Did I ever show you a picture of my latest tattoo? I got it back in late August/early September to celebrate the trip to New Zealand. It’s an earth from the view point of the southern hemisphere, with Latin underneath translating to, “prepared for all things“. It was an optimistic gift to myself that everything would turn out great.
I think it did 
Since leaving LA, I have not touched one drop of vodka. It wasn’t a decision made for any real reason. I didn’t wake up one morning and think, “hey, lets see how long I can go without vodka”. Basically, buying bottles of vodka are super expensive here, and if you go out to the pubs and order a drink, they have one choice (Smirnoff) and the cocktails are watered down. No thanks. I’ve been content sticking to wine & beer.
Last night Kyle & I attended our very first Burns supper. It’s a tradition in Scotland to celebrate the life & poetry of Robert Burns. I think this dinner will be coming back with me to the states. Celebrating your national poets..loves it! Jamie & Marc, our Scottish friends, did a fantastic job hosting the shindig. They insisted that everyone wore some sort of tartan, played traditional music, read Burns’ poetry, and even had a haggis. How they found one in New Zealand is a mystery, but a Burns dinner without a haggis is one not worth celebrating. I was excited because when else in my life would I have the chance to try haggis? Well I have to say, I’m not a huge fan.
Kyle was given the honor of addressing the haggis.
Anyway, Kyle & I have been a bit lonesome for vodka lately – me, a nice vodka soda & him, a good old dirty martini. We decided to take the plunge and split a bottle. I don’t know what happened – could have been the fact that I haven’t drank it in a while or the mixture of vodka and haggis – but I woke up this morning with the worst hungover of my life. LITERALLY I felt as if I had alcohol poisoning. After pseudo-recovering after a full day of rest, I think my relationship with vodka is over. I don’t have it in me anymore and quite frankly, I’d rather not spend my precious days off nursing a hangover.
So it’s wine & beer for me…..it’s over vodka, move on.
Big Day Out is a HUGE touring music festival (starts here in New Zealand and then makes a few stops through Australia) that Kyle, a few friends, and I had the pleasure of going to last weekend.
SO much fun. We packed up, grabbed some beers for the road, and took the three hour trip down to Auckland. Here in New Zealand (so I’ve learned) it is very ok for the passengers to take a few cocktails along for the ride. How crazy is that? The driver of course can’t drink, but everyone else gets the luxury to have a few drinkies while taking a long drive.
The journey to Auckland is absolutely beautiful. It’s mainly country roads with perfect scenery and lovely water views. Definitely a nice chance from the New Jersey Turnpike.
Anyway, we popped by our friend Paul’s moms’ (he grew up down there) for a glass of wine and then headed to the hotel to check in and get some food. After dinner & being completely spent, somehow I made my way to bed, hoping to god I wouldn’t be hungover the next day. Turned out, drinking while traveling is not good for me and I found myself pretty typsy when we arrived at the hotel….oops.
The next morning I felt kinda refreshed….BUT the excitement of the day ahead boosted my spirits. We were off to the Big Day Out! Compared to American shows, I can tell you that the one thing that struck me was the vibe; it was wonderful. Everyone was happy. You felt safe and a part of something good. Personally, I found myself smiling for no reason – pretty much amazed that not only was I (a) in New Zealand (b) enjoying summer in January, but (c) going to see some bands that I liked, but never really thought to go see!
The best bands by far were Jet:
Eskimo Joe:
And of course, Muse!
After a full day of good music and tons of sunshine, I left feeling happy, exhausted….and burned!
I know, I know, it has already been about a week since Thanksgiving. But I figured I should at least acknowledge it and hope everyone had a nice one This time of year is getting me a little sad - the holidays and no family to celebrate with. None of the usual traditions that I hold so dear - but at the same time it’s exciting to do something so completely different and out of the ordinary.
Anyway, for Thanksgiving we had our two friends, Marc & Jaime, over for dinner. Mmmmm Kyle cooked delicious enchiladas and I made a nice salad & spicy Thai salsa. Kyle mentioned to Jaime that he ALWAYS has cheesecake for dessert, so she surprised us with one! SO delicious. Mm mm mm.
I tried. I really tried to let my hair grow out. The idea was to be low maintenance while traveling. But alas I missed the edgy bob and felt frumpy with my hair always pulled back. Sure it’s a little more time consuming. Sure I’ll have to get my haircut once a month. FINE I’ll have to wake up earlier to style it. But whatever, I love it and it’s back!
Serviette: Chiefly Brit a small square of cloth or paper used while eating to protect the clothes, wipe the mouth and hands, etc.
Picture the scene: it was my first day at work at the cafe. Not only was I new & not too sure what I was supposed to be doing, but the accents were completely throwing me off.
Mark: (busily making 14 coffees at the same time, while the customers impatiently waited) Kristine love, can you please fold me a sue-viette?
Kristine (blank face. looking around frantically for something to fold): a what? huh?
Mark: a SUE-VEE-ETTE. Come on darlin’, I need to get these coffees out.
Kristine: (still confused, she handed him a handful of sugar packets) …heh these..?
(Fed up, Mark nudged her out of the way and grabbed a handful of napkins).
Kristine: OHHH napkins…I never heard that word before.
At that point the entire crowd of Kiwi’s gave me the look of, “ohhh stupid American, get over yourself and get to know how things work here in New Zealand.”
We took a stroll through our landlord Gillian’s garden a day or two ago and this guy is by far my very favorite…
It’s like a cross of the plant in Little Shop of Horrors & a prehistoric plant. Love it! Any minute now it looks like it’s going to wake up and bite Kyle, right?
I think I like it so much because it is so hideous, it almost makes it beautiful.
