hastings

while in hastings, we visited the nearby city of napier. napier was destroyed in the early 20th century by an earthquake, and it was rebuilt in the art deco style.

hastings

our next destination was hastings. it is located in the hawkes bay wine country. (luckily our hotel could expand our reservation for another night.) we were there for three days of wine tasting. lots of good sauvignon blancs (although not my favorite varietal) and chardonnays, but the red wine still has a ways to go. here's a picture of us at te mata peak, and then one from below. our favorites were cj pask (this winery actually had some great red varietals), kim crawford, and vidal, but we also visited clearview estate, craggy range, matariki, ngatarawa, te awa, and trinity hill. i was fighting a cough the whole time, so j was doing most of the tasting, and i was driving.

lake taupo

here's another picture of lake taupo, on a sunny day. this was taken at a rest stop on our way back from turangi to hastings.

turangi

our next stop was turangi. it was to be our base for tramping the tongariro crossing. unfortunately, the weather was too windy to allow us to do the hike, so we left a day early. here's a picture of stormy lake taupo on our way to turangi, taken from inside the car, and a picture of mugwai, the adorable resident wheaten terrier at our hostel in turangi. if we ever got a dog, it would have to be a wheaten terrier.

rotorua

this is a far away shot of the whakarewarewa thermal valley.

rotorua

this vent is used for cooking by the maori.

rotorua

here are some pictures of the geothermal activity in rotorua, at te puia

rotorua

our next place to visit in new zealand was rotorua. it's a hotbed of geothermal activity, and a center of maori culture. here are a couple pictures of a maori welcome ceremony we watched while visiting te puia & the whakarewarewa thermal valley.

waitomo caves

this is j's caving group. he's on the far left. so cute in the helmet!

waitomo caves

j is climbing out of a cave.

waitomo caves

the bright dots on the ceiling of the cave are glowworms. it's hard to capture them on film. you have to leave it exposed for awhile, which is why this picture is blurry. this is from j's tour.

waitomo caves

these are glowworms. it's the strands that are visible in light, and the actual worms that glow in the dark.

waitomo caves

this is what caves look like above ground.

waitomo caves

our next destination was waitomo caves. we stayed one night at a very rustic hostel, probably the worst one of all of them. it was FREEZING! very rainy weather, too, at least the day we arrived. the following day, when we did the cave tours, it cleared up a bit. j did a tour with rap, raft, n' rock, and i did a tour with spellbound. his was really active, requiring the donning of a wetsuit, and mine was passive. the main attraction of these caves was the glowworms. they live on the roofs & sides of caves, and produce long strands of mucus, by which they catch insects. they glow in the dark. you can ride a raft into the caves, and you can do the active tours that combine rappelling, blackwater rafting, and abseiling.

auckland

here are some pictures from our meal at the sky tower: j's food, my food, and a view of our hotel from way up high.

auckland

i've finally had time to sit down & sort through pictures from the trip to new zealand, so here goes...  this is a picture of the sky tower from the lighter quay.  

birthday.

As of today, I have officially been alive in the open world for 34 years. I guess it feels like 34 years when I think back through them, although some years passed faster than others. Some parts of years felt like years themselves (e.g. - the advent season when I was 4-8 years old). All in all, I've had a really good life, and look forward to another 34 (hopefully at least 34) more years. I'm very lucky to have made such good memories!

happy thanksgiving.

well, we just returned from our 3rd annual thanksgiving eve "planes, trains, and automobiles" party. lots of fun, and great to see everyone we haven't seen for two months. lots of catching up was done, and more will be done later today (oh dear - must get to bed).
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE! i have so much to be thankful for. :) i hope you can all be as fortunate as i am.

