're having loads of fun, but wouldn't mind if the temps dropped a bit :)

The Kingdom of Cambodia

2009-04-23T06:14:00.003-04:00

We spent 4 days 18th to the 21st of April in Cambodia (Siem Reap) to be exact. We had signed up for a 4 day Independent tour trough Intrepid Travel. We had heard great things about Interpid while in New Zealand so we were hoping that it would be nice. We arrived at the Siem Reap airport (very small) and walked off the plane to a rush of humid hot sticky air. We knew we were in for some hot weather as it was only 9am in the morning. Our guide, Kheang, and our driver, So, met us and we headed to the car. We checked into the hotel and then it was off to visit some of the amazing temples that the Khmer people built many years ago. We visited temples which were built as early as the 9th century. One of the main temples that are visited is Angkor Wat which is the largest religous monument in the world and was built in the 12th century. There were many other temples as well including the one which was used in the Tomb Raider movie.

Cambodia uses the Reil as their currency, but in actual fact, most places accept USD and the prices are in USD. There is also a lot of English used which is good, because the Khmer language is very difficult and is written a form of sanskrit which makes it difficult to read as well.

A couple of our highlights were visiting the temples of course, cruising on Tonle Sap River and seeing the boating villages which live on the large lake, visiting a local village, spending time at the night market, riding in a Tuk Tuk around town, seeing pick-up trucks packed with 30-40 people driving on the highway, and the cheap price of food, a full meals costs around 2-4 dollars (draft beer was 50 to 75 cents).

Cambodia was absolutely amazing and it's hard to put into words how much we loved the Kingdom. We would love to go back and see more of the country at some point as everyone we met was super friendly. We imagine that there may be some unfriendly people as every country has them, but we didn't find any.

We're in Vietnam now, and have just completed a 2 day trip to the Mekong Delta. We start our 10 day tour Northbound tomorrow night and will post more later.

China is done

2009-04-16T23:44:00.002-04:00

We are finishing up our time in China and are currently in the Shanghai airport. We had a very nice time in Shanghai and is probably the one city that we have visited in China that we could potentially see ourselves living (probably not though). Seeing the difference between the Chinese and Japanese cultures has been unreal. They are so different in so many ways.

Our time in Shanghai started with a visit to the Bund area which everyone speaks very highly of. We unfortunately didn't think that it was very nice as most of it was under construction and very dirty. The city is preparing for the World Business Fair which is next May here in Shanghai. The US is being a little difficult right now and saying that they are not going to participate in the fair as they don't want to spend the money to build their pavilion.

We also went up to the top of the Jin Mao tower, the Shanghai Museum, walked around the French Concession, and went to the old city area. We didn't have a guide or do any tours here, so we managed the city on our own, using the subway which was very easy to use.

Here in Shanghai, there are a lot of people walking around the street asking if we want to go into the back alley's and buy watches, bags, etc. Erin and I created a little game with these people and as we saw them coming up to us, we would walk in two different directions and confuse them. It was very fun. Unfortunately there were times when we couldn't avoid them and they just don't take no for an answer. In one incident, Erin was rather frustrated and swatted the lady.

It's now off to Vietnam for 1 night and then to Cambodia for 3...Hope all is well with everyone.

Xi'an and Guilin

2009-04-13T05:35:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since we have posted last, but we have been very busy doing things in China. I will put down some of the things in bullets below, and then add in a few stories.
-Took the overnight train from Beijing to Xi'an and shared a room with 2 Chinese people
-Maria (our English speaking guide) met us at the airport and brought us to meet our driver (Mr. Bai) and then we were off
-Saw the remains of a 6000 year old tribe at an archaeological site (the tribe was called Banpo tribe)
-Saw the Terracotta Warriors which were constructed to protect the Emperors tomb (there are over 6000 of them and were discovered about 30 years ago by some farmers)...AMAZING
-Rode a double bike on the top of the old city wall
-Ate lots of dumplings
-Saw the bell and drum towers
-Flew to Guilin and took a taxi ride from a scary driver to the hotel
-Took a boat cruise on the Li River (saw amazing mountain peaks, very beautiful)
-Walked around the streets
-Went into some caves, saw Pagodas, got stared at

We have done a lot over the past few days. There are a lot of children over here who wear pants that have a hole in the crotch area. The reason for this is that diapers are expensive and a lot of people don't have money for them, so they keep it open and the kids just go to the bathroom when they have to (very weird). We saw the first kid with this in Beijing, but here in Guilin, we have seen so many more with them. In Xi'an when we were in a restaurant eating dumplings and enjoying ourselves, I looked over Erins shoulder and saw...yes that's right a kid peeing on the floor of the restaurant...I'm not joking.

Erin and I have done a lot of things over our lives where people have been watching us from performing shows, solo's, playing sports, giving speeches, to guest lecturing. All of these events have resulted in people looking at us, but NEVER in our lives have we had so many people staring at us. It's unreal, at first I thought I had something on my face, then I thought my fly was open. None of those were it, I think that many people in Xi'an and Guilin especially may be visiting from a farming village and just haven't seen people as good looking as us...hahah

The other day we took the Li River cruise here in Guilin, we booked it through the Sheraton (where we are staying) and our tour guide was David. He was very nice and as we approached the dock area, there were probably about 1000 people outside getting on various boats. He told us that it's very important to stick together just like "sticky rice". From then on, Erin and I called him Sticky David. It probably isn't funny to all of you reading this, but trust me, Erin and I are laughing right now thinking about it.

Ok, that's it from us here in Guilin, we're off to Shanghai tomorrow morning. Happy Easter!

Last night in Beijing

2009-04-08T10:24:00.002-04:00

It's our last night in Beijing and we've heard that no trip is complete without having Peking Duck (Roast Duck). So we went to this restaurant which is known for it and it was great. The cook rolled out the full duck (with head) and carved it right in front of us, very neat.

Today we also saw the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven. We also spent some time at the Pearl Market which is where you can get very cheap stuff.

At the Pearl Market, we were successful in doing some bargaining with the vendors, but the place is absolutely unbelievable. The vendors are so pushy, but actually very friendly. They really want you to buy their stuff, some of them actually grab your hand or arm to pull you closer and keep you interested in their stuff.

The currency here is the Yuan (more formally known as the Renminbi), but it's nickname is the Kuai (buck). 1 USD equals 6.8 Yuan or 1 NZD equals 3.9 Yuan. So if you remember our blog entry from Japan, you'll remember us mentioning that most things in Japan are very expensive well, here in China it's the opposite. We have been finding some less expensive meals which has been very good for our bank account.
-Lunch today for Annie, Erin, and myself cost 62 Kuai which included strawberry juice for all of us and 40 dumplings (so yummy). This equals 16 NZD or 9 USD. Don't get me wrong, you can pay a lot of money for certain things around here, but if you know where to go and you don't always have to get the top stuff, then you can get around relatively cheap here.

Tonight we got in the elevator coming back from the pool. A well dressed guy was in it on 1 side and an well dressed asian girl on the other. (only 1 button was pushed). He got off at his floor and she followed behind, but not very close and nothing was spoken between the two of them. It was very amusing. I've heard that there are a lot of girls that wait around nice hotels in the various cities waiting for business men to come and 'give them money'.

Tomorrow is our last day in Beijing and then we're taking the Sleeper train to Xi'an which will take 12 hours. We're hopefully going to go to the Olympic village and see the Birdsnest and the Watercube among other things before we leave.

Beijing China

2009-04-07T09:51:00.004-04:00

We've learned our blogging lesson and have decided that waiting a full week to provide an update is just too long and results in too much information being packed into 1 blog. Thinking about our experiences in Japan and then reading our blog, we also feel that we've left out so many great things. As a result of this:

We will now try and blog every few days (we're still looking for a picture uploading option, but are concerned that we will not be able to find one. If anyone has any suggestions, please let us know)\
We have updated a few brief bullets with some more observations from Japan as we don't want that part our our trip to miss out.

-The taxi doors automatically open and close (don't try and do it yourself or you will be yelled at)

-Art displays should not be touched or you will be yelled at (Jeremy tried to roll a ball which he thought was a toy, but was actually part of the art work...ooppss)

-The word hai (pronounced hi) is said over and over again when listening to someone else speak. It means "Yes". Dave was an expert at this.

-Correction to the last blog where I was discussing the baseball game and said that the girl vendors were carrying keys on their back as they are actually carrying KEGS!

-We worked on learning some Japaneses words during our time there and my favorite phrase that I wanted to use was i kura des ka which means "how much is that". I finally used it, but somehow forgot that they would respond in Japanese and realized that I don't know the numbers in the language past the number 2, so that failed and I just gave her a bunch of cash.

Ok, now it's time for our China excursion for which I will hand the keyboard over to Erin.

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to Dave and Nikki and headed off to catch our flight from Tokyo to Beijing. We were able to enjoy some time in the lounge before boarding, so Jeremy tried his hand at the famous beer tap that so many people told us about. It pours your beer and then spits out the perfect amount of foam. It was neat, but we weren't really eager for beer at that hour. Our flight arrived in China in the early afternoon. Our driver, Mr. Wang was eagerly waiting for us and holding up a huge JEREMY CIACCIA sign. He didn't speak any English but motioned for us to follow him, which we did. The airport is about 30 minutes from the city. The drive was fine but drivers are insane here. We've never seen anything like it. Mr. Wang passes car into oncoming traffic just to get moving. It's scary stuff!

When we arrived at the hotel, our English speaking guide, Annie was waiting for us. We quickly checked in before running off to Tianamen Square. She wanted to make sure we could do as much as possible. Tianamen Square was very big - we think it's the biggest square in the world, but could be wrong. After walking around and admiring the square, Annie took us to Qian Hai Lake which is a huge pond surrounded by bars, shops and other interesting things. We walked around the water and tried a few different treats. One was a baked dough ball covered in sesame seeds. The other was a stick of berries covered in hard sugar - very good! Our last stop of the day with Annie was the Donghuamen Night Market, a famous market that sells all kinds of random foods from fried star fish to lamb skewers. We tried a range starting safe with the dumplings and ending with fried scorpions! They were very crunchy and tasted a bit like chicken.

When we returned to the hotel, we were pretty exhausted. We enjoyed a cocktail in the bar before relaxing in our very nice hotel room.

Mr. Wang picked us up this morning at 9 am. We drove outside the city to pick up Annie on our way to The Great Wall. The part we were going to is about 1.5 hours from the city. It is supposed to be less touristy as buses don't go that far. Well, it was busy, but nothing like other places we have seen in Asia. There definitely are a lot of people over here! We decided to take a gondola ride up to the wall as the walk is a steep 40 minutes upwards. We walked from tower to tower exploring the amazing site. We were really lucky to have a great sunny day and were happy that we packed a big bottle of water! When we got to the end of the section we were exploring we had two options - walk down or luge down. I bet you can guess which we chose. LUGE time!! The ride was similar to those we have done in New Zealand but we agreed that it was much better. We whizzed down the mountain in our little carts and had a great time.

Annie took us to lunch at one of her favorite local restaurants. We enjoyed a mushroom and chicken dish as well as a beef dish. The food was delicious but we struggled a bit with the chop sticks. Annie told us not to worry though as table manners don't exist in China, thank goodness for us!

Our next stop was the Summer Palace which is where the royal families spent their time to escape the heat of the city. This place was very busy. I noticed a sign that said they had 30,000 visitors yesterday and were expecting 15,000 today. There were so many tour groups. We laughed as many of them wore matching hats. We joked that we should wear hats so Annie wouldn't lose us, but agreed that my bright yellow t-shirt would stand out in the crowd.

We have been relaxing this evening. We enjoyed a swim in the hot tub and dinner at an Indian restaurant nearby. We also took some photos of a tragic site near our hotel. A fire in February engulfed the Mandarin hotel that was being built: News Story

Our time in China has been great so far. It is definitely a struggle not speaking the language, but good fun and full of laughs as well!

Week One of the Big Trip

2009-04-05T09:51:00.002-04:00

It's been only a week since we left our jobs in New Zealand and the place that we called home for 2 years to begin our travels through Asia. We've done so much over the past week that it'll be very difficult for us to get it all in this post, but we'll try and put in some of the details to keep all you faithful fans/readers of our blog updated.

Australia

We departed New Zealand on Sunday morning 29 March. Brian was nice enough to drive us to the airport and have a coffee with us prior to sending us through immigration to the Qantas lounge. We made it to Sydney without any problems and took the train for our first time to the Hilton Hotel. The train was extremely easy and we would suggest that anyone who goes to Sydney take the train from the airport as it's very simple and cheaper than a taxi. We relaxed in Darling Harbour, had lunch, and then went to the gym, sauna, jacuzzi, and steam room in the hotel. We then headed up to the lounge and nibbled on food and had drinks. It was an early night to bed for us.

On Monday, we headed to Royal Botanical Gardens and relaxed overlooking the harbour, Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Bridge. It was a very relaxing day, before heading to the airport for our flight to Tokyo that night. As you know, we've spent 5 days in Sydney about a year ago over Easter weekend and saw most of the key things that we wanted to, so this short trip was primarily about relaxing.

Japan

We arrived in Tokyo at Narita airport at 6am on Tuesday morning. Dave and Nikki had given us very detailed directions on how to get from the airport to their place and they were perfect. As a side note for those who don't know Dave and I grew up together and him and his fiance Nikki are living in Tokyo for a couple of years for work. They have been there for a little under a year so far.

We arrived at their place and it was great to see both of them. Dave was able to stay home to greet us before heading into work for the day. We were lucky enough to secure Nikki's time for the day to be our personal tour guide. She did great, showing us around Tokyo. We were able to meet Dave for lunch at a little Korean restaurant for some Bibimbap. (Dave and Nikki just got back from a long weekend in Korea and this was their favorite food, it was very yummy) We headed to the Imperial Palace, Hibiya Park, and then to Ginza.

At night we met up with Jamie who works for PwC and his girlfriend Reika and the 6 of us went to this great restaurant called Inayaka in Roppongi. This was a cool place where all the food was cooked in front of us and the food was very tasty.

Kyoto

(Before heading to Kyot we went to Tsukiji Fish Market with Dave. This is a massive fish market and we got there around 5am so we could watch the tuna auction. There were so many tuna's there, it was unreal and the auction was pretty neat to watch, although I had no clue what he was saying). Later that morning Erin and I left our hosts and headed down to Kyoto for a couple of days. We took the train down as we had purchased the Japanese Rail Pass for our time here. It's Cherry Blossom season here in Japan and this is one of the biggest times of year. There are so many Cherry trees throughout Japan and Kyoto has quite a few. Kyoto is also known for it's many temples and shrines. We spent time in the Gion District walking through all the cute little streets and found a neat restaurant on Pontocho Street where we were able to have a Japanese pot where we cooked the food ourselves right on our table.

