Baby G & Dizzle's Kiwi Experience

Showing a friend. Paying it forward.

2007-09-21T19:24:00.000-05:00

Now YOU have to show someone how to blog!

Lots to get to - the Kiwi Experience continues!

2007-08-10T16:47:00.001-05:00

Hey all, Dizzle here. It has been a crazy few weeks but we are finally beginning to suss out what is going to happen the next few months.

Firstly, I have been working at Gotham a few nights a week to put aside some extra cash to get an apartment in Hoboken or Jersey City. Hopefully September, but realistically October.

BOTH pairs of parents just got back from vacations in Michigan. Weird, right? They didn't see each other while there.

Baby G has been busy planning the bachelorette party/bridal shower for Jaime with Joce WHILE looking for work (we may have good news TODAY - but I don't want to jinx it by typing it out!)

Congrats to Andy & Mandy! Wee Oliver has been with us a couple weeks already, and already has his own BLOG! It's on the sidebar to the right, and we couldn't be happier for the whole family.

Congrats also to Steve & Lisa! Sophia Grace Varol joined our world this week, and is even cuter than one would've dared imagine. Nice work, you two (now three):

A couple interesting news articles from New Zealand made it all the way over here to the states this week. Both are funny.

It's 4Real: Parents say they'll call their son Superman
Pat and Sheena Wheaton have been told they cannot name their baby boy 4Real, but they have a Plan B.
"It's a little bit cheeky," admits Pat, but he says - if need be - he and his wife will register their son under an alias.
"If we have to register him for the Government or the system or whatever, then we'll register him as Superman . . . to friends and family he'll stay 4Real.
"It doesn't make a lot of sense: I can call him Superman but I can't call him 4Real," Pat told the Herald.
The couple's original choice met with controversy after it was made public and late last week the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages rejected the name 4Real on the grounds that the dictionary definition of a name was "a sequence of characters".
The Wheatons say they are deciding whether to appeal the decision.
"They've turned us down but we're considering how far we want to go," Pat said.
However he admitted the couple would have to give the matter considerable thought before proceeding.
"I'm really unsure how successful we'd be if we took it to court; I'm obviously not a lawyer and [the Government] have got unlimited resources and taxpayer money."
Tony Wallace, a spokesman for the Department of Internal Affairs, said discussions with the family were ongoing in a bid to decide on a final name to be registered.
He was reluctant to comment further until a final decision had been reached.
The Wheatons initially decided on the name after seeing an ultrasound scan and realising their baby was "for real".
They believed the spelling 4Real was the clearest way of writing it down.
Pat said some of the criticism of him and his wife regarding their choice had been difficult to handle.
"I did go online and Google some of the stories and as tough as I am, it does get to you, but there's no point getting upset.
"It could be a 10-year-old school girl making those comments."
He said people's negative reactions were "predictable" because the name he and his wife had chosen wasn't the norm.
"No matter what, it's gonna stay 4Real," Pat said. "I'm certainly not a quitter."

and, I caught this one today:

Laptop thief identified by popular YouTube video
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A thief was convicted and fined after being spotted on a video posted on the Web site YouTube.
The man was taped slowly circling the store, stealing a laptop computer, slipping the computer into his overcoat and stepping out of the store in the South Island town of Greymouth, local media reported Friday.
The whole performance was posted on YouTube _ set to "The Pink Panther" music track _ and attracted 500,000 hits from around the globe.
One viewer recognized the man and alerted police. Dawson Anthony Bliss, 50, was convicted of theft in Greymouth District Court on Thursday after pleading guilty.
Judge Gary MacAskill fined Bliss $1,485 and ordered him to pay $1,478 in reparation. Greymouth on South Island's west coast is 234 miles south of the capital, Wellington.

Finally, as you can see, I've posted quite a few things on the sidebar today. The otters and monkey are just cute, while Tony's video is quite good, and Ollie's Blog just makes you want to never stop smiling.

We're livin'. You?

Right outta the gate!

2007-07-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Everyone who's been checking this - I know we haven't updated in awhile. Hopefully that'll change soon.

We got back from a fruitless effort to make a little money in Washington, DC about a week ago, and have moved in with my folks (Rev. J and the Divine Mama) in Warwick, NY. It's been slow going, adjusting to being back in the USA, but we knew things would start to feel better once we are gainfully employed.

...and though it's not full time, and we are still looking, yesterday I was hired on as the newest addition to the waitstaff of Gotham Comedy Club, on 23rd and 7th in Manhattan. I start training Thursday and couldn't be more excited.

We'll keep you in the loop as events progress, but so far, we are feeling pretty positive and are looking forward to starting a new, post-NZ life together.

Keep an eye here for more to come.
Love,
Dizz

...the experience continues...

2007-05-31T13:40:00.000-05:00

Hello, and welcome back to Baby G and Dizzle's Kiwi Experience!

There have been several wannabe posts since we arrived back in the good ol' U.S of A, but none were comparable to our previous posts (they were actually funny and interesting), so we bagged them. At some point, either Baby G or myself (it's Dizz, by the way. Duh.) will cut and paste those rough drafts into the little window to "Create New Post" and you'll see how lame and inept they are. They were written in the depths of jet lag. In addition, we haven't actually stayed in the same place more than three nights in a row since April 26th, so it's been a little difficult to focus.

Sooner or later, there will be a post reflecting on what we learned while in New Zealand, who we became, and what's next for us, your loyal and jet set heroes. We will discuss culture differences and war, technology and communication, the future and the past. It'll be bitchin'. For now, however, there's about 3 weeks of bouncing around we've done since we landed in Pennsylvania on May 10th, and we, in typical BG&D style, got pictures of all of it.

We rolled into Philly after being awake for 36 hours straight and got picked up by BG's cousin, Celina. She was nice enough to stop and let us pick up cheesesteak sandwiches, which was therefore our first American meal upon our return. Scoff if you want; tell us how bad that is for us or let us know how badly you feel for the poor cow who gave his/her life so we could dine upon this greasy concoction of meat, onions, and Cheese Whiz. Yell at us, spit at us, write us nasty letters, we don't care. You know why? WE'D BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO IT! And we agreed, it was one of the best *&^%ing sandwiches we'd ever had. God bless America.

After an 11pm dinner like this, you're in the mood to do one of two things: sleep a long time, or go to New Jersey. We did both. In that order.

My dad, Reverend J., picked us up at the Newark Train Station the next afternoon (we literally took two boats, three cars, three planes and a train to get to this point from Wellington, NZ, 10 days before). Here's a picture of us in my dad's car in Newark:

If we look tired, it's because we were. Oh, God, so tired.

Anyway, we made it up to Warwick, NY, where my parents live, in time to have a lovely BBQ in the springtime sunshine. It was quite lovely.

Mother's Day was coming up only a couple of days later, so we had to split up for the first time since Kev-Bo and I moved our stuff ORIGINALLY from DC to the NY/NJ area. Seriously. We've been together pretty much all the time for 6 months. In an effort to say "I love you" to our moms, we made them both the famous Kiwi dessert pavlova:

"Yum!", said Lady T.
"Yum!", said the Divine Mama
"Now that you're home, you can weed the garden!", said Rev. J.
"Mow the lawn," said The Chemical Bridge.
Sigh. Happy Mother's Day!

Following this ultra-sweet dessert weekend, we headed out to New York, New York, the city so nice they named it twice (a saying so nerdy since the city's so dirty). As we mentioned WAY back, the Ridgewood Power Trio is composed of Baby G, Jocelyn, and Jamie. These are the girls who go way back to High School together. It happened that early the next week was Jocelyn's birthday! So, the two of us, Jocelyn, Jamie, and Jamie's fiance Tony all got together and had a wicked good Italian feast and shared pictures from New Zealand. This was, however, not enough time to spend with them, so we decided to do it all over again a few days later, this time, with Jocelyn's boyfriend Julian! A great time was once again had by all.

Clockwise from left: Dizzle, Tony, Jamie and Julian. At one point, we had four part harmony to an acoustic version of a song by Tool. How rock n' roll.

This is Julian soloing. This is such a rad picture.

Tony, Jamie's fiance. This picture is not a mistake: his eyes actually glow red when he smirks.

Jamie and her invisible guitar, Lucille. "Hello, SoHo!"

Jocelyn's birthday wish: "I wish that no one takes my picture while I'm exhaling." Sorry, Joce!

The Ridgewood Power Trio: Jersey Represent!

We also had a great time with Dasha, Baby G's sister, and her boyfriend Kreeson. They were nice enough to take us to a fantastic Cuban restaurant and listen to us babble on and on about how beautiful New Zealand is. PLUS, Dasha took us to TWO movies! We saw "Pirates 3" and "Waitress". One was over loud and long, the other was charming and nice. Take your best guess. Still, it was astoundingly nice of her to take pity on our weary bones and let us just enjoy her company without having to be on out best behaviour or, you know, talk.

So then we went and bounced back to Warwick for my sister's 3rd and 4th grade choral concert. Ya Ya (my sis) actually got these adorable little kids to sing in 3 part harmony, which is not an easy feat. We were very proud of her that night, and she did a really great job...

...but WHILE she was conducting, her daughter Molly decided to go up to the students and be a part of the show herself! In front of everyone!

This is my sister, Ya Ya. You can tell from this picture she's got a little Heavy Metal in her, too.

Not long after this phase of hopping around, we took a quick trip up to Ithaca to visit a couple friends we hadn't seen since December, Paul and Sue. We were thinking maybe we'd walk around, or play Frisbee, or get some other form of outdoorsy activity in. Instead, we missed each other so much we all just sat around and talked. It was really nice. Plus, my mom sent us along with some homemade muffins, so there's that, too.

Paul and I being thuggish in each other's shades.

Baby G and Sue in another episode of "Armlength Theatre"

So that brings us up to about as current as we can get. We got into Washington, DC two days ago and are still couch-hopping in rock-star style. We are at Jake and Jenn's now, and it has been a blast catching up with them and exchanging photos (they got married last month and flew home from their honeymoon the same day we flew in from Christchurch). Tomorrow we go to David and Miriam's for the weekend, and then off to Patrick and Erika's for a week, though they'll be in Seattle, so we'll still be missing them. After that, we FINALLY get to spend more than three nights in a row at a place! We're staying the last three weeks of June at Meredith's house, and we couldn't be happier.

So that's the last month. We're in DC making money and saying our final, permanent goodbyes before whatever is next. As Baby G & Dizzle's Kiwi Experience comes to a close (or: "Final Act"), we'll keep you posted on our future plans. In the meantime, we're safe and sound. Though we have no "home" of which to speak yet, we're looking forward to inviting you over to it once we do.

Now go outside and do something active. Do some of it for us, too. We are exhausted.

Peace,
Dizz

p.s. Okay. I've spent a long time trying to get blogger to format this post the way I typed it, and this stupid program won't let me. So now, if anyone has this problem and Googles the phrase "I don't know why I bothered formatting the blog the way I did if Blogger is going to do whatever the hell it wants to, anyway" will be directed here. I feel you.

Long Day.

2007-05-11T02:10:00.000-05:00

[TO BE READ IN THE VOICE OF KEIFER SUTHERLAND – WITH THE 'PLINK PLINK, PLINK PLINK' OF THE “24” INTRO IN THE BACKGROUND]

"The following takes place between 10am and 10am, both on May 10th, the day of our departure from New Zealand. We are Baby G and Dizzle, and this is the longest day of our lives."

At 10:00am today, May 10th, we were in Christchurch International Airport. It is (or was?) a sunny day, great for flying. As we had to check out of our backpackers early, we were at the airport with ample time before our flight. -Too bad it was delayed.

Also at 10:00am, on May 10th, we were at Los Angeles International Airport. It was (or is?) a sunny, smoggy day, apparently great for flying. Too bad our flight keeps getting delayed. We are far too tired to do the actual math (in fact, as we write this, we are sitting in LAX terminal, waiting for our delayed flight to Philly to finally board), but we think 5/10/07 will be roughly 40 hours long for us.

That's what we get for skippin' New Years.

We will post the latter half of our South Island trip in one shot (Editor's Note: Scroll down), but it has all been written the day it occured, so nothing will be changed. We'll also post pictures and soon have a US-based phone number.

But for now, just wish us luck getting on this stupid plane, our third of the day. Then, we are going to sleep a bit.

Thinking of you... it's nice to be home.

p.s. For those of you wondering about Sunny, our rental and the third party on our South Island trip, he was returned in fine style. He will be missed. But not enough to have gotten a picture.

Stopping on the Way Home to See the World's Largest... Sweater: Twizel to Christchurch via Mt. Cook, Lake Tekapo and Geraldine

2007-05-11T01:55:00.000-05:00

This morning, early, we left our little backpackers in Twizel, well-rested and ready for our last hard day of driving – the road to Christchurch, “City of Airplanes to Auckland 'City of Airplanes to Los Angeles 'City of Airplanes to Philadelphia 'City of Trains to Newark'''”. We'd been told we can't leave New Zealand without seeing Mt. Cook from inland. It isn't far from Twizel, which isn't far from the highway to Christchurch, so we decided it'd be a nice morning thing to do.

It turns out we were right.

We'd seen Mt. Cook from the other side last week, around Lake Matheson, but we weren't able to get this close. We also learned that Mt. Cook is not just the tallest point in Australasia, but is the highest point between Papua New Guinea and the Andes. It is, indeed, very tall. We found a nice little 60 minute trail and decided to go for it.

The next stop down the road was where our new friends Mark and Amanda got engaged less than a week ago. It's a tiny little chapel on the shores of Lake Tekapo. Aside from dodging the other tourists (other people know about New Zealand??), it is a church that would hold about 50 people, but would hold them captivated throughout anything due to the fact that the wall behind the pulpit is a window looking out over the lake, with the mountains in the distance. It was no wonder Mark decided this spot to ask Amanda. We hope no tourists were around, though, as that would've ruined the mood. It's an amazing landmark in a remote little corner of the planet, but for them it will be a huge landmark. We couldn't be happier for them.

Right next to the church is a statue of a collie – a sheepdog. This is to commemorate the DOGS that helped settle the area 100+ years ago. Seriously. Baby G took a picture despite Dizzle's insistence that it was stupid.

Another place Mark and Amanda told us to check out was Giant Jersey, a shop in Geraldine that boasts the “Largest Sweater in the World”. It, like Mt. Cook, is very large:

But it is not the best part of this little store. The best part is in the back, where this guy has spent the latter half of his life working on a mosaic made out of teeny tiny pieces of steel. Yes, steel. -Attached to masking tape. It sounds kind of hokey, but when we saw this up close, it was pretty amazing. 4571804751057105 feet long, this piece was obviously a labo(u)r of love. And he told us ALL about it. He worked at a company that threw away steel gears constantly, so he began collecting them, and snapping the teeth off the gears to use in constructing his masterpiece. Over a million pieces later, with all the pieces attached to aforementioned masking tape, he used ONE very small brush to paint the story the mosaic tells.

Now, the original tapestry ended at a certain point, as the end of the story went missing. So our man decided to research what happened in 51935716956BC and render it onto his own mosaic. So the last twenty seven feet are what he believes the original looked like at the end. -Although, he's received confirmation from Oxford University that he's probably correct. Aces!

But, as he pointed out, this wasn't enough for him. He's an avid puzzle fan (you know, sudoku, mazes, word games, math problems, riddles...) so in his tapestry, in the background, he created a secret puzzle that no one in the world has yet cracked. -Mind you, at this point we were staring at him blankly, and our jaws were dropping down wider and wider.

But this still wasn't enough for him. So, he decided to create a CD Rom, enabling the user to magnify his mosaic, and dig deeper, to find the code (or whatever), crack it, and win the prize, of you know, having done it. You can check all this out at www.giantjersey.co.nz and www.1066.co.nz. Be sure to check out the "questions and answers" section on that second one. This guy was a trip!

When we left this shop 20 minutes later, we were a little dumbstruck.

But on we went. We got in touch with Mark and Amanda, our friends on alternating days, who managed to give us a call and book a 4-person room for everyone in Christchurch. We met up with them around 4:30 or 5, and cooked a spaghetti dinner with salad and bread that couldn't be beat. We're having breakfast together tomorrow, but for the time being, it was the first and only home cooked meal any of us have had in quite some time, and we think we were all thankful for the hot food and company.

Tomorrow is packing for the flight on Thursday. Less than 48 hours to go!

~BG&D

Wake up in the Morning, is it Still Dark, or Night Again?: Dunedin to Twizel

2007-05-11T01:54:00.000-05:00

We woke up and had a nice breakfast with our friends before hitting the open road once again. The sun being solidly in our eyes for the second straight day, we were both feeling a little road weary, and, as we are now headed to Christchurch and therefore on our way back to the USA, we were both feeling a little eager to get on the plane as well.

We stopped in a little town called Oamaru to see the blue penguin colony they have there, but the penguins are nocturnal, and we were there at, like, 10:00am. Unfortunately, we had to bag it. Maybe in Christchurch we'll see some. Sigh.

So we cut West to get to the side of Mt. Cook we hadn't yet seen in our travels. Our goal was to get as far as a town called Twizel, as this would be a convenient place to get BACK from as well. Halfway there, around lunchtime, we came upon the heavily-recommended-by-Mark-and-Amanda “Elephant Rocks”. From the pictures they showed us, we were looking forward to having lunch and playing Frisbee in this amazing limestone field where they'd filmed part of “The Chronicles of Narnia”. What M&A hadn't told us was that this limestone field also doubles as a sheep pasture so was not the best place to dive for a disc – much less walk without boots. We still had our picnic, though (PB&J. Again.). We sat ourselves down on top of a boulder, away from sheep poop, and enjoyed the breeze and view from this central-NZ pasture. It was the second really great picnic spot in two days, and we were feeling good.

Trying to put as much road between us and Dunedin as quickly as we could ended up working out, and we checked into a backpackers in Twizel by 2:00pm. Both not feeling great, we decided to hunker down for the night and watch movies until we fell asleep. After a viewing of X-Men and X2, that's exactly what we did.

Tomorrow: The Road to Christchurch.

Homeward Bound: Owaka to Dunedin

2007-05-11T01:52:00.000-05:00

We were under instructions to go the the Ramsay Lodge while in Dunedin, should we wish to meet up with Mark and Amanda again. It's Sunday. So we talked about it in the car and decided that, even though we'd met them twice already, the first time was on a roadside while fixing their car, and the second time we'd all had free internet so we were all buried in our laptops most of the evening. Baby G made the very good point that 'buried in a laptop' is no way to get to know someone better, and we both agreed we'd like to get to know them better, so we decided Ramsay was the way to go.

Dunedin is an interesting town. It's known as a university town that follows rugby with cult-like fervor. It is frequently, from what we've heard, grey and rainy, although the weather he;d out for us and it was actually our most beautiful day on the South Island to date. Town is nestled between rolling hills not far from the Pacific, and sits at the mouth of the Otago Peninsula, home to penguins, seals, and the world's only albatross breeding colony. Dizzle told his parents Monday that if you were to picture the South Island as a clock face, we were spending the night at 5 o'clock, and needed to get to 3 by Wednesday.

We checked into Ramsay very early in the afternoon – well before Mark and Amanda made it this far East – and managed to land a double room in a house that was not attached to where we thought the hostel was. Turns out the 'backpackers' was TWO Victorian houses: both very old and very big. In our double room there were also two extra SINGLE beds, so we had plenty of pillows and warm blankets for the night.

We decided to explore Dunedin a little for the afternoon, figuring Mark and Amanda would be able to make a connection around dinner time. So we asked Burt, the proprietor of Ramsay, to help us our with the map. After getting flawless directions from him, we were on our way.

There is a road we had to drive TWICE last February, north of Auckland, that is scary. It is OVER a mountain and therefore very steep, and it seems to slice through a rainforest, so at least one pass over was very wet, as well. That was the scariest road Dizzle had ever driven until ANZAC Day a couple weeks ago, when he drove over the Rumetaka Range to get to Andrew and Barnsey's place in Martinborough. That record, too, was swiftly broken here on the South Island near the Fox and Frans Josef Glaciers, where the road could be icy, steep, curvy, fast, and let's not forget the danger of falling rocks and avalanche. That title, “Scariest Road Dizzle has Ever Driven” (not counting NE DC – different kind of scary), was replaced about 24 hours later on the way to Milford Sound last week. All of the same dangers are present – just add breathtaking views, attacking parrots, and make it REMOTE. We are going on and on like this for one reason: Outside Dunedin, on the way to the peninsula, there is a twisty road along the coast. It is beautiful, and we were on it on a lovely clear day with views of the city and the Pacific, but so were every tour bus and campervan in the country, apparently. This road takes “S” curves on the edge of the sea at the standard 100kph, so it probably wasn't unlike many of the other areas we'd driven thus far – with one glaring exception: No guardrail. There is literally nothing stopping you from flying off this narrow little road and taking an accidental swim if you're not careful. We almost did a couple times.

In the middle of the Peninsula is Larnach Castle, the only castle in New Zealand. It was built in the 1800's by a politician who's claim to fame is that he's the only New Zealand politician who committed suicide... IN THE BUILDINGS OF PARLAIMENT. One almost HAS to wonder where, exactly, the other ones did it and how many there were. Regardless, it's a beautiful castle with gardens surrounding it, and we had a great time wandering around and looking at the old stonework and sculptures and whatnot. As the castle is on a hill, we were also able to have a picnic (PB&J, of course) overlooking the Bay and Ocean. It was truly unforgettable.

After winding our way back downhill, we figured we still had time to check out “The World's Steepest Residential Street” - which is in a Dunedin suburb. And guys, it's EXACTLY like you'd think. We walked it and regretted it. Then we thought, “Hey, our little Nissan Sunny has been through a lot this week. Maybe he'd enjoy going DOWN Baldwin St.” What seemed like a good idea at the time turned into us getting mildly lost and going straight uphill for much longer than Sunny was comfortable with. But, ever the trooper, Sunny pulled through in fine style, and got us to an ATM, gas station, and grocery store before making it back to Ramsay Lodge...

...where it turns out Mark and Amanda had checked in! They had talked to Burt about sharing our room with us, in the two remaining single beds, and he told them he'd be happy to do it, but would have to refund US some money, as we were technically downgrading from a 'double' to a 'dorm'. Even though it was with the friends we were trying to hang out with anyway! Bitchin'.

So, we spend another evening with our new friends from Canada. We made grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, soup, and chicken parmesan to share and compared our respective chocolate collections for dessert. Then we traded music and movies, and ended up falling asleep to the Will Smith movie, “The Pursuit of Happiness”, which is really only okay. It was still nice to be together. We have quite a bit in common with these two, and so it's been nice to look at pictures and share stories. We're hoping to connect with them again some time in the Northern Hemisphere.