My first real job was at the House of Coffee, this great coffee shop in Red Bank. I loved working there. It was fantastic money for a 16 year old and eventually some of my friends got jobs there, making it more of a fun time vs. going to work.
After working there for a year & a half, I headed in the restaurant world and remained there the next five years while I attended college. Then I moved into the land of the office cubicle….well except too bad that the office didn’t pay well, so I continued to be Kristine the Waitress Saturday nights for another year.
Really, since I was 16, have only gone 8 months without being involved in the food industry. And like a full circle I have returned!
I have recently become the newest employee at Cafe Java, a cute cafe in Waipapa, literally a 5 minute ride or 30 minute walk from home.
Kiwis, we recently have learned, are SUPREME coffee drinkers. In our town alone (population 4,000), there are 7 or so cafes and each are usually filled. Crazy right?
Coffee isn’t like it is back in the States. If you asked for a coffee with milk and sugar, they would have zero idea what you were talking about. All coffee comes from the espresso machine and there are only a couple options:
And two Kiwi originals: The Flat White, which is kinda like a cappuccino, but has a different texture of milk. It is BY FAR the most popular drink in New Zealand.
And of course The Long Black – basically a watered down espresso. Kyle’s personal choice of drink. I like it too.
Seriously they are coffee fanatics. Take last Friday for example. All of The Northland lost power in the morning. Roughly 200,000 of us – a HUGE chunk of the population - were without power for about 5 hours. You’d hear updates on the radio every few minutes about the status of the power and they’d go something like this:
” The power should be on in another 20-30 minutes. Thank god because who doesn’t need a good cup of coffee right about now!?”
The only concern was about the safe return of the espresso machine! How great is that? I love it.
Kyle also works at a cafe so we are very immersed into the coffee culture of New Zealand. Being that it is such an important part of what makes a Kiwi, I think it’s the best place for us to be.
When I lived in Hoboken, one of the things I least looked forward to was doing laundry. There wasn’t a washer/dryer in our building, so the options were either drop it off across the street to the dry cleaner for wash & fold (ah the best luxury – but SO out of my price range) or lug it down three blocks to the laundromat. Oh the time I spent semi-patiently waiting for my clothes to clean themselves up. After I left Hoboken, I vowed to never live somewhere without washer & dryer ever again.
Let’s move it ahead to present day where I kinda got my wish. There is a washing machine on the property that we get to use for free – two loads a week in fact. But….there is no dryer; the only option is the clothesline that hangs in a sunny part of the yard next to the bamboo jungle. Initially I was excited about the clothesline phenomenon. It was something new and I was ready for my clothes to be sun kissed.
The first laundry attempt went ok… But apparently I had no knowledge on how to effectively hang clothes to dry AND where oh where do you put 40 pairs of socks after doing two loads of wash? Here’s the end result.
The following week I knew better and only washed one load of laundry and I thought we were in the clear….
…until it randomnly rained.
It’s all worth the experience. The feeling of hanging the laundry out to dry brings you back to a simpler time, plus a rewarding experience in some weird way. I’ll definitely welcome the return of the dryer, but for now, all is well.
After a great week in LA with Noel – highlights include seeing a taping of the Price is Right & Chelsea Lately, drinking more in a week than I have in about a year, saw a turtle race, took a 30 mile bike ride down Venice Beach, and visited some beautiful beaches - it was off to New Zealand we went!
The plane ride was peaceful. Because it was a late flight, the flight attendants basically fed us and put everyone to bed. Luckily Kyle & I slept most of the way. When we weren’t sleeping, enjoyed the countless amount of free movies that were offered. Way to go Air New Zealand!
The next two days were a blur, due to the fact that NZ is a day ahead of the U.S. This means, for example, right now it is 3:29 pm Monday, where in NJ it is something like 12 pm Sunday. So weird. Otherwise we weren’t really jet lag, just in need of a good night sleep.
So after all the custom’s this and luggage that, we found the shuttle to take us to our hostel in Auckland. SO not impressed. From the outside it was fine enough, but ughhh the inside was gross and Kyle & I basically had to beg for clean linens. Plus there were lots of mysterious stains all over the carpets in our room that we didn’t want to begin to think about what they probably were. Two nights were spent at the hostel to get settled, explored the city a bit, and create a game plan. One thing Kyle and I knew was that we wanted a car & a home base. The whole living in hostels thing was not our idea of fun – especially when you think about it, three nights in a hostel equal to a week rent – and I am not even including meals and such. No thanks, all set. So we checked out the NZ equivalent of craigslist and poof! There he was! Our future minivan.
We took a 15 minute cab ride north of Auckland to meet the man who was selling the van and he was absolutely a gem. After checking out the van and taking it for a test drive, we were sold. In the end, Kyle & I stayed and chatted with the man for about 30 minutes, where he sat with us and pin pointed all the great places we should visit while living in NZ. The first thing I’ve noticed that the people here are SUPER friendly and happy to give local information about their home.
Here’s Kyle & The Old Beast.
Driving in New Zealand is a challenge due to the fact that they drive on the right side of the car and left side of the road. I have let Kyle take over driving for now….still a little nervous. After we decided on a spot – the Bay Of Islands, which is the northern part of NZ – took the three hour drive from Auckland. It was a mixture of beauty and fear. The scenery was insane, hills and mountains so green with little specks of sheep here and there. It’s funny, but there are lots of cows too, but nobody ever seems to mention them.
With advice from various locals, we reached the town of Kerikeri. It’s the vision of what Kyle & I both had in our minds when we thought of New Zealand. Something small, but artsy. Cute with a local feel blended together with a country vibe. And they are SOO forward thinking when it comes to being green. Sigh, I really think we are going to enjoy life here…and I haven’t even begin to tell you about the place we found to live. Stay tuned