We headed back to our hotel and were able to stay in a Japanese Style room which was really cool. We walked in and the only thing in there was a short table. No bed was in there, but luckily Erin was able to pull the bedding materials out of the closet and make a nice bed for us.

The 2nd day was filled with more and more temples and we also saw the very special Golden Temple. We went back up to the Gion district and were lucky enough to spot a couple of Geisha's. They are amazing looking and it was cool to see how popular they were as all the tourists were crowded around them taking pictures. That night we found a place where we were able to have a Kaiseki meal which is a traditional Japanese meal with 8-10 courses of small amounts of food. I personally think that the highlight of the day was our lunch meal. We went into this restaurant and order our meals and drinks from a vending machine. We then sat down and a lady took our tickets. Before we knew it our food was there and for the price just under 20,000 yen (100 yen is around 1 USD or .65 NZD). The food was great and there was a lot of it. It was a big hit in my book.

On Friday we headed to Himeji where the biggest thing to see is a Castle. This castle was amazing looking and there were Cherry Blossom Trees all around which made it even more beautiful. This was the most crowded any of the sites that we had seen were and there were hundred upon hundreds of people in the castle, so we weren't able to move too fast within it.

We caught the 3:30pm train from Himeji back up to Tokyo to get back with Dave/Nikki. On the train back, we were lucky enough to see Mt. Fuji.

Tokyo

Upon returning, they had a huge schedule mapped out for the weekend with us, it was great. We had a few drinks before leaving and they introduced us to Chu Hi's which is an alcoholic drink which comes in various fruit flavours already mixed in a can. That night we headed to Jackpot for a very good meal of Tapa type plates. We then stopped at Luxus for a quick drink and saw the massive fish tank with the sharks and turtles (We were pretty bummed when leaving because we were only there for 1 drink and no one told us that there was a 1050 yen per person table charge). We then went to Shibuya which is the busiest street crossing in the world and spent the next 2 hours singing Karaoke.

Now I'm sure most of you are thinking that we were in some big bar with 1 microphone singing a couple songs...NOPE. We had a private room which was the same place that was in the movie Lost in Translation. It was just the 4 of us and we belted out some good songs. Erin was good enough to grace us with her great rendition of Oklahoma!

Saturday was a jam packed day and we started with a western brunch at Fujimamas and then headed to a great place to get some souvenirs. The meal was good, but I had a bad experience and wanted to have an orange juice, but didn't realize that it cost over 700 yen...yikes! Dave and I were pretty hungry after that, so we got a Crepe and we were generous enough to share with the ladies. We then headed up to this place called Asakusa and saw the Senso-Ji Temple and then did a River Cruise down the Sumida River which was nice and relaxing.

That night we headed to Roppongi Hills again to have some conveyor belt sushi. Let me tell you, the sushi here in Japan is absolutely amazing. I would have loved to sit there all night and eat it, but I don't think my wallet could have taken anymore. We had dinner with two of their friends Drew and Rio who were so nice and enjoyed hanging out with them and also hung out with them on Sunday. We headed up Mori Tower to the 52 floor which gave us a great view of the city at night. It was then out on the town for some drinks and we headed to A971 and Feria, both very nice up scale bars. We made it back to Dave and Nikki's around 2am, but we were all very hungry, so Nikki-the-cook made us all pizza and then ice-cream sunday's (Nice work Nikki)!

This morning we met up with some of their friends and headed to Kawasakidaishi to see a Falace festival. It was amazing how many people were at this festival and there was a parade as well. A very interesting experience to say the least. We then headed to Yoyogi Park for Hanami. This is a big party that happens when the Cherry Blossom's are out. We brought beer and a ton of food and relaxed in the park. On our way we saw some Dancing Elvis,'s girls dressed liked Baby Dolls, People giving out free hugs (Dave and I both got one), and much more.
We couldn't stay there too long as we had to head to the Tokyo dome for a baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and the Hiroshima Carp. The place was very cool and there are these beer girls who walk around selling beer and carry a mini-key on their back...very funny. A foul ball almost found it's way into Dave's hand, but unfortunately it just hit the top of his finger.

Our time in Japan is coming to a close and we are headed to Beijing tomorrow morning. We've had an absolute blast with Dave and Nikki and they have been so wonderful to host us, allow us to sleep in their place, and tour around with us...THANKS!

A few observations about Japan:
-There are so many vending machines
-Things are extremely clean
-All workers are extremely nice and love their jobs no matter what they do
-The toilets are electronic and very advanced (heated seats)
-Very expensive
-Food is great
-The train system is wonderful

We hope to be able to write more from China...(Sorry we weren't able to put up any pictures, but we just weren't able to load any of our pictures onto Dave/Nikki's computer. If they are able to up load some of the ones that they took, we will put a couple up to keep you interested as I realize just reading my text isn't the most entertaining and there are also probably spelling and gramatical errors).

See you soon...

2009-03-27T17:23:00.002-04:00

Can you believe that 2 years ago, we were setting off on our big adventure or big OE (Overseas Experience) as they call it here? We have enjoyed our experiences over here tremendously and would like to thank all of our readers out there for following our blogging updates throughout the years. We have greatly enjoyed our ability to update everyone with our adventures through our blog site. We will be posting updates during our 7 week adventure, but it won't be on a daily basis like we have tried to do here at times. Please keep an eye on the blog for updates.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone back in the US in a little under 2 months.

But, it's with great sadness that we leave both PwC and Hudson as well as this wonderful place that they call Aotearoa (The Long White Cloud). Take care everyone and see you soon.

Our little plants have a new home

2009-03-25T05:38:00.005-04:00

While we have been here, we have had the great pleasure of owning 4 plants. Unfortunately the first summer we were here, we had a tragic loss and one of the plants died from lack of water while we were travelling. Despite losing her, we have been able to keep three plants alive and well and have watched them grown a great deal while we've lived here.

Tonight a new chapter in their lives has started as they have moved to live with Stephen and Deon on the first floor of Viaduct Point (our building). We think they will be very happy with their new owners and we look forward to getting updates as they continue to grow.

Stephen and Deon also decided to take something else off of our shoulders and buy our BBQ. If you remember back to mid-May 2007 we searched long and hard for a BBQ and finally found one that we were very happy with.

Tomorrow will be our leaving drinks which we are having for both PwC and Hudson. They will be held at Cargo Bar in the Viaduct which is a new bar that has recently opened replacing the Loaded Hog.

Farewell Dinner with the Jameses

2009-03-24T05:05:00.003-04:00

Today started off with a jolt as we slept through our alarms, waking up suddenly at 7:30. We were able to shower and change and be out the door within 30 minutes which was a good record for us.

Our evening was much more relaxing as Deon and Steve (who are in NZ on secondment from the PwC office in Hartford) wanted to take us to dinner to say goodbye. Steve is off to a work training so he'll miss our leaving drinks on Thursday night. They very generously treated us to a wonderful dinner at Mikano, a restaurant on the harbor. We stuffed ourselves with appetisers, main courses and desserts. Then Steve and Deon gave us a bag filled with NZ treats like Tim Tams, Pineapple Lumps and Crunchy bars that we will take home with us. We really enjoyed sharing our last 6 months in NZ with Steve and Deon and will miss them a lot! They will be here for another year and a half, so be sure to check out their blog: http://onlyinnewzealand.blogspot.com/

When we got home from the feast, Jeremy had a very nice message on his phone from another one of our friends, Nate. Nate is here from the Pittsburgh office (and mad that I've converted from a Steelers to a Patriots fan) for two years. He'll miss our farewell party as he's off to Samoa for work tomorrow morning. We have enjoyed spending the past 6 months with Nate and will miss him a lot too. Check out his blog for some more NZ adventures: http://2yearsinkiwiland.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow is our third to last day of work which is hard to believe. Tomorrow night is our "free" night but it is our chance to pack our bags for travelling, so we will definitely be busy!

Last Working Monday

2009-03-23T05:16:00.003-04:00

Today marked the last Monday that we have to go to work for a couple of months. What a nice day. It was also our 6th to last day in Auckland, which was very sad. Our final set of visas arrived, so we are all good to enter into Vietnam. We were getting nervous as the departure is very soon, so I was happy to receive that mail at work today!

I also had my last personal training session at the gym tonight. I was very sad to say goodbye to Jaimee as she's been a great trainer for the past year. I will miss her in Boston and will be looking to hire a sarcastic Aussie trainer if anyone knows one! :) She made me finish off the session with my least favorite exercise, but I promised to do a set for her when her baby arrives in a few months. I told her I would do the number of repetitions equal to her baby's weight. I'm hoping for a 5 pound baby!

Jeremy finished his workday with drinks with one of the partners he works with. I met up for dinner with Michelle who is Jeremy's coworker and our friend from California. She won't be around on Thursday night for our work farewell drinks, so she invited me to dinner which was very nice. We indulged on huge pasta dishes and red wine. Jeremy met up with us towards the end of the meal as well.

Tomorrow is another busy day for us. I have my last Integrity Selling training session at work and then we are off to dinner with Steve and Deon tomorrow night. Our friends are definitely keeping us busy in our last few days. Wednesday will be our night for packing!

Send us back to the US

2009-03-22T04:44:00.005-04:00

We can't believe that we've been living here for 2 years and the time has come for us to say goodbye. Although we are very excited, it's also very sad. We had a very busy weekend which started on Friday evening with a dinner at Jackie and Jerry's house. They live in Birkenhead which is north of the city. We picked up a bottle of wine and some beers and headed up to their place. (As we've sold our car, we are currently borrowing Brian and Di's VW Polo) We had a lot of fun with Jackie/Jerry and Jackie made a great Green Curry.

Saturday was filled with cleaning and some last minute shopping. We also spent a bit of time preparing for the evening festivities which included a party at our place with a US theme. There were many purposes for this party but one of the primary ones was to finish our alcohol. We asked everyone to come wearing red, white, and blue and the rule was if you didn't come with those colours on, that you would have to eat a Wheetbix (NZ cereal bar) without any liquid as fast as you can. These bars are very dry and the challenge is to see if you can do it in under 60 seconds. Needless to say, all 16 people at the party tried the challenge (although most everyone was wearing all three colours), but no one was able to do it in under 60 seconds.

There were 4 key drinks which we had ingredients for (Horny Bull, Dark 'n Stormy, Cape Codder, and Gin Chiller). We also had some Jack Daniels (straight shots) and Bailey's (mixed with vanilla ice-cream). Erin had done a great job decorating and preparing some very tasty snacks for all the guests. We stayed at our place until around midnight and then headed into the Viaduct to a couple of bars.

Sunday we did a little more shopping and more cleaning. At night we went to dinner at Brian and Di's house up in Forrest Hill. We brought Matthew an overdue Birthday present and ordered some takeaway food. A very fun night with a lot of very funny stories.

Our last full weekend in Auckland is coming to a close and we are about to begin our final week of work. Stay tuned for more updates throughout our last week in NZ.

La Clique

2009-03-18T06:47:00.004-04:00

Tonight we joined Kevin Martin, our friend from BU's study abroad program for La Clique, which is part of the Auckland Festival that is going on right now. The is described as a fusion of cabaret, new burlesque, circus sideshow and contemporary vaudeville. It was amazing!

Kevin had invited us and 7 other people who are supporters of the BU program in New Zealand. Kevin coordinates the study abroad here and arranges internships for students while they are studying. Last year, Jeremy arranged for one of the students to work at PwC. I had also been in contact with Kevin when we first arrived and was looking for a job. He has become a good friend to us, so it was sad to say goodbye. He does make it to Boston every so often, so we hope to see him on one of his visits!

The show was a mix of magic, acrobatics, singing, dancing and many other things. We sat at a booth towards the back of the room - thankfully as they picked on people who were up close! We would recommend the show if it comes to your area anytime soon.

Snooker & St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T04:28:00.002-04:00

Today is St. Patrick's Day over here in New Zealand and like St. Patty's day anywhere, it's celebrated pretty big. We didn't have the day off which was a bummer, but oh well. I was able to share a couple of beers quickly at a pub and was able to convince the bartender that she should give me a really cool Guinness t-shirt.

Later on it was off to Ponsonby Pool Hall for a little Snooker. Since arriving here in NZ I've learned about the game of Snooker which is similar to pool, but played on a table which is much larger and has much smaller balls. Since hearing about it, I've been speaking with Phil about playing and finally we were able to get a time booked on the calendar. Phil's wife Lyndsay and Paul from Scotland were there as well as Erin. I was able to figure out the rules and played alright, but the rules are more than I want to write about on here, so please click on the link above for a little summary of the game written by wikipedia of course.

We have a couple pictures which were taken on my camera and I will load them tomorrow so stay tuned.

Busy Bees

2009-03-14T02:08:00.004-04:00

Our last few weeks in Boston were very busy as we prepared to move to NZ two years ago. Well, things are pretty much the same as we prepare to move home! On Tuesday of this week, we enjoyed a delicious dinner with friends at the top restaurant in Auckland, The French Cafe.

Wednesday night was a night of culture with our friends who are in the the "Culture Vultures" group we are part of. It was our last outing with the group, so they will be busy recruiting two replacements to try out some more fun things in Auckland. We enjoyed a dinner of Thai food followed by ice cream cones before taking in Circus Oz, an acrobatics show. The night was a good way to end our time with the other Culture Vultures.

On Thursday Jeremy had a work event and I hitched a ride with Deon and Steve to the super market. It's not a big deal walking there, but the weather hasn't been too great the last couple of days, so the ride was much appreciated!

Last night we celebrated a pre-St. Patrick's day at our Irish friends Paula and James' house. We BBQ'd tons of food and played PIG on the neighbor's mini basketball court. Again, another fun night!

Jeremy is off at a beer festival today and I've been sorting through our goods to prepare for when the packers arrive in two weeks. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate in just a couple of years. I'm happy I started this weekend too, as I only made it through the kitchen today. Hopefully I'll be more productive tomorrow!

Car-less

2009-03-08T00:13:00.002-05:00

The big news for this blog is the fact that our car has been sold!!! It was an exciting Friday as there were a couple inquiries regarding our car that came through on Thursday evening. After speaking with one of them, he had an interest in viewing the car on Friday, so I came home and met him. A little under 2 hours ago, I was back in the office without a car. It was exciting to sell it and the fact that we sold it for only a little under we advertised it for, but it was also sad to realise that we no longer had a means for transportation. We celebrated our sale with a bottle of bubbles!