And that's pretty much Dunedin. We missed catching a rugby game here, and we missed the botanical gardens, but we feel by seeing a castle, the world's steepest street, and almost dying on the road a couple times, we lived Dunedin to it's fullest. Tomorrow, we're actually throwing OURSELVES a curveball: We're headed back inland. We figured, we could either spend an extra day in Christchurch, or we could go check out the NZ's tallest mountain, Mt. Cook. So we'll hit the road early, say goodbye to M&A, and holla atcha from west of here.

Peace.

The Farthest From Home We've Ever Been: Te Anau to Owaka

2007-05-11T01:48:00.000-05:00

This morning, we said goodbye to our new friends, Mark and Amanda, and headed South around 10:30am. After driving along the “Scenic South Motorway” for a few hours, we reached Invercargill, and about a half hour later, Bluff.

Here in New Zealand, “From Reinga to Bluff” is an expression that means the whole of the country. As we've already been to Cape Reinga, the Northernmost point in NZ, we felt Bluff was a necessary photo op. So, we stopped at the signpost and got some guy named Sam to snap this shot:

Though Bluff isn't technically the Southernmost point in NZ (or even on the South Island), it's pretty much accepted as that. To think that we were further South than we'd likely ever be again, or actually further South than most people we know have been, was a neat thought. It will get cold again, tonight, as the air here is blowing right off the South friggin' Pole. That's DEEP South, ya'll.

So now we are headed North. This is the official beginning of our return home. The path to our parent's doorsteps will take us, over the next 5 days, through: Dunedin, Christchurch, Auckland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Newark. But for tonight, we're at a lovely little hostel in a TINY little town called Split Level. It is the 3rd hostel on our trip that we seem to have completely to ourselves, regardless of us booking a double room or two bunks in a dorm.
It's very nice, after a week of solid driving, to know we are on the way back to the States, wiser and stronger than we were when we left. We are having hot rice bowls and soup for supper before hitting the road to Dunedin tomorrow.

The weather people are saying it will rain, so we're looking forward to another sunny day. We'll let you know how it went from a backpackers where we may be meeting up with Mark and Amanda again. See you then.

Blogging from Christchurch Airport

2007-05-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

We're safe and jumping on a plane in a couple hours. LOTS more to come as soon as we can. Love to everybody! Can't wait to see you!

~bg&d

New Friends and Milford Sound: Queenstown to Te Anau

2007-05-04T15:58:00.000-05:00

Hi, All!

At the time of this writing, it is 9:00am on Saturday May 5th. We woke up well rested after a HUGE day yesterday.

We hit the road from Queenstown as early as we could. Our target was a little town called Te Anau, which is where the highway splits. There's a dead-end highway from here that takes 90 minutes to drive (each way) into the famous Milford Sound.

Listen, we are only going to attach a few pictures here for a couple reasons:

1-we have 150 to show you all when we see you,

2-there are better cameras than ours out there.

On the way to the Sound, we saw a little red station wagon with it's hood up going the opposite direction. We stopped alongside to ask the couple inside if they were okay. Turns out they'd run out of radiator fluid and needed some water. We emptied our bottle into the car and they thanked us and everyone was happy.

After finally making it to the Sound, we took a boat ride and explored all the way back out to the Tasman Sea. The whole tour only took about an hour and a half, but our necks hurt by the end from looking UP for even that short amount of time.

The Chemical Bridge, Baby G's dad, will be happy to note that we stayed ahead of the storm the whole way back to Te Anau. If we had not, the road would've been treacherous as. :)

So in the beginning of a rainstorm, in the dark, after an AMAZING boat ride, with a tank of gas running on love and kisses, we stopped at Bob and Maxine's Backpackers. Bob and Maxine are a wonderful couple who got into the hostelling business only recently. Because of this, everything here was brand new and cozy...they've really thought about everything they'd like to offer travellers, and have made it available. Hence why we're able to write this now - Bob has a free wireless setup for people like us. Good on you, B&M! We wish you the best of luck with the new house and your rugby team - and thanks for having us!

The only other two guests in the whole place were, surprisingly, people we'd met once before - the Canadian couple with the car trouble! So we had a lovely time talking and laughing and sharing kiwi experiences well into the night:

Mark & Amanda - ENGAGED FOUR DAYS AGO!!

That's essentially it for the morning. We'll blog more again when we get the chance. Today should bring us to the Southernmost tip of the country, and we'll stay in a town called Invercargill, the Southernmost city in the world, tonight. Hopefully these last few posts give you a rough idea of what the scenery and colors have been like. We know the camera doesn't do it justice, so we're looking forward to seeing each and every one of you and sharing some more stories over homemade pavlova.

Until next time,

If Only Our Nissan Sunny Were a Helicopter: Makarora to Queenstown

2007-05-04T05:41:00.000-05:00

We woke up in the middle of mountains and very little else so we could hit the road to Queenstown. The road was very twisty and turny, but we had great weather and got some wonderful pictures of the valleys and the colors of a New Zealand autumn.

On the way, we stopped at Puzzling World. This is an amazing place that is devoted to optical illusions and puzzles. There was a whole room you could walk into that was tilted. All the furniture and settings were also tilted, though, so your eyes and your head told your balance it was wrong. Okay, look, we'll show you:

It also had a walk-in maze, which was a lot of fun. We got to this place right when they opened, so we had the outdoor maze to ourselves. Not unlike "The Shining", only without Jack. We're pretty sure. The whole experience left us a little dizzy and disoriented, so of course the first thing we wanted to do was twist and turn our way an hour's south to Queenstown.

Queenstown is nothing like either one of us had pictured. First of all, it's not a big city. You hear a lot about Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown as the big four cities, but Queenstown is a smallish city nestled in between giant mountains. We asked a Swiss girl at the backpackers who said it reminded her of home, and we'd imagine that's true.

We'd brought, all the way from home, a few discs with which to play disc golf. Baby G had never played, and Dizzle hadn't played in awhile, so he decided to teach her. There is a beautiful course where he's from in New York, and it's always nice to try out new ones. It was the right move. Though the course was poorly marked, there were some hazards he'd never had to contend with before: grass seed, amazing views, and ducks. Right around the 13th hole, there were something like a million ducks wandering around. We didn't aim for them, we let them play through. A good time was had by all – and we think we managed to stay even with par... we aren't really sure, as we didn't play all 18 holes. Like we said, the course was pretty poorly marked.

That was pretty much it for the day. We fell asleep early knowing it would be a pretty full day tomorrow, too.

Dizzle Messes up TWICE, but Takes Excess Time Fixing it: Hokitika to Makarora

2007-05-04T04:46:00.000-05:00

The morning started as we'd hoped, although noticably wetter. It had been windy and rained all night, and it was not unlike a horror movie for a little while there. But it stopped raining in time for us to have a nice breakfast of toast and coffee, before heading out down the road. We were on our way to the village to do some shopping, and wondering how we were going to kill half an hour before most shops opened.

There are a lot of funny birds here in New Zealand, and one of them is featured in a clever commercial. It's called a pukeko, and it's big and blue and flightless. Not two minutes down the road from the backpackers, and we come across two of them on the side of the road. Dizzle realized what they were too late and decided to swing the car around to go back for a picture. He misjudged the angle of the uturn and got the Sunny (our rental) and got stuck teetering on the rim of the small ditch on the side of the road.

Before either one could think of what to do, BOTH of the first two cars to pass by stopped to help. Seriously, we had barely realized we had a problem, and all of a sudden we've got these two Kiwis grabbing rope and straps and attaching them to our axle (or: A-X-E-L. We honestly can't remember and are nowhere, NOWEHERE near internet access to check. More on this in a sec). They pulled us out and we thanked them and it killed the halfhour we needed to kill for the shops to open.

Here are the not-very-good-after-all photos we got of them, anyway:

p.s. About an hour later, Dizzle accidentally hit one with the car. We're not laughing – it was a little sad.

We left Hokitika around 10:00am (Wed.) and continued South. We knew sooner or later we'd have to drive the “Haast Pass”, one of the only three ways east/west across the South Island, but we didn't know when we'd end up stopping for the night, we just knew we had to regrettably leave Hokitika (potential retirement place, by the way, for anyone looking) and hit the glaciers sometime in the afternoon.

When you see pictures of snowy mountains in New Zealand, you were probably seeing a picture of a glacier, or Mt. Cook (or: “Aoraki” in Maori), Australasia's highest mountain.

The Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers are two of the fastest-moving glaciers in the world. You can feel free to go to Wikipedia and read about them. We'll just show you pictures of both and tell you it was breathtaking and just the two hours we walked around for lunch was one of the top three moments of our whole time here.

We had lunch at Lake Matheson, one of the most photographed places in the world. We won't go into too much of it's geology unless you ask us, but the lake is very still and right at the bottom of Mt. Cook, so there's a reflection of the mountain and it looks like a Bob Ross painting – but not in a bad way.

From here, we were presented with a choice. We opted to try to get as far South as we could before sundown. So we checked into a little backpackers in a town of three buildings called Makarora Wilderness Resort. So far, we've had a lot of luck sticking to our $50/night budget. We walked in to our tiny little room, and Dizzle immediately informed Baby G he could not find his glasses – THE ONES HE WAS JUST WEARING.

As it was neither sunset nor dinnertime nor bedtime, we proceeded to kill about 45 minutes looking for his glasses. More time well spent.

Tomorrow we'll go to Queenstown and hopefully play a little disc golf. As for tonight, we're huddling up around the space heater and watching a bootlegged copy of '300'. 'Night!

p.s. again: They were on the bedspread the whole time.

Small Silent Insects, Breakneck Roads, Buckets of Rain, and Fantastic Views Make for Dangerous Driving (on the Left): Nelson to Hokitika

2007-05-04T04:25:00.000-05:00

Last night we stayed at Paradiso backpackers in Nelson, which is a lovely hostel. Probably lovelier still, if you're 20 years old, and want to party the night away – but what backpackers isn't? (More on that later) We woke up bright and early to a complimentary breakfast and coffee, and went into town to see Christ Church Cathedral, and a little jewelry store whose claim to fame is that they were the jewelers who made the One Ring to Rule Them All. -It was all good. Nelson is supposedly the sunshine capitol, but it was gray, rainy, and cold, so we decided to hit the road.

With batteries in our speakers, so we could play our iPod (thanks Daniel and Darius), we headed Southwest on State Highway 6. And it went from gray, rainy, and cold, to pouring down buckets of rain within a few minutes. Dizzle handled it like a seasoned veteran of driving on the left (no, not flashbacks from 'Nam), and kept our little car from slip sliding all over that tiny, curvy road. Baby G meanwhile, was busy snapping pictures of the scenery and views – which were breathtaking, and apparently, we're not even at the really amazing part yet.

As we wound our way Southward, we stopped off at a place outside a town called Murchison, to see the Buller Gorge Swingbridge. It's the longest swingbridge in New Zealand, and has a whole mini-gold panning/jet boat/zip line attraction thingy going on with it. We immediately signed up for it. How often does one get the chance to do a whole mini- gold panning/walk/zip line attraction thingy? Except that we didn't do the jet boats – it wasn't offered and we didn't ask, nor was the gold panning thing an attraction for us. So we started to walk across this really really long swingbridge, above a rushing river, with lots of rocks and sharp edges everywhere – a prime location for BG to injure herself. However, BG and D made it safely across the bridge with a nice adrenaline rush to accompany the sense of accomplishment. After a scenic walk around the area, we geared up to do a tandem zip line back across the river.

This was all well and good until we saw the attendant (a five foot nothing blond sprite) whip out a wrench to tighten up the “ride.” Dizz encouraged BG to seize the moment and throw caution to the wind, and ride the death trap. And we did. Without injury, without cursing once, and whooping and hollering the whole way. It was great.

And the good feeling lasted us all the way back to the parking lot where we made ourselves an impromptu picnic, celebrating facing a fear of heights. The good feeling lasted even until we were back in the car. It lasted, in fact, up until the moment when Dizz realized that we were under siege. The dreaded sandfli of New Zealand had smelled our fresh blood, sensed our naiveté, and decided to strike. They struck hard.

We must've looked like complete freaks, running around, swatting at the air, and jumping over each other to get these tiny, silent, vengeful bugs away from us...we think that there's still one holdout in our car. It reminded Dizzle of that scene from “Tommy Boy” when David Spade is drunk and Chris Farley pretends the car was filled with bees to fool the police officer who'd stopped them. Better that than the scene when Farley sings “Maniac” while being sprayed with water by Rob Lowe after cow tipping, right? You're just SKIMMING right now, aren't you. Admit it.

Anyway, to get the flies out, we rolled down the windows and drove fast, hoping the air rush would sweep them back to their homes. It mostly worked.

Not long thereafter, the rain let up at the same time our road turned due South along the West Coast. It is a road not unlike those in car commercials, as far as the curviness goes. But we rolled down the windows and turned up the music and relaxed with it a bit, pulling over occasionally to snap a photo or let someone pass.

We made it to a gas station outside of Greymouth and grabbed a can of coke and some insect repellent, and then continued on to Hokitika, where we are now.

After a day of driving, neither one of us was too keen on staying in a backpackers full of drunk kids, so we were surprised to find this little place tucked away about 3 miles out of town. We parked in an empty parking lot and entered the door marked “Reception”. Inside, there's a doorbell with a sign that reads, “Please ring bell and wait – it takes us 5 minutes to get there!”

Seriously.

So we rang the bell.

And waited.

And the proprietor of this hostel, Keith, rode up on his bike and told us we were welcome to use whatever we liked and make ourselves at home. It's our second day on the road, and we've already had a hostel experience we're not likely to enjoy as much this entire 10 days: We have this place completely to ourselves. Dizzle just made a fire in the wood-stove, and Baby G made a delicious dinner of meat ravioli, garlic bread, soup, and cheese. We are currently listening to the rain in this beautifully rustic little living room, and alternating writing on the laptop and working on a “Lord of the Rings” jigsaw puzzle. It doesn't get much better than this for a rainy day on vacation, does it?

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to waking up rested and driving down to the Fox and Frans Josef Glaciers to do some exploring. If breakfast is anything like tonight has been, it'll be a very nice wake-up call.

Have a good night, Guys. We'll blog to you tomorrow.

Baby
G
&
Dizzle

Dizzle from Queenstown

2007-05-03T15:59:00.000-05:00

It's Dizz:

Hey all! We have been blogging on the laptop but have yet to find an internet cafe that has an open USB port or CD-ROM drive to post from our computer to the net. There have been many great stories and pics, however, and we WILL post them when we can. Right now, it's 9:00am on Friday, May 4th, and we're leaving Queenstown after a day of disc golf and amazing views. Everything'll be detailed in the coming days, I just wanted to drop a quick post to let you know we're safe. Also, today marks the 'less than a week' time left in NZ -- we fly back Thursday!

Keep thinking of us and we'll kleep thinking of you.
Love,
DZL

Nelson

2007-04-30T00:52:00.000-05:00

We made it to the South Island!!

We'd written a post, and saved it to our USB chip so we could cut and paste it, but these computers don't have a USB drive - just a slot to put in your $2 coin for 30 minutes of internet time. Sigh.

Well, we have some pictures already we're looking forward to showing you all, but for right now, suffice it to say we're fine -- a little wet, but fine. If you'd like to google where we are, it's Nelson, New Zealand.

We'll blog more soon, hopefully with pics, but we wanted you to know we are officially out of Jason and Leigh's (Thanks, again, Guys!) and are roaming free in a tiny little Nissan Sunny that has manual windows and (only) an AM/FM stereo.

There's gonna be a ton to share - looking forward to it.

Love to all. Peace.
~BG&D

Act III

2007-04-26T18:18:00.000-05:00

Welcome back everybody, thanks for following with us so far.

The last shift went swimmingly, and Dizzle, despite his new haircut, was told it was a shame he has to go and if he ever needs a recommendation, they've got his back. We worked with a guy we like named Andrew. We couldn't post his picture for reasons we can't even begin to explain here. Suffice it to say, he's a lot of fun, and we hope he does well.

Ken came by last night. We listened to music and talked and had a few drinks, and then we said goodbye to him, as well. We suppose it'll be a week of goodbyes as well as fun things - that's the way it goes sometimes.

Baby G got her finger redressed for the final time at the Kilbirnie Medical Centre this morning. And folks, no matter how relieved YOU are to hear, it doesn't compare to how relieved SHE was to SEE...

PINK!

Finally, it looks as if it's healing:

We may or may not go back to a med stop in Christchurch before we head back, but we'll see how it's holding up. We may just deal with the end of it in Jersey.

Tonight is rugby, and tomorrow is Chinese brunch with a ton of other people, followed by a small going-away get together at the Upper Bourke St. house for homemade PAVLOVA. We're grabbing the recipe, don't worry.

More updates to come, but we're looking forward to hopping on a boat. Then a car. Then a plane.

And we'll be thinking of you through it all.

More to come,

BG&D

Everybody back to your seats... we're about to begin.

2007-04-24T14:21:00.001-05:00

Well, we're coming down to it now, and we had three events this week we were really looking forward to. It has been really nice of Jason and Leigh to put together what will end up being a really fun week -- ESPECIALLY since it's our last week of work.

(As this is written, it's morning on our last day! Yes!)

We'll start by playing catch up very quickly, as it's been a little while since we've blogged, and both of you readers probably care a little about what's been going on...

First of all Baby G's finger is healing... slowly. It's almost back to it's original length, but is still very raw. Did you eat recently? If so, don't look below:

That's right: Dizzle had the camera IN the doctor's office! Like the paparazzi...

So you know, the white bit on top is NOT bone, it is just remnants from the bandage that... stuck. The doctor took it off WITHOUT counting to three, and Baby G almost screamed. :(

We're getting the wound redressed tomorrow a.m., and then once more in Christchurch before we fly out. We'll keep you posted on this issue next probably from New York.

We saw a dance concert last Saturday called Black Grace - Amata. Dizzle is not much of one for modern dance, but thought it was very good. Baby G will be blogging about it more specifically soon. Check out the website when you can, and stay tuned for her post.

Tomorrow night, we are going to see our very first live rugby game! It will be here in Wellington at Westpac Stadium, and will be our "own" Wellington Hurricanes against the Otago Highlanders. Though the 'Canes aren't in contention for the playoffs, we'll still get to see a live professional game, and a lot of these guys are All Blacks - the New Zealand team that will compete for the Rugby World Cup in November. This is gonna be so rad!

As we said, our last day of work is today. We both work together in the coffee-shop with a guy we don't hate, so it should go quickly. Since there have been so many NEGATIVE posts about this job, we thought we should show everybody some of the highlights of our shifts. There were a few people who were really interested in us, and we them. We got pictures.

This is Sring, a guy who's worked in the airport for, like, a decade. He was our Duty Manager for all the 4:00am shifts, and was really cool about us taking our breaks together.

This is Sokha. Oh my God, this woman can make coffee drinks like you've never seen. She really loved us and will miss us. Even though she doesn't speak a lot of English, she smiled every time we saw her. And that made US smile. And that's tough to do before 4:30 in the morning.

This is Grant, one of the evening Duty Managers. 1. If we ever open a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, or B&B, we're tracking THIS GUY down to work for us. Amazing customer service and attitude, plus, a really funny guy. Why he's at this corporate gig, we don't know. 2. We don't care what you do for a living or what your feelings are on drugs; it's hard not to like your boss when he's got a pot leaf tattooed on his wrist.

This is Khareesh. He wears too much jewelry but is a soft-spoken, calm cat. We dig him because he always made us felt like we were really good employees.

Tina & Syjhad. They're a couple, but we couldn't get them in the same shot as these were on two different days. She's Cambodian, and he is the 5th (and probably final) Iraqi with whom we've worked. They both have really good senses of humor and we can't say enough nice things about them. Funniest conversation: Syjhad was telling us about how there was a ton of money to be made in Iraq (because that's where the petrol is) and that everyone wanted to move there... until the "bad things" happened. He didn't want to offend us. What a guy.

Ray, the Kitchen Manager. In two years, this guy will be head chef at a 4-star place. Watch.

Pete, a.m. kitchen. Totally laid back guy. Nothing rattles him and he made the absurd morning shifts much easier to handle.

Finally, Jagruti. The only Indian woman with whom we worked who did not make Baby G feel like crap because she doesn't speak Hindi. She would kindly translate when the other girls were talking, and is a very gentle, sweet woman. She invited us over to her house for dinner, and to a "really good Indian temple in Kilbirnie" should we wish to join them sometime. Her family is strict vegetarian, and don't drink, so any time Jag needed help at the bar, she called us over. Funniest request: "How do I make a doublebourbonnoice?" That was all one word when she said it.

We're going to miss these people, and not the others. :)

Except one, whom we saved for last. This is a picture of us with Ken:

Actually, we're hanging out with Ken tonight. We saved him for last because he's the only co-worker we'd consider a friend after this, and the only one we wouldn't mind offering our homes to should he ever reach the USA. He is also the only one who knows this blog address, and has even commented a couple times! Ken, if you're reading this, you are one hell of a hard worker and one hell of a good guy. Shifts with you weren't work - they were fun (and you reminded us of home at a time when we needed it) because it was familiar and funny, like working with Tom White, Agne, Amelia or Skippy, etc. You made us feel relaxed, and we wanted to thank you for that.

Yesterday, for the day, we returned to Martinborough (where we worked on a vineyard) to attend ANZAC Day service at dawn. You can read up on it on Wiki, but it was very interesting. We woke up early to walk to the Town Square, where there was a church service that recognized the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who served in WWI & II. It was the first time we'd heard the New Zealand National Anthem (that we knew of), and they sang a song called "God Save the Queen", which is set to the same tune as "My Country 'tis of Thee" and a funny song I can't remember from grade school. It was solemn and a little sad, but it was a very nice way to start a day with friends. We finished up by having a large breakfast, talking and laughing with Andrew and Mandy, Jason and Leigh, and we even got to walk down the block and reconnect with our man Chris, whom we hadn't seen in a couple months. There, we told him why Six Flags is better than Disney, bid him adieu, and came back to Wellington. A holiday well spent.

We have some sad news. While we were North, we learned that Martinborough Beer and Ales has decided to close. Barnsey's company, for whom we worked, has folded. We wish Barnsey, Rona, and the rest of our friends there the best of luck in future endeavors.

One additional post script: This is what Dizzle looks like as of 24 hours ago:

SATURDAY, we're learning how to make pavlova and having a small going away party.
SUNDAY, we're spending the day packing, because...
MONDAY, we out. 8:35am ferry to the South Island, where we spend a week and a half exploring. We'll end up in Christchurch by Wednesday, May 10th to repack and fly to Philadelphia.

The posts from here on in will wither be long and expensive, or short and expensive. We will be doing lengthy stuff from New York, so keep an eye here mid-May if you don't see too much before then. Of course, we'll try.

Tonight, at 8:30pm (4:30am, Thursday, April 26 EST), Act III begins. Everybody take your seats, as this is going to be one wild month.

Peace,
Baby G & Dizzle

VT

2007-04-16T17:14:00.000-05:00

We were in the USA for the sniper, the Lancaster, PA shooting, Columbine, Flint, etc.

