Abduzeedo inspired me today, so here is my first attempt at double exposure photography. 

I'm definitely going to have to keep trying this. 

(downtown Wellington + Zealandia overlook on the rope bridge)

Theme wise: the most confusing part about living in Wellington.

New Toys at work

A guy at work (Bob maybe? can't remember) brought his toy into work recently. He built this himself off motorcycle parts and wants me to design some cool decals for it.

It drew quite a crowd from all the automotive guys in the garage next door. He's trying to get it road legalized, just a bit worried about stability in the wind. Those trike legs are hydrolic and pretty cool. 

Its difficult getting used to not having the internet at home, and having to wait three days to get caught up on everything at work, but this was definitely the weekend to be outside - beautiful sun shining days Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

A beautiful backyard photo to start my Friday morning (sadly, not my place)

We drove down to this beautiful coast line

This is a quarry, but its still really pretty

Wellington is build into the sides of hills, so giant stairs like these are not too uncommon. Some people even use cable cars to get to their houses. It sure does give your legs a work out after a long morning though! 

Cydney, Cyrus and I went to visit our friend Sue, she breeds puppies and these guys were absolutely adorable. Cydney wanted to take one home; we had to leave haha. Sue also gave me a heavy blanket since i've been so cold here. That plus a comforter from Cydney, and another sheet from Debbie (she picks me up on Sundays and Thursday Nights) and i've almost got a compete bed now, and have been sleeping much much better (Besides all the random noises from everyone else in the old hotel). I was also given a nice warm winter coat which i'm quite grateful for. 

Cydney invited me to lunch at Cyrus' dry clean business, which overlooks the beautiful coast, so we ate her homemade bread on park benches. (kind of a messed up panorama, but it was such a beautiful sight) As they say here, you can't beat wellington on a nice day, I was so excited to have three of them in a row!

Saturday afternoon Karen, Mitchell and I stopped to take pictures at some of Wellington's best lookouts. 

We went up to the windmill, a big wind turbine (directly above my head) which provides power for 400 homes a day. They're quite keen on green energy here and have several wind farms around the city. This was at the site of the very first one, the pilot windmill. It was very very cold standing directly underneath it's wind, but with the afternoon sun, again, beautiful views you can't beat. First time you'll see me without a coat in Wellington, and it was only for a couple hours in the afternoon, lol. 

On Sunday, Ken, Amy, and Daniel took me around the bay and to the beach!

Yes. That, that there. 

This little seaside ice cream place was run by a Chinese family, and stuffed bull of backpackers, bikers, and surfers passing by, lots of interesting people to talk to.

"the slouchy eating ice cream on the beach photo"

There were a couple brave surfers out there, but they were all in full wet suits. We had a nice walk along the beach and had a good time getting the sand out of our shoes after ;)

This was supposed to be a photo of me "touching the south pacific" but the camera was on video mode instead, it is pretty funny because my shoe got stuck in the sand I was afraid the waves were going to get me. 

Still really really cold. After three days in the sun I've gotten quite rosy too. The ozone is a lot thinner here (that big hole from all your hairsprays, yea, thats over New Zealand) so the sun is actually quite dangerous. Everyday before I go out I sunscreen my face and neck with SPF 50 because I burn quite easily. 

A wonderful end to a great weekend, we went over to Kelly's place for afternoon tea then to Sandra's for a New Zealand Dinner - Lamb, yams, and roasted vegetables. I'm starting to understand the taste of New Zealand food now, but also starting to miss a lot of American Foods. I never before realized how much Mexican food (or its influence) was a part of my diet. Mexican food is terrible here. I have also not been able to find Cilantro (one of my favorite spices) and when I asked around, no one knew what cilantro was. Good beans, like black beans, are also very difficult to find. Chicken is quite expensive and fish is what is dirt cheap here, so I suppose I'll have to start cooking up some fish recipes. 

Sandra really wanted to show us her "girly" chainsaw. She fiercely battles the branches of her backyard so the sun can hit her laundry rack and dry things. Most people in New Zealand don't use dryers. They just wait for a nice day or dry clothes on a rack inside. Gladly, my old hotel has a dryer that works fairly well, cause I have no clothesline or drying area where I am. 

Speaking of cheap fish, I found this sushi place by my bus stop that offers half price sushi after 4pm.

This.

All of this. Five Dollars!! 

(background of my hotel room)

I will definitely be visiting the sushi place often. 

The Hobbit is like Ohio State Football here. 

Rugby is also like THE Ohio State University football here. 

Doesn't really feel like I've left Columbus :) 

Work: 

Since this is student project, I don't feel like I'm violating intellectual property here, but this is my vehicle project that I'm building a body for. The hardest part so far has been working with the metric system... 

First of all, Here are some more pictures from the seal coast safari that I got put together. 

So a couple days in and I would say the biggest adjustment is still not having access to the internet all the time. #westernproblems. Mostly from a time perspective, this weekend has been very boring without internet, tv, friends, and with lots of rain. *sigh*

Moving into my new place, it’s a hotel that I guess someone bought and has turned into student housing. So I’m basically living in a hotel room, but without the cleaning (so far as I can see). There was a ton of hair all over my room and mattress when I moved in (so gross) so I pilfered an old hotel blanket I found in a closet and put that over my mattress. I then bought a queen sized flat sheet and put that on top of the blanket and have been sleeping on that in my sleeping bag. The sleeping bag is in competition with the rain jacket as the most valuable item I’ve brought. This room does have heat, but its an on/off kinda thing; its either steaming or freezing. Bathroom seems pretty clean, but that hasn’t stopped me from buying a whole mess of soap to clean things. The once commercial hotel kitchen is absolutely disgusting; no one cleans up after themselves. I did see the cleaning ladies down there this morning but have not been down since, so I have only hope that the exploded chicken curry mess was resolved…

All complaining aside, I forced myself to watch Cinderella man last night before bed to remember that I still have it pretty good here, it’s just not what I’m used to. Oh well, I hope to be out and spending as little time here as I can anyways.

Sunday seemed to go by pretty fast, got out with a couple friends for fs, it rained most of the day though so that made my walk to the library and grocery store less than pleasant. I picked up a random assortment of vegetables and sauces as well as some instant rice and American mustard at the grocery store, we’ll see what I can make of that…

Dad, i know you'll be really proud of this picture. 

My New Zealand Style, headband and scarf.

First Day of Work

My first day of work was pretty cool. It was pouring this morning though, so I arrived quite soaked, but was greeted with smiles and hot tea! Went around to meet everybody and toured the campus, I saw one of the automotive projects i'll be working on and i'm pretty excited. Its designing a body for a steel-tube frame car - similar to what I work on with Formula so I think i'll be able to offer a lot of good advice. After that they didn't have much else for me to do for the day so they just let me leave. Ah, the joys of not getting paid. So with my free time today I've started my epic trip planning for my remaining time here. Right now it looks like i'll have two main trip, a smaller 2 day to Rotorua and my Big South island trip. Still working out the details for that, but I'm throwing around the idea of flying into Queenstown, working my way up through Franz Joseph and Greymouth, then coming back through the trans alpine train to Christchurch and flying home. Should be maybe 5 days... still working on the details though - but I am excited! Especially with plane tickets running as cheap as $45 NZD. Seriously? With fares that cheap I may get down to Christchurch to visit again! 

Since the bus ride to work this morning was rainy, here are some pictures from the way home this afternoon