Saturday was not a very busy day, but we did make it to the gym and went to a number of stores throughout the city looking for some final Kiwiana things to purchase. We also went to the fish market and bought some snapper. Erin was able to cook up a nice meal for the evening as well.

Today was a relaxing day and included a trip to the gym as well as the grocery store. Although it was a little more difficult as we had to walk and carry our food home. In the afternoon we hitched a ride with Jennifer from PwC down to Drury where we went to an engagement party. Emma from PwC is currently working in Vancouver and got engaged to her boyfriend Tim while in Canada. They have come home for a visit and had a little party at her parents house. It was good to see them and a fun afternoon.

Ouch - shots!

2009-03-04T03:40:00.006-05:00

To prepare for our move and trip to Asia, we have many things to do. This morning we had a doctor's appointment to determine which vaccinations we need for our travels. We were given a DPT vaccination and also a blood test. The blood test will be used to see what other things we are/are not immune to. The results will come out on Friday - hopefully we don't have to get any more shots, our arms are sore! We also received a prescription for malaria pills. We will take the pills two days before entering Cambodia (our first "malaria risk" stop) and then for a month following that. As much work as it is to prepare, we are happy to do anything to avoid getting sick.

We were also very pleased to receive our Chinese visitors visas today! After they arrived, we tackled the paperwork for Cambodia and shipped those documents off. With our short time frame, we are hoping everything works out! To celebrate that we received our first of three required visas for our trip, we went out to dinner. Even though the visa is for China, we ended up at a Japanese restaurant. The food was delicious and we enjoyed a nice view of Auckland's harbour while we ate. We tried some new things including snapper sashimi and ostrich carpaccio. We are really looking to tasting even more delicious things in the coming weeks!

We also posted our car for sale! We will be sad to say goodbye to our reliable friend, but will be happy to pass it on to someone else who is as eager to tour New Zealand as we were (or someone who is willing to pay what we are asking for that matter!) Here is the ad for our car on TradeMe, which is New Zealand's equivalent to eBay: Holden Vectra for Sale. If you know anyone in New Zealand who is looking to buy a car, please send this along to them!

Stumps, Overs, Bails, Wickets, Bowling

2009-03-02T04:11:00.003-05:00

What do all those terms mean? They all refer to the 16th century sport called Cricket.

Tonight I played in my first Cricket match and it was a lot of fun. I play on a PwC team who plays against other business teams in Auckland. We've had 2 games so far in the season, but I have been busy on the other days so wasn't able to attend. It was a great night and we WON!

We scored 162 runs and they only scored 100.

OK I'll give you a few details about the game...if you're interested.

There's various kinds of games (20/20 cricket, 1 day test, 5 day test matches, etc.)
6 balls (pitches) per over (20/20 means that there are 20 overs)
The wickets (stumps) are the 3 sticks at each end of the pitch (bowling lane)
The Bails sit on top of the wickets
If you hit the ball and it rolls over the outer circle you get 4 runs
If you hit the ball and it goes over the outer circle in the air you get 6 runs
When you hit the ball, you get as many runs as times you can run back and forth

Our PwC games have some similar rules, but it is co-ed and you have to have at least 2 females on the field for each game. There are 8 ball per over and only 14 overs per game.

Not sure if you guys got any of that, but please let me know what kind of questions you have and I can answer.

Derby Day

2009-03-01T04:44:00.002-05:00

We had high hopes for this weekend being a busy one, but heavy rain and wind on Saturday caused all of the events we planned to attend to be cancelled. Fortunately, The Auckland Cup was only postponed a day, so we were able to enjoy a sun filled afternoon today cheering on our favorite horses. We had a fun day at Derby Day (or Darby Day as it is pronounced here.) We bet on four races and won three times! It was a lucky day for us. They also had a fashion show with some of the ladies’ showing off their own Derby Day designs.

The rest of our weekend was filled with housekeeping tasks. Because we only have four weeks remaining in New Zealand, we are busy preparing for our return home. We washed a took photos of our car so that we can put it up for sale, planned more of our trip to Asia and Germany, and spent some time taking in some views in the city from a little hideaway we found across the harbor from our house.

As we drove back home tonight a song came on the radio: Massachusetts by, the Bee Gees. We found the lyrics rather fitting but the timing of the song…a coincidence??

Feel I'm going back to Massachusetts
Something's telling me I must go home
And the lights all went out in Massachusetts
The day I left her standing on her own

Another one bites the dust / Sailing

2009-02-23T04:42:00.005-05:00

Tonight we had dinner with Gareth and Claire before they depart New Zealand to head back to Manchester. They are spending about 8 weeks travelling the US before arriving back in the UK. We've enjoyed hanging out with them and they'll be missed. But we enjoyed a final meal in NZ with them at Kermedec.

In addition, I went out on one of the partners sail boats today. He has a 40 foot Beneteau which is actually the same kind of boat that Erin and I got our beginner sailing certifications one. It was a beautiful day on the harbour and we stopped at Motuihe Island which is in the harbour and me and another guy (Cameron) went for a quick swim. Check out some of the pictures below:

Stephen, Cameron, Valerie

The City

Rangitoto

Hanging over the edge

Rotorua

2009-02-22T02:05:00.005-05:00

We have a few final things to see on our New Zealand list. This weekend our task was to go to Rotorua, a city south of here, to see live kiwi birds. The kiwis are in captivity, but we heard from our friends we would be able to see them in an open air enclosure, which is the closest we would ever get. Rotorua is also one of the Pacific's most active thermal regions and is surrounded by mud pools, geysers, and hot springs.

Our first stop when we got to Rotorua on Saturday was to visit Rainbow Springs Nature Park which is where the kiwi birds are. A ticket to the park is good for 24 hours, so we spent some time walking around the park looking at trout, native birds and other random farm animals. We went into the nocturnal house and finally saw a live kiwi! It was behind a glass wall, but we couldn't believe our eyes - it was so much bigger than expected. We had been looking for something the size of a softball but this was the size of a rugby ball. We still wanted to see a kiwi up close, so we kept our tickets for the evening show, when other kiwis would be running around their open air enclosure. (Sadly no photos of the kiwis, as it was dark when we saw them and we weren't allowed to use a flash!)

Small Wallaby

Erin and a friendly donkey

The next stop on our trip was to the gondola and luge in Rotorua. This is very similar to the one that we have visited in Queenstown, but the luge ride is MUCH longer. We had purchased three rides each, but the rain started to fall and we were a bit tired with luging after the first ride so we decided to give our remaining tickets to some strangers.

We hit the road for our hotel, which was 15 minutes outside of town. After checking into our hotel, we grabbed our bathing suits and towels headed off to the Polynesian Spa where we had booked a private hot pool. The hot pool was very nice and we had secluded views of the surrounding bubbling mud pools. It was very hot, so when our allotted 30 minutes was up, we were ready to go.

A large chess set at our hotel

Our private hot pool

Next stop was dinner in town. The rain had stopped so we sat outside at a cafe where there was live entertainment. We enjoyed dinner until sun-down when it was time to head back to Rainbow Springs to see more kiwis. The park was lit up with blue, green and red lights which made it feel very exotic. When we entered the kiwi enclosure, we didn't expect to see much, but were lucky enough to see three more kiwis scampering about. They are nocturnal animals so they were out looking for food and other exciting things. They certainly did move fast!

After a long and exciting day we were ready for bed. It was back to the hotel for us as we had to get up early on Sunday for more thermal explorations.

Sunday's adventure was a visit to Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. At the park, we walked through bubbling and hissing pools, steam vents, craters, and other exciting things. We felt like we were on another planet. At 10:15 we joined the other visitors at Lady Know Geyser as she erupted and hit a height of almost 20 meters in the air.

Jeremy checking out the sites

Devil's Bath

Champagne Pool

Mud Pools

Exploding geyser

Our weekend was a busy one and we are finishing it off by doing more research for our trip to Asia in just a few weeks. We hope that everyone else had a nice weekend!

Touch Rugby Career is over

2009-02-18T03:06:00.002-05:00

In November of 2008 I began my touch rugby career. I played with a number of people from work and we got off to a good start with a couple wins in the first few weeks. We then lost a game and I was pretty upset as losing is never good. Overall my first season was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.

This year I played again, but unfortunately our team was very bad and not winning a game became all too common. My last rugby game of my career was this past Friday night and I was playing on another team which we won with a final try with no time left in the game. It was a great win and a good way to end my career.

Unfortunately I injured my finger in one of my last games and it still hasn't gotten better. I went to the doctors and he's told me that I have to see a physical therapist (physio as it's called here). It sure does sound strange, but yes, I have to see a physio for my hurt finger. I have an appointment for Monday, so hopefully they can help make me a speedy recovery.

Everyone over here has told me to take Rugby back to the US and to start up a touch league in Boston. As much as that sounds like fun to me, I'm pretty sure it'll be difficult to start up a touch league, so I'm guessing my career in Touch is over (at least for now).

Squid

2009-02-15T04:41:00.002-05:00

On Saturday we were hoping to watch the final races of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series on the boat of two partners that Jeremy works with at PwC. Unfortunately the weather didn’t pan out the way we had hoped and there was lots of rain, so our trip was cancelled. We spent the day at home avoiding the rain but our afternoon was interrupted with lots of boat horns blasting in the harbor. We ran outside to see what the commotion was (the rain had finally cleared) and found out that New Zealand had won the race! There was a celebration right around the corner from our house where the race boats were being stored, so we joined in the cheering for a little while.

That evening we got dressed in our Valentine’s red and pink for a farewell party for our friends Gareth and Claire. They are leaving Auckland this week to return home to the UK. Their trip home will take them through the US for several weeks of travelling. We started at their house before heading to a couple of bars in the city. It was a late but very fun night for us.

We topped off our weekend with a delicious lunch today at Squid Row, a seafood restaurant that we’ve been talking about going to. We both filled our bellies with the salt and pepper squid, which was fantastic. We really will miss all of the good restaurants around Auckland!

Hawke's Bay Wine Festival

2009-02-08T02:40:00.007-05:00

On Thursday morning we set off towards the Hawkes Bay, which is a 6 hour drive south of Auckland. (We enjoyed a four day weekend this week, taking Thursday off and Friday was a public holiday; Waitangi Day.) The Hawkes Bay is known as wine country and New Zealand and part of our weekend included the Hawkes Bay Wine Festival.

The first three hours of the drive were very familiar to us as it is the drive that we take to many of the popular sites on the North Island. After we hit Taupo, the scenery was new to us – but of course great.
We got to the Hawkes Bay around 4:30 and decided to explore Napier, one of the cities that make up the Bay. Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s and had to be completely rebuilt. The city now has an Art Deco theme that it is famous for. We strolled through some of the public gardens before heading off to our final destination, Hastings.
For this trip we decided to try a Kiwi summer tradition and go camping. We rented a tent from a home business in Auckland and were all set. The campground was very nice with lots of open tent sites. We got ourselves set up and went into town for a quick bite to eat. The sun set around 9:30 which left us with not much to do but read by flashlight or sleep, so needless to say, we were in bed pretty early.

The birds were chirping nice and early for us on Friday morning. We were up and running by 7:30 am. We decided to drive to Cape Kidnappers which is a famous golf course. When it opened a few years ago it was ranked #27 in the world. We had a hard time finding the course and when we asked someone where it was, they told us that we had to have permission to enter the property. We found the gate and dialed the course, begging them to let us in. We learned that it never hurts to ask as we were at the Pro Shop within a few minutes. The course was heavenly and the staff were so nice and accommodating.
After taking in the sites of the Cape, we were off to Kemblefield Estate to start our first day of wine tasting. We were told that we had to see Kemblefied, but it’s far away from the festival, so we decided to make an extra trip on Friday. After tasting a few wines we enjoyed a delicious platter of food as we were definitely ready for lunch at that stage. The woman at the vineyard suggested a few other wineries in the area that we should visit, so we mapped out our afternoon to do just that.
The afternoon included Trinity Hill, where after tasting wine we read and napped in the shade, Unison Vineyards, Matariki Wines, and finally Craggy Range where we drank an Avery Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc while snacking on a variety of cheeses. We also stopped to watch a random go carting race that we came across during our journey.
Saturday was the official start to the wine festival. We had no trouble getting to bed early on Friday night, so by 8 am on Saturday we were ready to go again. We walked into town to meet up with our shuttle for the day. We were given tasting glasses and a bus pass that we were told we had to wear on our necks all day. (It was kind of hard to drink from a glass that was tied to your neck, so we didn’t exactly follow all of the rules.)

Our first stop was Beach House Wines, a small vineyard. We only stayed for a short time and were back on the bus towards Elephant Hill – stop #2. When we got off the bus, we were greeted by tour guides who poured us generous glasses of wine to taste. They then walked us through the vineyard explaining that Elephant Hill opened just a few months ago. It was a very nice vineyard but we still didn’t feel like we wanted to spend the rest of the day there, so we were off again to stop #3, Clearview Estate.
Now this was more like what we were looking for. There were vendors selling snacks, cellar door tours, tastings and a restaurant where we were lucky to grab a seat for a delicious lunch in the shade amongst the grape vines. After lunch we hopped back onto the shuttle towards Kim Crawford. The shuttle took us straight through the vineyard which was kind of neat. At Kim Crawford we secured a bale of hay under a shade tree. We had packed a small blanket and travel Yahtzee which came in handy as we sipped wine all afternoon. The vineyard was serving thin crust pizza and ice cream, so we enjoyed that (and plenty of water) as well! The last shuttle back to town was at 4:30, so we were certain to get on one a little bit early. The shuttle dropped us off at Vidal wines where we purchased a final glass of wine for the road (the road was a walk to dinner!)

This morning we were on the road at 7:30 am, thanks to chirping birds and crying babies. We got back to Auckland in the early afternoon and hit the gym in an attempt to burn off some of the calories we drank over the past few days. For dinner we stopped by the Lantern Festival, in celebration of the Chinese New Year. We went to the same festival last year and sadly forgot the camera this year! We dined on scrumptious dumplings and spring rolls which were the perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

Blown Away

2009-02-03T01:54:00.003-05:00

Jeremy is off playing touch rugby this evening and I am busy catching up on our friends' blogs. Stephen and Deon (they live in our building and are from the US as well) keep a great blog. I was checking it out and was blown away by the photos Deon took on our trip to Tongariro. Check it out: http://onlyinnewzealand.blogspot.com/. She's a professional photographer, so the stakes were high, but I think she she did a great job! I'd also like you to notice the picture of me carrying our heavy pack for some of the trip. See I'm not 100% lazy :)

Another great blog to check out is our friend Nate's: http://2yearsinkiwiland.blogspot.com/
He is from Pittsburgh and (of course) a huge Steeler's fan. Jeremy watched the Super Bowl with him yesterday at Fox's a bar in the Viaduct. Nate was the organizer of our trip to Tongariro and he did a great job planning the trip. He has some great photos as well!