Our prayers are with the families of the students who so needlessly lost their lives today in Virginia. Even from across the Pond, we're feeling the sorrow from here.

With love,
Baby G & Dizzle

We Gave Notice but Paid No Interest

2007-04-15T20:19:00.001-05:00

We gave our slightly-less-than-two-weeks-notice at the airport yestedray. Booyah.

Well, That Happened.

2007-04-15T20:17:00.000-05:00

On “The West Wing”, you frequently see extras or visitors to Bartlet's White House with a badge around their neck bearing a red letter “A”. I'd imagine in the ACTUAL White House, you'd have to wear something similar – so security knows you're allowed to be there and whatnot.

The other night, we were watching the show, and Baby G asked me, “What's the red 'A' for?”

To which I replied, “Adulterer.”

This was mere hours after I was given a free set-up. During a momentary lapse of academia, Baby G actually asked me a question that was so brilliant, such a freebie, such a GUARANTEE of humor no matter HOW I answered, I had to do a double-take to make sure I'd been asked it. Ladies and Gentlemen, in your life, you will very rarely get this opportunity. This is like watching your odometer switch over from 99,999 miles to 100K. You'll laugh, or at least smirk, when thinking about what YOU would say if someone said to you:

“How do you spell 'RELIEF'?”

Of course, you know the answer.

Thinking of you all,
Dizzle

I Believe that Children are our Future...

2007-04-15T20:13:00.000-05:00

There are, in fact, Americans that travel overseas. Quite a bit of them, in fact. Our friend Miriam has danced in Australia and has backpacked much of Western Europe. Jamie's been to Israel. Scott used to live in the Czech Republic, David's been to Asia, Patrick learned Spanish in Guatemala, the other Patrick met his WIFE in South Korea, etc., etc. The list goes on and on. So it would be silly to have a blog based on the differences between American culture and that of a foreign land.

That said, however, this is Dizzle's first overseas experience (first time ever being west of the Mississippi River!), and the first real long one for Baby G. Because we're spending so MUCH time here, there are certain things that we find slightly amusing, or downright... well, foreign for lack of a better word. We are not making fun, we are simply allowing for some of the nuances to come to light. When you're in a country that is NOT yours for a period of time, it's the small details (“The little differences”, Pulp Fiction) that can really make one smile or cringe. Just when it seems like you're getting used to it, like you've got the majority of it all 'sussed out', you come to something so monumentally off the wall, you simply HAVE to share it with someone.

So. Have we ever told you about the children here?

The other day, Dizzle was working at the coffeeshop part of the airport food court, and a family came up for lunch and coffee. They were a little indecisive, but there wasn't yet a line behind them, so nobody was in any rush. When, item by item, they'd finally gotten to the end of the order, the mom said to the little boy, “Do you want something to eat?” The kid yelled, “I WANTED THE CAKE!” Now, Baby G and Dizzle aren't parents, and so the whole world of parenting is unknown to us. They may have all been having a bad day, or were nervous to fly or something, but Dizzle still thought he handled it well by GLARING at the child as he set down the slice of cake, never again making eye contact with the mom. He wasn't telling her how to parent – on the contrary – he was having a private, psychic conversation with the kid and telling him he was a little brat who should probably start saying 'please' and 'thank you' or, sooner or later, he'll end up with his cake shoved in his face.

When we were both exploring up North, we stopped at a campsite for the night, just to pitch the tent for a few hours and get some sleep. We were next to a campervan with a very nice family from Auckland who offered us beer and soda. We'd clearly had quite a long day and were looking forward to getting to sleep. And we would have, too, if the couple's two young sons hadn't been, we swear to God, HITTING OUR RENTAL CAR WITH A TENNIS RACKET. And the parents said NOTHING!

Right now, in current events here in NZ, the main three stories are: the policemen who've been forcing themselves on women and videotaping it; the murder spree of a paroled man named Burton, who was caught shortly after he was released to begin with; and a potential law on the books banning parents from smacking their kids – even a little. Everyone here has an opinion about all three of these things, but the one we've been paying almost NO attention to is the last one. But as soon as we hit one of these little punks, we'll probably start.

Dizzle's sister, Claire, and all four parents will probably read this post and laugh. They'll all smirk and say things like, “They'll understand how it is when they have kids.” To this we say two things: 1. So? You might be right, but we're NOT parents yet and so nanny nanny boo boo. :P And 2., just because we don't HAVE kids, doesn't mean we aren't FAMILIAR with kids. That's why we mention it at all. Believe us, if this were a couple isolated instances, we'd never mention it. We would just go, “Ah, well, I guess kids are kids everywhere,” or something. We are saying that there are a lot of little demon midgets running around in this country and if you ever end up visiting here, don't be surprised. That's all we're saying.

Don't get us wrong, the well behaved kids here are SO cute. The little almost-Euro accents being so polite and adorable... it's quite heartwarming. Like something out of a Roald Dahl book, or a movie starring that kid from Kindergarten Cop. Those kids are all right by us, and we look forward to them.

The other kids, the ones it will soon be illegal to smack, need to be shipped off to someplace where their days are spent learning to be polite and respectful of other people's space. But no tennis or cake.

They'll understand why when they're old enough.

How to Eat in New Zealand for Under $100 a Week

2007-04-11T17:38:00.000-05:00

“If I check 'McNuggetted' [when asked how he'd like his chicken prepared], d'you think they'll let me have two different dippin' sauces? I like hot mustard for the first bite, but I like to chase it with a little honey on the second bite. You know, it's like having a small meal followed by a tiny dessert every ten to fifteen seconds.” ~Randy, from My Name is Earl, Episode: “Joy's Wedding”

Did we ever mention to you that during the week-and-a-half we were exploring the North Island, we lived off of peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and trail mix? There were a couple of meals where this wasn't the case; at Robyn's, on The Rock, and with Ricky, but by and large, we had a LOT of PB&J and trail mix. Also, oranges.

April is officially the month of the chicken nugget. We have been going to the supermarket once a week and getting items that are used to make primarily four meals:

1-Chicken Nugget Sandwiches
2-Chicken Nugget Salad
3-Chicken Nuggets, and
4-Pies

To anyone out there who likes to cook, we are publishing four recipes for you, so you can have what we're having. Feel free to print and save.

Chicken Nugget Sandwiches
Ingredients:
6 Frozen Chicken Nuggets
4 Leaves Lettuce
1 Tomato, sliced
4 Slices $0.99 Bread
4 Slices Cheese cut from wicked big block.

What to Do:
Bake nuggets in oven for 15 minutes on 200-degrees C (or, 400-degrees F), turning each one over once halfway through the time**. While these are heating, lay bread out and top half the pieces with cheese, the other half with lettuce and tomato slices distributed evenly among the two slices. Lay hot nuggets on top of the cheese, three nuggets to a slice. Close bread together and enjoy!

Serves 2. No Seconds or Leftovers.

Chicken Nugget Salad
Ingredients:
6 Frozen Chicken Nuggets
½ Head of Lettuce, cut up
1 Tomato, diced
¼ cup Cheese, shredded or diced
¼ cup Croutons
¼ cup Salami, diced
2 Eggs, hard boiled
Salt & Pepper and Dressing to taste

What to Do:
Clearly, from the number of ingredients alone, this recipe will be far more complex than the last one! It is actually very simple. Bake nuggets in oven for 15 minutes on 200-degrees C (or, 400-degrees F), turning each one over once halfway through the time**. While these are heating, unshell and slice up the eggs. Put eggs, salami and cheese in a bowl and set aside. Mix tomatoes and lettuce in a large bowl. Watch UK Who Wants to be a Millionaire? or scare the dog while waiting for the nuggets, which can feel like a lot longer than 15 minutes. Hopefully a rugby game is on. Dice up the nuggets and put in bowl with eggs, cheese, and salami. Two minutes before eating, combine all ingredients in larger bowl, season, and serve. Use only one fork and pass the bowl between you as you eat.

Serves 2. No Seconds or Leftovers.

Chicken Nuggets
Ingredients:
A Bunch of Frozen Chicken Nuggets
Ketchup

What to Do:
Bake nuggets in oven for 15 minutes on 200-degrees C (or, 400-degrees F), turning each one over once halfway through the time**. When done, scoop onto paper plate with ketchup (or, if none is available, 'toma(h)to sauce' would be fine) and enjoy.
Serves Many or Few. Seconds and Leftovers Depend on if you Have a Microwave and/or Free Time.

Pies
Ingredients:
1 Frozen Pie per Person, any kind. The best are steak and cheese, mince, and chicken and vegetable, though egg and cheese was good, too, the one time we had it.

What to Do:
Bake pies on cookie sheet in oven for 20-30 minutes at 200-degrees C (or, 400-degrees F)**. Enjoy.

Serves up to 6, the Number of Pies in the Package From Pak-n-$ave.

**Apparently, by law, none of the food in New Zealand shall be permitted to come with heating instructions on the label or packaging. These temperatures and times are all estimates and may vary by oven.

It should be noted that this is not a sad thing – we actually crave dinner every night!

Happy dining Everybody!

End of Act II – Intermission (or: “The Empire Strikes Back”)

2007-04-08T21:13:00.000-05:00

**The following was written March 31st. It had not been previously posted as I asked a few people to weigh in before publishing. We're feeling better, though idle for another couple of weeks. Baby G's finger is healing nicely, I was just freaking out for a minute and needed to get this off my chest. Enjoy!**

The following was written by Dizzle. Baby G may write her own narrative, but for the moment, you're all stuck with me.

One thing I learned in college was the format of a three-act play. Supposedly, one of the major parts of telling a story is that the first third, or Act I, is an introduction to the characters and the beginnings of their conflict or story. The second third, Act II, generally ends on a down note, and the audience is left going out for a cigarette or coffee at intermission wondering if the heroes will resolve everything by the end. Finally, and obviously, Act III is the ultimate resolution, stereotypically with a happy ending (not THAT kind of 'happy ending'. The kind from 'Jedi'). The “Star Wars” trilogy follows this format, and I've heard George Lucas was inspired by the old pulp-style superhero stories that followed this format closely. You can even see it sometimes in other movies or TV shows. Commercial breaks are timed in such a way to be conducive to this type of story-telling.

Well, since the very beginning of Baby G & Dizzle's Kiwi Experience started with a post called “Prologue”, I feel it's appropriate to pause for a moment and update you on the state of our “heroes.” I'm not afraid to tell you, it's been a rough couple weeks. We have come this far away from home (the first time *I* for one have ever set foot out of my home country) in part to think very seriously about our future. Those of you who know us well, know that we have a tendency to over analyze and become slightly panicky about the more negative developments in our lives. Also, we've spent the better part of the last four years (since we graduated) sort of idle in the restaurant business. This is not necessarily BAD work, but we have needed to decide if it's really what we want to be doing with our lives.

The downhill slope started a few weeks ago. One of my best friends, a guy by whom I've been inspired to be a better person, lost his dad to a sudden heart attack. I've known him most of my life, and I'd even go so far as to say his parents had a hand in raising me. This buddy of mine and I lost touch when I was a teenager, mostly due to the fact that we lived far away from each other and teenagers are more concerned about garage bands and acne than they are keeping in touch with one another. In late 2005 he moved nearer to where Baby G and I were living in Washington, DC, and we were blessed with a chance to reconnect. I learned that he had become a very good man. He is kind, funny and compassionate, and that's great, but I've heard that said about me, too. No, the thing about this friend of mine is that he is LAID BACK, something I've never been. I admire that, and have been trying to channel him throughout this trip to New Zealand, in an effort to become a better man – someone who is more able to handle a more “roll with the punches” mindset. The loss of his father shook him up, and so when I called to express my condolences and offer anything I could do for help, he sounded less like how I remember him and more like he had a lot on his plate. Don't get me wrong, he obviously IS going through a lot right now, and my heart goes out to him. I'm just saying that hearing his voice like that; sad, stressed, out of sorts was something for which I was ill-prepared. Dude, if you're reading this, know that you are missed and loved by both Baby G and I, and feel free to call us anytime if you need to.

Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker had just learned about his own lineage and has left Dagobah to confront Darth Vader.

The beginning-middle of March found your protagonists looking for work. I was offered a job managing a pool hall in what ends up being a shady neighborhood after dark, and had to turn them down as public transportation doesn't run as late as I would've been getting out. Baby G could've stayed at the university answering phones, but the office is (for some reason) flea-infested, and she's been having trouble understanding the Kiwi accent over the phone. So we accepted the only job we'd been offered as a team: the airport food lounge. It's essentially the same as what I imagine working at McDonald's would be like: scooping fries, working the register, pouring the occasional soda. We are VASTLY overqualified for this work, but because we could be hired together, we figured we'd just do our best to help each other to laugh through it. We looked at the finances and figured we'd only need to stick it out for about six weeks in order to make enough money to explore the South Island for a couple weeks and then head back to the States. Some of the shifts for work start at 4:00am, as there is a lot of commuter air traffic to places like Auckland, Christchurch and Sydney, so BG and I had to swiftly alter our sleep schedules as best we could to still be able to wake up at the brutally early hour of 2:30am.
Have any of you ever had a job you absolutely hated? I mean, a job where no one with whom you work speaks English, and though the work itself isn't difficult, you can feel your sanity slowly slipping away each time you open the greasy hot-food case or some other comparable task of banality? If you have, then you understand what we're going through for 40 hours a week. Combine the mindlessness of the work with the lack of adequate slumber, and you're looking at a ZombieDizzle.

Ordinarily, these two things would be a bit of a downer, but manageable for 6 weeks. As long as we didn't lose any more sleep, didn't get sick, and didn't receive any news from home that might make us homesick during this stretch, we'd be fine, right? Keep our heads low, our mouths shut, and get the work done. Get paid, take off, have learned lessons and become better people in the process, right? RIGHT?

Sounds about as promising as Han Solo, Chewie, Leia, R2 and 3PO heading off to Cloud City to go see their good friend Lando to discuss the dark times they've witnessed over good food, company and wine.

On our third day of work, Baby G had an accident. We were both working in the espresso bar, and she had a line of customers. She apparently had gotten a few orders for hot chocolate, but had run out of mix and needed me to find some. When I got back from across the food court with the chocolate, my Baby was running her hand under water. “Are you okay?” I asked her, and she sort of gritted her teeth and nodded and told me to go help the customers. The next thing I know, Baby G is gone, and after about ten minutes of making coffee for people, the duty manager, Grant, came over to me and told me to “knock off early”. He asked if I knew what happened, and I told him I didn't. “Well,” he said, “[Baby G] got her finger ground up in the coffee grinder and so Moni is off to get his car to give you guys a ride to the ER. Go ahead and clock out; she's in the lounge.”

I sprinted to the employee lounge to see my love crying and shaking and bleeding. Not necessarily in that order, but doing plenty of all three. One of our coworkers, Momoe (or something), a thoroughly unpleasant Samoan, asked what happened and (I swear to God) started LAUGHING when I told her. Before either BG or I could clock this chick in the face, we heard Moni's keys as he ran to get us, so we decided to split and meet him in the hallway.
I know most of you already saw the post regarding the injury, so I won't bore you with the gory (anyone?) details, but suffice it to say, it was a horrible night. She didn't need stitches, but whenever we tell people that, they make a face like, “Oh, phew, at least it's not that bad.” It's better to say she didn't RECEIVE stitches. She NEEDED them badly, but unfortunately, there wasn't enough SKIN to stitch. Seriously, you can see the inner meat of her finger when they redress this thing. It's really gross and there is no way she's very comfortable. They told us at the hospital (the kids in the waiting room, Moni's girlfriend, and the drunk 16-year old are either stories for another post, or for the next time we see you in person. We can't give it ALL away, can we?) that she should get a new, clean bandage in 3 days, and that we should go to the clinic down the road. Sadly, that plan didn't work out for us as she bled through that thing in, like, 20 hours. So we went to the clinic to get it redressed, and they informed us we'd need to come back to have it changed every day for awhile. I pretty much bitched out the doctor for the entire New Zealand medical system and how confusing this was for us. We were both (Baby G and I, not me and the doctor. Sorry.) understandably scared, and a little lonely. My girl doesn't do too well with doctors as it is, so to have to attend one every single day for God-knows-how-long was pretty rough. I didn't sleep too much that first few nights, and was starting to lose my shit by the third day.

I did, however, keep going to work, as the company was paying for BG's missed wages up to the first week, but we'd worked out our return budget with TWO full-time incomes. Wanna watch time move really REALLY slowly? Go to work at the above-mentioned job worrying for 8 hours about the person you love. Time's funny that way, I guess.

Figuring out New Zealand's medical system has been a trip in and of itself. I won't go too far into it, but from where BG and I were, it seemed we shouldn't have to pay a DIME because this injury occurred at work. It doesn't work that way here, though. Apparently, we pay the prices of the FACILITY where she's getting the redressing done. So, at this clinic that was referred to us by the ER, they were charging us NZ$43 a visit and telling us to come back every day for awhile. Thankfully, BG got the idea to go to a GP here in our suburb and they have thus far been very cool and are only having us come in once a week and charging us less. Since Workman's Comp isn't a thing here in NZ, we're going to be out of pocket some, but this is much less of a concern than Baby G's healing, which, after a week now, is finally coming along. Thank God. The point is, it has taken a lot of questions to every doctor, nurse, manager, and receptionist to sort any of this out, as no one really knows what to do with two Yanks on a working holiday visa if one's gotten her fingertip cut off in a coffee grinder. We're still working on this as I type, but last week was by far the worst time it's been here.

Baby G got many emails of support during this time, which I know made her feel much better and lessened the pain some, but from what she tells me, she was pretty freaked out those times that I had to go to work. There was some news from home, also, that was more business-oriented than anything emotionally supportive, and so she had to nine-finger-type her way through some of that on her own. Not easy.

Remember when I said “As long as we didn't lose any more sleep, didn't get sick, and didn't receive any news from home that might make us homesick during this stretch, we'd be fine”? Well there's the hat-trick. We got all three in one fell swoop.

But, hey, Luke lost his whole HAND, right?

I guess BG saw in my body language after the third or fourth day that I was pretty close to the edge, because she asked me if I was okay. I hadn't known it, but I was pretty far from okay. I was walking around like a dead guy due to fatigue, and was starting to feel the pressure of some of the more everyday things like customers at work, housework, and emails to the States regarding tax-time. It was then that we really sat down and had a long talk about what the next step should be. Neither one of us has been very comfortable in our own skin lately, and we hadn't yet really had the opportunity to address it with one another.

Things are looking up today. We went into town and continued pumping each other up, trying to calm each other's nerves and raise our self-esteem. Baby G asked if maybe it would help to blow off some steam in this blog, and so that's what I'm doing. I asked if it would be inappropriate to blog about my feelings, but she reminded me that we know of several people who do just that, and that it's not egocentric since the people who read this blog are smart people who care about us and should be in on these things.

My dad said something early on in this trip, and my buddy Paul echoed it today on the phone. They both mentioned that though the blog and pictures look good, when is the other shoe going to drop? Six months is a long time to be in a foreign country for the first time, and believe it or not, I think it was comforting to THEM to know if things were looking slightly unsavory. Like a reality-check, you know? To know that even Baby G and Dizzle, “anonymous” main characters of this travelogue, can be slowed in their adventure. Well, guys, and to anyone else out there wondering the same thing, the shoe's dropped. We're looking up now, and actually feeling pretty good knowing we have tickets home, newfound ambition for our lives, and that we're closer than ever to each other, but for awhile there, man, did it get dark.

I am not writing this to sound whiny, weak or selfish. Though I may sound all three of these things, the intention is to blow off some steam by publicly letting you know how we're doing, and that no matter how pretty the scenery, sometimes you just wish you were back at home. THAT emotion is yet another lesson learned.

We've reached the end of Act II, and it's time for intermission. We may blog updates in the next little while, but until April 30th, nothing is scheduled to happen other than showing up on time for this absurd position in airport food service. Don't worry about us – that's not why I wrote this – we feel fairly confident that we'll be partying with the Ewoks soon enough as we near the conclusion. You should come. There'll be a big bonfire and friendly robots and Alec Guinness' ghost might show up. But do us a favor: If you DO decide to come dance to the “Yub Yub” song with us, bring pre-ground coffee, okay?

Thanks. Go hit the bathroom or grab a smoke. We'll catch up with you shortly at curtains-up.

A new look

2007-04-03T00:33:00.000-05:00

We saw, the other day, when we were logging into Blogger, that there is a new feature that's let's you post videos from Youtube on the main post and people don't have to navigate away from your page to see it. We thought this was pretty cool, as we had seen a great video of otters holding hands, and it was something we thought everyone would enjoy otherwise they have no soul.

Instead, we found we had to "customize blog" template and layout and really get into the inner code of the appearance of the blog. Since we had the day off, and Baby G is feeling much better (thanks, btw, everyone, for the comments and emails!), we decided to check it out.

As it turns out, we were able to get that video of otters on the blog, and all you have to go to watch is click it -- it'll play on bigger screen on the top of the page. We could NOT, however, get Patrick and Erika's going away present to us to go there, nor Scott's first music video, so we'll look into that more and update you accordingly.

In the meantime, we gave the blog a makeover! The colors are now a little more "kiwi" than they were, and Baby G had a good time posting photos on the right for all to view. Also, we were able to add our friend Jamie's webpage to the side, as well. You should all check it out if you have a chance.

We're doing okay right now - taking it easy when we can. South Island countdown in 27 Days.
Happy Anniversary to elisha and Eric!
Congrats on Upcoming Nuptuals to Jake and Jenn!
Love to all!

The Airport & The Hospital ... In One Day!

2007-03-22T23:02:00.000-05:00

Well, after working our first week at the Wellington Airport, we've learned a few things:

Waking up at 2:30am for a 4am shift is stupid, and still definitely nightime. It's not "morning," no matter what your schedule says.
There's a shortcut to work.
Don't let Baby G near the coffee grinder, because bad things will happen...

Last night, just before 7pm, Baby G had a "queue" of customers, and no freshly ground coffee with which to work, in order to be the barista she pretends to be. Dizzle was off, trying to find something or other (ideally one of the managers, who have a nasty tendancy to disappear) when Baby G attempted to "fix" the coffee grinder, showing that "go-get-em" attitude she's oh-so-known for. Not being able to "suss" out the grinder situation, and the queue growing longer and longer, she tipped the machine back and forth, hoping this would dislodge whatever was hindering her grinding process. -That's when it slipped, and her right index finger, instead of the coffee, got ground up. -Nice one, G.

Naturally, this resulted in an inevitable fucking off of the customers, and immediate tears on Baby G's part. -Yeah, crying at work. Again, nice.

Not surprisingly, after looking for, calling for, and waiting for an elusive manager, Baby G unleashed a torrent of expletives, and went in search of some first aid, a ride to the ER, and someone on whom to release said torrent.

