Leigh's Birthday

Hi, Everybody, it's Baby G and Dizzle once again for another installment of "Kiwi Experience"! We left off not long ago, talking about our weekend in Blenheim, tending bar for the Blues, Brews, and BBQs festival. Well, this week, we are set up with gainful employment through the generous hand of Martinborough Beer and Ales once again, this time on a vinyard. We'll be gone from tonight (Sunday) through till next weekend, but we WILL be connected through the internet, so feel free to continue commenting and emailing away. We're really looking forward to hard manual labor directly under the massive hole in the Ozone Layer, as opposed to the searching-for-jobs-online-and-downtown bits that Dizzle's been doing this week, or the on-call-reception-but-not-air-conditioned gig Baby G has been doing a couple days this week.


But none of that is the point. We'll blog about that after the fact. Today, what you need to know is that yesterday was our flatmate Leigh's birthday party. She had been craving American Chili Cheese dogs for weeks since we moved in, and so the day before, Dizzle, Leigh and Jason all went to the supermarket to pick out the right hot dogs and fixin's. Leigh made homemade chili, and we managed to snag real dogs (not Sabrette's or Ball Parks - not even Nathan's, but comparible -- really quite American!), ketchup (as opposed to tomato sauce, which is what they sell here, and tastes LIKE ketchup, but isn't as sweet), and something called "mild American mustard", which is the mustard we're used to. The normal mustard here is really, really hot. Seriously. For a country that doesn't have that many people, and is self-sufficient with food and agriculture, the mustard here is like friggin' wasabi. Anyway, we fired up the grill around noon and proceeded to greet Anna & Steve, Andrew and Mandy within a few hours time. Along with the hot dogs, we had potato wedges, corn on the cob, and DONUTS. We really didn't skimp on the American stuff. Leigh had wanted an American BBQ, so we gave her one. We tried to explain to Jason that donuts were usually breakfast, not a side dish to hot dogs, but we figured, "hey, this is how it looks like Americans eat to the rest of the world, so why not try something new?"

In prep for the party, we saw our very first weta. A weta is a really big bug that is stupid and harmless, and apparently they're the national bug of the whole country, and there are a ton here.





Yeah. It's tough to think "Well, as long as they don't BITE" when one is crawling on your hand.


Anyway, we had a really great time in the sun, and it was really nice that Leigh was craving something that helped us to deal with any homesickness we might have had as well. For dessert, we had HOMEMADE ICE-CREAM SANDWICHES. Leigh has an ice cream machine. Sweet.





So that's pretty much that. A good time was had by all. We ate so much we all got sleepy and ended up making it a really early night. We capped off the day by watching DVDs of a show called "Bro'town", which is NZ's first animated primetime show. It's a Kiwi-cultured cross between "South Park" and "The Simpsons", and is very enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny. We're hoping at some point to get a couple region-free copies or find a way to bring it to the States -- many of you would get a kick out of it.

Anyway, we'll blog more this week. We'll be tired, but happy and together. We are sending warm thoughts across the way to all of you, and hope everything is well. Please feel free to comment here or email us at your leisure.

Until next time, Peace.