Anyways, enjoy the photos! It's a short week for us (3 days!) and then we're off to the Hawkes Bay for a wine festival. It's one of the few places we have yet to see of this amazing country. We're going to try our hand at camping since we've had good experiences in both the Outback and Abel Tasman. Fingers crossed for great weather and we'll catch you soon.

Stardome, White, Circus and more

2009-01-31T21:54:00.005-05:00

It's been a busy last few days for us down here in Kiwi land. On Thursday night Erin planned a great evening out at the Stardome here in Auckland. Over an hour and 1/2 we learned about the different constellations in the southern sky and then went out side and spotted a number of them through telescopes. We also talked about the various solar systems, subplanets and the sad story of how Pluto was demoted from being considered a Planet.

Friday night was the last night for one of Erin's co-workers Joe who is headed back to the UK and month end drinks for my work. We ended up at the same bar, Dakota, and had a fun night out.

Saturday was filled with a stop at Wendy's to get a burger, fries, coke, (for Jeremy) and a baked potato (for Erin). Then we headed to the ASB Showgrounds for the Travel Expo. We were very excited and had hoped to purchase our flights for our travels through Asia on the way home. Unfortunately after 2 hours of sitting with a Flight Centre agent, the cost of the flight they gave us didn't seem like a very good deal and had us going to Hong Kong 6 times...very strange.

At night we hung out with Gareth and Claire who are winding down their time here in NZ before heading back to Manchester. We went to White which is a fancy restaurant in the Hilton Hotel. It was great food, service and company. During the night we noted many words which are pronounced differently between the UK and the US. One example is the word Tuna. Everyone in the US knows how we pronounce it, but people from the UK pronounce it Ch-una. Interesting.

Sunday was a day spent trying to work on our travel plans and at night we went to see Le Grande Cirque with James and Caroline. It was an absolutely amazing and jaw dropping acrobatic show and we enjoyed it very much.

Now all eyes turn to the big day tomorrow...GO STEELERS!!!

Fishin'

2009-01-27T01:26:00.004-05:00

Our friend Steve is a huge fan of fly fishing. We’ve never tried it before, but NZ is a great place for fishing, so Steve offered to teach Jeremy on Sunday. We hit the road after breakfast in search of the perfect fishing spot.

We planned to fish along the Retaruke River , but had to gain a local farmer’s permission to do so. We didn’t have much luck with that. We either couldn’t find a farmer, or ran into unfriendly people who didn’t want to share their part of the river with strangers. Finally we came across a farmer who owned 1600 acres around the river. He said he didn’t know much about fishing, but directed us to a spot that he knows is popular for fishing.

The spot turned out to be perfect! Deon and I sat in the shade under a bridge. (The sun was scorching on Sunday.) We set up blankets and chatted away while the boys headed upstream. About two hours later some more of our friends arrived with a BBQ and lots of food. They started grilling some burgers and hot dogs and when the “fishermen” returned we enjoyed a delicious feast. The fishing, swimming and fun continued late into the afternoon, until the bugs were biting too much for us to handle. Some fish were spotted, but none were actually caught, unfortunately. The day was nice and relaxing – which was just what we needed after the long hike on Saturday.

Tongariro Crossing

2009-01-26T01:45:00.007-05:00

What do Frodo Baggins and Jeremy Ciaccia have in common?

That's right, they have both climbed Mount Doom! (Mount Ngauruhoe in Jeremy's case.)

Still confused? Mount Ngauruhoe is Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings. This site is part of New Zealand's Tongariro National Park and on Saturday we completed the 19.4 km Tongariro Alpine crossing. This spectacular trek took us over steep volcanic terrain, past steaming craters and Emerald Lakes.

Our group of 14 started our early Saturday morning and finished, in mostly one piece late Saturday afternoon. Six brave souls - Jeremy, James, Jacco, Nate, Paul and Michelle decided to hike the very steep Mount Ngauruhoe, a 2287 uphill climb that takes about 1.5 hours and a steep slide (30 minutes) through rocks and gravel, back to the bottom.

We were prepared for any sort of weather but were very lucky to have sun and clear skies the entire time. By mid-afternoon a few clouds rolled in, which was a relief to our sun burnt bodies.

Jeremy and I are happy to have finally completed the Tongariro Crossing as it has been on our "to-do" list since arriving in New Zealand. As this was a three day weekend (we celebrated Auckland Anniversary day today), our weekend was certainly not complete with just the walk. On Sunday our friend Steve was taking us to learn how to fly fish. Stay tuned for more details!

Breakers Game

2009-01-22T04:45:00.003-05:00

Tonight we attended our first NBL (National Basketball Game) game. We went with our friends Jacqui and Jerry and had two coupons from the Entertainment Book which each entitled us to a buy 1 get 1 free (what a deal). The tickets were $20 each and we had great seats.

This was an important game because the New Zealand Breakers (only New Zealand team in the league) was in 2nd place and if they won tonight would clinch 2nd place for the season going into the playoffs.

The game started out great and the first half was very entertaining. Unfortunately as we got into the 2nd half the play became very sloppy and the Breakers were not played well. The Melbourne Tigers won the game which was a bummer but we had a great time.

We're off for a weekend of fun and hiking with a bunch of friends. Stay tuned for what will hopefully be some good stories and even better pictures come next week. Monday's a holiday for us as it's Auckland Anniversary Day!!

Final Days

2009-01-21T02:10:00.004-05:00

For the last two days that Jackie and Tim were here, we decided to show them a few of the Auckland beaches. On Friday we packed a picnic lunch and took them to Piha, one of our favorite beaches on the west coast. The weather was great, sun with a few clouds (protection), the sand was hot and overall it was a great day. Everyone (but me) enjoyed a swim in the ocean and Tim and Jeremy hiked to the top of Lion Rock to have a look at the Tasman Sea from high above the water.

On our way back to the city we stopped at a fruit and veggie shop. We picked up loads of fresh food for very little money, which we were excited about. For dinner we hosted some of our NZ friends for a BBQ - so Tim and Jackie got to meet some more PwC people.

Saturday morning we were up early for a little road trip. Jeremy drove us 2.5 hours to the Coromandel Peninsula on NZ's east coast. We were in search of Hot Water Beach. Its name comes from underground hot springs which filter up through the sand between the high and low water tidal reaches. Within two hours either side of low tide, it is possible to dig into the sand allowing hot water to escape to the surface forming a hot water pool. The water temperature which can be as hot as 64ºC (147ºF). Visitors often dig large holes and relax and soak in the thermal water, so we attempted to do just that.

We rented a shovel (spade here) and found hot water spots without a problem. The problem for us was the waves kept coming in and overflowing our warm "tub". After about ten attempts, we had enough, snapped some photos and hit the road for our next destination.

We wanted to have a picnic lunch at Cathedral Cove, which is a beautiful beach - 45 minutes walking from the road. We enjoyed another picnic and the weather was almost as nice as the day before (just a few more clouds). The water and waves were so great that everyone, including me, swam for a while.
We wrapped up our amazing vacation with a few drinks in Auckland's Viaduct by our apartment. Tim and Jackie packed up for their trip home (via one week in Sydney) and we dropped them off at the airport at 4:30 Sunday morning. We were sad to see them go, but knew that all good things must come to an end. It was back to work for us on Monday but as you know, we always have more adventures up our sleeves!!!

Paragliding Adventure

2009-01-20T02:09:00.005-05:00

To finish off our crazy adventure-filled trip to the South Island, we decided to try paragliding. We booked the first trip of the day and prayed that the winds would be perfect. Good news, we were all set for the flight! We met our pilots at the base of the cliff that we were jumping from. It was a quick drive to the top and without thinking, they took us away individually to suit up and jump - it was literally that fast. Too fast to even get nervous! I was the first to go as my guy was the owner of the company. We soared upwards pretty quickly, but he had trouble really catching any breeze, so we drifted down to the ground below pretty quickly, followed by the rest of the group. We all thought it was an interesting experience.

Everyone got packed into the van and they took us back to the cliff. We weren't sure what was going on until they yelled "come on, let's try jump number 2!" This one was definitely better. We knew what to expect, how to take off and how to land. They snapped some photos and videos of us, which made for a much more memorable experience.

After our flights we stopped for lunch in town. I tried a hot stone meal where I cooked my steak on a really really hot piece of stone:
After lunch we ran through some of the souvenir shops trying on the crazy hats. They were all nice and warm, but it's hard to make a winter purchase on a hot summer day.

On our final morning in Queenstown, we visited Arrowtown for breakfast before our flight. The flight to Auckland wasn't bad at all. We got upgraded to first class! (It was just nice seats - no fancy drinks or food since it's a quick flight)The flight also took us over the Abel Tasman where we had kayaked. You can see the path we took in the photo, starting on the left side following the coast all the way down past the beach on the right side.

We got back to Auckland in the mid-afternoon. It was nice to relax! Tim and Jackie cooked a delicious meal to thank us for letting them stay at our house. We played a couple of games (no Canasta) and then enjoyed a picture show featuring the hundreds of photos from our trip.

But wait! It's not over yet - we still have two days to tell you about - check back again!

B-Day

2009-01-19T02:26:00.004-05:00

Some of you may be wondering what Tim meant by his comment on yesterday's post. Well before Erin and I came to NZ, Tim and Jackie bought us some travels gifts including travel pillows, and some games. One of the games is Canasta. We were so happy to have gotten the gifts, but when we opened Canasta to play here in NZ, the rule book was too big and we passed. Low and behold, Tim decided to give Jackie Canasta for Christmas this year. In the end all Tim talked about was playing Canasta, but the 3 of us who actually owned the game weren't interested. It became the running joke. Hopefully when we get back to Boston, we can have a few games.

While the drive to Queenstown was long, it was also scenic. We stopped for dinner in Wanaka, a town that’s about an hour in Queenstown. We settled into our hotel quickly and pondered over the next day over a glass of wine (in the hotel lobby as the walls were thin and we got in trouble for talking too loud!)

The next day started early with breakfast at a tasty café. We then rode the gondola up to take in the views of Queenstown. We of course took in a few rides on, my favorite, the luge. Jeremy and Tim seemed pretty quiet as we got closer to lunch, but that’s because they had signed up for a BUNGEE JUMP!

We grabbed a quick lunch before heading off to the Kawaru Bridge. This bridge is the site of the first commercial bungy jump 20 years ago. It's 43 metre's in height which is much smaller than the Nevis jump which I had done last year during our travels with Jochen and Susanne. There were lots of spectators, but we didn’t have to wait long for the boys to jump! They both did a great job, had a nice water touch, and enjoyed the experience.

Jeremy pre-jump, he's jumped before so he was only half nervous

Jeremy jumping...what form

Water touchTim jumping - Go Tim Go! He did a great job too!

After the jumps, we headed back into Queenstown and drove up the Remarkables. This is one of the ski fields in Queenstown and the drive is rather scary as it's 13km on a curvy dirt road with no barriers. We finally made it to the top, took some pictures and then started our slow decent down.

Since we had got our bungy out of the way, the night was filled with drinks in Queenstown. We did our best to find some happy hours to get some cheap drinks and were successful at a few bars. One of them we got steak sandwiches and a Speights for $12...WHAT A DEAL!

We didn't stay out too late as we needed our strength for a big day tomorrow.

Glacier Heli-Hike

2009-01-17T15:35:00.006-05:00

We were very excited about our heli-hike as we tried to do one last year, but it was cancelled because of thick fog. With clear skies and not a cloud in sight, we were pretty sure we were going to fly today.

Our group of 11 outfitted in jackets and warm gear before splitting up for the helicopter ride. Jeremy and I were picked to ride up first with a family of 3. We eagerly jumped into the helicopter with our guide, Julia, popped on our headsets and held on tight. The flight was about 10 minutes long and our pilot gave us some good views of the glacier before popping us down to the ice.

Once we landed, we were given axes and crampons for our boots, which made it much easier to walk around. Once the second group arrived, we set off on our two hour hike. Julia worked with a bigger axe to chop away a clear path in the ice (we were the first trip of the day). She tested spots to make sure we were safe and cut away steps when we had to climb up and over larger pieces of ice. We ventured through ice tunnels, into caves and even had to slide through tiny holes to make it back to the helipad for our pickup.

To give you an idea of the size of the glacier, the ice above the black spot behind us is more than 50 meters thick. We were like tiny little ants out there:

The glacier is constantly moving and while we were there we heard a very loud ice slip. Huge chunks of ice (bigger than cars) just fell straight down. It's very dangerous there. The day after we left, two guys were crushed to death by falling ice. Our flight back was just as amazing as the trip there. As we said goodbye to the glacier, we thought about how lucky we were to have experienced something so awesome.

We relaxed over lunch and browsed some shops before meeting up with Tim and Jackie. They did a full day hike and were finished in the late afternoon. Our next stop, Queenstown was about a 5 hour drive from there, so we wanted to get on the road as fast as possible. We certainly were keeping to our schedule until this farmer and his sheep got in our way. It didn't take them long to get out of the way, but we've never seen a sight like this - even in NZ!

Quad Biking

2009-01-15T03:04:00.005-05:00

Just outside of Westport was a seal colony we visited on our way out of town. We couldn't get too close to the seals but there were lots of little babies that were really cute. There were also some spectacular views from the ocean cliffs. We also spotted a World Traveler's sign that told us we were 12, 749 km (7,922 miles) from New York City! Too bad they don't show how far away Boston is, but I guess we could do the math if we really needed to.

We decided to stop an show Tim and Jackie Pancake Rocks which we had visited on our trip south last year. They were just as amazing as they were on our first trip: Day 8 Last Year

By the time we finished our walk through the Pancake Rocks, we were getting pretty hungy for lunch. We decided to continue on our way and hoped to find something to eat relatively soon. We were very excited when we saw a sign for a cafe, but not only that, they advertised 4x4 adventures. We knew then that our next stop was going to be a long one.