Manager Moni was found, who offered BG a plaster, or "Bandaid", upon whom previously mentioned torrent was released, and he subsequently offered she & Diz a ride to the ER. (F that guy.)

That done, onto Wellington Hospital!

Once at the ER (and let it be known that Mgr. Moni is a fast yet recklass driver resulting in a further frightening experience) we began to wait to see a doctor...And waited...And waited...filled out some paperwork...And waited...asked how much longer it'd be...And waited...And waited...another torrent of expletives...And waited...no whammies, no whammies, no whammies, no whammies, and STOP!! BINGO!!

Okay, so were in, we're pumped, we're ready to get BG stiched up, and sent on our way... But that's too easy...No, here, we waited some more...And more...And more...And more...(it's somewhat reassuring, no? - That hospital beauracracy is the same no matter where in the world you are. I bet Carmen Sandiego wasn't able to count on that) ...And more...

Doctor Nina (no lie) comes in and after examining Baby G, informs us that no stitches can be done, as there aren't any 2 parts of skin to stitch together anymore. ...Nice...

A bandage, some antispetic, a Tetnus shot, and some divine karma, is all we are counting on, other than another trip to a different Doctor tomorrow. But for the time being, with the equivalent of Workman's Comp (ACC) paying for Baby G to take a few days off...

An open wound it must remain!

For Jake & Jenn, Baby G hollers, "For Rohan! ...I will scar myself with the machine of the evil Emporio Coffee Orc!"

Oh, and today, after going into work and filling out all the red tape paperwork for this accident, we learned that there is a 24 hour emergency medical support unit ON SITE AT THE AIRPORT -- just in case this sorta thing happens.

Nice.

Photos

2007-03-19T20:35:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gents~

Things are quiet here as New Zealand prepares for winter. We are both safe and sound, working at the airport and trying to make a little nest egg for our return to the U.S. of A. We have been doing quite a bit of soul-searching and communicating with one another regarding our post-NZ futures, and are trying to put ourselves (and each other) in a headspace that will be able to help us with whatever ends up being the "next phase".

Some of this will be of interest to many of you, and we're looking forward to exchanging ideas, inspirations and outlines for your advice/opinion. We've discussed future study and schooling in many areas, as well as both new locations and vocations. Buckle up, Kids, things are happening now.

In the meantime, it occurs to us that it's been awhile since you've had the opportunity to look at some pictures. Rather than wait until we see you (when we'll undoubtedly be showing you many of the same shots!), here are a few to whet the ol' appetite. Enjoy!

After this, Baby G couldn't sit down for like, a week.

Seen at a flea market, March 2007

On the side of a store called "Paris Texas".

Seriously. Don't.

So close, and yet so far...

From the protest we attended. This is in chalk on the wall of a bank in downtown Wellington.

The circus came to town, and practiced on the wharf!

The sport, not the bug.

In the words of fictional President Jed Bartlet, "I'm an educated man, Charlie, but every time someone tries to explain the rules of cricket to me, I want to hit myself in the head with a teapot."

This needs a little explanation but NOT it's own post. Here in New Zealand, if you go someplace and order a "hot dog", more often than not, you'll get a sausage on a stick that has been deep fried in batter and served with tomato (that's "toe-MAH-toe") sauce, which is different than ketchup in that it's not as sweet. It IS possible to get an American hot dog here, but to do so, the menu must read "American hot dog" or something along those lines. How does it taste, you ask? ...

...a lot like a corn dog.

This was taken at the Basin Reserve, named after famous Kiwi WWI soldier Reginald Basin Reserve, who singlehandedly killed some Germans.

All joking aside, it's a really peaceful cricket yard in the center of town and this monument is perched on a hill on one side. On a sunny day, it's a nice quiet respite from an otherwise busy central business district.

Dizzle talking to someone about how many skateboards it took to make this bench.

Please note the sign on the bottom-left, Dorks.

The size of those leaves is outrageous! Truly, truly, truly outrageous!

With love, from us. We miss you all. Peace.

We have good news, and strange news:

2007-03-17T16:32:00.000-05:00

Hey Everybody! As the title suggests, we have two types of news for you:

Good news: We got our plane tickets back to the States. We fly into Philly May 10th. We both have solid work leading up to the 30th of April, when we'll take the ferry to the South Island and explore Southward until we fly out of Christchurch. So, there you have it. Dizzle has been temping at a flea market for the last three days bussing tables in their food court, and both BG&D will be working at the Wellington Airport until the end of April. Some of the shifts there START at 4:00am! Ah, time. Which brings us to

Strange news: Not long ago, you all in the States recognized Daylight Savings Time, in which you all "Sprang Forward". So the time difference between us and you went from 6 hours to 7. Well, here in NZ, we just recognized it as well, and because it's autumn, we "Fell Back" an hour. Now the time difference is 8 hours - something we never saw coming in all the planning and travel books. Leigh says this time zone in NZ is the best because it's exactly 12 hours from Greenwich Mean Time, so the math is easier. We can't comprehend why one would need to know what time it is in Greenwich, England all the time, but we're fans of anything that makes the math easier for people, so rock on.

That's what we have for you so far. Updates this month regarding airport work, sleepiness, and more travel plans. Stay tuned. :)

Getting there

2007-03-13T00:06:00.000-05:00

Hey all. Just another quickie. We're okay and applying for jobs currently. Dizzle has full-time work at a restaurant at the airport, and Baby G will either get a job at a clothing store and stay at the airport PARTtime, or increase her hours there.

We're thinking a return to the States is imminent Mid-May-ish. You want more specific? So do we. :)

We'll keep you posted. Hope all is well.

Love,
BG&D

In two days, we'll know when we're coming home.

2007-03-11T15:11:00.000-05:00

Quick update:
It looks good on the employment front. We ave a trial run working TOGETHER behind the bar at the Wellington Airport, and we have an additional interview for a temp agency that specializes in short-term temp work for travellers on Tuesday afternoon.

By Wednesday (that's "Tuesday" to you all in the States), we should have a good idea of when we're coming home and what the rest of 2007 looks like for us.

The good news is, you still have us for a little while, and we're going to do our best to post random little things while we're working for the next six weeks or so, and then TRY to post as much of the South Island as we can. The problem is, we may not be going back to Wellington after the South Island - we might just be flying out of Christchurch. So, if that ends up being the case, we'll let you know.

In the meantime, you relax and have fun. We both miss you all and we're really looking forward to touching base with you soon.

With Love,
BG&D

Chickens Coming Home to Roost

2007-03-07T19:04:00.000-05:00

Hi, Everybody, it's Dizzle here. I am dropping the plural pronoun format we've been using on this blog for this post, since Baby G is not in agreement with much of what I'm about to say. It should also be noted that this post has nothing to do with New Zealand, and is just me expressing an opinion, so if you follow our blog for travel stories, feel free to go to another post - they'll be there. This one is just... well, you'll see.

Over the course of the last several years, there is something that I've been hearing all over. Everywhere I go; a restaurant, friend's house, bar, or even on the street coming out of the speakers of a passing car, I've been hearing Johnny Cash.

I was all set to rant and rave last week about this. I'm a fan of music in general, and have always felt I could hold my own in a conversation regarding it. Sure, I represent the unpopular opinion of not caring much for The Doors, but I've always been openminded regarding anything, new or old, in order to form an educated opinion. But I've never liked the music of Johnny Cash. I don't know why, it's just never appealed to me. Now, normally, this is not a big deal, as, like I said, I don't like The Doors but I don't have to hear them that much. But it occurred to me the other day (while hearing some Cash song at Burgerfuel) that in recent years, Johnny Cash has risen in popularity among a whole new generation.

I didn't pay attention while it was happening, but it was in the span of two, two-and-a-half years that Johnny Cash released a cover of the Nine Inch Nails song "Hurt" (which got tremendous airplay), Walk the Line came out (to critical and commercial acclaim), and Mr. Cash passed away. Every time I turn around, it seems there's one more thing to know about Johnny Cash and I never cared that much to begin with.

Before you start writing in, commenting and emailing us lambasting my opinion of Cash, read on to understand the title of this post.

I was ready, guys. I was all set to type about Johnny Cash and how much I don't care and how annoyed I was that this guy, whom I perceive to be a mediocre musician was getting such a huge blowup lately. I fell asleep right THROUGH the movie, by the way (I am my mother's son). I have been having a tough time relating to his music, and have been getting increasingly frustrated by friends of mine who were listening to him. When I was a teenager, a person who became a fan of someone because everyone else was was called a "Frontrunner" - it applied to sports fans and other stuff as well. I have been considering people from my generation who routinely listen to Johnny Cash to be frontrunners. I felt they joined the Cash train only because everyone else was, and if they'd just listen, they'd hear very little of value. So, like I said, I was set. My knuckles were cracked and I was sitting down at the computer. The Simpsons was on in the background, I had a hot cup of coffee, and I was going to simply finish the post, come what may from my friends who disagree, and vent away.

Have I ever mentioned that The Simpsons is one of my favorite shows? Baby G doesn't dig it as much, but for me, it's been a part of growing up. It's a piece of Americana that has gone global. The show has been on for most of my life, and I even fondly remember nights when I couldn't sleep, and my folks would be up watching The Tracy Ullman Show, and I would wait patiently for the Simpsons vignettes to come on so I could laugh my head off before crawling back into bed. This may seem like a digression, but everyone out there in cyberland should know that The Simpsons is worth watching - at least a little - because episodes of that show are what alien life forms will find of us when we're all extinct.

There is one episode in particular I've always loved, because it was one of the first times I felt the creators of the show branched out artistically. The premise is, Homer eats a hot pepper at the local Chili Cook Off, and it is SO hot, he begins to hallucinate. The sky becomes a rainbow, and there's a talking turtle and fox, and everything is swirly and funny for about 10 minutes. I've always enjoyed this episode immensely, and have long since considered it my favorite. Anybody know where this is going?

Last night, sitting at the computer, ready to post about Johnny Cash and my dislike of his current fame, I heard his voice. Coming from the cartoon fox. On the TV.

And I realized that maybe the Man in Black isn't so bad, after all.

I was humbled, and have altered my post to admit to you, everyone in cyberspace, that even I, am sometimes, a stubborn idiot.

Be good.

~Dizz

They've been bugging me

2007-03-07T18:48:00.000-05:00

One thing of which New Zealanders are very proud is the fact that there are no poisonous plants here, and no animals that can kill you. There are no snakes, no poisonous spiders, and no wild cats. On occasion, you'll hear about wild boars out in the bush, but that's it.

Well, while this information would normally put travellers mind's at ease, what they don't tell you is that every bug here is HUGE. We aren't kidding. We showed you the weta already, but you should know that the mosquitoes here have legs that could easily be compared to the size of your whole palm.

In addition (and this is the part where you laugh at us more than you have been), does anyone remember the cicada infestation of Washington, DC last summer? When the whole city was an inch deep in really large, clumsy insects that, even though they can't bite/sting you, crunch when you step on them and are so gross that you can't go outside for fear of inhaling one? Well, it's not every 17 years they show their ugly little heads, here. In NZ, it's every year.

When we got back from the vineyard, we left the next morning to go replenish the fridge. The second we exited the house, we were yelling to each other to be heard over the incessant buzzing and clicking of these enormous insects. Until one flew (or rather, BONKed) into Baby G's face. It was pretty bad shopping trip after that, and we only had to go 15 feet out the door for it to be frustratingly gross.

Don't get us wrong. We so far LOVE New Zealand and everything it has to offer. We've made lifelong friends of our flatmates and some other people we've met in our travels. We've been treated kindly, and will look forward to repaying the favor should any of our new friends find their way to the New York area in the coming year. We do, however, believe that since none of the bugs are actually harmful to you, Kiwis may have been desensitized to the actual size of the bug. So, from two Yanks to you Kiwis: Just 'cuz it don't hurt, don't mean it ain't REALLY STARTLING.

Did you know the spiders they used in Arachnophobia were actually shipped over from New Zealand because they were the right size, but non-harmful to the actors? Do you REMEMBER the movie? 'Nuff said.

March

2007-03-07T18:13:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been awhile since we've posted, and even longer since any of you have commented (ahem!), so we figured we'd throw out an update.

We've spent the better part of the last week looking for work, so we can make enough scratch to explore the South Island a little while and then head back to the East Coast of the good ol' US of A. It's harder than you'd think. Dizzle had an interview at an arcade - a job for which he is overqualified - and was denied the position. He has another interview at a temp agency today and we both have 2 set up for tomorrow. By Sunday, we should have a good idea of our ETA back home.

So, since we'll be in town this afternoon anyway, we've decided it's important to go to a protest in honor of International Women's Day (the commemorative day is what's international - not the women, although we suppose some of them are, too). A couple weeks ago, a court case made headlines here in New Zealand involving three police officers who have been accused of raping a woman 18 years ago. One cop, Clint Rickards, was the Commissioner of Police in Auckland and was highly successful. After a several-month-long trial, all three men were acquitted of all charges, saying the woman (and all those who've come forward with the same or similar allegations since) was a consenting partner. That she was 17 at the time is apparently a moot point.

Well, once the case was over, and this guy Rickards is fighting to get his job back (you should see him in interviews, by the way - he's a really angry guy), it has come out that the other two cops were in jail the whole time. That's right, folks. In the States, if a convict (for whatever reason) is on trial for another crime, we usually know he's a convict at the time, right? Usually the handcuffs and orange jumpsuit give it away. On the occasion that he's allowed to wear a suit (we are not experts in criminal law, and don't know the distinction. In this case, it doesn't matter), it's still released that he lives in, you know, a cell. Well, not here. Here, if you're in prison while they're trying you for another crime, you don't know they're inmates until after the verdict is read.

So follow us here: 3 cops busted for rape. All 3 acquitted. 1 is highly successful and is currently fighting to get his job back after he's been 'slandered'. 2 are already in prison. What are they in prison for, you ask? What crime did 2 upstanding civic officers do to be put in prison previous to these accusations? They were there for...wait for it... rape. We kid you not.

So there's a protest today in Wellington that we're going to attend. There's also one in Auckland and one in Christchurch. We'll let you know what it was like in the next couple days, but in the meantime, feel free to google some of the details of the trial. Just because we're not citizens doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for what's right. We're glad there's a protest at all, as many countries wouldn't even allow that much.

We'll keep you posted on all of it. Wish us luck on the job thing.

Making Peas With a Rock

2007-03-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

This week marks the halfway point of our time here in New Zealand. This blog is MORE than halfway done as we had so many posts before we actually left. We know this news is making you cry, and to that we say, "Walk it off." because we are uncaring, militant people.

Speaking of militant people, one thing we have yet to mention regarding our vineyard work is regarding our co-workers. There are several things we've done as yet that 'most Americans have never, and will never get to do'. We've tried vegemite. We've swum in the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean on the same day. We've hitchhiked across an entire island nation. And now, since many of you will never do this, we've worked with Iraqis.

Barnsey had been telling us during the whole of the first week about the vineyard work ethic of different ethnic groups. He had been saying he needed some "Thais", as they perform well. He also said he might get some Iraqis to help out.

We were a little concerned. On one hand, we're all the same inside, and everyone is going to be there on the field trying to scrape by an honest day's work. On the other hand, our country is in a completely unwinnable, unfair war with another country, and we were about to have to apologize. The fact that neither of us have ever voted for President Bush became a moot point, as we didn't know what to expect.

The first day (with other people working besides Chris, Barnsey, and the two of us) there was only one. His name is Khili, but he introduced himself as "Saddam". Ha! Wacky sense of humor these Iraqis have! He was a good worker, although Dizzle felt he could've kept his eyes to himself a little more. At one point, he asked Baby G where she was from, as she is of Indian decent and so her skin is darker than others. She replied, "I'm an American." He pressed on, "No, you are not. You are dark. You are Arab?" Again, she said (For those of you who don't know Baby G, this was already more conversation than she wanted. She was hot, tired, and in desperate need of a pedicure and 60-minute massage), "I'm an American." This went on until Dizzle showed up. He had been running errands with the boss and had missed this whole exchange. After Khili had sussed out that we were both Americans, he pulled Dizzle aside and asked if Baby G was "his". Dizz didn't know how to respond to that, but figured the dude meant, you know, dating, so he replied in the affirmative. Khili then went on to explain to Dizz that he was "looking for another woman, because the one he has is [we swear to God he said this word] 'broken'". Later in the evening, after we'd returned home and had a chance to reflect on meeting our first person from Iraq, we realized his being Iraqi was not a reason to dislike or distrust him, but the fact that he referred to a woman as "broken" sure as hell was. We still don't know what he meant, and never bothered to engage him enough again to find out.

The next day, Khili was there with a guy who spoke almost no English named, we are not kidding, Muhammad Ali. And he used to BOX! We found all this out about him after a spirited conversation during teatime where we learned from he and Khili that Americans are solely to blame for any problem in the air (including pollution and the ozone), land (erosion and global warming), and petrol. We had to agree, if only to avoid an argument. Arabic is a heated language as it is, and we were not about to interrupt anyone airing their grievances about a country that is, as we speak, murdering thousands of people in the country where these guys are from. It was an interesting predicament. We've left the States to see more of the world, they left Iraq out of necessity. No one was going to disagree that Saddam and Bush are bad men, but how could we apologize for an entire country? How do you say, "Yeah, we're screwing you and your kin. Sorry 'bout that."?

We began to start conversations with, "Do you still have family in Iraq, and is everyone okay?" This seemed to let them know that we are not Americans who are proud of the actions of our country, but rather Americans who are compassionate and are doing our best to broaden what is stereotypically a narrow viewpoint on the rest of the world. It seemed to work, although Muhammad Ali never really did seem anything other than pissed off. Perhaps it's a language barrier.

The third one we met (they were adding a new Iraqi every day!) is named Zydan. We immediately informed him (after asking if his family back home was okay, of course) that his named sounded like a bitchin' name for a comic book hero, or a Mortal Kombat character. This, in theory, should've broken the ice. It didn't. Perhaps because there isn't much ice in Iraq, we don't know. Regardless, Zydan is a very quiet man who used to be a teacher in Iraq. He taught primary school children Arabic and Geography before he left the regime and had to get work wherever he could. Baby G and Zydan worked together for an entire afternoon, and got along swimmingly. He told her all about back 'home', and that he writes as often as he can, but his mail reaches his family pre-opened. He said his English isn't good enough to get another teaching job, but that he feels he's getting a little old for farm-work. Zydan is a really nice guy, and was our first non-guilt-inducing experience with Iraqis of the whole week.

On our last day on the vineyard, we met the fourth and final member of their crew, Muhammad's son Ali. All of nineteen, Ali spoke with a Kiwi accent and informed us that he is also fluent in Arabic and Pakistani. He's looking forward to saving up money to move to "Aussie" for the sun. We told him he could seriously make a lot of money in peace and conflict resolution or diplomacy because people who speak both Arabic and English are tough to come by. His eyes lit up at the thought of money, but we're pretty sure he'll be on the beach in Australia in six months, meeting girls and surfing. Ah, to be a teenager again. :)

So that's our experience with our first Iraqis. We all think Saddam and Bush (and Condi, and Rummy, and Cheney, etc.) are bad people, and we are all aware of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer worldwide. And just like in the States, they were all different: one was rude, one was angry, one was a fun-loving kid, and one was just a normal, humble dude trying to make ends meet for his family. Hopefully, they see Americans similarly now, and are not convinced we're all fat, white cold people with a chip on our shoulders. Hopefully they can go back to their families and tell them that not all Americans are bad, just the ones on top.

We feel proud of ourselves for functioning alongside different kinds of people, and glad we had the experience. Working with Iraqis, because they're Iraqis, was one of the most rewarding experiences we've had here, and is not one we're likely to forget.

Well, we'll remember it for as long as we can, anyway. Until we're 'broken'.

Three Blind Mice

2007-03-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

From another hemisphere, you can still count on Baby G and Dizzle to get a song stuck in your head. They actually have these here.

You're welcome.

Save as...

2007-03-01T16:17:00.000-05:00

There's something here, in the Kiwi vernacular, that is going to be tough to explain, and though we'll sound stupid using it at home, we'll probably take it to the States anyway, because everyone does it, here.

What happens is, basically, 2/3 of a simile. If something is going really well, they'll throw down an adjective, followed by the word "as", and then... nothing. A typical exchange might go like this:

Baby G: So, a 'touchdown' is a 'try', and a 'field goal' is a 'conversion', right?

Andrew: Right. Want some pavlova?

Baby G: Sweet as!

"Sweet as" (Like, "Sweet as sugar!", but without the noun. NEVER the noun.) is by far the most common example of this, and it's used all over... sometimes even in place of "You're welcome" (though "No worries" fits there, too). To us, it sounded a little like, "Sweet ass", which our friend Scott used to say all the time anyway, so that's a little strange on several levels.

That said, "Sweet" is not the only adjective used. Over the course of our time on the vineyard, we heard the following:

Keen as!

Smooth as!

Slick as!

Cool as!

Tight as!

And it's not just when something is "sweet" (like, "awesome" not necessarily 'sugary', you dig?). In the case of that last example, the nets (remember the vine nets? Scroll down) were literally laced together within the aisle in such a way that is was, in fact, "Tight as." Tight as what, exactly, we don't know, a drum?

Interestingly, you never hear "Bad as", which is the one phrase with which Dizz could've fit in, as "Badass" is common for him*. Alas (al as).

Now, it should be noted that the emphasis of all of these is on "as", not the adjective preceding it. So it comes out almost all in one word, with the second syllable always being 'as' and always being stressed.

Now, there's more. Differently than the Canadian stereotype (Not Fred nor Kreeson, however), people here end sentences with something that sounds remarkably like "ay" - like a rhetorical question. This is another toughie to explain, because it sounds infinitely cooler than the Canadian version, but will be almost impossible to convey in type. You should all know that we have started to pick up both, and we are sorry for how that's going to sound upon our return. Things like this could be typical at first:

Rev. J: How was your flight, Dizzle?

Dizzle: Fast as, ay?

Rev J: You're adopted, by the way.

Ready to play along? Well, we've included something interactive for all of you. It'll be a little like school, but you won't be graded (only ridiculed). You can check your answers by clicking "Comments" for this post. Ready? Here we go.

To a Kiwi, which comment about the above picture would be most accurate?

a. The lambs are cute.
b. The lambs are cute as, ay.
c. The lambs in a hot curry would be sweet as, ay.

The dog is

a. furry.
b. furry as.
c. furry as, ay.
d. Rex.
e. all of the above

On the above table is a pair of candles, a paua shell, a jug of sun tea, a white clay pitcher, and a red tin. Which one is decidedly un-Kiwi and why?

In the above photo, Chris is

a. constipated.
b. contemplating the 'ifs' of life.
c. meditating.
d. sweet as. No worries. F***in' awesome!

So next time you're at your computer, and you need to save something on your desktop, or someplace accessible, when you click "Save as", think of us. We're laughing a little, too. After all, it's funny as, ay?

