Fall Ball

So today is the first day of fall basketball.  Summer league is over, and our team, Blue Thunder, came out with only a small rumble, but fall ball is supposed to be a bit more competitive.  I hear this coming from my team and think "hmm well we have all of the same players as last time, so unless our 6'7 South African has learned the rules, or we just weren't trying in summer league (I was trying), then were going to get squashed"!!!! We will just have to wait and see.  I don't know about the other team mates, but I have been hitting the gym pretty frequently, so maybe i'll be doing the squashing... ha.  All of this co-ed competition and fear of being run over giants really makes me miss yoga in the peaceful Founders Park with classes like "foundations of flow" and "relaxation yoga". That was definitely one of my favorite parts of Nelson.  I do some yoga at the events center but its just not the same.

I am not sure if it is hard for people back home to grasp that it is the beginning of fall here, but because we are on the opposite side of the equator, the seasons are opposite.  It can still get into the high 60s in the day, feeling warmer because of the strong sun, but it falls to the low 40s at night, and there is heaps of snow at the top of the mountains. The houses here are built of sticks, paper, and single glazed windows... or at least that's how it feels.  Really though the warm air flows right out of the house, and our house will be warmed by a wood stove and a heat pump.  A heat pump was a new concept for me.  Instead of having a radiator or a duct system for heating, a heat pump is like an air conditioning unit for your window except its for heat and sits above your window.  It's effective for a single room, but supposedly isn't too economical.  Funny side note:  I personally call air conditioning "the air", like hey mom is the air on?"  I always have, and never thought it was a strange thing to say, UNTIL at work one day I was like "It is freezing, is the air on?!?"  and everyone looked at me like I was stupid, and said "I hope so we need air!"  They apparently call is air-con for short... silly people missing out on saving themselves an entire syllable.

Two exciting things to announce (one way more exciting than the other, but both awesome!)  First the really awesome, important one:  Jeff's sister Laura, and her boyfriend Brookes got engaged!!  Everyone is so excited about it, and looking forward to a Stortz wedding.  They are both amazing people and I am so happy they are engaged.  The second is that Jeff was able to get us Flight of the Conchords Tickets (for those of you not familiar, they are a singing/comedy duo who are from NZ, but had a popular HBO tv show of the same name, and one member, Bret Mackenzie, just won a Grammy for a song in The Muppets).  He had to get up at 7 on his day off and wait in line for a couple of hours knowing he was 155 in line and there were only 300 tickets (and each person can purchse 2).  He waited even though the numbers were against him, and by some miracle they issued another 100 tickets!  We were able to get awesome  seats!  He is the best!

I am going to end on those happy notes, but let me know if you have an questions, because a lot of times I don't post because I am not sure what to post about, and I feel like a ramble on.

Cheers! & Hoppy Easter! :)

The Great Luge Mistake

On Saturday Jeff was back to work, and I got to sleep in a little bit!  I eventually picked up Nancy, Tom, and Laura to take them to the Remarkable's Saturday Market.  It is kind of like the Nelson market, but much smaller.  There Tom was able to try a sausage roll, and Laura and I picked up some yummy candles.  Laura and Nancy picked up some local spices, and Nancy got a bunch of Jams/Chutneys for back home.  We continued into town to visit the market on the Wharf that is mostly arts and crafts.  Laura and I picked up a knitted hat, and  after spending the entire week looking for the perfect wool scarf, I was INSPIRED.  Nancy took us to the yarn store to buy some nice possum and merino wool for a friend of hers and it struck me!! "Why don't I just knit my own scarf?!"  I was on a mission from then on to buy some tools, and knit me my very own wool scarf... Jeff's family ended up buying me beautiful wool and knitting needles, and I am slowly, but surely making myself a scarf, and then work on some scarves for others (depending on the quality of my own).

After a beautiful morning of shopping, we decided to try the Botswana Butchery's $15 lunches.  Aesthetically this place was amazing, and its menu was fabulous.  It specializes in steaks mostly, but has an impressive champagne list, and a great drink selection.  We stuck with the $15 specials, but every single thing the four of us got was AMAZING, most notably my steak sandwhich.  It had a perfectly cooked piece of steak on top of delicious bread with horseradish sauce and red onion jam (red onions reduced with sugar?).  It was the best food i've had in Queenstown and the best deal, with huge portions, and Jeff and I went back again 3 days later! 