After enjoying a lunch of french fries, corn dogs, and fish sticks (they didn't really sell anything else) we hopped on some wheels for a one hour adventure through the Hokitika countryside. The trip was great. Tim got in trouble only a few times for breaking the rules, and I only crashed once, in a creek (I claim that was my only opportunity to try riding in "Reverse", but I'm not sure anyone believed me.) We travelled through the woods, up and down steep hills, and even through a deep river.

Our day ended in Franz Josef Glacier. Tim was really excited to try a restaurant Jeremy and I had eaten at the year before. We couldn't remember if we liked it or not and it looked fun from the outside, so we decided to try it again. Bad decision. The food was pretty average. The guys wanted to try the Mixed Grill special. What arrived wasn't so yummy: Venison Sausage (the best meat was made into a sausage - we should have known better!), Goat Chop and Rabbit (very dry). The best part of the meal was the enormous garlic bread we had as an appetizer. If only we had stuck to that!

Wine O'Clock

2009-01-14T03:21:00.003-05:00

We enjoyed a bit of a sleep in and reorganized/repacked all of our gear before heading out of Havelock. We grabbed a bite to eat for brunch in Picton, another town along the Marlborough Sounds.

Our journey continued to Marlborough, which is a wine making region of New Zealand. We stopped for tastings at five vineyards – Whither Hills, Villa Maria, Highfield Estate, Isabel Estate and Te Whare Ra. Our favorites were definitely the Sauvignon Blancs and the Pinot Noirs. We purchased a couple bottles of “Sav” to share during the remainder of our trip.
Our next destination was about 3 hours away so we got back on the road towards Westport. Along the way we spotted a sign for the longest swing bridge in New Zealand. I’m certainly not a fan of swing bridges, but when we saw another sign for a flying fox ride back we decided to take in a little adventure. A flying fox is essentially a harness ride across a cable. It was lots of fun but we were attacked by mosquitoes (it was becoming a regular occurrence) which wasn’t so enjoyable. Once we arrived in Westport we checked into our motel and drove to a restaurant that the motel owned recommended. The restaurant was called Porto Bella and the meal was certainly the best that any of us had enjoyed at that point.

Stay tuned – coming up soon is our adventures at Franz Josef Glacier!

Green Lipped Mussels

2009-01-13T03:14:00.005-05:00

As soon as our kayaks were unloaded we left Marahau en route to Motueka, where we had spent our first night. This part was a bit of a back-track as our next destination was in the Marlborough Sounds, towards the east (we were currently in the west.) We stopped by a craft fair in Motueka to browse for souvenirs. Jackie and Tim were lucky enough to find a beautiful platter, while Jeremy and I left empty-handed.

The rest of our drive was rather uneventful. The road took us along the beautiful coast and then through the mountains, right into our next stop, Havelock.

Havelock is a very small town, but is known as the Green Shelled Mussel Capitol of the World. Perhaps this is why I chose a motel in this town? Once we had checked into our room, the boys explored town and picked up some beer and wine, while the girls got showered and ready for dinner.

When everyone was sparkling clean (showers after three days of no showers can be pretty long) we walked to Slip Inn, a restaurant on the water to try some mussels. We found the food delicious, but the service was sub-par, so we decided to try another restaurant for round two. On the way to our second stop, Jeremy noticed a bus with Bedford written on the front parked in a trailer park. The owner was very friendly and invited us inside to see his home. It was amazing to see how much stuff they fit into such a unique space. Outfitted with a new flat screen TV, I think Jeremy would have stayed for much longer but our stomachs were rumbling so it was time to press on. The Mussel Pot was certainly the better option of restaurants. In the relaxed atmosphere, we enjoyed mussels in garlic butter, in blue cheese sauce, in sweet chili sauces, and even baked with cheese and bacon bits. By the end of stop #2 we were stuffed, the mozzies were biting and it was time to head home. Jeremy, Tim and I stayed up chatting for a couple of hours, while Jackie (who won the I Can Sleep ANYWHERE award on the trip) curled up in a little ball and caught some zzz’s.

Abel Tasman Kayaking

2009-01-12T04:50:00.005-05:00

I've just arrived home from a work BBQ and it's 10:51pm. Erin is asleep next to me here and she hasn't done anything with the blog tonight except for pick some new colours. So, here I am blogging by myself, no thanks to my wonderful wife. OK enough of that, back to our trip...

After arriving in Nelson (north part of the south island), we drove to Motueka where we would be staying the night before our 3 day/2 night kayak tour. The four of us were staying at a Top 10 Holiday park in one of the smallest units I've ever seen. (sorry no pictures) The day we arrived entailed preparation for our trip and a good nights sleep.

We woke up early and headed to the Ocean River kayak's to get our 2-3 hour safety briefing which started at 8:30am before heading onto the water. One thing we forgot was that we were on KIWI time, which is sloooowwwww. After a lengthy briefing and a lot of standing around in the sun, we were in the water and kayaking at 1:30pm. After eating some lunch we were in our kayaks and the sky's turned on us and the heaven's opened up with plenty of wind and rain. Luckily after a couple hours of paddling and raining, we arrived at Mosquito Bay which was our first camp site (maximum capacity 40 people). It was a very secluded bay and we were able to set our tents us right next to the beach.

The rain stopped eventually and we cooked up some beef schnitzel and peppers for dinner. This was New Years eve and we celebrated it with beers and rain of course (needless to say we were in bed by 12:15am).

The next day was beautiful and we started the morning early with some beers and pastrami sandwiches. Why not breakfast food you ask? Our ice was melting quickly and we figured our meat may not last too long, so the quicker we ate it, the better. We relaxed at the bay, went for a swim and talked with some of the other campers. Tim and Jeremy went for a little hike to see some Waterfalls that one of the campers was raving about, but it wasn't as spectacular as we had hoped.

We then hopped in our kayak's and set off for another couple hours of paddling stopping in a bay along the way, we made it to Te Pukatea Bay which was absolutely stunning. This campsite only had a maximum capacity of 28, so a little smaller than the first night. We relaxed on the beach, played Frisbee, and drank some beers. After going for an hour and 1/2 hike, we decided to cook up our dinner which was dry food which were great after we added some boiling water and let sit for 6-8 minutes. Around 8pm, on the 2nd night we had run through 39 beers, a box win (bladder of wine as Erin called it), and 2 small bottles of bubbles. It may sound like a lot, but what else are you supposed to do when you're hanging out at the beach and kayaking.

On the 3rd and final day I had the bright idea of watching the sun rise, so I asked anyone who was up at that time to wake me up. Around 4:30am I felt a tapping on my shoulder and Erin was telling me to go take some pictures. So up I went to the beach to take some nice shots. After waiting on the beach for 2 and 1/3 hours the sun has rose and I hadn't gotten many good pictures, oh well. We kayaked for a couple of hours, then stopped at a beach where we had lunch and then took our time getting back to the base camp to return our gear.

It was an awesome trip and we had a blast!

Visit to the South Island

2009-01-11T03:52:00.002-05:00

Tim and Jackie arrived from LA bright and early on the 30th which marked the start of our South Island adventure. We whisked them back to our apartment for showers before running to some local shops to gather last minute supplies for our trip. By mid-day the four of us were fully packed and on a flight to Nelson, excited about what the next 11 days would hold for us. We had a great time and are sad that the time has come that we must return to work. (Tim and Jackie are lucky to have another week in Australia before heading back to Boston!)

Some of the highlights from our trip included:
- Surviving 3 days kayaking and camping through Abel Tasman National Park
- Eating more than our share of green lipped mussels
- Wine tasting in Marlborough
- 4 wheeling through a river
- Riding a helicopter over and hiking on a glacier
- Bungy jumping off a bridge
- Paragliding off a mountain
- Swimming at a hot water beach

Stay tuned for more details of our fun times with Tim and Jackie!

Time in Boston

2008-12-28T23:19:00.007-05:00

It's been a while since we have posted a blog, and for all of our avid followers we are sorry that we haven't posted sooner. The past 10 days have been extremely busy as we travelled back home to Boston. We were very busy during our time at home, but I'll provide a brief summary below. Sorry if I left out certain things as if I put everything down, this entry would be extremely long:

-Arrived home late at night and were greeted by M&D Ciaccia at the airport.
-Got our first glimpse of our nephew John Jacob who was born in January as well as our new niece Mirabella who was just born in November. We also spent a lot of time with Avery and saw Will for the first time in a year.

-Spent some time at PwC Boston speaking with colleagues about my return in May while Erin and her Mom got a massage. At night, we hung out with friends and had some drinks while the snow continued to come down hard. We hung out at JC's place which was great and got a Birthday cake for Erin and 1/2 Birthday cake for me (Thanks Tim/Jackie)
-We also got our teeth cleaned (we don't like the dentist)
-Attended Mirabella's baptism where Erin had the honor of being her Godmother. We continued to battle the snow and partied to celebrate her baptism

-Spent a couple days up in Old Orchard Beach with Erin's Mom, grandmother, sister Julia (boyfriend Mike), and dog Bosley. While there, we did some shopping, lots of eating, and more.
-Hung out in LAX with Erin's Dad and Grandmother who flew down from Northern California to visit with us during our layover.

We wanted to express a special thanks to M&D Ciaccia who allowed us to use their car the whole time we were home, gave us a place to stay, and picked us up and dropped us off at the airport. Also to Erin's Mom (Peggy) who took us in for 2 nights as well.

We're off to travel the south island for the next 10 days with Tim and Jackie who are flying in tomorrow from the US. Stay tuned for updates from those travels as I'm sure we will have some great stories about the adventures that we encounter.

Kiwi 12 Days of Christmas

2008-12-16T14:54:00.002-05:00

I realise that here in NZ there are only 8 days until Christmas, but figured that people around the world would like to see the words for the Kiwi 12 Days of Christmas. If you know what all of those things are then you are a TRUE KIWI.

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Twelve piupius swinging
Eleven haka lessons
Ten juicy fish heads
Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five - big - fat - pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree.

Rangitoto

2008-12-14T03:49:00.004-05:00

After 2 previous attempts to do our kayak trip to Rangitoto, we were finally blessed with a sun filled sky and very little wind. Rangitoto is an island in Auckland Harbour which was formed 600 years ago through volcanic eruption. Our trip started at 10am in the morning with a safety briefing about the double kayaks that we were able to cross the 5km harbour in. Stephen and Deon (from the US) joined us for the trip as well as about 8 other people and 3 guides. The trip over was about an hour of kayaking, then an hour hike to the top of the island (then 45 mins down), and a little over 1 hour kayaking back. The sun was shinning the whole time which was great.

Yes I'm very sweaty

Click on it to make it bigger and you can see the cityWe practiced our kayaking skills for the 3 days/2 night trip that we will do when Jackie and Tim visit us the end of this month down in Abel Tasman (north part of the south island).

After the kayaking, the 4 of us stopped in Mission Bay and had some fish and chips!

On Sunday, Erin and I did a lot of shopping for Christmas presents. We felt as though we had been doing a lot of shopping over the past weeks, but we spent about 3-4 hours out and about getting stuff today.

Only a few days left until we head back to the cold/snowy Northeast.

Promotion

2008-12-09T05:09:00.002-05:00

We have received some good news from Erin's work. She's worked very hard in her new role in establishing the Hudson Career Center here in New Zealand and has been rewarded with a much deserved promotion to Consultant. I spoke with her boss at her work party on Friday and she commented how well deserved this promotion was.

Great job Erin!!!

As a nice husband (I need a little credit) I bought her a very nice arrangement of flowers in celebration. As you can see a wonderfully crafted home-made congratulations card went along with the arrangement.

Kylie Minogue

2008-12-08T05:16:00.005-05:00

Last week when one of the partners offered me 4 tickets to see Kylie Minogue at Vector Arena here in Auckland, I wasn't sure how I would like the concert even if I would like it at all. Leading up to today, every person I tell that I'm going to the concert tonight has been very excited and said how she will put on a great show, and the costumes will be spectacular.

Tonight, Erin and I along with one of my clients and his wife headed to the concert and it was GREAT! Our seats were very good and had a nice view of the stage and the performance. There was a lot of dancing, very cool costumes, and of course many different songs that I know. We bought one of her CD's on iTunes yesterday to ensure that we would know here songs and there are a lot from a while back and even more recent ones that are very popular and you would know the songs.

Overall a very fun night.

Spraying confetti over the crowd

James and his wife Caroline

Us enjoying the concert

Party, Soccer, American Footbal, and SUN

2008-12-07T00:16:00.005-05:00

We've had a very busy weekend here and we have been very blessed with wonderful sunny days.

On Friday, Erin's Christmas Party (We don't call them Holiday parties here, because people think that we are going on "vacation" or a holiday and wonder where we are going) for Hudson took place at a restaurant called Toto. The whole downstairs was rented out where we had food, drink, and a live band. It was a lot of fun and we did a little bit of dancing on the floor as well.

On Saturday, we walked around the city and did some Christmas shopping. At night, we met up with one of my clients and his wife (James & Caroline) and headed to Mt. Smart Stadium where the LA Galaxy played the Oceania All-Stars. There's been a lot of hype with David Beckham being in town and it was good to see him play. On Friday he did the jump off of the SKY Tower which if you remember I did about a year ago. Here are a few photos from the game:

On Sunday, I ended up playing some American Football with a bunch of people from work. There were about 10 of us that played (3 people from the US), and it was a lot of fun. We then had a BBQ and ate Burgers, Hog Dogs, Sausages, and drank Budweiser!

Not much time left here before we head back to the US for some Christmas celebrations.

Another new picture

2008-12-04T03:18:00.003-05:00

We decided to print one of Jeremy's amazing photos onto a large canvas as a way to remember our time here in New Zealand. The photo we chose was from our trip to Queenstown this past July. The print arrived today and we are very pleased with the outcome! It doesn't look very good in the photo, but we wanted to share it anyways - in real life it looks great - you'll just have to visit us in Boston to find out!

Don Quixote

2008-12-03T04:56:00.003-05:00

Tonight we joined our Culture Vulture friends for a night out. We started the evening with a delicious dinner at Tanuki's, a Japanese restaurant in town. Some of the group shared a massive 2 litre beer. We then feasted on some ice cream before heading to the theatre to see Don Quixote, the ballet. We had a little mishap during intermission - Jeremy stepped outside for some fresh air and got locked out. The ushers couldn't even figure out how to open the door to let him him. Fortunately, he made it back for the rest of the show (after walking around the whole building). The guys in our group weren't sure how much they were going to enjoy a ballet, but we all thought the performance was outstanding and would highly recommend it!