* "Supid as" a.k.a. "Stupidass" also doesn't happen, here, though the seas can be "rough as" or one can feel "sick as" - so it's not always a positive thing.

Vines, Vines Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink...

2007-02-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

Hey all,

So you can get an idea of the scope of what we were working on, here are some pictures of the Redbank Estate vineyard.

That's Baby G's head admist all the many vines...

And this was our view as we started each day of work. Hello 7am!

More thoughts from the vineyard

2007-02-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

Well, if you've been willing to read any of this blog so far, maybe you're willing to read a bit farther. We've gotten some good feedback on some of the last posts, and we're waiting for some other people to sit down and catch up with what we've been doing over a glass (or bottle) of wine.

You should know that living with Barnsey was basically what Dizzle's place would've been like if he and Baby G had never moved in together. He's basically a good cook and pretty clean, but we don't think he was fully prepared for the stresses of having two Yankees as roommates for what ended up being two weeks. Props to you, Barnsey... we tried to stay out of your way as best we could and help out where we were able, but you handled it like a pro and are just as deserving of a vacation as anyone. The good news is, as we write this, Barnsey is in Auckland for a few days getting some R&R. Well played, Bro.

But because it was the home of a single guy, Baby G had her fill of "dirt men don't see". She took it upon herself, just to be more comfortable (and it was the least we could do) to tidy up and sort things out for us guys. All the credit in the world to you, too, BG. Nicely handled.

In return for Baby G's hard work both on and off the vineyard, we figured the least we could do was have more meat than she had ever been subjected to for every. Single. Meal. Lots, and lots, and lots of it. Seriously. We've been living off of steak, chicken, rice, fruit and coffee for two weeks. Dizzle commented yesterday, "I think in the last two weeks I've had more bananas than I ever did before, combined."

One of the final pieces to this two week excursion is something only a few of you know about. Our Kiwi friends have been made aware (we couldn't hide it), but everyone Stateside will be interested to see. A picture is worth a thousand words, but please allow Dizzle to preface the following montage with two comments. 1. It was hot. 2. Mom, it'll grow back. :)

Jake said Dizzle looks like a goat. But whoever said goats can't be punk-rock?? Not us.

Be good.

BG&D

Give him a shot.

2007-02-27T23:50:00.000-05:00

'Cause there isn't much else to do in Martinborough, New Zealand when you're not on the vineyard.

p.s. It's a cap-gun, Mom. Relax.

Back in Wellington

2007-02-27T19:08:00.000-05:00

Well, we've made it back. And we're exhausted. We've decided, since there is a ton to blog about these last two weeks but we haven't had the energy, we're going to do individual posts regarding our trip. It should be okay, since we're not planning on doing anything for the next few days.

One thing we'd promised to write, in a blog post on which only Jake commented, was a dessert we had called Pavlova. What happened was this: Dizzle had been working on his resumes for a few days prior to this job opportunity, and Baby G had been working part time at the University to help make some cash for a trip to the South Island. Barnsey had approached us about doing some vineyard work, so we figured we should probably go. After all, it was free accommodation for a week as well as being something we'd told people back in the States we'd like to try. So after Leigh's birthday, we packed our bags and jumped a ride with Barnsey over the Rumetaka Hill back to Martinborough, where we'd spent a weekend before (remember TK Day? Same place). We think Leigh had a premonition that the coming week would be exceedingly difficult for us poor, soft Yanks, so she sent us along with a cookie tin and instructions for it's contents. When we were ready, we were to “flip it upside down on a plate, smear whipped cream all over the pastry inside, and top with passion fruit pulp, strawberries, and slices of kiwi fruit.”

We arrived in Martinborough with enough time to get settled in and relax. Barnsey told us we'd be getting up at 6:00am in order to get to the vineyard by 7, so we should call it a night early. Because of the timing, we needed to wait a day for the Pavlova.

The next morning, we got up and groggily showered and put on our Monday worst, anticipating a dirty day. We were right. Baby G spent the whole day counting vines, tying up those that had been windblown (so they stand upright for further growth), and weighing bunches of grapes that had already started to show. These statistics, in combination with data from previous years of the same time, should afford the winemaker a general idea of how much wine he/she will be able to make in the coming harvest. Dizzle, on the other hand, spent the day tying wire.
What happens here, in “netting the vines”, is that you are physically attaching spools of wire to the back of a tractor, running the machine along the entire row (the longest of which, on this particular vineyard, is 300m), and then tying the ends at ankle height on both ends. If you do this every four rows, you end up (later) throwing a net over the rows and tucking the edges under the groundwire to be staked down to the ground. Theoretically, this provides a canopy under which the plants of those four rows will still receive light and moisture, but birds will not be able to feed on the fruit they yield. At this vineyard, Redbank Estates (it's new – no need to google it), there are vines covering 25 acres of property (approx 35,000 vines!). It's small enough to only need 4 or 5 employees at a time, but large enough to insure a hot, dirty day for 4 or 5 employees at a time.

Tying the wire is an interesting thing. Barnsey had asked Dizzle the morning of the first day if his hands were “soft”. He replied, that by Kiwi farmhand standards, they probably were, even though he'd done manual labor in the past, and had calloused his hands up with drumsticks and guitars before. Good thing he said they were soft, because otherwise Barnsey wouldn't have provided him with the one, flimsy little cotton glove he had on site to help protect his hands. Why would his hands need protecting? We'll show you.

Right now, as you're reading this, get up from your chair and go to a closet that has hangers.

Grab one made of wire. If you don't have one made of wire because you are so uber-classy that plastic, metal or wood are the only way to go in your abode, go to one of your neighbor's and borrow a wire coat hanger, and then hang your head in shame for being such an elitist. Go. We'll wait.

Okay, having your hanger in hand, unbend it into a straight line. Again, we'll wait.

That done (right.), now tie it in as tight a knot as you can. Anywhere along the wire will do, but it must be a small knot, not much bigger than a nickel.

Now do it all again in 90-degree heat for eight hours until you've completed approx. 800 of them. Maybe that's an exaggeration. It only felt like 800. It was probably realistically closer to 1800. Our bad.

This is a good time to make two points: 1. We are not ungrateful for this opportunity. As you'll see, further in the blog, we made friends with some very interesting people in Martinborough, and solidified friendships we'd already started. This is simply the tone of the description of the first day because it was, in fact, a really difficult day. At least we had the Pavlova to enjoy upon our return home, right?

2. It's time for everyone to meet Chris.

Chris is a freelance vineyard worker. He is all of 5'5", and is more solid muscle width than height. Barnsey had told us he might blow up at us on occasion, and we'd hear foul language coming from his lips on a regular basis, but swearing is common in the restaurant scene in Washington, DC, as is getting yelled at, so we were unconcerned. As it turns out, we'd been mislead. Chris, though reminding us a great deal of this guy, ended up being a straight-up hard working guy, capable of waxing politics and music, but also just trying to make ends meet in an honest, ethical way. We took a liking to him immediately, as he was inspiring to us to 'get through the day working for the man'. It might be imporssible to keep in touch with him when we go back home, but we won't ever forget him, as he was a gem to work with and if any of you ever make it down here, we'd point you his way in a NY minute.

So the whole wire-tying thing was Day 1, after which Dizzle's hands looked like this:

Those are blisters. Seriously. Not trying to gross you out - just trying to paint an accurate picture.

After being so torn up (and Barnsey was sympathetic - he really felt badly, we think), we needed something to take our minds off the soreness. As has been an ongoing trend with this blog, the saving grace, the one thing that could heal all wounds and make everything better: Leigh's cooking. Hello, Pavlova!

...and let us tell you, it's really, really good. We don't know how it's made, as Leigh is keeping that a closely-guarded national secret, but it's main ingredient seems to be liquid sugar. We could've demolished it with three forks, we think, but ended up eating only half, knowing that we'd need the other half if Day 2 was anywhere near as hard as 1.

We emailed the above pic to Leigh with apologies that we couldn't find any fresh strawberries, but she said it looked like a 'classic pav' anyway, and we should be proud. :)

Over the next day or so, Barnsey took Dizzle off wire detail (showing him his hands did the trick - we think Barnsey was ready to boot all over the car when we showed him) and threw he and Baby G together on stapling. This involves using a hammer to secure the groundwire to every third post via staple. The first half was hard, but after we told Barnsey it'd be way more fun if we had our iPods, we started to get the hang of it, and probably could've kept stapling for a few more days if need be.

That seems like a good place to stop for now. Thanks for reading thus far. We are going to spend the next couple days blogging and relaxing, so keep those emails/comments coming. We miss you and have thought of you all regularly.

Until next time.
BG&D

Two Quick Questions

2007-02-23T02:48:00.000-05:00

1. Which was the better movie (or the lesser of two evils) , and why: Fight Club, or Pulp Fiction?

2. Is there anyone alive who really liked all three Matrix movies? Why or why not?

Thoughts from oenology.

Long week, short post.

2007-02-18T01:52:00.000-05:00

Everyone, Dizzle here. We're sorry we haven't updated in awhile, but we are currently hard at work in the middle of nowhere 'netting the vines' for a vineyard. It involves a lot of hammering and tying wire and sweating. So we decided to stay an extra week to finish the job, natch.

Soon we'll be blogging stories and pictures you'll find interetsing (or not, we don't care). I've decided to preview them for you here so you have something to which you can look forward. I have also decided to post them in the fashion of the title pages from the old Bullwinkle & Rocky [sic] cartoons, because I am a bonehead and I fondly remember the little guy who would sweep up the rose petals after the parade.

~Pavlova (or: The Dessert that Sweats Sweet)
~Dizzle Fires a Gun (or: Give Him a Shot)
~Meat (or: Wanna Know What we Have When we Eat? Hint: It's Rare)
~Yum Chow Pt. II (or: Go Ahead - You'll be Hungry Again in an Hour)
~Wellington Hurricanes vs. Auckland Blues Rugby Match (or: Bloody Good Sports)
~Our Last Week on the Vineyard (or: Stop Whining)
~Ten Cups of Coffee a Day (or: Pressing On) (or: Slaving to the Grind) (or: Working Close to the Grounds) (I'll accept your own submissions for this one. Go ahead and percolate on it awhile.)

There'll be more. Thanks for humoring me.

Love,
DZL

Making wine.

2007-02-17T01:06:00.000-05:00

We'll blog more soon. Right now we're recovering. All respect in the world to farmers, migrant workers, and everyone else who sweats through each day in manual labor.

Leigh's Birthday

2007-02-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

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.

Friends of ours.

2007-02-07T15:55:00.000-05:00

I (Dizz) woke up this morning to an upsetting chat with my buddy Paul. Check this out. I can speak for Baby G (she's at work) when I say we hope everything works out okay with the insurance and whatnot. Sounds like he could use some friendly voices. I am urging people who read THIS blog to comment on that one and send support. Even if you've never met Paul... I am sure he and his wife Sue would appreciate knowing people from NY, NJ, DC, NZ, etc are sending good thoughts.

This accident (thankfully no one was hurt!) occured on icy roads in upstate New York. Kiwis, if you don't know what the environment is like there, think Nov. - Apr. like where Santa lives. What stung worse than knowing I was on the other side of the planet when I found out about this (and there is therefore no easy way to offer any kind of help) was that when I looked outside, I realized it's like 85 degrees and sunny today. Talk about your mental chickens coming home.

Today I continue to look for a job that I can start on the 19th. BG and I got set up working on a vinyard next week for the same cats (Andrew and Rona) we worked for LAST week. The price is right, and accomodation is included, so with guitar and computer in hand, we're gonna go do some hard, dirty work in wine country for awhile. We leave Sunday. Thankfully, not before

LEIGH'S BIRTHDAY! We don't know how old she's turning. All we know is that J&L's mates Andrew & Mandy, and Steve & Anna are coming over and we're all going to have...

...wait for it...

CHILI CHEESE DOGS! Leigh is a chef, as you know, so she's making chili (and ice cream for dessert) from scratch. BG and I are assisting in the purchase of sides, condiments, and the franks themselves, and we're going to BBQ all afternoon. We're really looking forward to it.

So we'll be accessible next week, but probably bruised and a little cut up, we'll see. There'll be more to come on here in the next couple days, as well. For now, we're fine. Tired, and a little sunburned, but otherwise happy. Please keep the emails and comments coming, as we miss EVERYBODY, and pretty much go through our roster every day wondering how each of you are. There are things happening in the States that we wish we could be around for (car accident recovery, foot surgery, wedding planning, etc.), so for those who wish we could be around as well, please know we're thinking of you and love you very much.

For those of you who are GLAD we're not around (Sebastien, Tom White, etc.), we're still over here on the other side of the pond, soaking up rays and laughing at the fact that you're probably at work right now. :P

Peace out.

Superbowl Monday (just doesn't have the same ring)

2007-02-05T20:45:00.000-05:00

Bears touchdown in the first 14 SECONDS of the game!! This momentum would propel my team, the Chicago Bears, through the NEXT 14 seconds at LEAST!

...and then all 11 of them would trip and fall, make asses of themselves, and lose in what was really not a very good game of football to the Indiannapolis Colts. It was a travesty, but something I'm getting used to, as I have inherited all Chicago sports team loyalty from 3 generations back. Rev. J says it's not enough to have faith anymore, Chicago fans are running on blind hope now. White Sox fans don't count.

Here in New Zealand, we were denied both the Superbowl commercials, a constant source of amusement once a year, and the vocal stylings of John Madden, a constant source of amusement at LEAST once a year. We DID, however, get to meet back up with our good traveling buddy Ricky, who made it safe and sound back to Wellington after a week of trying to get his passport back and visa information sorted up in Auckland. It was really nice to see him, and we got to catch up pretty much all afternoon.

In addition, Leigh and Jason stopped by the game, too! It was great to be able to talk a little American football with them, and they were happy just to kick back, have a few beers, and learn a little about a holiday that most Americans celebrate but few other countries even know about. After all the rugby we've been watching lately, though, we have to admit, we were a little embarrassed by all the padding that gridders wear, the paychecks they receive, and how often the clock is stopped in any given game. I know that rugby and American football have been compared numerous times before, but I really think both Baby G and I are going to swing on the side of rugby on this debate. It's faster, more athletic, and BRUTAL. We're looking forward to having a 'team' to root for. I mean, cheer for. 'Root' here means something else. :)

The pub was loaded with Americans, wearing pretty much ANY football gear they had with them. It was nice to have a little slice of home for the few hours, and really cool to meet some new people who were there for the same reason we were. EVERYBODY was upset about the lack of commercials, and J&L had a hard time with the fact that we actually WANTED to view ads. I suppose that IS a strange concept. But we had fried appetizers and drinks, and made a cool afternoon of it. The way I figure it, most people don't have their team in the Superbowl every year, and half of the people who do will wake up disappointed the next day. This year, I happened to fall under the category of people whose team MADE it, but simply didn't want it bad enough. You know what would've helped? Ditka.

Today is Waitangi Day. It's a national holiday here in NZ that commemorates the signing of the treaty between the original native Maori people and the European settlers. When BG and I got up this morning, we wished Jason and Leigh a "Happy Waitangi Day", and realized almost immediately how inappropriate that was. Unlike America's July 4th, there is a lot of resentment still brewing over the treaty and what it promised.

Several of the drivers we talked to last week had been talking to us about a general opinion from many Kiwis that New Zealand is 'behind the times' for a first-world-nation. Many think the broadband is slow, or that certain etiquette, art, or pop culture trends have gone from 25 years old to 10 years old recently, but still, obviously, lagging. Baby G and I have noticed SOME of this, though not in very cut and dried terms, and many of the things that some Kiwis feel is lagging is actually an improvement over what we're used to.

That said, there are rat-tails here. Mullets, too. And, everyone, the tendency of the frat-boy dude-bro to pop the collar of his polo shirt UP before going out for the night is JUST GETTING HERE NOW. God, help us.

The reason why I digress, is to make it known that NZ is a very young country. Because the European settlers came so much later than when the US was discovered, there had already been huge advancements in technology and government. By European standards, it wasn't that long ago at all that the treaty was signed, giving the Maori 50% of the land in New Zealand, and the Europeans the other 50%. Because all of this has happened within the last 150 years or so, however, the Maoris have a voice here.

It would be like, if Native Americans had been saying all along that the reservations we were forcing them onto was a bull%^*& deal, and they had congressional representation to back them up. In the States, we are able to hear the plight of the Native American and acknowledge that they got the short end of the stick, but there is no real CURRENT discussion of reparations. African Americans, too. Here, however, it's really cool to see this in action. Statistically, the Maoris seem comparable to many of the African American or Latino population in the States: higher poverty levels, unemplyment, drop out rate, etc. The thing is, when compared to the Native Americans, they can still fight. They have 6 representatives in the government, and every year on this day a great debate occurs that puts the issue of reparation front and center in most people's minds. Imagine if all of a sudden, there were 6 seats in the US government reserved SOLELY for different Native tribes. They'd have a national voice. A leg to stand on. Airtime. Funding. Popular support.

This is not to say anything would be done about it. There would be legal wrangling for generations to come, and it would probably never be sorted out; the mistakes of our great-grandfathers. But at least the argument's there. It is NOT being ignored, and NOT being swept under the rug.

All day long today on TV they're airing documentaries on Waitangi Day and Maori history. There are free concerts and parades, and employees working today are making time-and-a-half for the trouble. There will be some riots, and some fights as well, as this is not a very "Happy" holiday at all.

It breaks down like this: Many years ago, white people came and relegated the brown people to live where they told them to or be shot. We've forgotten that in the States (except maybe on Thanksgiving where we watch teams with names like the "Redskins" play), but this story has two sides to the coin. The great thing about New Zealand is, we get to see, in real time, during THIS generation, what both sides look like and which one will be head's up when it's finally flipped. Most people are hoping it'll land on it's edge, I think. If only ours had, too.

~Dizzle

New YTMNDs...

2007-02-04T04:03:00.000-05:00

Scroll down for fun New Zealand happenings, but for those of you interested (Kevin, Patrick, Skippy and Agne primarily - but all are welcome!), I've made 2 new YTMNDs. You can access them by clicking on them on the right. Just under "Buddies/Fun Stuff".

Peace.

_=Dizz=_

www.ytmnd.com

Blenheim Weekend

2007-02-04T00:54:00.000-05:00

So after a couple days of blogging and resting up, we took off early Friday morning to make our way to The Interislander. The Interislander is an enormous ferry shuttling people, cars, and cargo back and forth between the North and South Islands.

At the dock, we met Rona, a Scottish woman with whom we'd be working this weekend. The truck she was driving full of kegs and bar whatnot got loaded onto the ferry and we set sail for the South Island at 8:30am.

On board there are bars, cafes, a movie theatre, and lounges, all to make the three hour crossing pass by a little faster. The view from the boat was spectacular, especially once we got closer to the South Island via the Cook Strait and Marlborough Sound.

We drove to Blenheim, where the "Blues, Brews, and BBQs Festival" was to be held, and arrived on site to find that the tent, that was supposed to have been set up, was not. Rona suggested having lunch at a winery to pass the time and wait for Andrew. -Andrew owns the Martinborough Brewery for which we were working. His plane, we soon found out, had been overbooked, and he was bumped to a Saturday morning flight, meaning WE would have to set up the bar inside the tent... the same one that was, you remember, not yet erected.

Sigh.

We ate, we got to know each other, and we laughed. The winery had a really good chef and really nice wine, and we figured, hey, as long as there's a solid afternoon of manual labor ahead of us, we might as well have lunch in the sun on the Boss' dime, right?

We got back on site about 2 hours later, and found the tent was, in fact, being set up as we stood there. We unburdened the big blue truck of it's 10 kegs, 3 taps (w/ refrigerator), tablecloths, posters, t-shirts and other various tavern-related bric a brac. It reminded us of being back home in DC, only without the drunk people. THEY were not far away, either.

Rona, who is, in our minds, getting cooler by the minute, tells us we're getting a hotel. We naturally grabbed the first one we could find, where we preceded to watch rugby, clean ourselves up, and order Domino's Pizza.

The next morning, Rona went to get Andrew from the airport, while we put the finishing touches on the booth. Turns out, our site was right next to (Seriously, like 20 feet from the main stack) the #1 music stage at the festival. So picture this: Here we are, two American tourists, getting ready to pour $4 beers from a LOCAL BREWER with a Scottish woman, all the while trying to decipher EVERYTHING from EVERYONE over really really loud blues music. It was surreal, to say the least.

(Rona in our tent. Martinborough Beer and Ales!)

The festival itself is exactly what you'd think by it's name. There was a lot of food, plenty of microbrews (and some big guys too!), and people were getting their groove on to blues music. In addition, many people came in costumes in an effort to win the "Best Dressed" competition. The musicians were better than those at TK Day, we thought, but the effect by the end of the day was the same. It's just a worldwide thing:

Drunk Middle-Aged White People Dancing Always Equals Funny.

There. We said it.

Made it through without a hitch. Following the event (which we left as deftly, and DEAFLY, as possible), we went to Andrew's parents house for dinner and accommodation. It couldn't be beat. There was a spread the likes of which we had not seen in quite some time, complete with chicken, roast beef, gourmet jams, mustards, and spreads, along with cheeses and veggies. We thought it'd be rude to ask for a "to-go" container or Tupperware, so we didn't, but we really wanted to.

(Martinborough's Finest, Andrew "Barnsey" Barnes with us outside our tent at the beginning of the day, when we were all still energetic and smiling)

A word about Martinborough Beer and Ales:

It really is very good. -I'm not getting paid to say that. The microbrews that Andrew has made are refreshing, complex, and the different varieties provide people with plenty of choices. We've told him to get a website. As soon as he does, we'll link you up.

Not too much to report today. Andrew was with us on the ferry ride back to Wellington, and he taught us a little more about both rugby and cricket (the former is increasingly great, the latter is still increasingly complex), while we shared with him American politics and football.

Got back safely this afternoon, with plenty of time for internet catchup (has Bush blown us up yet?) and emails ("Dear Fractured Prune..."), and, of course, sleep. Baby G has her first day at the new job tomorrow, training for a few hours in the morning before she is officially and on-call receptionist at Victoria University of Wellington. Dizzle needs his rest, too. The Superbowl is tomorrow.

We'll be watching the game and thinking of you all. We hope everything is going along swimmingly and we've been thinking of you often.

An update soon.

Love,
BG&D

A Week Away, Part VIII -- The Journey Home (Conclusion)

2007-02-01T01:15:00.000-05:00

We hope you've enjoyed reading about our weeklong exploration of New Zealand's North Island. This is the last entry for that week, but if you'd like to see how we got here, you can catch up by clicking the links below:
Part I -- Part II -- Part III -- Part IV -- Part V -- Part VI -- Part VII

Day 8

There was some debate as to whether or not we should blog this part. Dizzle said "Yes", right away. Baby G was a little more apprehensive as it involves doing something that, though perfectly legal here in NZ, is frowned upon for good reason back home. We decided collectively that if you've been following along for the last few posts, we couldn't just abandon the story at it's conclusion and have it end while we're in Auckland. We mean, we had to get home somehow, right?