After a hearty lunch, the four of us decided we should do a hike, so I suggested "hiking up to the gondola, and luging back down".  Everyone agreed it would be a great view and we would save the $25 it cost to ride the gondola up, and we could just luge down!  The walk was significantly harder than the QT Hill hike (and we thought it was the same height as QT hill, but its really about 200 meters lower?!) Once we got to the top we quickly realized that it was probably the stupidest thought in the world that it would be possible to luge down the 400 meters we just climbed.  The luge actually goes up an additional ski lift and you luge down only a small portion of the mountain.  It was embarrassing for me, but when we were at the bottom, no one else seemed to think it was implausible.  Needless to say we did not want to talk back down so we spent $14 each to go down the gondola, and no one even checked our tickets (as i had been told before, but we were too afraid to try to sneak down)!

Once Jeff got off of work we decided we would do a nice dinner, and chose Luciano's Italian restaurant.  It had an American Ganster theme and feel, with great food.  The ribeye was notably the best, but my potato gnocchi had an incredible texture and fresh taste.  The pizzas were also very tasty, especially the one with the pumpkin topping.  Afterwards, the ladies went back to the hotel, and we took Tom to Dux de Lux, the only microbrewery in Queenstown, with really good beers, and my favorite, the "Ginger Tom".  I am obsessed with all things ginger now.  

Luckily we didn't wait to save outdoor activities until the last day because Sunday was miserable outside.  I met the girls in town for some last minute shopping, while Tom had decided to climb the Ben Lomond.  We were worried because the summit is a little under a mile in altitude and the rain was pouring down.  The family still hadn't tried Fergburger yet so we stopped there and picked up three sandwiches/burgers to take back to the room and split.  While we the girls were all enjoying a delicious bite to eat, we hear Tom fiddling at the door, unable to use the key because he was so wet/cold/exhausted from his hike!  It was very impressive that he did it in that weather, and when he reached the summit, he said he wasn't able to see anything at all!!  What a shame!

I took the water taxi to work (yes i get to take a boat to work!!) so the Stortz's could have the car for the night and come visit me at Stacks.  They had a yummy dinner and waited to drive me home from work!  They surprised me with a New Zealand greenstone pandora bead!!  It was the one I really really really wanted!!  And we learned on our Milford Sound trip that it is good luck to GIVE greenstone, so they should be lucky for quite a bit of time!!  After dinner, it was already 11:30 so we took the girls back to the room, and took Tom out for the last hoorah.  We drank a bunch, and played a bunch of pool, and got the courage to test our hand at the casino.  We put up $100 for roulette and we were playing pretty well, up a bit throughout the game, and never really down.  We were finally up about $65 and had been playing for 30 minutes or so, so we decided to cash out, BUT we had been playing 4 all night and it hadn't hit so tom said "put it all on 4!!" we all laughed and I decided to put $5 on the four corners of 1,2,4, and 5. and IT HIT 4!! so yes I should have just put it on 4 and we would have won about $200, but we did win $40, so we went back to the hotel up $100 and super amazed by the forces of the casino gods, but we slept on the hotel room floor, so the casino gods must not be too generous.

We woke up, on the floor, early the next morning and had the fabulous breakfast at the hotel and took the family to the airport and bid them adieu!  It was sad to see them go, but it reminded us of why we must return home in September!!  

Cheers!! 

The BBQ Bus & Beyond

Wednesday night, Laura, Tom, Jeff and I went out to a going away celebration for my friend Sophie.  She is leaving me for 3 months to visit family in Louisiana! :(  It was a pajama party/ bar crawl of sorts, and we had a great time.  Tom, Jeff, and I finished off the night at the casino, with little luck.

So we're up to Thursday.  Thursday was a lovely day, and Jeff had off Thursday and Friday!  We started the day off by going to Arrowtown for crepes and coffee, and a short stroll through a creek and up a mountain!  Jeff and I were the only one who got crepes, but they didn't know what they were missing out on.  I had booked us a lunch at the Amisfield Vineyard and Winery because I had heard what a great lunch they had.  The restaurant and vineyard was beautiful, and the food was delicious, but they were out of a few of their main dishes, so we were a bit disappointed.  We had a wonderful bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc as well.  It was a lovely afternoon.

Laura riding the tractor at Amisfield

Awesome view from the Remarks!

In the spirit of filling our days to the brim, we decided to rent some mountain bikes from the Hilton and bike around the Kelvin Heights Peninsula.  This was Nancy's least favorite activity, but she seemed to enjoy most of it.  It was about a 2 hour bike ride, and we found ourselves especially "hiking with a bike" at some points, but the view was beautiful at all times, and there is some amazing architecture in Kelvin Heights!  The bike riding was one of my favorite activities and I definitely want to rent a bike and do a longer trail before winter comes.  After the somewhat exhausting day of tourism, we took a short ride halfway up the Remarkables for a picture perfect view!

I cooked up some tortellini and ravioli for dinner, and we all enjoyed a cheap and easy dinner at our Fernhill house that night.  It was the perfect end to a very busy day, and we all went to sleep pretty early because we had a 6:00 breakfast and 6:55 BBQ bust to catch!