We also learned a new word/phrase today. The word is bags. It's used when someone wants to call something such as the last cookie, or a special seat in a living room. Someone would say "Bags it" or "Bagsy". Not sure if we'll start saying it, but time will tell. In the definition on Wikipedia it says that it's commonly used in the US but not from what I've heard.

Carnival and Santa Parade

2008-11-30T01:31:00.005-05:00

Saturday was a busy day for us as we got up nice and early and headed to the gym for a morning workout. We then made a picnic lunch and headed off to the west coast to Piha beach. We've been here before, but decided that with the hot sun shining brightly it was a good day to go to the beach. We relaxed on the beach for a while and put our feet in the water, but not more (it was too cold for us).

We then got ourselves ready for the PwC Christmas function which had a theme of Brazilian Carnival. (We unfortunately didn't find any costumes to suit our styles, so we just got dressed up for the night) We began the night at Gareth's and Claire's for some pre-party drinks and then headed up to the big bash. It was amazing and the costumes that people had were very impressive. There were also some Brazilian dancers (scantily clad) and music which was played at various times throughout the night. Overall the evening was a great time and over 900 people were there. The quality of the video isn't great below, but take a look:

Today was another beautiful sunny day which began with us watching the All Blacks vs. England game (or at least the replay from the game which occurred over night) at 8am. The 75th Annual Santa Parade started at 2am and we wanted to make sure we watched this again this year. It was estimated that 250,000 lined the streets for the parade. It was a very long parade, but had some nice floats as you can see and SANTA at the end.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2008-11-27T13:04:00.002-05:00

We hope that everyone is having a very Happy Thanksgiving. We look forward to celebrating with you next year. Our Thanksgiving dinner was a bit of a mess and we are happy that we got to have one earlier in the week with friends. The turkey didn't cook quite right, so we had some salad, rolls and chocolate pudding for dinner. Oh well!

It's almost the end of the month so Jeremy decided to trim his moustache for the last day of work. He's done a great job raising money for men's health! Great job Jeremy!

Only a couple days left

2008-11-26T03:58:00.002-05:00

I'm sure everyone in the US is getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving in a couple of days. Erin and I will be celebrating tomorrow with some turkey, etc.

As we approach the end of the month, there are only a couple days left for my fundraising efforts. To date, I've raised $1,218.85 thanks to help from various individuals in New Zealand, Japan, US, and Germany.

I'm still hoping to raise some more money so if you can find some extra cash I'm sure it would be much appreciated. Thanks again to all who have already supported my wonderful MO.

Click here to see my profile and donate

Early Thanksgiving Dinner

2008-11-24T04:35:00.003-05:00

Last night we gathered with 15 of Jeremy's work mates for a Thanksgiving feast. There were 7 Americans and the others were from Ireland, England, and New Zealand. The night was really fun as the "foreigners" were very interested in learning more about the holiday. They took the time to make traditional recipes like pumpkin, apple, and pecan pies as well as roasting a 22 pound turkey (which had to be special ordered as they aren't common here.)

Those of us who are American even struggled making our recipes as many of the ingredients from back home, aren't sold in NZ. I volunteered to make the stuffing and spend several hours chopping bread into tiny cubes. Fortunately, my hard work paid off and I produced enough stuffing to feed 17 hungry people. Jeremy picked the lucky seat at the table as he was the closest American to the turkey, so he was in charge of carving it. He did a great job!

Help Needed...

2008-11-21T02:14:00.005-05:00

I've completed my 3rd week of growing a moustache and entering into the final week of growth for the Movember charity fund raiser.

To those who have already donated, I thank you very much. For those who haven't donated, I need your help. Please consider donating a small amount of US Dollars. When you log onto the page it'll ask you how many NZD's you want to donate, and just remember that the conversion rate is very favorable for those people overseas. The coversion rate for USD is about 2-1 (so if you say you want to donate $50 NZD that'll only cost you about $25 USD) WHAT A DEAL!
Please help support this great charity and the new month with a Moustache husband that Erin had to put up with.

Just click on the word DONATE to help support

Aboriginal Painting

2008-11-17T02:34:00.005-05:00

When we were in Alice Springs we had a day to play around town before our flight to Port Douglas. We went into many stores searching for that perfect souvenir. We wanted to find something that would be very special to us and remind us of the wonderful time we spent in the Outback. It was really hot that day and to take a break from the heat and attacking flies, we stepped into Gallery Kukuwarri. Little did we know how much time we were going to spend in the gallery. We were poking around the different paintings, attemping to interpret them when the shop owner, Caroline, offered to tell us about any painting in the store, as she knew the artists personally. In short, the gallery works as a co-op and provides transportation, food, art supplies, and shelter for aboriginal artist to come to Alice Springs and work.

We were immediately attracted to two different, more contemporary styles and finally picked our favorite piece. This painting is by Jeannie Petyarre who was born in Central Australia but her work is famous around the world. She is part of a family of many famous aboriginal artists.

The painting is the Yam Leaf. The desert yam (yala) is one of the staple foods in Central Australia. In this painting Jeannie uses the colors to represent the changes through the seasons. Caroline, also provided us with four photos of Jeannie painting our painting. We feel that those photos make the painting even more special and "one of a kind".

Wellington

2008-11-16T02:46:00.007-05:00

We've been here for 19 months and haven't made it to Wellington (the capital) so we figured it was time for us to make a visit. While down there, we went on a tour of the Parliment/Beehive, took the Historic Cable Car ride, relaxed on the waterfront, went to the great Te Papa museum, and had dinner with some friends.

Jeremy and a Cute Sculpture at the Museum

Flowers in the Botanical Garden

Parliament

The Cable Car and the City
It was a busy couple days down there that's for sure. It sure is a windy city that's for sure. On Sunday when we got home, the USA and Korea were playing in the final of the first FIFA Women's U17 World Cup which was held here in NZ. We headed up to watch the game which was great. Unfortunatly in OT, Korea scored to win 2-1. (A girl named Hayley Brock is on the team and is from Acton, Massachusetts) There were some die-hard USA fans there as you can see.

It's a Girl!

2008-11-14T23:15:00.003-05:00

We are so proud to become Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Erin again this year! Welcome to Mirabella Ann Mathews born November 14th at 8:04 pm! We can't wait to meet you in just a few weeks Bella!

End of Vacation

2008-11-12T00:37:00.009-05:00

Since we are off on another trip tomorrow night, we thought it would be best to quickly summarize the last few days of our vacation. On Saturday we drove north of Port Douglas and took a ferry into the Daintree Rainforest. At 135 million years old, the Daintree Rainforest is the oldest rainforest in the world. Our first stop (nice and early because we wanted to beat the crowd) was the Daintree Discovery Centre.

A little lizard who joined us for the ride

The ferry over the Daintree River which is filled with crocs!

It turns out we were there in the off season, so we were the crowd, but it was nice to explore the place on our own. The Discover Centre has a big walkway that takes you through the forest and then a huge tower that lets you explore the different layers of the rainforest. It was really neat and there is certainly a lot to learn!

Green Ants

Croc warning signs were all over the place.

We explored the area for the rest of the afternoon and Jeremy took a swim in the Mossman Gorge before we headed back to our hotel.

Our last day in Australia we went to a market in town and then hung out by the pool after taking a long walk on the beach. It was really nice to just relax after being so busy! That night we headed back into town to enjoy the sunset, some mojitos and a delicious dinner to top off the vacation.

Enjoying the nice sunset and some cocktails

Monday was a big travel day for us as we had to fly from Cairns to Sydney and then on to Auckland. We were very lucky and were upgraded to first class on our flight from Cairns to Sydney! Unfortunately we didn't get a second upgrade for the international portion of the flight, but the flight attendant did come by and tell Jeremy that he was one of their top customers! Way to go Jeremy!

One of us gets way too excited when she goes to the Qantas Lounge
Next stop: Wellington for a long weekend. We are looking forward to exploring NZ's capital city.

Back on Vacation

2008-11-06T01:04:00.004-05:00

Sorry it's been a while, we've been keeping busy with work events, a wedding, and the great spring weather. Back on vacation in Australia...

On Friday morning we took a daytrip to the Great Barrier Reef with Calypso Reef Cruises. We signed ourselves up for 2 Intro scuba dives that day. Jeremy is a certified diver, but I'm not, so we decided to do the Intro Dives so we could enjoy it together. I made sure I took my seasickness pills but my nerves almost got the best of me as I felt pretty queezy during the trip to the reef. I was certain that either I'd get eaten by a shark, left behind by the boat, or my head would explode from the pressure.

Our guide, Erin, was great. We had to pass a basic test with her before going very deep in the water. After three tries and some coaxing I was breathing under water and exploring the Reef. There was a very friendly (and BIG) fish named Marley that came to visit us on the dive. We also saw turtles and other amazing sea creatures. Apparently a shark swam by (not a man-eating one) but we missed that, unfortunately.

What a great experience! I am so happy that I let Jeremy convice me that diving is fun. Between our two dives, Jeremy snorkeled around while I sun-bathed. Here are some of the photos that we caught with our camera:

IT'S MO TIME!!

2008-11-04T04:33:00.005-05:00

We are going to take a break from posting about our trip to Australia to get everyone excited about something new that I'm doing.

If you don't know it's MOvember. During the month of November a charitable activity that I've decided to participate in is where I will grow a moustache. I'm sure you are wondering what charity I'm supporting. I'm promoting the awareness of men's health specifically:

-Depression (Depression affects 1 in 10 men....Most people who experience depression make a full recovery. The first step is seeking help.)
-Cancer (Last year in New Zealand 2,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 600 died of prostate cancer - (that's nearly two each day))

I'm sure you are all wondering what I will look like with a moustache, so please click on the link below and donate: Donate to Jeremy's Mo and donate online using your credit card.

You can also track my fundraising status at my profile page: Jeremy's Mofile

The Zoo!

2008-11-03T02:59:00.009-05:00

We headed north of Cairns to Port Douglas early in the morning in our rental car. We went to the Cairns Tropical Zoo for a couple hours on the way up north. We saw snakes, birds, koalas, crocodiles, wombats, kangaroos, and much more. Erin also got to hold a Koala here and we got a nice picture.

A massive crock having his lunch Us with a friendly koalaA bird in flight at the bird show Cute lizard

A sleepy koala in the maternity ward

We continued north along the coast (a beautiful ride) and stopped at Rex Lookout where 3 hang-gliders were taking off and "gliding" around.

We arrived in Port Douglas and checked into the Sheraton Resort and were shown to our lagoon room. It was a great room with a nice balcony overlooking one of the lagoons. We relaxed at the pool with couple of drinks. We then headed into town for a dinner and found a place on the water and got a great table to watch the sunset. It was an early night to bed as early the next day we were going SCUBA DIVING!!!

Back in non-vacation times:

Happy Birthday Jake!!!

Final Day in Alice Springs

2008-11-02T02:20:00.005-05:00

Today was our final day in Alice Springs before heading to Queensland (Cairns for 1 night) and then traveling up to Port Douglas. We had a leisurely day in the town and spent most of our morning in an Aboriginal Art Shop. We spoke with the owner and found a painting that we loved. We bought the painting and will be getting it frammed shortly and will post a picture of it in a week or two. In addition to the actual painting, we were given 4 shots of the artist actually painting our picture, very cool.

We took a mini hike up ANZAC hill right in the town which commemorates the individuals who fought in the various wars and also gives a nice view of the town from the top.

" The Alice"

The McDonnell Ranges outside of Alice Springs

As you can see, we are FAR from home!

We then headed to the airport, relaxed in the lounge, and then headed to Cairns. We got there late at night, so didn't end up doing very much besides having a couple drinks and relaxing. Stay tuned for our adventures in Port Douglas...

In other news:
Today in Auckland was the Auckland City Marathon. It starts at 6:30am and all the runners come right by our place. We watched and cheered for the people all morning long. Erin was a very good cheerleader and has red/sore hands from all of her clapping. Here are some crazy runners that we saw:

The Flintstones

"Borat" in his mankini - bare bum and all!

The runners from the 10k coming around the corner past our house.

Final Outback Day

2008-10-31T05:28:00.007-04:00

After a good night's sleep under the stars, Erin and I headed out to try and watch the sunrise. Unfortunately the flies were crazy and we forgot our fly masks, so we didn't last very long.

We got on the road reasonably early again and headed to Kings Canyon. It's sometimes referred to as the Grand Canyon of Australia. It was an amazing place, but from a size point of view, it's very much smaller than the Grand Canyon. We went on a 4 hour walk around, in, and over the Canyon. There is generally a pool of fresh water that you can swim in, but because they haven't had much new rain in the recent months, the water wasn't the most sanitary. Tony described it as "skanky".

King and Queen of the Mountain

Our friends from Japan. They didn't speak much English but did root for the Red Sox!

On the way home we drove most of the 4 hour trip on a dirt road through the barrenness which is the outback. We ran into a bunch of wild camels, saw a pretty big lizard crossing the road, and saw a famous singing dingo. Dinky the Dingo is world famous, is in the new trivial pursuit and we saw him in person.

We made it back to Alice Springs and unfortunately our tour has come to an end, but not without 1 last night out with the tour group. We decided to meet up at 8:00pm for dinner, drinks, and what turned out to be a bunch of dancing and mingling with locals. We spent our night at Bojangles and around 2am we were all kicked out of the bar, said our goodbyes, and parted ways. Overall a great tour!

On another note: Here in Auckland today, we had some visitors from the US. My cousin Jo-Ann and her husband Tom were in Auckland for a couple of days at the end of their 4 week trip around New Zealand before flying back to Seattle. We had a great dinner at Sails, enjoyed looking at the ships, and some great conversation.

Outback Adventure Day 2

2008-10-30T04:33:00.010-04:00

It was an early morning up on day 2 as we had to pack up and leave before sunrise as we were going to be watching sunrise as it came up over Uluru. Packing up was quick and easy...except...when rolling up the swags my lovely wife left something in her swag. It was a sad day when we left as we had lost our red winding flashlight (torch) which I received for a Christmas present from my parents a few years ago. It was sad, but hopefully the next person to use the swag found it and is putting it to good use.

The sun rising next to Uluru

After watching the sunrise, we headed to The Olga's (Kata Tjuta). There was a walk through the 36 domes called the Valley of the Winds which must be done in the early morning because the heat gets so extreme that it's closes at 11am. We walked for about 3 hours and it was beautiful and relaxing as there were very few people around.

Hiking through The (VERY WINDY) Valley of the Winds

We then headed to have lunch and on towards our destination for sleeping that night.