We did it in one bus, one train, and a half dozen different cars. Here's the story:

We woke up at Robyn's place bright and early. We scarfed down some toast and hit the road, meaning, we walked across Auckland. -Auckland is not a small city, and we had some HEAVY packs on our back, so we reached the bus station a little after 9am. We bought two tickets to Huntly, a small town just South of Auckland. Why, you ask, did we buy bus tickets to this tiny town? --Because it's easier to hitchhike from there. (Sorry Moms and Dads)

Huntly was our destination to hitch from, but our first surprise of the day occurred when our bus driver DIDN'T STOP in Huntly, but continued on. "Do we say something?" we wondered. We didn't. We decided it was a freebie, and as we were on a shoe string budget, we continued Southward, to Hamilton. Hamilton is the third largest city in New Zealand, and decidedly more difficult to hitch out of. -We didn't quite know that at the time.

From the bus station to the outskirts of town, took us about 2 hours to walk. Our packs, as mentioned, were heavy. -And getting heavier every minute. We decided that the grassy patch we were on was as good a place as any to stick out our thumbs. And thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long for the first car to pull up.

Driver #1:
A sleek, black BMW cruised up next to us, and a young guy wearing sunglasses got out to clear room in the trunk (or "boot") for our bags. His name was Ian, or Dwayne, or Andre, or Bryce, or Ethan or something. We couldn't tell. But he was a friendly, talkative bloke, who'd quit his job a week prior and was on holiday. He gave us some pointers on hitchhiking (number 1 being, that where we'd been standing was apparently a terrible place, and he took pity on us dumb Americans) and drove us from Hamilton to Tirau. He dropped us at a good pull over spot for cars, and we had to wait all of 10 minutes for...

Driver #2:
A middle aged woman in an Audi pulled up and told us to hop in. She was in the mood to chat, and told us about herself. A former life coach, she peppered us with questions about what we wanted to accomplish in our lives, and the positivity was bubbling out of her. She works with refugees from Africa now, and her husband was going to be on television that night. The funniest point with her was when we were slowed down by a logging truck (you must understand - NZ's biggest Highway is two lanes, one going North, and one South. You slow down behind logging trucks. And buses. And steep hills.) and we spotted another going the other way. It boggled her mind that they couldn't organize that better since it's, you know, LOGS. We couldn't disagree. All in all, a lovely woman. She was kind enough to drive us to Taupo. Her hotel was on the north end of the lake, however, and walking UP out of down meant walking with our pack the entire length of the lake. It's a big lake. So, slightly baffled, we decided to do what anyone with the hike ahead of us would do: We sat down and ate lunch.

Driver #3:
45 minutes later, and full of PB&J, we swiftly got picked up by a kind old man and his tiny little puppy in a silver hatchback. He asked where we "fellas" were from and how far we were going. We told him, "All the way South. To Wellington if we can." He told us it was getting late but good luck and that he'd drop us off on the south end town, where the kph limit goes back up. We thanked him profusely. He let us go right by the road that leads to what we're sure it a very small airport. It was pretty rural, and we could see the clouds coming off of (and the rain, in the distance, pouring onto) Lake Taupo. We had a plan for if it hit us, and we were pretty sure it would in about 10 minutes. We walked about 50 yards from the shoulder, and put on our raincoats. Then we dug the tent-tarp out of the bag, and had it over our heads just in time for the first really heavy drops. We laughed for the whole 20 minutes. It's was a little cheesy. But the sun came out shortly thereafter, and it didn't take long before we met...

Driver #4:
Michael, from Switzerland, pulled up in his rental car, and told us he could take us as far as Turangi. It wasn't a terribly long drive with Michael, but he told us he was still a little jittery, as he had just finished an afternoon of skydiving. He dropped us where he turned off, to explore one of New Zealand's many national parks. Again, it wasn't a long wait (we were VERY lucky on this hitchhiking adventure) before we were picked up by...

Driver #5
We couldn't tell you his name, because he never told us. But the Czech fellow in the passenger seat, named Pavel, said one sentence during the trip: "I need to get to Christchurch as soon as possible." Our driver was an aging hippie, who was driving home from having seen a rock concert the night before. (The same concert that Robyn, our hostess in Auckland, was at) We drove through the desert road area with them without speaking, listening to Santana. Our driver was headed to Carterton, away from State highway 1, which WE wanted to stay on. However, Carterton was a hop skip and a jump from Wellington in a roundabout sort of way. We had to decide whether to travel with them or jump out at the junction between SH1 and Route 54. We opted to jump out since the sun hadn't set yet. With any luck, we could get a ride to all the way to Wellington with our next ride. It was either that, or pitch the tent in some cow field and wake up for rush-hour, because the sun was going down. This was at about 8:00. Fortunately, the heavens opened up, and up to us drove...

Driver #6
...who was on his way back from "Parachutes". We assumed he was into skydiving. Instead, it is this. He was driving to his home in Upper Hutt, and was willing to drop us off at the train station on his way. As we are sitting here typing this, we have no idea what to write about this guy. At one point in the "conversation", he told us his interests are: Lord of the Rings, astronomy, computer games, and church. Though he was not pushy regarding any of these, he was "that guy" (see description above). He needed us as someone to talk to so as not to fall asleep, and we... well... we REALLY wanted to fall asleep. The whole time. We persevered, however, and managed to stay completely (mostly) alert for his entire monologue that managed to last ALL THREE HOURS. We are neither annoyed, nor resentful, because this was a kind man who was willing to give us a lift MOST of the rest of the way home, so please don't hear that as the tone of this paragraph. We were, however, very sleepy, and not mentally prepared to answer the question, "How could you not have ever heard of Dave Dobbyn?" Not from a guy doing us a favor, anyway. About 130 years later, on the way to the train depot, he stopped to show us a quarry, which, though now closed to the public, was where they filmed the Battle of Helm's Deep in LOTR2. In the dark, it looked like a big rock wall with a fence in front of it with a sign on it saying we weren't allowed anywhere near anything but the view of the big rock wall. So we got back in the car and we made it to the train station in time to catch the last train to Wellington, followed promptly by the first taxi we saw to Kilbirnie, to home. We got in at 11:58pm. Not bad for a day's work.

It was a long, strange trip. During the last two days that it has taken to write this, we've been able to relax, unwind, and start to prepare for the upcoming weekend. Also, this afternoon, thanks to Jason, Baby G got a job at the University. It's a casual, on-call reception job, about 2 days a week, leaving time for other opportunities.

We leave tomorrow morning for the South Island to bartend in Blenheim for a festival. There will be many more stories, we're sure. We just wanted to remind you again (Moms and Dads) that we're SAFE, we'll continue to be careful, and you woulda done it too. :)

Love to Everyone, be safe, and we'll see you with more tales after the Superbowl.

Love,
Baby G & Dizzle

A Week Away, Part VII -- The City of Sails, Reprise

2007-02-01T00:45:00.000-05:00

We're almost done with this story, and the end is pretty good. You may, however, want to see what we've done thus far this week. You can check it all out here:
Part I -- Part II -- Part III -- Part IV -- Part V -- Part VI

We needed to return the piece-of-crap Toyota by 2:30, but we made it with plenty of time and, though it almost ran out of gas ("petrol") once on the way, in one piece.

In Auckland, it was a city-wide holiday. Much like national holidays in the States, NZ tends to let each town have one, and we were returning the car on what's known as "Auckland Anniversary Day". Steve's daughter, Robyn, was earning time-and-a-half by showing up for work on a holiday, and we were crashing with her that night, so we needed to kill some time before she got home. We did so by having a really nice lunch in Albert Park, right by the University, and reading by the water while our towels dried.

Robyn met up with us around 6pm, and showed us her lovely home she shares with two other flatmates. All three of them had plans for the evening, so we were free to make ourselves at home. Some warm dinner and warm showers revived us to plan for the next day. But a wrench was thrown in our plans when our phone rang. Our new friend, Cali Brian, was calling to inform us that he could no longer give us a ride South to Wellington. ...Cue the scary music... We couldn't fault the guy, since he had the opportunity to go skydiving. With no planned way to get home, we decided to get to sleep early and see what happened with the sunrise.

...more to come, but first -

Robyn, and her dad, Steve. Robyn, thanks again for letting us stay in your home. It really helped us out!

...to be concluded...

A Week Away, Part VI -- Cape Reinga & Points South

2007-02-01T00:16:00.000-05:00

"Previously, on Baby G & Dizzle's Kiwi Experience..."
Part I -- Part II -- Part III -- Part IV -- Part V

...Our camera failing quickly, and without a way to charge it, we plugged on at a decent clip to make it to Cape Reinga by 10:30am. This is the northernmost point in the whole country, and it is where you can see the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet.

There is more to the Cape than the fact that it is simply the most north a person can go by road ("road" being relative -- that last 10 miles are little more than gravel).

From www.teara.govt.nz:

At Cape Reinga interest always has been focused on the small promontory and, more particularly, on a certain pohutukawa tree which grows out of its eastern side. According to ancient lore, this was final departure point for the spirit of the Maori. It was said that the spirit, after travelling up the west coast to a spot a few miles south of Cape Maria van Diemen, continued overland to the western end of Spirits Bay and eventually reached the pohutukawa tree. There it descended the roots and entered the sea. (This tree is reputed to have been in position for about 800 years and is said never to have blossomed.) The spirit surfaced at Manawatawi (the Great King Island) and, after a farewell look at the land of the living, descended again to the depths and continued its journey to the other world.

It had been quite a long week, and there was only one more thing to do before heading back south: We wanted to hit the two shorelines in one day, either to sunbathe or to swim. Here are the two pictures of Dizzle coming out of the water, "Baywatch"-style:

After swimming in the Tasman Sea.

After taking a dip in the Pacific, one hour later.

At this point, the camera died, so unfortunately, the last two days will be mostly text.

We had a brochure showing a cheapy campsite near the Mangawhai Heads. It was about a 1/2 hour off the main road, but the price was right, and we needed to put some ground behind us (plus, hot showers.), so we hightailed it South and made it before dark.

Here, Baby G had a rough night's sleep, and only managed to score about 3 good hours. Dizzle, on the other hand, got a whopping 5 or so, as sleeping in a tent for a week can really bruise bones you didn't know could bruise. Oh, and it rained all night, too.

...to be continued...

A Week Away, Part V -- The Rock Day 2 & On the Road Again...

2007-01-31T23:09:00.000-05:00

In case you missed the first several posts of our journey north:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Day 5
...Baby G woke up with the sun to try and get some good pictures of a Bay of Islands sunrise...

There were about 5 people who woke up to share the quiet morning, have some coffee and enjoy the view. However, within 45 minutes or so, we spotted dolphins, and our Skipper rang the ship's bell to gather any and all who wanted to get an up close look. -Our cups of steaming coffee came with...

It was wonderful that this was included with the cruise, as a lot of other tours in the Bay of Islands charge upwards of $100 or so, to watch the dolphins from 100 feet or so away. We lucked out.

When we got back aboard The Rock, we had some breakfast, and then geared up for some swimming, snorkeling, and mussel diving. -Yes, we ate, THEN swam, and did not get sick, despite what our mothers told us all these years.

Baby G had some difficulty with the snorkeling, and drank too much saltwater. This worked out well though, since she could capture it all on film.

Diz managed to snag Baby G a shell from the sea floor, and caught a mussel for her too. Awww...

At that point, everyone was ready to hit the beach, so The Rock sped over to a fairly deserted beach for lunch, more kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, cove exploring, and beach combing. We spent a great few hours enjoying the scenery and feeling as though we were on the set from a "Lost" episode.

All too soon it was time to pack up and head back to our boat, and begin the journey back to our port. Diz was able to play some more guitar, and we sat back and enjoyed the sun and new friends we made. We also ate the mussels that were caught. They were...yummy?

We made it back to land safely, and said goodbye to what had been our home. We hope to try and go back to do this overnight cruise again, as we clearly loved our time spent on it.

So, we were back on land and had our next destination in mind: Cape Reinga. We jumped in our sputtering Toyota, and headed North on State Highway 1. We had found online, a campground run by the DOC (New Zealand's Department of Conservation), where we could set up our tent inexpensively, and was 500 meters from Rarawa Beach. Not too far from our destination, it was the perfect, quiet location we needed. We walked down to the beach at sunset and to wade in the Pacific Ocean. The sand felt like finely sifted flour under our feet, and the sand dunes reminded us both of Michigan.

...to be continued...

A Week Away, Part IV -- Introduction to The Rock

2007-01-31T02:10:00.000-05:00

Hey Everybody, and thanks once again for checking out the vacation stuff from last week. Click below to see what you've missed. You may want a little background, as this is where it gets even better.

Part I
Part II
Part III

Day 4 -- Introduction to The Rock

...We woke up early to try to get the hell out of the campsite with the little demons from Auckland next to us. We packed our gear and were out by 9:00. Our boat didn't board until 5:00pm, so we essentially had all day to regroup and organize. We spent the day walking along the bay, gathering seashells, wading, and generally avoiding the rain as much as possible. We found another grocery store, and reloaded our supplies, this time adding oranges and breakfast bars to our repertoire.

As the day continued, we decided it would be smart to leave some stuff in the car and only take one bag with us on the boat -- after all, it was only for one night that we'd be there. So we pulled off the road to repack and organize everything we'd want to take with us for the couple days we'd be gone. Also, because it rains when you're sleeping in New Zealand, every day we had to drape the tent, tent cover and tarp over the backseat to dry out. We pulled over at this morbid little spot:

It was on a little creek and we were left mostly alone while we had cheese sandwiches and split an orange.

After lunch, we sat at a picnic table on the beach and did some reading/writing...and then we grabbed a coffee for the home stretch.

We are providing these banal little details because once we started our cruise experience, it went at a high speed, and we're still not really about to wrap our heads around that 24-hour period.

They'd informed us that if we were at the pier at 4:30, a boat called The Climax would come to fetch us and take us to The Rock. While we waited, we met this lovely young woman from the UK who was travelling with some people SHE'D just met as well. By the time 5:00 rolled around, we were wondering if it would just be the 7 of us, as we seemed to be the only people waiting. This gave us an indication of what we were in for, though, as most of them were our age or slightly younger.

As time passed, however, more and more people started showing up. There ended up being 16 in our lot. The Climax was brought over by a guy named Peter, who was very nice and asked us how we'd heard about Overnight Cruises. Then he took us several hundred yards out to the big red boat that we'd seen in the brochures:

The whole day it had been raining, and Baby G had been thinking, "Dude, this is gonna suck," but Pete heard her, and assured us that we'd be out of the rain. Once we got on board, he gathered us all around the bar, and told us some bullet points about the trip we'd be taking. Some of the rules are listed here:
~Coffee and tea are free. Just wash your cup.
~If you would like to play pool, go ahead.
~You'll be twilight fishing before dinner time, and we will cook what you catch. No exceptions.
~If you would like to play guitar/piano, go ahead.
~We're keeping a bar tab open for you, just pay cash when the trip is over.
~Night kayaking is the only extra charge: $6.00.
~Feel free to do pretty much whatever the hell you want to.

The atmosphere was really relaxed, and of the 4-5 crewmembers, 3 were travelling as well, and were only working part time to make a little extra money.

From this point, they showed us to our rooms, which consisted of three bunk beds. We were staying with 2 other couples: one from Ireland, and one from Germany.

Then they invited us to shoot an air rifle off the back of the boat while we were at full-speed, trying to hit an empty Sprite bottle. The first person to do it won a free beer or glass of wine. Neither of us hit it, but we had a blast trying (har!).

When it came time to anchor off and fish, we were having a really relaxing time. We saw some birds diving a few hundred yards away, and so Dizzle stayed on board to fish for dinner, while Baby G went back on The Climax to look at the feeding birds and snap shots of the sunset. Here are a couple pictures of these things for your viewing pleasure:

This is Pete, the guy who owns the cruise line. He was on the trip with us, and we all called him "Skipper". This was a little strange for us, as the only other "Skip" we know is not like this guy at all. :)

...Looking for a "Dizzlefish"...

Alas, Dizzle didn't catch anything, but some of the other guests did, and so those catches went on the dinner table along with bread, pasta salad, fresh veggies, steak, sausages (that looked JUST LIKE bratwurst, but when Diz asked, the BBQ cook had no idea what he was talking about), salad, mussels and potatoes. It was quite a feast!

After dinner, we went night-kayaking near the shore. It was dark, and so they offer this excursion as an add-on because of the effect of the phosphorescence when one puts their oar in the water. It looked like the whole bay was lit from beneath via blacklight, and it was really very beautiful.

Dizzle had been aching to swim since the day we got here, so after our group came back, he made like a guppy:

"The theme from Jaws was going through my head the whole time..."

The day over, Baby G tucked herself in for the night so she could get up and snap pictures of the sunrise at dawn. Dizzle stayed up a little while and practiced some guitar by the fire. To take a look at what this cruise has to offer, check out their website here.

...to be continued...

A Week Away, Part III -- The Road, The City of Sails, and a Toyota

2007-01-30T23:29:00.000-05:00

Hi, again, and thanks for joining us for another installment! You all have no idea how many times we said this week, "I can't wait to put this on the blog..." It was a nice way of reminding each other we were thinking of one, many or all of you.

Click here for Part I
Click here for Part II

DAY 3

...The next morning, we woke up flawlessly and started the dark, rainy drive to Auckland. We FINALLY spent money at McDonald's on the way, but it was only for a coffee. We swear. Shut up, Ricky. :)

We made it to Auckland with more than enough time to return the car, and started to visit other rental companies for a car we could get for the weekend. The lowest price we could find was NZD$49/day so we decided to sit by the pier to talk things over ... money, itinerary, etc. We'd found a brochure for an overnight cruise that seemed really inexpensive compared to everything else around here, and so we spoke about it a little more and decided that if there was ONE special thing we got to do the two of us, NOT roughing it, this would be it. So we called the number and booked our spot on The Rock, which was leaving the next day from Paihia.

Here's a Dizzle. Relaxing.

Here's a Baby G. Relaxing.

This left us with nothing else to do but wait to rent the car. We went to an Internet cafe and sent off a quick email to our folks to let them know we were, you know, ALIVE and stuff, and we waited with Ricky while he tried to sort out his passport/visa information.

Auckland is a very sprawled out city that you'd normally think is very cool, what with it being so close to the sea and volcanoes and whatnot, but it honestly struck us as a little generic. It is a windy cross between San Fransisco, Chicago, Washington, DC and Houston, without any of the standalone qualities of any of them. We got the feeling that it's Auckland because people live there, as opposed to people living there because it's Auckland. Regardless, we had to come back to return the car in a few days, so we figured we 'd keep an open mind and see what happens.

We took a picture of "The 12th tallest tower in the world":

Sadly, we left Ricky to his own devices at around 2:30, as that's when we had to get what was to be our car for the weekend.

They ended up renting us an early-model Toyota that, though fully automatic, coughed and wheezed it's way uphill so badly we thought maybe there was something wrong with it's design. Turns out, nope, it was just a really crappy rental.

We stopped at a rest stop about 20 minutes out of the city to grab some peanut butter, bread, chips and coke...you know, road trip food. Our goal was to make it to Whangarei (which locals pronounce "FANG-ga-ray", though we have no idea why) before pitching the tent. On the way, we took a couple detours.

One such area was called Warkworth, a tiny little town that's known for it's giant kauri tree, one of the oldest in the country and comparable to the redwoods in California. Please believe us when we tell you, it really is a large tree:

That's a Dizzle at the bottom of that last picture.

A little while off the road from Warkworth (We don't know the actual distance in "A little while..." Judging by exactly how far off the road it FELT, let's just say it seemed like we exited the highway in 1957, and finally arrived tomorrow) we hunted down a little marine reserve called "Goat Island".

It seemed to be a popular little beach for families, and held spectacular views of the bay leading out into the Ocean. We saw a live crab and did a little wading, but it should be noted that Baby G got photographic proof of Dizzle setting foot for the first time in the Pacific Ocean:

Maybe worth going back sometime, but we had to book it to Whangarei before sundown, otherwise we're pitching a tent in the dark. Plus, the last campsite we'd stayed at closed it's office at 9:00, and we didn't have reservations for ANY of the next few nights, with the exception of the one on the boat.

We made it as far as we needed to, and Dizzle was getting a little tired from all the driving. Once there, however, the manager of the campsite copped a little attitude and tried to overcharge us what our flyer had said they charged. We ended up leaving. Baby G asked how much longer Dizzle could hold on behind the wheel, and they agreed to push on a little closer to where the cruise left the next day. Dizzle threw in a CD that was loud, grabbed a coffee, filled the tank, and floored it through Kawakawa, looking for a little tent symbol notifying us of a campsite where we could crash for the night.

There will be a digression here, because the cruise, The Rock, is going to be two posts by itself. There are so many pictures, we're posting this way. Kawakawa is really small, but it is also the resting place of Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Supposedly, the reason to visit Kawakawa (and perhaps STAY THE NIGHT THERE) are the public toilets he created before he died. Seriously.

So, we went, before the cruise, and spent our afternoon trying not to laugh and pee at the same time:

We're not making this up.

So that happened pre-cruise on Day 4, but we wanted to blog it now, because we passed through the town and, trust me, the boat ride is worth at LEAST two posts.

We managed to find a little campground right outside of Paihia that was only $13/person/night and set up our tent there. There was nothing interesting about this campground, except we were set up next to a campervan that housed two of the cutest/most obnoxious children we'd ever encountered. The novelty of a young person with a Kiwi accent fades quickly as he tries to attack your already crappy rental car with a tennis racket. Baby G had to be like, "PLEASE don't do that!" while the kid's parents just watched and laughed. It was pretty surreal. We were glad to leave the next day.

Coming Soon: You wanna ride The Rock? You wanna ride The Great One? You wanna ride THE MOST ELECTRIFYING BOAT IN THE BAY OF ISLANDS TODAY?

...to be continued...

A Week Away, Part II -- Rotorua

2007-01-30T21:49:00.000-05:00

Thanks for joining us for the second day of our adventure from last week. Scroll down or click the note below to catch up on what we did on Day 1.
Click here for what you may have missed!

...So, with Ricky's stuff stolen, we went to the front desk to complain. They were, thankfully, very sympathetic and offered him a bunch of clothes and a backpack from the lost-and-found. This, of course, did not take away from Ricky's disappointment, but was able to help him to relax enough to show us around Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate is an area of Rotorua that is so steaming hot with all the geothermal activity, that one day they decided to put up a fence and charge admission to see it! It is pretty much a walking tour of hot waterfalls, steam pools, mineral springs, mud pits and mini-volcanoes.