auckland

so, we returned on thursday from a month long trip to new zealand. nz is beautiful, & we had a great time. i'll attempt to summarize the trip in the next posts.
we flew into auckland on oct 16, having skipped a day during the flight. the flight was smooth, and the in-flight entertainment system helped the time pass quickly. it was great to have such a large choice of movies to watch (probably around 50), and to be able to stop & start them.
we arrived around 6:30am, and unfortunately had a bit of a problem at customs. we had planned everything except the visa issue. we should have printed out a copy of our itinerary from air new zealand, to prove that we had a return flight leaving the country, but we totally forgot. if we had been foreigners coming to the united states, we would've probably been thrown in jail or sent back home, at our own expense. luckily, new zealand is a much saner, friendlier country than the u.s.a. they just made us wait for a long time while they checked with air new zealand to confirm that we indeed had a reservation for a return flight. oops! after we made it through customs, we picked up our rental car, el corolla, at apex rentals. driving in new zealand took a bit of getting used to. people drive on the left side of the road, and the driver is on the right seat. your turn signal is on the right hand, and windshield wipers are controlled from the left hand. we were both sharing the driving, so we took turns laughing at each other when the windshield wipers would go on instead of a turn signal. it took a long time to get used to - i stopped making mistakes three weeks into the trip. now that i'm back at home, i'm doing it again. i need to sit on my right hand or something! riding as a passenger in the left seat was disconcerting. it took getting used to, also, and aggravated my motion sickness. after picking up the car, we headed to our hotel downtown. this was the nicest place of all the places we were staying- the westin at lighter quay. we weren't actually paying for this hotel - we were using starpoints (from an american express card). because we're spg members, they let us check in right then, around 9am, and they placed us on the highest floor. it was so wonderful to be able to take a shower & sleep! the room was fantastic. i'd highly recommend that place if you have starpoints to use. (i don't think i'd actually pay for it, though...) after our nap, we explored auckland a little, & planned out our next day there. the first day was just basically for relaxing. new zealand is (well, now that we've turned back the clocks for daylight savings time) three hours behind portland, but a day ahead. so if it's 8pm thurs here, it's 5pm friday there. it didn't take very long to adjust to the time difference. it was basically like traveling from new york to san francisco. it's easier going east to west, than west to east. i've been having problems sleeping, now that i'm back. it'll take time. anyway, we ate lunch at a kebab place (those joints are a lot more common in nz than in the states), had a beer at an irish pub later, and ate dinner at a japanese place (called tanuki's cave?) of many small plates. good food, but nothing amazing (and no pics). the next morning i went for a run. westin always has a recommended running route. i tried doing the 5 k, but got a little lost, and ended up doing the distance of a 10 k. oh well. we began the morning at the auckland museum, which had a lot of information on the maori people, new zealand & world war 2, volcanoes (auckland is built on top of them, which WILL erupt some day), nz wildlife, and packed with displays on polynesia. we went to the sky tower for lunch, which has a rotating restaurant at the top, just like the seattle space needle. expensive food, but if you eat there, your ride to the top is free. the food was pretty good - i was expecting less. there's a bungy jumping platform above the restaurant, so we got to watch people fall while we ate. the rotation bothered me, so i think that will be my last experience of that type. we ate dessert at a french place we passed on our way back to the hotel. spent the rest of the day relaxing, except for a grocery run for dinner & breakfast supplies.

home again...

ahhhh... finally home - arrived yesterday - from new zealand. the trip was great, but i'm really happy to have my bed, my kitchen, my dishes, my grocery store, my wine, my portland back. new zealand was beautiful. will post pictures later. i had a few students today, & have been busy sifting through emails, messages, & mail. when we first got home, our water was turned off. evidently, a bill dated 9-28 didn't arrive until after we left on 10-14, so we accumulated two other notices before the water was turned off two days before we returned. $50 and the water was back an hour later. so stupid, and not really our fault. stoopid!!!

leaving for new zealand

well, today's the day that we leave for new zealand. this has been a long long never-ending week of planning, making reservations, packing, and teaching. our flight to san francisco leaves at 3:30pm, and the one to auckland leaves at 9pm. we arrive at 6:30am on the 16th (i hope we'll be awake enough to navigate driving on the left side of the road), yet the flight is only 13 hours. our oct 15th is going to be SUPER short! i suppose flying there will be closer to flying from the east cost to the west coast, even though they're a day ahead. that means adjusting to time zones on the way back will be worse, which bites, because i have to teach the next day. and our return layover is going to be around 7 hours. oh well. i feel very very lucky to get to go on this trip. jet lag is a tiny price to pay!
i'm still don't feel like i'm on vacation. i think it will hit me once i land in auckland. i tend to be a nervous flyer. definitely nervous about being on a plane for so long. i hope my "personal entertainment center" works. well, heck, i hope we arrive safely. traveling is all about low expectations... if you have low expectations, you'll be happy. if you expect a lot, you have a much higher chance of not having a good time. and life is too short to not enjoy it!

pre trip...