Jeremy leading the boys in gathering fire wood and then helping Tony load it to the top of our truck

In order to get to our campsite, we drove off road for about 5km's and finally came upon a little hut, and campfire where we were staying (very remote). There was a bathroom which only had 3 walls and a shower which was heated by a fire that we would have to light (no showers were had that night or morning).

The flushing toilet in the middle of nowhere

That night we enjoyed some more Kangaroo tail and also were able to get some good shots with the tail prior to being cooked up.

Moustache?

Mr. Kangaroo Ciaccia

We also saw a brilliant sunset and were able to snap some nice pictures.

Another few beers by the fire, and listening to a few Outback stories from Tony and it was time for sleeping. A few of the guys in our group were snoring, so Erin and Christiana (Germany) had some trouble falling asleep, but finally made it to bed.

Stay tuned for our 3rd day which included an adventure in "Australia's Grand Canyon".

WayOutback Tour Begins

2008-10-29T03:34:00.008-04:00

Tony, our guide, picked us up at 5:55am on Sunday morning for our 3 day / 2 night outback adventure tour. There were 14 people on the tour from all around the globe including; 2 UK, 5 Germans, 1 Dutch, 2 Japanese, and 2 Taiwanese.

Our first stop on the 5 hour drive to Ayers Rock (Uluru) was at a place where they had Camel rides. For a price of $5 Erin was the first one on a camel for a quick little ride around the area. (There are around 500,000 wild camels in Australia, we saw plenty of wild ones as you will see from pictures on a later day).
We also stopped at Mt Connor to take some pictures, and then headed further West to Uluru. What a sight this place was, it was absolutely amazing to see it in real life. We ended up walking 1/2 way around it in the 38 degree heat and as you can see there were tons of flys so we both sported our fly net masks. We then watched the sunset with (300 other tourists) and then headed to our place of rest for the night.

There was running water, toilets and showers, but our actual camping location was pretty deserted and set back from anything. Our dinner was Kangaroo, vegetables, and rice cooked directly on the fire. Tony also had a Kangaroo tail which was cooked up and both Erin and I tried it (tasted a little like pork or maybe rabbit I thought). We finished dinner, had a beer around the fire with our group and then hopped in our swags (defined as a portable shelter by Wikipedia, but in this case, there was no tent, just a thing to lie on) for a night of sleeping under the beautiful stars.

Our first day of adventure was great and our nights sleep was great as well. No scary animals, lizards, or snakes around the fire, except for the Hopping Mouse which came to visit.

Alice Springs

2008-10-28T03:52:00.004-04:00

We were up bright and early and headed to the airport for a 6:30am flight to Alice Springs which connected in Sydney. As expected, both Erin and I were excited to get into the Qantas Lounge and feast on some of the breakfast food and drinks which we did in Auckland as well as in Sydney during our lay-over. Arriving in Alice Springs we walked off the airplane to 35 degree Celsius (95 degree) sun. It was great!

We proceeded to do a little exploring and shopping around town and looked for an Opal. My mom bought an Opal when she was in Australia as they are mostly mined in Australia (97%). We spent quite a long time in the shop speaking with the owner who was following the Red Sox in the playoffs and previously worked in Washington DC for a couple of years. We left empty handed, but at a couple other stores we were able to pick up some fly masks (wait until day 2 and you'll see pictures).

We bought some beer, water, sunscreen, bug spray, and some granola (muesli) bars and then headed back to our hotel. We had dinner at the hotel and went to bed early as we had an early pick up the next day by Wayoutback Tour to begin our Outback adventure.

On another note, both Erin and I completed our absentee ballots today in our private voting booth in our apartment and they will be mailed tomorrow. Also, I had my first touch rugby game of the season tonight.

Back Home in Auckland

2008-10-27T08:32:00.002-04:00

We just arrived home after a great holiday in Australia. The past ten days have been amazing - filled with camel riding, hiking, kangaroo eating, crocodile chasing, scuba diving, exploring rain forests, and MUCH more. We will post more about our trip (and lots of photos too!!) in the coming days!!!

Leaving...

2008-10-17T06:12:00.002-04:00

We have been very busy running around wrapping up all of our work so that we can enjoy ourselves on our holiday (vacation) to Australia. We are heading to the Outback for 4 nights including a 2 night Outback Adventure and then to the Great Barrier Reef for 5 nights of fun and relaxing. Stay tuned for our updates and pictures from our trip when we return.

Tonight we went to the supermarket to pick up a few last minute items and saw a Kiwi Celebrity. His name is Paul Ellis and he's one of the judges on New Zealand's Got Talent.

Speak with you soon!

Rock Climbing

2008-10-16T04:53:00.002-04:00

Thank you to everyone who participated in our survey. It reveals that there are either 9 people who are actively reading and participating in our blog OR someone submitted an answer 9 times. A special thanks to Susanne for adding in a comment.

The other night Erin and I went Rock Climbing at an indoor climbing centre here in Auckland. We had a coupon from our Entertainment book, so instead of costing $40, it cost us $20 which was pretty good. The place was massive and had a ton of different walls and ropes to use.

We told them it was our first time and a guy gave us a quick safety lesson and then we were off. We both did very well climbing the wall as well as being the belayer down on the ground. For those of you who don't know the belayer is the person at the bottom who manages the rope and lets you down after you have reached the top.

It was tons of fun and we plan to go back after we return from our trip to Australia.

Thanks again for voting. The other choices which got some votes were shearing a sheep and mini golfing. It would be fun to shear a sheep although I think it's rather difficult.

Survey Time

2008-10-14T05:34:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since we have done a survey and we figure it was time to bring it back out. This will give us a sense of how many...or how few people are reading our blog.

Tonight we did something. Please register your guess below:

We look forward to sharing what we did tonight with you in 1-2 days after we have given people a chance to vote.

Pink Star Walk

2008-10-11T14:32:00.003-04:00

At work, I am a member of the Culture Club, which facilitates company-wide events. I organised a group to do the Pink Star Walk, Auckland's 5k walk under the stars for Breast Cancer Research.

We had a good turnout from work and our new friends from Connecticut, Deon and Steve joined us as well. The day started off very rainy, so we were a little bit nervous about what the walk would be like. We were lucky as it only rained for about 15 seconds.

The event was lots of fun! At the end of the walk there were sausages, ice cream bars, massages, and goodie bags for the participants as well as a fireworks display. Here is the shirt that we arranged for the Hudson Team.

Chicken Taco Soup

2008-10-05T02:59:00.004-04:00

As the weather gets warmer here in New Zealand, my days of slow cooker meals are sadly dwindling. This weekend was a bit cooler than last, so I took advantage and made Chicken Taco Soup, a recipe I found online and adapted with my personal touches. The meal is simple to make and tastes a bit like Chili, but isn’t as heavy. It was a hit with Jeremy!

Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
1 16-oz can black beans
1 16-oz can kidney beans
1 16-oz can corn (drained)
1 jar taco sauce
2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes
1 1.25-oz packet taco seasoning
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Directions
Mix everything together in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. 30 minutes before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and mix with soup. Top with tortilla chips and sour cream.

Servings: 14 (3/4 cup)

In addition to cooking this weekend, we went to an outdoor gear store and did some shopping for our trip to Australia. I got a backpack that will hold our stuff for two nights of camping in the Outback and another pack that fits into a tiny little pouch for easy travel. We also both got a new pair of shorts because we checked the temperature and it's currently in the high 90s over there. We were very excited about the sales we found. All of the goods cost us less that what the backpack would have at full price. Yay for a great shopping trip!

White Island

2008-09-30T13:56:00.006-04:00

On Saturday we boarded a luxury launch for the hour and a half ride to White Island. Thankfully we took our seasickness pills as most of the people on the boat got pretty ill from the ride. After we arrived at White Island we hopped onto a small raft that took us to shore. We were equipped with hard hats and gas masks and began the tour.

White Island is estimated to be 150,000 to 200,000 years old. The tour took us all over the island, past bubbling mud, hissing steam, sulfur chimneys, and up to the edge of the crater lake. We felt like we were on another planet. The end of the tour took us to the remains of an old mining factory and back onto the boat for the trip back home.

The experience is definitely something that we recommend. However, the seasickness pills did make us very sleepy. We took a "nap" at 5:30pm and didn't wake up again until 12:30am, so we missed out on the entire night!

On another note, it saddens us that it has been determined for the best that Maxwell (Erin's dog) is put to sleep. He has lived a great life and brought plenty of joy to Erin and her family.

Driver's License

2008-09-29T04:09:00.002-04:00

Jeremy was thrilled when I brought the mail as his official New Zealand Driver's License arrived today. I'll be applying for mine in a month when I don't have to sit for the exam. The licenses are good until 2018 and I reminded Jeremy so kindly that he would be 40 then! :o)

Kiwi Country

2008-09-28T05:28:00.006-04:00

On Friday we took the day off of work to enjoy an extended weekend. We started the day off nice and slow - Jeremy did some work from home while I slept and then did a little bit of cleaning. We packed some sandwiches and hit the road around mid-day for the Bay of Plenty. The Bay of Plenty has a mild climate year round, so we were really looking forward to a nice sunny (and warm) get-away!

Our first stop on Friday afternoon was the town of Te Puke which is home to Kiwi 360. Kiwi fruit is one of New Zealand's main exports and is grown in the Bay of Plenty. We climbed aboard a kiwi cart and went on a tour of the kiwi orchards. Not only do they grown kiwis, but also a variety of other things such as avocados, macadamia nuts, apples, and lemonade lemons - which we got to taste on the tour. We also enjoyed some samples of kiwi wine and liqueur before buying some kiwi jam to take home.
We then hopped back into the car to head towards our final destination, Ohope Beach; one of New Zealand's best beaches. (We can't say we've really seen a bad beach yet!) We checked into the holiday park and quickly put our stuff into our cute little hut before heading out for dinner.

We decided to stop for some "take-aways" (the kiwi term for takeout) at a fish and chips shop down the street. There was so much to choose from, and our tummies were rumbling so we settled for fish burgers, chips, and a mussel fritter. The food was delicious. We were stuffed, but very satisfied. We finished the night off with a few games of Yahtzee before tucking in for the night. We had an early boat ride awaiting us on Saturday morning as we had booked a trip to White Island, New Zealand's most active volcano.

Erin Point

2008-09-21T03:27:00.004-04:00

For the past couple of days we have been in full weekend mode. On Friday night, we settled in early with some pizza to watch the Warriors beat the Roosters in a Rugby League playoff game. On Saturday and Sunday mornings we were up early and at the gym...getting in beach body mode as the beach is just a few weeks away. Saturday afternoon found us shopping in the city. We stopped into Borders to pick out some travel books for our trip to Asia in 2009. We felt completely overwhelmed and decided to start with a advice from a travel shop instead. We have a tiny plan in place and will attack that over the coming months. We also ran into a few Australian Netball players during our shopping spree. They were in town for the NZ/Australia game. Once again, NZ dominated the court. We met up with Sander and Mirjam (from the Netherlands) for some coffee in the afternoon.

After our session at the gym today we relaxed for a while in the sun. By 2pm we were stir crazy and decided to go for a walk around the block. 2 hours and many steps later, we were back home. Our walk took us from Viaduct Harbour, where we live to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, up a big hill into Herne Bay and a place called Erin Point. We explored the point before stopping for a snack in Ponsonby and returning home for a homemade feast of slow cooker Curry Chicken.

We both have a busy week ahead and we'll be heading off to the Bay of Plenty next weekend to see New Zealand's most active volcano, White Island.

One More Work Conference

2008-09-13T16:50:00.003-04:00

Jeremy arrived home from Florida very early on Monday morning. He brought back a few American treats like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (have we really gone 18 months without them?) and some face creams for me that are literally half the price at home. He quickly got back into the swing of things, returning to work Monday afternoon and has been going strong ever since. We did have a few early nights as he adjusted to the jet lag.

Yesterday we decided to check out a French market in Parnell, which is the town next to ours. The market was great! We enjoyed samples of cheese, bread, dips and wine and then purchased some fresh veggies, hummus and bread. We enjoyed that while I cooked up a new recipe (Oven Roasted Salmon with Pesto) from the You Are What You Eat cookbook I got a the book sale a few months ago. To my excitement, after many kitchen disasters, the recipe worked and looked just like it did in the book!

We finished off the night watching the All Blacks beat the Wallabies, yay!

Jeremy left early this morning for another work conference. The one is for PwC New Zealand's managers and partners, so we'll at least be in the same country this time around!

Busy week

2008-09-06T19:23:00.002-04:00

I have been in the US for the past week at a conference in Orlando. The conference was very well done and had 1900 people attending. The Marriott which we stayed at is the largest in the world with 2004 rooms. I arrived on Monday night after 25 hours of travelling and had a few Bud Lights with Dennis and Eric. The next day we actually went to Blizzard Beach for some fun in the sun/water and the conference began that evening.

It was a great time reconnecting with all of my US colleagues during the various sessions during the day as well as over some beers and drinks at night. The B52's performed at the hotel for us 1 night which was pretty cool.
One night, my break-out group rented the House of Blues out and we had dinner and a show there. The nights were long and the hours of sleep which I was able to pull over were very few (ranging from 3-4 hours a night).

The conference ended on Friday afternoon and Dennis was nice enough to extend his stay and hang out with me on Friday. We went to Disney Quest as well as saw a Cirque Du Soleil show (La Nouba). I'm currently sitting in LA waiting for my next flight to take me back to Auckland. It was a great week and great to catch up with everyone.

Erin had a good week in Auckland (despite me not around). This included going to the gym, hanging out with our friend Diane and her son Matthew, going for a massage, and doing research for our trip to Australia in October.

Hope everyone is well and let the Football season begin!!

Devonport

2008-08-31T04:03:00.004-04:00

Today was the last day of Winter, but we were lucky to have a really nice spring-like day! We decided to take a ten minute ferry ride to Devonport and explore the town; something we have been hoping to do for the last 18 months but the weather just never seems to be right.

After catching the ferry we followed a 5 km tour route through Devonport. We hiked to the top of Mount Victoria and North Head, which are Devonport's volcanic peaks. Mount Victoria is the higher of the two and provided us with great views of Auckland. It is also home to a some old military bunkers and a disappearing gun.

Jeremy has been busy today preparing for his trip back to the US. He'll be in Orlando for work for a week. I'll find something here to keep myself busy!

Happy 2nd Anniversary!

2008-08-26T06:07:00.002-04:00

We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary today and can't believe that it has been just two years since we got married! We have shared so many fun and exciting adventures together.