There's an interesting story about it's name regarding George Bernard Shaw. From the website: The reason why the geothermal reserve is known widely as Hell's Gate is because in the early 1900’s George Bernard Shaw, a famous playwright from England, visited the area for a week and on looking at the geothermal reserve decided that this must be the gateway to Hell, which his theologian colleagues talk about.
He was well known as an Atheist, however after being here a week it is understood that he changed his ways. Our people were so taken by the playwright that from that time on, they allowed the area to be known in English as Hell's Gate.

This is the largest hot water waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere. It is called Kakahi Falls. The sulphur in the water here is so good that it acted as a salve for the wounds and scratches of Maori warriors. The first Europeans also used it's waters to ease the discomfort of arthritis, rheumatism, skin diseases and muscle disorders.

Because it's done so much good, we got another picture of it, all three of us:

Also at Hell's Gate, there is the Devil's Cauldron; a bubbling mud pool that reaches upwards of 120-degrees C, has three types of mud, keeps making new patterns, and all sorts of other scientific stuff. Mainly, though, it just looks really cool:

This is Baby G showing the world how steamy it gets here at Hell's Gate, as well as doing her best impression of one of the Hags from the beginning of Macbeth. Toil and Trouble sold separately.

See? Steamy.

We call it, "Portrait of a Thirsty Dizzle". He was. When asked how it was, he replied, "Yum! Mineral-ly!"

There was a ton to do and see at Hell's Gate, but we were really hungry. And, it was raining. Plus, we'd promised all of YOU people we'd try something no one had ever heard of. So, without further ado...

There's no way to really describe it, you need a montage.

If you want info, go here.

Dizzle:

Baby G:

All we're going to say is that it is awesome, everyone should try it, and yes, it's what a hamster must feel like (except cooler). Really, REALLY fun. And remember, we'd hyped this up HARD. In the end, it was the most fun we'd had in NZ yet. We only needed to wait a few hours to top that, too (or at least come very close).

After becoming certified Zorbonauts (people who've made 3+ rolls downhill), we hopped back in The Glock and headed about 1/2 mile away to Skyline Skyrides, home of the gondola, luge, skyswing, and what must've been a really good restaurant, but we wouldn't know because we were too busy riding the gondola, luge and skyswing.

This is the gondola. We rode it up to the fun stuff, and then back down after the fun stuff.

Dizzle: Okay, I have to take a break from the plural-first-person thing to ask this: Does anyone remember Action Park in Vernon, NJ? Remember that death trap parents used to drop their kids off at for days at a time so the kids could come back with all kinds of injuries? Well, that place (and to anyone who remembers it, it was called The Alpine Slide) had a ride JUST LIKE these luges. The only difference? The reason WHY it's allowed here and not in the states? The ONE THING that makes it SO INFINITELY MUCH SAFER??

Friggin' helmets.

Bring Neosporin. (NOTE: No one got hurt. At least none of us. We can't promise anything about the people we pushed off the carts.) Back to the original narrative.

Wheee!

The next stop on this mountaintop theme park was called the SkySwing. Basically, three people at a time, they strap you into this spherical cage, and then suspend the cage on cables on either side between two poles that are REALLY high up. Then they wind you BACK to third pole and attach you BEHIND the cage, much like when someone is pushing you on a swingset and holds onto you before you swing back DOWN. Then they let one person in the cage pull a cord to detach the thing from the third pole so you all swing, face first, into the sky above the city. We thought for sure we'd die.

BG: Breaking from the tense, here. For those of you who aren't aware, I am terrified of heights. TERRIFIED. I'm talking about knee knocking, blood runs cold, bladder loses ability to control self, terrified. So this little skyswing endeavor was not something I entered into lightly. But I did it. And to my chagrin, out there somewhere, there is a videotape of the whole thing, capturing every little thing that was said and done while we slowly were lifted high into the air, before being released into what I believed was certain death. I saw the tape. And I never quite knew before how well I could swear like a sailor. Thank you, Toledo Lounge, for teaching me such a colorful vocabulary...What else can I say, except, I'd probably do it again. Back to the &^%$ing narrative.

These aren't of us, but here's an idea of the people who went just after we did.

The adrenaline-fused parts of the day end here, but by no means did the fun. After Skyline Skyrides, we were understandably tired, and so we went to a supermarket and grabbed a little lamb, pasta, veggies and tomato sauce and had a great dinner outside back at the campsite. We had a 4:30am wakeup the next day to ensure a prompt return of The Glock in Auckland, and needed to make sure we made it.

In an effort to not leave the cliffhanger TOO high, we returned it in time. :)

...to be continued...

A Week Away, Part I

2007-01-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

Hi Everybody, thanks for being patient while we were away for a week. There is so much to share, and we want to do a really good job, so this is the first of what will be several posts regarding our weeklong trip exploring the North Island of New Zealand. We will try to be as detailed as we can, but we got somewhere around 300 pictures, so some will just have to wait.

We started out last Tuesday morning, renting a car from the local Budget RentaCar from Wellington. We had run into a friend of ours, Ricky, at the first hostel we'd stayed at, who needed a ride up to Auckland in exchange for some tickets to Zorb and SkySwing he'd gotten but was unable to use. We jumped on this, as those were the two things we'd for sure wanted to do in Rotorua. Ricky is this wicked-cool guy from Rochester, NY who went to school in VT and is travelling while figuring out what do do with his life. He is a real sweetheart and was happy to blast "The Superbowl Shuffle" on the ride up with us, as he is a Bills fan, and was therefore also very happy the New England Patriots lost the day before. :)

We were given what is called a "ReLocation Rental". There are so many tourists that fly into Auckland and drive down to Wellington, that they're willing to give you a cheap car in exchange for driving it back up north for them. So we got a $20/day rental with the stipulation that we return it within 48 hours and we don't exceed 800km. That's why we were able to stop in Rotorua.

So the car they gave us was a brand-new Mitsubishi SUV. Dizzle joked with the woman at the counter that he wondered if she'd upgraded us to an SUV because we're American. She didn't get it. We'd asked for an automatic and were treated to a surprise when we started driving. Though there was no clutch PEDAL, and we didn't have to shift from first gear in the upper-left to fifth in the upper-right formation, we DID still manually have to shift. It was very strange and we'd never seen another car quite like it. When the RPMs were getting too noisy, we just pushed the stick up once and it would shift up once. Same to downshift. Ricky then said our car was a "Semi-Automatic", and so we knicknamed it "The Glock".

Baby G made sandwiches for the three of us, and we ate them on the desert road that the NZ Army trains on. It was very long, and very flat, and Baby G can tell you there's fabulous scenery there, but Dizzle couldn't because he was still getting used to driving on the left and therefore wasn't taking his eyes off the road too much.

We passed this on the way:

This is an actual CB3 that at one point flew real missions, and now is the "CookieTime Plane". Sort of puts U.S. tourism to shame, doesn't it?

One of the mountains we passed on the road north was this one:
This is Mount Tongariro, which we are sure is very cold and wet at the top.

After driving past Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand, we made it far enough north to set up camp.

Lake Taupo

Our Campsite.

We set up shop well before dark, and knowing we had only one full day to explore Rotorua (Wednesday), we decided to take it easy and explore a little of downtown before getting some R&R for the next day.

This is Lake Rotorua. This is an area of the country that has such a high level of geothermal activity (volcanoes, geysers, etc.), that the water is always warm and the whole town smells like sulfur!

This is the inside of a McDonald's in Rotorua. We didn't eat here, we just thought it was artsy and decided to snap a shot of it.

From Left: Ricky, Dizzle, & Baby G at the Pig & Whistle, where Dizzle had a "Big Kahuna Burger". And it IS a tasty burger!

That night, before bed, we all got into our swimsuits (which Kiwi's call "Togs" and think "Swimsuit", "Swimmingsuit", "Trucks", "Swimshorts", and "Bathingsuit" are all weird words) and eased our way into a thermal pool that the campground had onsite. It was basically a hot tub without jets that was the size of a pool. It was very nice and relaxing and made us all smell like sulfur! We mean moreso than we normally do!

At 1:30am, we were awoken. Ricky was standing outside our tent asking if we were messing with him. "Huh?" we replied, and Diz went out to see what was up. Someone had taken Ricky's bag from his tent, complete with $200, his passport, and souvenirs. You'd think this would've put a damper on his trip, and by his admission, it should've, but it didn't.

The next day, we did something we promised all of you back home we'd do: We. Went. ZORBING.

...to be continued...

JUST GOT PERMISSION!

2007-01-22T00:34:00.000-05:00

Scroll down for the big post about our weekend and upcoming plans. We just wanted to give you the picture of Scott we promised.

I'll republish the comments when I get a chance. In the meanwhile, we miss you, Buddy!

Really fun weekend (and more to come)!

2007-01-21T23:00:00.000-05:00

Hi, Everyone! Dizzle here. Baby G is downstairs packing. I suppose I should say "REpacking", as we just got back from a weekend trip to the country and are heading out tomorrow morning to go even FURTHER up north. She has, in her infinite wisdom, allowed me to blog about our weekend, so I'll try not to mess it up too much.

We started out Saturday morning eating at a Chinese restaurant with our flatmates Leigh and Jason, who then introduced us to Andrew, his girlfriend Mandy (Yup, 'Andy & Mandy'. It's been thought of), and her friend B. It was at Andrew's cottage that we were staying at for the weekend, so everyone thought it'd be appropriate to meet them and feel more comfortable.

We don't have any pictures of this experience called "Yum Chow", but suffice it to say, if we can ever find it in the States, we're doing it. It's traditionally Saturday or Sunday brunch time, and it basically consists of this: You sit, and they bring food. You take what you want (usually enough for 3-4 people), and they mark down on your ticket what you got. You're welcome to refuse food at any time, which is good, because it KEEPS COMING. Seriously, they don't stop. They'll drop desserts on you in the middle of the meal simply because that particular food runner had that particular tray at that particular time passing YOUR particular table! Standard Chinese-American fare for about 70% -- egg rolls, sticky rice, fried/steamed wontons, greens w/ soy, tofu, fried chicken, egg drop soup, etc. The other 30% were things we didn't recognize. BG and I thought we might be a little out of place at this, but thankfully no one else at the table recognized them either (chicken feet?? maybe??) and so we were relieved when Mandy took it upon herself to say, "No, thanks, we're good" when anything suspect tried to find it's way to our table.

Following brunch, we went to a Sam's Club-type place and bought stuff for BBQ and to stock the fridge for the weekend. Then we split ways (B wasn't coming, and A&M were going in a separate car). Leigh and Jason and BG and I loaded up our rental car and hit the road -- UP. Turns out, there's only two roads out of Wellington because it's barricaded by mountains and shorline on all sides. So we took this tiny little two-lane "Motorway" (They swear to me it's a main road in the country) and wound up this steep hill like they do in the commercials when they're test driving a new Lexus or something. There were several occasions when I thought we would die if it weren't for Jason's skills behind the wheel. I'm sure that's an overreaction and this path was fairly routine, but it was still new to us. Awe inspriring views if you're gutsy enough to open your eyes and look down.

We made it to the cottage in Martinborough and ate steak, salad, fruit, sausages and bread while everyone drank wine from the local vineyards and had beer or soda to wash it down. BG and I were offered a mattress in the living room, but we opted to break in our tent instead, as neither one of us has a lot of experience with it and as long as we're here, we might as well GET good at it. After setting up for the night (A&M were nice enough to give us an air mattress and plenty of pillows and blankets), we played board games and laughed until the wee hours.

The next day, we woke up early, because, let's face it, we're not used to sleeping in a tent, and had coffee on the back deck while we waited for people to get up and start the day. I even got to brush up on a little guitar because Leigh let us bring hers. At around 2:00, a bunch of us went out to what's called "TK Day", a music and wine festival brought to you by Te Kairanga Vineyards. It's actually held ON the vineyard! It was very sunny, and is primarily an excuse for Kiwis to spend the day getting absolutely PLASTERED, but we left early enough to escape before anyone realized we were American and, in a drunken fit, assume we voted for President Bush. They don't care much about politics, here, but Man do they ever hate THAT guy. I suppose there are plenty of people in the States that describes, too, so political conversations are a little slice of home. :)

Speaking of slices of home, it should be noted that there was ONE band on the roster. The whole festival composed of one band who played on a stage that folded out of the back trailer of a semi. Now, I've been to a lot of rock concerts, and there is only one band *I've* ever seen who could play for a solid 6 hours in the sun, so God bless them for doing it. It should also be noted, however, that by the end, they (the band) were either tired enough, drunk enough, or BOTH enough to bust out John Denver. Folks, this band was like a really high priced wedding band in that they could play a lot of crowd-pleasers and had the chops musically to undoubtedly have impressive sounding originals. But I think we can all agree that when the host plays John Denver, it's time for the guests to leave the party. They also played "Hotel California", "Sweet Home Alabama", and a little Fleetwood Mac. Oh! And "Brown-Eyed Girl". Quick side note to Jocelyn, the bassist screwed it all up and stayed with like 3 notes the whole song. Tell your uncle he's still the man.

Towards the end of all of this, we found out that there had been a Mack truck that had jack-knifed on the SAME ROAD WE CAME IN ON. We haven't heard for sure, but the rumor is two people got crushed in the accident. Needless to say, that road was closed until midnight and no one could get back to Wellington. I'm sure the band was happy, too. I talked to Jason about it, and he said it would take FIVE HOURS to go an alternate route, so it was unsurprising that the pubs and the fish-n-chips shop in this tiny little town were PACKED to the brim with drunk, tan revelers stuck in this little suburb. There was a 30 min. wait for fish-n-chips, so we went home.

There, BG and I took over dinner. With a little advice and help from Leigh (she's a chef!), we made American hotdogs and ketchup, leftover coleslaw, fruit salad, grilled steak-n-cheese sandwiches, fries, and cheese-filled grilled portobello mushrooms (inspired by Baby G's Dad, The Chemical Bridge - thanks for the recipe, they were a hit!). It was all very tasty and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Andrew, Jason, BG & I hung out in the hottub after dinner and talked about music and movies for awhile. Andrew is a wicked nice guy that will hopefully come visit the States at some point. We don't have a picture of he and Mandy yet, but he was an impeccable host and was even nice enough to set us up with jobs working in a brew tent on the south island for ANOTHER music festival (this time, the Blues) in two weeks. His flatmate Barnsey owns a brewery and is hooking it up. Following this, we went to bed.

This morning we took our time winding back into town, and got to stop at a little place called Schoc, which sells homemade chocolate. We bought a seasalt/chocolate bar and are looking forward to eating it over the course of the next...month. It's great, but one bite at a time is all you need.

That's pretty much it. We've spent the day packing for our NEXT trip and catching up on internet stuff. Tomorrow morning we're renting a car and going to Rotorua, where we will go Zorbing and ride on a 2km scenic luge ride. Hopefully we'll see some natural steam springs, volcanoes, and geysers before we head up to Auckland and return the car. We'll spend the day there and then grab ANOTHER car or cheapy bus up to the beaches up north. Hostel-hopping for four days or so, we are aiming to get back home early next week.

Until then, enjoy these pictures. We both hope you're all well, and we're looking forward to getting all of your emails when we get home, telling us what you've been up to. In the meanwhile, much love.

This is the view from the road on the way up. Killer vista, and you can make out the road twisting and turning along the mountain there on the left, going into the center.

We took a walk the first night we got there, and this is from one of the vineyards.

We set up camp behind the house in the rose garden. It was beautiful, but the first night was a little too windy to make for a quiet tent. Night 2 was much more calm and restful.

This is Andrew and Barnsey's cottage. Cute, no?

Ahhhh, the band. Can I just say, I've seen more whiteboy dreadlocks here in New Zealand than I EVER have before? Still, they had a clean sound and crisp levels, and were clearly talented. They covered Radiohead, too, so credit where it's due.

This is a recreation of StoneHenge that they set up here in Martinborough for astrology. It was closed when we got there, so this is the picture we could get. Sorry.

There was not a cloud in the sky coming back home today, EXCEPT over the mountains, as you can see. THAT'S where we were headed. The mountains lock in moisture and make it frequently rainy or windy in Wellington. Turns out this all blew over by the time we got back this afternoon, though, and it was still a really nice day by the time we rode in.

....Got home to some good news, today, too! Not only did the New England Pats LOSE, but the CHICAGO BEARS WON! I'm sorry I won't be able to watch the big game in two weeks with any of you, but I hope you all enjoy it. I'll be watching it on a Monday afternoon in some pub here, I'm sure, and rooting for my team from afar. Anyone who wants a copy of the old "Superbowl Shuffle", email me. I'll attach it back to you in MP3 form. GO BEARS!

See you in a week,

Dizz

Steve

2007-01-18T21:06:00.000-05:00

TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY! This is me (on the left, I'm Dizzle) and our new friend Steve. Steve is one of the first people we met in Wellington. He is a wanderer who has been EVERYWHERE and was quite at home just helping us to feel comfortable in our new environment. There's a chance he's opening a hostel of his own up north, and if he does, we'll be sure to visit. Nice dude.

Here we go again...

2007-01-18T19:54:00.000-05:00

Hi, Everybody! Before we begin to describe what was YESTERDAY'S adventure, some housekeeping. 1. For about 6 hours there, we had a picture posted of our friend Scott from Washington, DC. He had, on New Years Eve, decided to shave his head, and there was a picture of him almost bald except for one little tuft in the front. It was adorable and some of you even got to comment on it. Alas, we had to take it down, as the person who PROVIDED us the picture didn't have Scott's permission to POST it online, and so until we get said permission, it is stuck on our hard drive, waiting to be let out to run rampant all over cyberspace. If that happens, I'll be sure to cut-and-paste the comments back, so nothing will be missed.

2. Anyone who has a blog on "Blogger" or "Blogspot.com" (same thing): What the hell, Dude? They've been hounding us for weeks to 'change over' to this new format that claims to be way better and more convenient than the old one. Finally, last week, we changed over, and it is much less convenient now. This very post, the one that you're about to read about our lunchtime beachside adventure was posted yestedray, in great detail, only to be lost when we tried to format our pictures correctly. This is NOT COOL, Google-based-blogger, and you'll be getting an angry letter from us very soon. Grrrr....

Okay, with that out of the way, we're going to do our best to recreate the unbelievably witty post we had yesterday. Our roommates, Leigh and Jason, were nice enough to loan us the cute little Nissan Figaro we've posted a picture of before. So we started out going south to get to the coast (little map of Wellington here. The peninsula we travelled is the little hammer-looking one that Cobham Drive runs along). We got to the coast in about 5 minutes. That's the funny thing about Wellington, I don't think we've gone a day without seeing the sea since we got here, and yet in 10 minutes on FOOT, you could be in the bush. Pretty unique.

Anyway, we kept the Pacific to our right and drove past Lyall Bay and Moa Point. Then the road curved us east and north until we got to Breaker Bay, and then past some really nice houses in a suburb called Seatoun. Twisting and turning our way (with Baby G taking pictures out of the roof of a moving car the whole time!) north even more, we decided to stop for lunch at a little cafe called the Chocolate Fish, where, if you're lucky enough to get a table on the beach, the servers have to run ACROSS THE STREET to get your food to you, as the actual cafe itself is on the other side of the road. We each got lunch and a couple smoothies, and then continued up and around, past Scotching Bay and Kau, finally to head South all the way along Shelly Bay Rd. until we got back home. The whole trip took us a little over two hours, and it was really relaxing and nice.

Also, it was good to get some practice driving on the left, as we are taking a trip next week up north past Auckland to the beaches up there, and to do so we are renting a car for the way up. We'll post more about that on Monday, as it'll be the day AFTER the music festival Leigh and Jason are taking us to and the day BEFORE we leave for the Northland. Details to follow, in the meantime, enjoy these pictures! They are slightly out of order, as "New" Blogger doesn't do things nearly as well as "Old" Blogger did, but you already heard about it.

Dizzle's chair at the Chocolate Fish. Painted to look like "Where the Wild Things Are". There was another one at the table next to us painted from the "Mr. Happy" books. They all had little poems or quotes on the backs as well.

This is the sidewalk sign at the Fish. One day, we're going to call and ask when they close, just for the laugh we'll get from whatever they say.

Our view from the table at lunch, looking back to the restaurant. Note the food runners in the back left...they wear orange vests that glow in headlights so they don't get, you know, run over and stuff on the way to a table.

This was taken at the beginning of the afternoon -- Lyall Bay into the Pacific. You have no idea how many views there are that are this beautiful all over the place. We are truly lucky to have seen such sights all afternoon.

Rev J. has a thing for lighthouses, and so Dizzle asked BG to snap a quick shot of this one. It's in the center of the frame, and is very tiny, bu this was the best zoom we could get. Also, towards the beginning, we think this is on the south end of the peninsula.

The food at the Chocolate Fish looked so good, we had to take a picture before we dug in. BG: Mixed fruit smoothie and a dish called the "Big Daddy", which was scrambled eggs and cheese and bacon, in a giant bowl with toast. DZ: Tropical fruit smoothie with a panini sandwich of bacon, cheese, tomato and hash browns with hollandaise, sweet chili sauce and sour cream. Yum!

This was our view looking out over Karaka Bay AT lunch. Seriously, while we ate, this is what we got to look at. The barge-ish boat in the center is called the InterIslander, and it is what travels back and forth to the South Island with people, cars, and cargo. We'll take that puppy sometime in the autumn (March-ish) and post pictures from inside. In the meantime, trust us when we tell you that the vessel is HUGE!

More coast, taken from towards the end of the afternoon. This is of downtown Wellington from across Evan's Bay, so we were already headed back south at this point.

Finally, a picture of the road. It was narrow. :)

Missing you all a ton. We can't remember if we ever mentioned the whole in the OZone here, but there is one, and so we're both sunburned and applying SPF 30+ daily. How's YOUR January?

Love,

BG&D

More Mountainous Pics

2007-01-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

This one was taken right near the top of the peak, when we were inside the clouds

More climbing info/stats

2007-01-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

Hey All,

Rev. J wanted to know how far the walk actually was (in non-metric units!), so we figured it out for you to see (Thanks, Jason!):

11-12 km as the crow flies = 8-ish miles

706 meters UP = 2300-ish feet

Check it out:

Lots of love!