after our dinner at rock creek, we had ANOTHER dinner to go to. our friend c was making batches of his special wings. one set was really spicy, and one was teriyaki. both were great, but we couldn't really eat much after the first dinner. anyway, they all shared pictures of the recent trips to tahoe & yosemite. and c discovered that he can display pictures on his huge flat screen tv using his playstation. he was really happy about that! unfortunately, it didn't feel like reading pictures from the thumb drives that night...

pre trip...

after teaching a bit yesterday, we met friends j & c, plus little l, for dinner at the rock creek tavern. by the end of our early dinner, l was getting really tired. here's a great picture of her cute face crumpling...
she's getting bigger & bigger! i was holding her for just five or so minutes, and my arms were killing me!

le happy

last weekend, on staturday, after j arrived home from his climbing trip, we went out for dinner with our friend v to le happy, a creperie. the crepes were soooo good! i had a ham, egg, & cheese one. we split a bananas foster crepe, pictured below, set on fire in all its glory. good times!

las vegas

the final vegas picture. j & i were tired, so we left the youngsters soon after this. i'm not sure how long they stayed out, but last we saw, they were watching games of craps. i wonder if they made huge fortunes that evening! my flight was fairly early the next day at 11, and j had a day of laundry to do before picking up his final climbing partner back at the airport in the evening. so we got a good night's sleep, & said goodbye for another week the next morning. j arrived home a lot earlier than i expected, yesterday afternoon. it's great to have him home finally!

las vegas

after dinner, we opted to get dessert elsewhere. a brief walk took us past this large chocolate fountain and accompanying dessert place.

las vegas

this is a picture of j's lamb. his plate had foam, too, and he could never figure out what the green pasty stuff surrounding the meat was. i guess my stomach was still a little questionable because i couldn't bring myself to taste his food to find out. normally, i consider myself a bit of a foodie & enjoy experiences like this, but i just was not into it this evening, and i don't know if it was just me, or the restaurant.

las vegas

here's a picture of my main course - scallops with zucchini buttons & other crap. this restaurant made good food, but it was a little too foofy for me. can anybody explain the trend of adding flavored foam to plates these days? i find it unappealing and unappetizing. gross.

las vegas

the second evening, we all headed over to the bellagio for dinner. here's a picture of c, m, & their beautiful seafood appetizer.

las vegas

while i'm at it, here are a couple more pictures of the night view from our balcony...

las vegas

saturday was spent going our own directions. we slept in, got up & walked around the casino a bit, and went back to the room to sleep longer. for some reason, my stomach wasn't very happy, despite not having drunk all that much the day before (and drinking plenty of water). eventually we got up & went down to the pool for the afternoon. here's a pretty night view of it from our balcony.

las vegas

here's a picture of our 'smores dessert- it was fantastic. gelato, chocolate, marshmallowy goodness. heaven, although the chocolate kept me up that night.

las vegas

our friends c & m arrived that evening at 7, so we met up to have a late dinner that evening. we settled on some italian place in the main mgm grand casino. it was great food. never got a picture of the main course, though. too tired.

las vegas

and of course we had to get a a hat. a recently proposed to n- they're getting married!!! congratulations, kids!

las vegas

i just had to have one of those hats! luckily those men from phoenix just happened to be selling them. :)

las vegas

ziggy zaggy ziggy zaggy hoi hoi hoi...

(is that what they say??? i'm famous for mangling lyrics to songs, so i'd be the last to know...)

las vegas

sitting right behind us was a group of firemen from phoenix, all wearing those little green oktoberfest hats. evidently they come to vegas every single year on this weekend to this beer hall.

las vegas

of course, a hofbrau haus visit would not be complete without the requisite german band. this beer band, according to our waiter, was imported directly from germany. gen-yoo-eine musicalists, i tell you!

peace.

martha,
we love you, and we will never forget you.

las vegas

a picture of the massively overpriced apple strudel from the hofbrau haus. it was good, but really small for the price.

las vegas

here's a picture of us and our waiter. we were seated, at this point, in the "garden" area of the beer hall. the garden area was indoors, but on the ceiling was painted a sky. it was totally just like being outside. inside.

las vegas

a ordered this large plate of some kind of spaetzle - basically germany's version of macaroni & cheese.

las vegas

after j got cleaned up, we met up with our friends a & n, & walked down to a bavarian beer hall - hafbrau haus. j's beer is a whole liter. i'm sportin' the half liter.

las vegas

this past weekend, i met up with the husband in las vegas. it was the first time i had ever seen him with two weeks' growth of facial hair, after seven years of knowing him. i wasn't sure if the hotel would let him in! he really needed a shower...