We celebrated over a delicious dinner at Number 5 in Auckland. Number 5 is famous for its New Zealand food and huge selection of boutique New Zealand wines. Upon being seated we were quickly greeted by the Sommelier who probed our wine preference and convinced us that the Felton Road Pinot Noir would change our lives forever. It was DELICIOUS! If my wallet was bigger, I'd let her choose wine for me forever - I guess life really is too short to drink bad wine.

Jeremy started off with a serving of cauliflower soup with bleu cheese (which I enjoyed my fair share of). The name does nothing for it as the soup was divine - move over Cream of Broccoli! For our mains, Jeremy had the Venison while I enjoyed the Lamb Fillet. Lamb isn't something I would usually eat but since we were in a restaurant that specialized in New Zealand cuisine, I couldn't resist. We agreed that the Venison was good but the Lamb was GREAT. While we finished our bottle of wine we pondered over what dessert to order. Our top choices were Vanilla Bean Brulee, Lemoncello Bavarian or the NZ classic - Sticky Date Pudding. We went with the Lemoncello which literally was a melt in your mouth lemon essence with white chocolate chunks...mmm mmm goood!

I'm stuffed and can't type anymore. Have a great night!

Snowboarding

2008-08-24T05:43:00.004-04:00

On Friday, Erin and I left the city around 3pm to head south towards Tongariro National Park. This was the first national park in New Zealand (the fourth in the world) and is also the home to Mt. Ruapehu. If you remember, last winter, we headed down here and went skiing on an active volcano. This volcano also had an eruption in September of last year.

It took us 4 hours to get there and we arrived at the bach (holiday home) around 7pm and hung out with the various friends that we were meeting down there. In total there were 10 of us, but we only knew 4 of them prior (Gareth, Clare, David, and Katy).

On Saturday we headed to Whakapapa ski field which is on one side of the mountain. We both decided to try snowboarding since the rest of the people we were with are snowboarders. Erin has never done it before, but I have gone snowboarding 1 time with Kevin Baker back in 1990 (I believe). I didn't like it at all then, but Erin and I both had a blast and really enjoyed ourselves. We both did really well and will try it again.

Unfortunately, the weather on Sunday wasn't the greatest and rained very hard. We ended up just driving home, but made it through the rain.

What was on bikes?

2008-08-20T04:18:00.005-04:00

For the past 5 years in Auckland an Erotic Fair has been held and the Wednesday prior to the weekend there is a very special parade that comes through the city. Last year I happened to be outside with a co-worker when the parade passed us, and everything seemed reasonably low-key.

This year, there have been protesting and people seeking injunctions in court. What kind of parade was it you ask? It was a parade that's called Boobs on Bikes. It's used to promote the fair for the weekend and an opportunity for individuals to be "free". The injunction didn't work and the parade went ahead today. With all the press, there were many people lining the streets today to see what was going on. (I decided that to ensure I really got to experience Auckland I should be there as well). I've heard that there were around 100,000 people on the streets.

Here's a link to the newspaper article on it. I was able to snap a few pictures of the crowds and people with my phone as shown below. (Don't worry no nudity below)

Here are a bunch of construction workers lined up for the show (parade).
Right in front of the parade were a bunch of protesters walking against pornography and nudity.

Two of the participants in the parade.

Don't worry...

2008-08-17T18:35:00.003-04:00

There has been some concern that we are losing all of our friends here in New Zealand, and we wanted to let everyone know not to worry as we still have friends left...(haha)
This past weekend was good and on Friday night we decided to hang out at a new bar with a couple friends Jackie and Jerry. We weren't out late as on Saturday we had plans to go to the gym early in the morning.

It was good talking with some folks from back home this weekend (Ciaccia's and Mathews'). It was also Avery's 3rd Birthday on Saturday and she celebrated with a sprinkler party. We sang Happy Birthday to her on Skype, but she didn't seem overly impressed with our singing skills.

It's a busy week this week and we will be preparing for our trip down to Mt. Ruapehu on Friday with a bunch of friends. We are planning to try a little snowboarding on Saturday and will be sure to update you all with how sore we are.

New Zealand had a big day at the Olympics on Saturday as well as they won 5 medals (2 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze). It was a big day for the country!

Another bites the dust

2008-08-13T01:18:00.002-04:00

We went out for Mascha, Jereon and Sophie's last dinner in New Zealand last night. We headed to Mecca for what ended up being a very fun, very tasty, and very expensive meal. Jacco joined us as well and we proceed to drink a bunch of wine, and eat various courses.

Mascha has been in New Zealand for 8 years and Jeroen has been here for 2 years. He came over here with PwC as a single man and is leaving as a married man with a 3 month old baby girl. He worked fast! They are headed back to the Netherlands.

We had many fun times with them and it was sad to see them go. We will hopefully catch up with them in May on our travels back home to Boston.

Busy Week

2008-08-03T04:41:00.004-04:00

Thursday night were the "leaving drinks" for Jeroen. Unfortunately it was raining like you wouldn't believe that night, but a lot of people showed up and it was fun. Then Friday was the last day for Erin's co-worker Joe and they went out for drinks and dinner. It was month end drinks at PwC which entailed a pretty late night for me as well.

On Saturday Craig and Lisa came back to Auckland from going diving up north at Port Knights which is one of the top 10 dive spots in the world. We ended up going to the All Blacks Road Show which was pretty cool and we got rugby balls and signatures from 1 current All Black and 1 past All Black (Joe Rokocoko and Buck Shelford).

At night Erin and I had dinner plans at Paul and Emma's house with Jeroen and Mascha. While we were over there enjoying some good food, Craig and Lisa watched the All Blacks beat the Wallabies at Foxes which is a bar in the Viaduct. Craig and Lisa headed down south on Sunday and we enjoyed our time with them and having some house guests.

Today Erin and I had a lunch at Sunshine Chinese Restaurant and had Yum Char or Dim Sum as it's sometimes called. It was very good!

Visitors from Australia or America?

2008-07-30T06:23:00.004-04:00

On Monday night Erin and I headed to the airport to pick up Craig and Lisa who were arriving in NZ for the 3rd month of their honeymoon. Yes that's right, they are on a 4 month honeymoon, pretty good deal if you ask me. For those who don't know Craig is from Bedford (my hometown).

We picked them up at the airport around midnight and then brought them back to our place, caught up for a bit, but Erin and I had to get to bed as we had work the next day. Craig and Lisa had been travelling for 2 months in Australia prior to arriving in New Zealand and were living out of a van as typical backpackers and were very excited to be staying indoors. On Tuesday, they hung around, watched TV, read some books, and did laundry. We went out to dinner on Monday night to an Irish pub O'Hagans right down the road from our place.

On Wednesday night, Lisa put her Giada chef skills into action and pulled together a wonderful baked ziti meal along with salad. Craig was responsible for picking out the desert at the supermarket and got what looked like a massive whoopie pie (the meal was GREAT!).

It's been great to have some visitors and tomorrow they will be heading off to do a scuba dive up north. They may be coming back on Saturday for another visit, so we will hopefully see and get to hang out with them again when we don't have to go to work.

It's been raining since they arrived, so hopefully the weather will get a little better as they start to travel.

Weekend Wrap-Up

2008-07-27T03:21:00.002-04:00

This week was a busy one for me. I had a work dinner on Tuesday night and then team building events on Thursday and Friday nights. Jeremy was busy as well with work drinks on a few nights. This weekend we stayed inside and braced ourselves for the biggest storm to hit New Zealand in the past decade. The storm was a mix of high wind and rain and knocked out power across Auckland. We were lucky not to lose power, but some of our friends did. We spent today cleaning the house and preparing for our second house guests - Craig and Lisa who are on a super long honeymoon with a stop in New Zealand!

Road Rally?

2008-07-18T19:05:00.003-04:00

Erin and I are very sad that we will not be able to participate in the Road Rally and the Part at the Pond this year. Unfortunately I couldn't convince PwC to fly us back this time. (Party/Road Rally Blog)

Last night my work put together a "rally" of sorts. It was called a Wild Goose Chase and involved going all over the city finding places with clues, taking pictures, doing wild things, etc. There were 35 clues/locations that we had to find and take pictures with our team. It was a little different than the rally to VT as there was only 1 list and it only took us 2 hours.

I wasn't overly excited about the work event, but I rallied our team together and as soon as I got my hands on the envelope with the clues and rules, my instinct took over and it was GAME ON!

I'm sure you're all wondering how the event ended...There were 23 teams entered into the race and when all the scores were tabulated...MY TEAM WON!!

Honestly it wasn't the level of excitement that I had along with Erin and Andy when Isosceles won our first Road Rally title, but it's always good to win.

Good luck to all the rally teams and have a great party in VT!

All Blacks Rugby

2008-07-14T03:38:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago we went to see the All Blacks play England. We've become All Blacks fans since moving to New Zealand and are a little sad that we won't have rugby to watch when we get home. (I'm sure we'll be okay when we get back home and have the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots!) Jeremy has taken up a good understanding of the sport while I have a new favorite hot athlete to watch. It's really not bad at all. Here is a photo of us at the recent game.

Final Day in Queenstown

2008-07-11T15:50:00.004-04:00

On our final day in Queenstown we thought we would take in some final thrills, so we drove to the Kawarau River Bridge bungy jump to watch a few jumps. Erin did the unthinkable - she bought yet another A.J. Hacket Bungy shirt and has still yet to bungy. Cute shirt though, so worth the money. When we returned to the car we noticed what looked like a clump of grass stuck to the the grill of our car. Upon further investigation we realised that it wasn't grass but a beautiful smooshed bird! We felt terrible but didn't have anything to remove it with, so we left it there and continued on our way.
(Click on the picture to enlarge and see Mr. Bird)

The next adventure for the three of us was to attempt a drive to the top of The Remarkables, one of the mountain ranges in the area. After 30 minutes of windy, cliff-hanging roads we reached snow! The roads were slippery and we still had a least another 15 minutes to drive. We didn't really trust our little rental car, so we decided to stop there to take some photos.

By the time we got back to Queenstown it was time to grab some lunch and catch our flight back to Auckland. We were sad to end our vacation but look forward to visiting Queenstown again this coming summer!

Day Four - Queenstown

2008-07-07T03:38:00.006-04:00

We were so excited to be back in Queenstown after the amazing time we had there with Jochen and Susanne in the summer. We started our day just like the last time with a few luge rides down the mountain. This time it was much colder so the wind was really cold on our faces. We were definitely happy to be bundled up!

Next stop was lunch at Fergburger where we feasted on the famous Queenstown burgers and fries. When our bellies were stuffed, we went for a drive to explore the area around Queenstown. We drove to, Coronet Peak, one of the ski fields in the area, to see what the view was like from the top. It exceeded our expectations! There wasn’t a ton of snow but the views were spectacular. Everything was so peaceful looking. Once we returned to the bottom we took a walk to explore Arrowtown, an old gold mining town. We came across a Chinese village that was built by Chinese miners in 1868.

By the end of our walk the sun was going down, so it was time to head back to Queenstown. We took the scenic route (one of many!) and came across some interesting animals along the way.

For dinner we enjoyed Sushi and Sake (Erin’s first taste) and then enjoyed dessert by the hotel fireplace. It was a great way to celebrate the last night of yet another great Ciaccia vacation! And of course, we sipped the champagne left by Petrina and Simon :)

Day Three – Bluff Oysters

2008-07-03T05:31:00.005-04:00

We arrived in Bluff nice and early on Sunday morning. Our main purpose for visiting Bluff was to have some famous Bluff Oysters. However, we didn’t want them for breakfast, so we decided to go for a nice hike and enjoy some more amazing views of the Southern Ocean. The hike took us along Stirling Point which is the end of New Zealand’s State Highway 1.
The route runs from Cape Reinga in the north (which we visits in February) all the way south to Bluff. For our oyster lunch we stopped in a nice restaurant overlooking the sea. Jeremy had his oysters raw, while I opted for some cooked ones.
Soon after lunch we were back on the road for our drive to Queenstown. The drive is only about 2.5 hours through some beautiful farmland. After the farms, we reached Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables Range which had a bit of snow on them. The snowfall hasn’t been great this winter, so there wasn’t as much as we had hoped for, but it was still pretty…and cold!

When we finally arrived in town, we checked into the hotel and were greeted by a Happy Birthday bottle of champagne waiting for Jeremy. This surprise was a nice gift from my colleague Petrina and her husband Simon. The rest of the night we relaxed and explored Queenstown – happy to be finished driving for a little while!

Day Two – On the Road

2008-07-02T05:03:00.003-04:00

Our prayers for sunshine weren’t answered on Saturday morning as we were greeted with fog and cold temperatures. Our first stop was to visit New Zealand’s only castle, Larnach Castle on the Otago Peninsula. The mansion was built in 1871 by William Larnach for his wife Eliza. It is now owned by the Barker family who restored it for visitors to enjoy. Usually amazing views can be seen from the mansion, but the fog made that hard for us to enjoy. As you can see from the car park, we were the only visitors that morning! After our tour, we enjoyed a quick breakfast of scone, coffee and tea at the castle before continuing on our journey.
The next stop was a visit to the Royal Albatross Colony. The site is the only mainland breeding colony for any Albatross species found in the Southern Hemisphere. Royal Albatross are the third largest birds in the world with a wing span of over 9 feet. They can fly at speeds of 115mph. These are some serious birds! This time of year the babies are growing and if you are lucky enough, a parent might swoop in for a feeding every one to three days. Sadly, we weren’t lucky enough to see that! (The white thing in this picture is a baby Albatross)
By lunch it was time for us to say goodbye to Dunedin and start the drive to Invercargill. We decided to take the scenic route across the southern coast of New Zealand, through the Catlins. We impressed so with the spectacular and breath-taking views. Not only that but the mix of sun (it finally came out!) and rain provided us with several rainbows. A few of the stops included Nugget Point, which is home to more seals, penguins, and sea lions, Curio Bay which is fossilized remains of a forest from the Jurassic Period, Porpoise Bay where dolphins play, an Waipapa Point, the site of New Zealand’s worst shipping disaster where in 1881 a ship hit a reef and 131 lives were lost.

We arrived in Invercargill around dinner time, checked into the hotel (they left Jeremy some Happy Birthday beers in the fridge!) and then feasted on Blue Cod and Oysters at HMS King’s Restaurant which had been recommended to us by two co-workers. Then it was back to the hotel to prepare for our next adventure, a trip to Bluff, New Zealand’s southern-most town.

What did we do tonight?
	Went Indoor Skiing
	Sheared a Sheep
	Went Rock Climbing
	Washed the Car
	Played Mini Golf

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