~BG&D

Aches, Pains, and the Top of Another Mountain

2007-01-13T23:45:00.000-05:00

Hey all! Baby G blogging to you again, after a 6 hour tramp in the Orongaronga Mountains. We managed to pull ourselves bright and early this morning, and drive about an hour to what became our "base camp." The whole way, we were all using the power of positive thinking to keep away the rain clouds that lingered overnight, and were threatening us from a far. (We were mostly lucky.) We then began our very, very, very, very STEEP climbing expedition. Jason informed us that on some of the more popular walks, the Department of Conservation (DOC) will move away a lot of the brush, and basically make the pathways more navigable. -Not this walk. We were sweating getting up this mother! There was a group of seven of us in all, and a very nice group of people. -All of them were more experienced than Dizzle or I in the great outdoors. As a result, he and I warded off any potential attacks to the rear of the group from wild pigs, by staying close to the back of the pack. ;)

After a brief lunch at the top, amidst the clouds (yes, we were that high up, that we were walking through a cloud!) we started the long descent down. Which provided a whole new set of challenges. -Especially when navigating very deep mud, slick tree roots, and our own general clumsiness. We were tired, sweaty, muddy, exhausted, and very proud of ourselves for having succesfully accomplished our first official New Zealand tramp! So many of you were in our thoughts today, and would've loved it. The scenery in this country is so incredibly beautiful, it takes my breath away. -Or the altitude does it. hmpf.

Now we're going to order some fast food, and hope that tomorrow our bodies won't be too sore.

Adventures in both commuting and communicating

2007-01-12T04:59:00.000-05:00

Everybody,

Jason was still wryly amused that we hadn't taken the ORIGINAL picture of them down, since it was published in cyberspace for the whole world to see. We told him, "Jay, Dude, we don't know that many people...and NO ONE reads this thing!" but he didn't believe us. So, I just changed it. Scroll down or look for the post entitled "New Flatmates" to see the changes. I like it. Happy now? :)

Also, because we needed something accurate of him, here's the picture taken just this evening at this wicked fun jazz concert we four went to (..."to which the four of us went"):

Something else exciting happened today... Ready? DIZZLE DROVE ON THE LEFT! For those of you who HAVE been out of the country but have NOT ever been behind the wheel there, please take it from him: Totally weird. Don't ever let anyone tell you it's exactly the same, because it's really really not. The pedals are all the same (gas on the right) but everything else is flipped around all topsy turvy. That said, you get used to it, and it's pretty fun. Of course, if we'd been in a BUS, it might not have been. We were in a 1991 Nissan Figaro that looks like this:

...So it was pretty badass.

There's more pics to post and more details coming, but for now it's late and we're both looking forward to crawling into bed and getting a very deep night's sleep. We're taking a 6-hour hike on Sunday that we'll be posting about soon as well, so keep an eye out.

You're all missed. Last call for alcohol,

BG&D

Real quick update

2007-01-11T05:04:00.000-05:00

Hey, it's Dizzle. We had a great day and took a lot of pictures, and maybe will post more even tonight, but I wanted to hurry and post this picture of our new phlatmates as they were both making fun of the last one and said they weren't happy with how it turned out. I totally understand this as they didn't technically know I was taking a photo of them at the time. So, tonight, I stood up, pointed the camera at them and counted to three.

Without further ado, here is the "Phlatmate Approved Portrait of Them" (Jason's eyes actually glow red. Don't screw with him. He's hardcore.):

More later. Peace. ~DZL

One more

2007-01-09T20:45:00.000-05:00

This is our living room. Blam!

Our New Flatmates!

2007-01-09T20:30:00.000-05:00

REDONE ** REDONE ** REDONE ** REDONE

Original post in reference to original picture:

((This is such a bad picture of Leigh and Jason, I had to post it. We'll be sure to take better ones. In the meantime, anyone who knows me (Dizzle) well, will know that, in my head, they're our "Phlatmates". You know why. ;) ))

Lots of new stuff!

2007-01-09T20:18:00.000-05:00

Things are happening rapidly for us now. Scroll down for previous updates. In the meanwhile, here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

This is Wolfgang, our flatmates cat. He is 14 and purrs easily. Also, he is on my lap right now.

This is our new bedroom. It's the best angle I could get, so you can't see the chez lounge off to the right, nor our own private bathroom with a shower that has GREAT pressure. We are borrowing the bed from Leigh and Jason, who were even kind enough to help us set it up.

The back deck and garden. A bit rainy today, but the window to the right leads to Jason's office, and the windows on the left are what the kitchen sink overlooks. Nice view when doing dishes, and so I personally don't mind doing them here. Baby G never minded doing them, but I think likes the view as well.

This is the view from the living room, which is essentially the same view from our bedroom right below that. Again, rainy when this was taken, but even then you get an idea of what we get to wake up to every morning. Not too shabby.

We're in the flat!

2007-01-09T04:43:00.000-05:00

Listen, we're going to post more tomorrow (Wednesday), but I (Dizz) just wanted you all to know we are afely moved into our new flat (apartment). Bounder, it turns out, is very cool:

In addition, they have a cat named Wolfgang. We have a pic of him as well, but it's of his rear, and we will get a better one soon. I just wanted to let you know we are fine, safe, and happy. We spent the whole evening with our new flatmates Leigh and Jason (who is also a "J.D.", by the way!) and had a great meal and a really chill day. I'll leave you for the day with a picture of the outside of our new home (The lowest window on the left is our bedroom...wait'll you see the view!):

For Paul, Skippy, Chris Agne, and Dad

2007-01-05T22:12:00.000-05:00

This is what we saw on part of the walk we took today.

And this is the path to Buckleberry Ferry in the first movie.
Dad, Paul: Pretty cool, huh?
Skippy, Chris: Quit judging. This is badass and you know it. :P

We think we may have found a house in one of the outer suburbs of Wellington. It's a 5 bedroom but the couple who owns it is only renting out one room, so it looks like it's ours. It's NZ$700 a month which is about $480US. BG just walked into the room as I type this waving her keycard in the air and smiling. Looks like we got a flat, kids. That means a mailing address and telephone number are soon to follow.

We chose it even though they have a dog (who is very shy. He's named "Bounder") because Jason, the husband, is outdoorsy and techie, and Leigh, the wife, is not only a chef but is a small-time guitar player. Everything's coming up BG&D today.

The walk back to the hostel was our first foray into the 'tramping' experience...it was about an hour long and took us through a forest and over Mt. Victoria. It;s there that they filmed that scene from Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. So we got a lot of blood flowing to our limbs and got to be outdoors on a beautiful day.

Posting will be easier soon as Jay and Leigh have wireless at the house. We move in Monday at 11:00am, which is this Sunday evening at around 5:00 for all of you.

Thanks for the prayers and well wishes. We'll look forward to chatting you up soon.

Love,
BG&D

Pictorial II - Scroll down for Pictorial I

2007-01-04T23:54:00.000-05:00

Blogspot only let me do 5 last time, so this is the conclusion to the last post.

BG got the beer. GRRROAR! TIGER BEER! I ordered "Iced Coffee". That's ice cream you see there, not ice. Awesome.

Me (Dizzle) Chillin' at the harbo(u)r.

These little poems are all over the coastline in Wellington. We liked this one so much, we took a picture! :)

Pictorial

2007-01-04T23:38:00.000-05:00

This is a street performer named Slim Pickins who looks like a monk on crack. He actually said, "Gentlemen with hands in your pockets, don't clap like that or you'll crush your testicles. Take them out before clapping. Your hands, that is." Gotta love that.

Baby G on her first rope bridge. It's at a museum, but still...

This is the view from our hotel room the first three nights. Room was small, view was bitchin'.

Room was small...

Really, really small. :)

Day 3

2007-01-04T16:46:00.000-05:00

What's up everyone. Baby G and Diz again, and we are happy to report that we're still alive. We are out of our teeny hotel and into a hostel that seems pretty great. Apartment hunting for a more permanent place to hang our hats is taking up a lot of our time, but we're still getting a lot of chances to see the sights of the capital city, Wellington.

Yesterday, we saw a very "punny" street performer named "Slim Pickins" who swallowed a sword before our very eyes! We'll post pics as soon as we're on our own computer (and hopefully not paying alot for access!) -And then we went grocery shopping. -Some things don't change no matter where you are. The grocery store was just like the ones back in the US, but some of the brand names were different. Also, the chocolate here is like that in England - SWEET. It's all made by cadbury, and so two days ago we bought a KitKat bar with cookiedough to split...

We're still working on it.

Anyway, that's the news for now. We love you and miss you and hope you're well. Feel free to drop a line in the 'comments' section whenever you want. We'll receive it and try to reply when we've got a place to crash. In the meantime, Peace.

So it's really happened

2007-01-02T17:56:00.000-05:00

As was promised, it's baby G here, contributing to the blog FINALLY. And we made it. The trip over was a beast, but we didn't kill each other (yet) after flying for far too many hours in coach. The food on Air Pacific is not great(and strangly enough, we both really like airplane food - don't judge -) and our patience and tempers dwindled and flared. But the point of this is that we are finally in Wellington - a (from what we can tell so far) larger, funkier, less crowded and MUCH less annoying Adams Morgan. We are liking what we see.

The people here have been kind and helpful to us, but it's only because they haven't gotten to know us yet, and we know that soon we'll be tossed out of pubs and museums for being far too American. That said, we'll yuck it up until that point.

Our hotel for the next couple days is about the size of our closet in DC. -Those Kiwis are so petite! And that water pressure in the shower is... well, it's hot. But we had a lovely carpet picnic of Turkish pizza (pide) last night, from "Abra-Kebab-Ra," and wait for it, watched Lord of the Rings on TV. -We must of found the 24 hour LOTR channel.

So now we're off to grab some lunch, check out the city museum, and look into some more long term housing options. We miss and love you.
xox
baby g and diz

As Promised: In-n-Out Burgers!

2006-12-30T19:42:00.000-05:00

We made it!

That's right, folks, we did it! I (Dizzle) have been talking about little else regarding Los Angeles than having a burger from the famous In-n-Out burger chain located here on the west coast.

The closest one to our hotel was 1.68 miles according to the map on the website. So, this afternoon, we hoofed it over there. It was 70 degrees and sunny here today, so it was a perfect day for a walk.

After grabbing the food (reasonably priced, by the way), we walked back and had a carpet-picnic on the hotel room floor.

And how did it taste? The verdict is in.

Baby G: Fries, D. Not so much cuz everything's trying to be all healthier out here, and they didn't contain the trans-fats I require.
Burger, A. Delicioso!

Dizzle: Fries, B-. Agreed. 100% colesterol free is a good thing, but I would've almost rather had Fritos.
Burger, A. Easy. This is one of the best fast-food burgers I've ever had, and that's saying a lot. As enjoyable to eat as a White Castle Slyder (for very different reasons), and as filling as a Big Mac. It blows Sonic, Checkers, Wendy's and BK out of the water.

There you have it, kids! If you get a chance to come out here, it is recommended by two people you can trust.

Next episode: How are the burgers in New Zealand? We'll try to let you know within the week. Until then, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ciao.

Sunny California

2006-12-30T13:43:00.000-05:00

We're in LA. It's sunny and the air is yellow. We are trying to keep track of all the implants that we see. The plan today is to walk 1.5 miles to an In-N-Out Burger, come back and eat it by the pool, get some sun (through the hazy smog) and then organize ourselves for a long day in the airport tomorrow. We'll take pictures, and you should all know we're thinking of you.

Have a happy, safe, and healthy New Year!

Love to you (and to whomever this gets forwarded),
Baby G & Dizzle

12/2006 pics

2006-12-27T16:32:00.000-05:00

Jocelyn, one third of the Ridgewood Power Trio (with Baby G and Jamie). Caption: "Having my picture taken is excellent!"

Jamie & Tony (Sorry they're not in the same pic. We swear they're engaged!)

Dizzle's Sister Ya and her hubby Murph

BG&D w/ Paul & Sue ... in a New Jersey diner! Our waitress took the picture, which was amazing since we are pretty sure she'd never seen a camera before.

Jasper & Nezzie

Happy Holidays (and all that)!

2006-12-27T16:07:00.000-05:00

Well, BG and I have finished up celebrating Christmas with each family. We've had a lovely couple weeks and are leaving for LA in well under 48 hours. We'll be able to post from there, but after that your guess is as good as ours as to when there might be another post. We'll certainly try our best.

In the meantime, please enjoy this anecdonte.
Our time in NY/NJ has been split primarily between Warwick, NY, Ridgewood, NJ, and Manhattan. We've been taking busses, borrowing cars, riding along with people and walking a ton. Last week, Baby G's dad Chemical Bridge came up to us with a fun 'send-off' gift. He had scored a couple seats to the James Brown concert in northern Jersey and wanted to know if we felt like tagging along. We said, "Hell, yes," or something to that effect and he managed to grab us two tickets right behind where he and Lady T would be sitting.

Fast forward to Christmas Night. I'm sitting in Chemical Bridge's office with D, Baby G's sister, watching an episode of "Lost", when I hear BG calling me from the kitchen. "Diz? You better c'mere..." Don't pretend you don't know the end of this story. The bad news is James Brown died. The good news is that now Chemical has four tickets to his concert that if he frames, keeps in mint condition, and forgets about, will be worth a ton of money in about 25-30 years. So, you know, RIP, but at least there's that.

Thanks for such a wonderful send off and close to '06. We've had a really nice time and are looking forward to trading stories about the next 6 months. To those whom we haven't seen in the last 2 weeks: You're not far from our thoughts. We miss you already, and please pour some out to our homies in DC next time you have any of that 40oz. to spare.

Peace out, Happy New Year, and we'll see you in LA.

~DZ

Going Away Gift

2006-12-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

Thanks Patrick and Erika for the beautiful little video you made for us! It's on YouTube now -- to view it, just click on the link!

Phase V - Bye, DC... Hello, NY!

2006-12-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

"Bye, Apartment!" This picture means, of course, you will never see another picture of our apartment ever again. For those of you who've been complaining that all there is to this blog is pictures of our apartment, I've done this for you. For everyone else who didn't think there was a problem, here's a cute picture of BG saying "Peace!"

Rev. J planned a surprise meeting yesterday morning of everyone in BOTH families getting together for a meal. It was not as scary as you might think, and everyone had a lovely time. Especially Molly, it seems. Her top priority was offering and then grabbing back an old tube of Blistex from The Chemical Bridge (Baby G's Dad. These nicknames were all explained in a previous post. You'll have to go back to read what the hell I'm talking about). It was pretty funny. Here's a picture of everyone in the same room as proof that this happened.

1 week till Christmas, 11 days till LA, 13 days till we're in a land where the quickest, cheapest way to see us will be to dig real deep and not stop. :)

Phase IV Complete

2006-12-11T14:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Kev-Bo and I (DZ) got back from NY/NJ with the last of the bulk of our stuff. Here is a picture of the same stupid wall of our apartment I've posted before:

It's almost over, now...the whole "Moving process". Over the next couple weeks, we'll update where we can from further north on I-95 than where we are now, but it won't be as frequent.

The excitement level builds as I write. We hope you all are well.

~DZ

Impromptu employment!

2006-12-07T22:51:00.000-05:00

Hey, Dizzle here.

So our friend Derf called me up this afternoon to ask me if I felt like working one night for his job. He works for Dean & Deluca, which, if you don't know what that is, think white people with fat wallets, bad haircuts and NO sense of humor. BG and I had been worrying a little about money right now, as we don't have as much as we thought we would before we left. The freakout ends when we remind ourselves (or each other) that it'll be okay and we have each other's back, but still...we've gotten comfortable here in DC, and so any change is stressful change. But I digress.

At this gig, there were a lot of power-suit type people and a coat check and high-end food and wine. It seemed like a nice Fortune 500 holiday party, which I had no problem with. It was only from 3-10, and the money Derf promised me was right, so no worries. But there was an additional perk. Someone left his name tag on one of the tables I had to bus at the end of the night. For those of you with a sense of humor beyond the 6th grade, stop reading. Just check this blog later for when Baby G writes something much more mature and sage. For everyone ELSE, on the other hand, check THIS out:

I'm DYIN', here!

Also

2006-12-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

And...

This is gut-wrenchingly funny:

Worlds are colliding, Jerry.

2006-12-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

DIZZLE:

So. I've got two things for you today. One is a current pic of our apartment. Kevin and I are removing most of these boxes tomorrow morning.

In addition, I've included a screen shot that I find interesting. This is an email chain from yesterday that included Kevin, my best friend growing up; Dan, my best friend from High School; and myself (never really my best friend). We talked about music and video games mostly. I just find it strange (and more than a little heartwarming) that just before Baby G and I embark on this adventure, an episode of "This is Your Life" is unfolding on my GMail before my very eyes:

There'll be another picture this week. Thinking of you all.

POST Post Script (This isn't what this blog is about!)

2006-12-05T11:44:00.000-05:00

In regards to the last post:

I've now tried to go there twice, and niether time were they open (though both times were within the hours posted online. I even called ahead for one trip!).

I just got done writing them a scathing letter, which Baby G won't let me cut-and-paste here because it makes me "That Guy", and this blog is about New Zealand, not delicious hand-dipped donuts. However, you should all know, if you're in the DC area, that this place SOUNDS worth trying, but won't be open when you get there. Word of Warning from a Dizz.

Peas.
JDZ

(i am the only guy i know getting this pissed off about donuts - don't judge)

Post Script

2006-12-02T10:45:00.000-05:00

Oh, Man.

I'll let you know.
~DZ

Why Baby G doesn't post.

2006-12-02T09:57:00.000-05:00

I know you all have been asking, "I love this blog! It is my homepage and my wallpaper and my screensaver and in my favorites list on my Blackberry, but how come I never hear from Baby G?"

The answer is simple: She doesn't like you. She posts all the time, but has the settings as such that YOU cannot read them, thereby allowing passive-aggresive trash-talking that you can't access but that everyone else talks about behind your back. Happy now?

In all seriousness (because THAT ever happens), Baby G is working really hard for the last couple weeks in DC. Once we get over the ocean, she'll start blogging like a madwoman and posting pictures and all sorts of things - I promise.

In the meantime, please accept my apologies that, for now, you seem to be stuck with the rambling prose of a Dizzle - which is his first foray into any kind of creative writing since community college, where he once wrote a story about his friend falling into a bonfire by accident. They're making it into a movie. It's going to be called, "El Fuego de Dizzle". Start keeping an eye on your favorite Central American DVD shelf, as it will be coming soon.

Peace.

Not Economically Viable

2006-11-26T02:36:00.000-05:00

At the time of this writing (11/26/06 2:30am), I, Dizzle, am unemployed. I did not get fired, I knew this was coming.

I had a lovely night at work, because not only was it dead (steady enough to make a little money, but nothing major), but Kevin and Keith came and kept me company the WHOLE SHIFT. It was really great. They're a pair of brothers whose mom is very close with (and has been for years) my mother. So it was nice to briefly reconnect in Washington before we leave for NZ and Keith heads out for France.

We're going to miss so many people.

G'Night.

Keith & Kevin

(Upside-down exclamation point)Hola!

2006-11-24T14:50:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I've decided only to post a picture of our Thanksgiving breakfast. Don't get me wrong, we had a TON a food (and a ton of leftovers!), but as far as what we actually PLANNED OUT and thought of, check this out:

THANKSGIVING BREAKFAST IN WASHINGTON, DC FOR BABY G & DIZZLE:
~Bagels; Everything bagels from Bergen County, NJ (Rte. 17)
~OJ; Pulp-Free. Tropicana.
~Coffee; French Vanilla from Dunkin' Donuts. Anyone who knows good coffee always digs Dunkin' Donuts java. It really is surprisingly great.
~Cream Cheese; Veggie. From Einstein Bagels in Georgetown.

Right? :)

For those who don't know...

2006-11-20T21:59:00.000-05:00

This is a view from our apartment here in Washington.

So is this.

This is the inside of our place. Pretty bare now, but picture it full of fun things!

Just practicing with the camera.

Later.

~DZ

We got a camera!

2006-11-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

Test.

I need a shave.
Thanks again, Rev. J and the Divine Momma, for such a phat Christmas gift. This'll help a ton.

Hello!

2006-11-14T23:17:00.000-05:00

Hi! Dizzle here.

Thanks for visiting...and welcome to all the new people. As I've said, we'll be throwing a number of pictures on here, as well as anecdotes and stuff, but since neither G nor I are very computer savvy, we wanted to get this started right away.

So she's at work, and I just got back, and I only have 7 more shifts before I'm unemployed. Huzzah!

Hope everyone's well. Drop me a line.

Peace,
DZ

Buckle up, Sport.

2006-11-04T22:44:00.000-05:00

Wondertwins, Unite! Form off... Toledo!

2006-11-02T18:22:00.000-05:00

Yo.

Baby G and worked together at the restaurant last night in some crazy scheduling fluke that will likely never happen again. The guy who usually serves on Wednesdays, the night I barback, wanted to go to an AFI concert at the 9:30 Club, so he swapped serving shifts with Baby G for Thursday. So, it's Thursday, and we both have the evening off after technically spending the whole evening together at work LAST night.

But we made it, and it was more fun than you'd've thought.

Whee!

~DZZ

Cash moves everything around us.

2006-10-30T23:26:00.000-05:00

Picked up tomorrow's day shift.

Baby G just called and told me she's frustrated at work.

Just another day trying to make ends meet... from a hemisphere away.

Sorry, not trying to bitch, just a little weary.

I'll go.

Peace.

Diz

Just testing.

2006-10-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

Just so you know, the times on all the posts below are totally inaccurate. Sorry. See, we haven't even left yet and we're already confused about time zones. :)

Sunday Morning Music

2006-10-29T09:52:00.002-05:00

We changed our clocks back last night and so now I'm awake and thinking about getting donuts for me and my lady. It seems people wait intentionally to better things until I'm no longer a part of them. A few examples:

They got a brand new theatre facility at Warwick Valley High School plus 20 or so classrooms to ease overcrowding in 1999. I graduated in '97.

AU couldn't handle all of it's students, so it bought a set of condos on Westbard Ave. in Bethesda and started running a free shuttle every 15 minutes from there to main campus. Two years before, I was living on Westbard Ave and waiting for a Maryland "RideOn" bus to take me to the Friendship Heights Metro so I could take the train to Tenleytown and then hop the shuttle to main campus. It used to be an hour commute to go 2 miles (once spring hit, I did start walking it).

Speaking of AU and theatres, we graduated in '02. State-of-the-art facility on Wisconsin Ave. grand opening: 2003.

"Don't worry, we're renovating, you'll LOVE it when it's done...it'll fix all of these complaints and inconveniences." Place: DC Improv Comedy Club. Time: 8/02 - 5/06. Renovations actually START: 8/06.

So I'm usually right on the cusp of these things. Baby G would say "Yes, Dear, you're into stuff before anyone else discovers it and you make it so popular that people need to renovate or expand, but by that point you've moved onto something else." She get sarcastic. My sister, YaYa, would say, "It's not all about you, Princess."

You know what I say? If they open a White Castle restaurant anywhere in the vicinity of NorthWest Washington DC between January and June of '07, I'm hiring myself out as an unlucky psychic. It won't be a successful business until right after I leave, however.

The point is: They opened a Dunkin' Donuts on 17th Street last month, and that's where I'm going this morning to get my lady breakfast and go through more crap. I swear to God, our apartment is in BOXES right now. Maybe I'll go build a fort. Nah, no fort...somebody'd go and make it way cooler right after I left it.

Have a good day,
Dizzle