Friday was our trip to Milford Sound.  We originally opted for the biggest company with the nicest buses for our day tour, but they were booked (which is apparently somewhat uncommon), so we were suggested the BBQ bus, which is a smaller bus where you stop and have a proper BBQ on the way.  We figured if at the least it would be a funny story to tell.  The bus ended up being quite comfortable, and the BBQ was amazing! We had chicken on a stick, beef kabobs, and pasta salad, and we ate right at the foot of a mountain.  Another amazing thing was the weather.  Every guide we talked to said this was one of the most beautiful days in a while.  It was so clear, and we were very lucky for a day like this in a place that rains 300 days a year!

We arrived at Milford Sound after a fantastic BBQ and a 4 hour bus drive.  We were set up on a 1 hour and 45 minute cruise of the sound.  It was beautiful to see the waterfalls from the mountains and where the sound opens up to the sea.  It makes you feel so small!!  It was a lovely, but very long day.  We got back around 8pm and grabbed a casual dinner, a few drinks, and hit the sack!  

Lovely Milford Sound

I must go to sleep now, but I will finish up the trip summary in the days to come, and tell you more about how Queenstown has been treating us in the past couple of months!!  Also, I will post some more pictures of Milford Sound and the trip on our Flickr page now!

Cheers!

It's been a while

So this is the longest break I have taken from blogging since I started in October.  I was amazed at how many people told me that they and others missed the blog entries.  I can't promise this will be the start of a whole new string of regular, interesting blog posts, but I will try.  It is hard to blog sometimes while living in Queenstown for 2 reasons:  1.  Time flies here.  I can check the date for upcoming birthdays and all of the sudden it is March!?  When did it become March?  I sometimes find myself wondering where weeks have gone, and forgetting to keep track of time.  This is way more like a vacation than real life.  2.  Sometimes I try to think back to what I did with all of these weeks that are flying by, and it seems that it is just a bunch of stories about hanging out with people that I adore, that no one back home really knows.   Maybe i'll try to write more about my friends here, but I sometimes think that is boring for my readers.

Well apart from my very long rant that attempts to justify my absence, there have been a lot of really exciting things going on here lately.  Jeff's family came to visit this past week, and it gave Jeff and I the opportunity to experience Queenstown from a tourists point of view.  I had the entire week off except a short shift Sunday night, and Jeff had his nights free and Thursday and Friday off.  It was so nice to have some money saved up and be able to enjoy Queenstown as a holiday spot rather than our home.  I guess I will just write about the trip in chronological order, so if i need to stop I can just pick up where I left off.

So I picked Nancy, Tom, and Laura up at the airport on Tuesday afternoon, and Jeff can conveniently working at the airport that day.  We were very happy to see that they arrived safetly and on time.  I took them to their hotel to shower up and once Jeff finished work we went to dinner at a place suggested to us as "american and good", called Lonestar (not the same one as in America).  It was a decent meal, but our most expensive meal, and least impressive.  Despite the long trek to NZ, everyone seemed really excited to be here.  After dinner we took Nancy and Laura back to the hotel and grabbed a few drinks with Tom, but soon jet lag started to kick in so we headed home.

Wednesday Jeff had to work so I took everyone to the market to grab some groceries and we went to the Hilton to book our Milford Sound cruise.  The Hilton offers employees a discount of excursions so we were able to save some money on a coach cruise coach trip on the BBQ bus.  (We initially chose a different bus, but it was booked, so we decided to take a leap).  We met Jeff for lunch at Hamill's where it began to appear as if Tom had severely injured his eye with his mom's contact solution.  We urged him to run across to the eye glass store to have it looked at.  They confirmed it was a peroxide burn to the eye and it would take a little bit of time to heal.  With his present injury, Tom decided to sit out of the hike up Queenstown Hill.   It is a 600 meter hike with great views.  This is a hike Jeff and I have wanted to do for sometime, but often don't get days off together.  Laura, Nancy, and I started climbing, and were all surprisingly fit for the walk, but it was Nancy who was spitting out the optimistic phrases when we were slowly approaching the summit.  It was very impressive to see her climb to the top at age 60, with more ease than Laura and I.  We all napped and recovered and decided to try out the casinos 2 mains for $25 deal.  We had 5 mains, 2 desserts, 4 beers, and a glass of wine for $115, and the food was all really good!  I would say it was the weeks best bargain, and Jeff and I will definitely eat there again.

View from the top of Queenstown Hill

I must go make the same thing I make every night I am off work... Burritos/fajitas/quesadillas!!  Will finish the trip's details soon!!

Cheers!