An Ode to an Alleyway

This door lived in the otherwise unassuming alley behind my building.  It was probably the only notable thing about it until one day...

... I noticed this little friend hiding away back there.

…and a happy New Year!

I'm filing this one away in the event I need to quickly cure myself of any future cases of wanderlust. Consider that your warning. Still reading? Fine. Eye rolls sold separately. Knock yourself out. 

Julia and I had grand plans of seizing our summer Christmas and hitting up the beach, since it would be our first spent without our respective families. We had been talking it up for months, plotting the best patch of sand-in-front-of-water on which to plop ourselves, which culinary delights we would be treating ourselves to, and were overly pleased with our "the only white this Christmas will be sand!" proclamations. Then we were invited over to a friend's for Christmas Day, so we decided it was no big deal--we would carry through with our beach plans on Christmas Eve. Well, a couple bumps in the road (stomach flu and unexpectedly being called into work last minute, aren't you glad you asked?) later and it was decided that we would go sometime later in the week. 

It turned out that Christmas Day itself was the one uneventful (and lovely!) day this week. Several days, dreary weather, and another round of stomach flu later and things were looking grim (on all fronts beach-related and otherwise). 

I was enjoying a nice slumber this morning when I was awoken by the ever-lovely fire alarm at dark o'clock and it went off a liiiitle too long to ignore. Julia and I schlepped ourselves down too many flights of stairs and loitered an appropriate amount of time before making our way down the street in hopes of finding an open cafe in which to plop ourselves. This proved (expectedly) fruitless. We lamented 24-hour American diners. 

At some point in the forty minute period between meandering our way out of the building and finding out (hooray!) it was a false alarm, I became aware that I was wearing the same pair of clothes I had worn the previous day for my singular jaunt out of the apartment in search of bland crackers (futile) before passing out at the latelate hour of quarter to notevendarkyet.  I also remembered that I had discovered that my only pair of work pants had earned itself a hole (and I was only donning the aforementioned pair because my only other pair of pants currently smells of mildew after its last four-five day stint on the drying rack).

Things were looking especially rosy this morning. I also became acutely aware of the fact that I could not remember the date of my last shower when we were crammed like pickles into an elevator full of neighbor-strangers. 

Sweet relief was mine, though, upon spotting my pillow. Ahhhhhh, siiigh, eyelids drifting until WHAM. Off goes the fire alarm, again. Please note that "alarm" does not accurately convey this experience. This thing is capable of waking the dead. {zombie apocalypse preppers of the world (?), I would step things up a notch if I were you.} And it decided to go off roughly every ninety-one twenty seconds until there was eye twitching and I'm fairly certain I uttered multiple times just how much I hated everything. I'll be accepting my award-crown for drama q. any day now. (parents of the world, I'll throw in a few extra free eye rolls. just for you). There was much yoga breathing and mantra muttering re: I am thankful for modern technology. I am thankful for modern technology. I am thankful for modern technology that keeps me from dying in a fiery blaze, etc. from between the pillows smashed over my ears (futilest) before the God of modern technology smiled upon us and finally shut that thing off. And no, sleep was not happening after that point. I did indulge in staring off into space for an inappropriate length of time, though (no questions about how that is different from my normal state, Mom. Or Dad. Or Brian. Shoot). 

Well. After a while, Julia and I both decided that we were taking back this day/week and we WERE going to the beach. It was sunny! We were past the plague! We didn't have anything else to do! To the beach we went! And it.was.glorious. 

Twenty minutes into soaking in the sunshine on the beach before we started to feel raindrops and see some dark clouds moving in. No worries! We'll go get those legendary pancakes that Julia has been raving about for four months while we wait for this to pass! 

Oh, I could tell those pancakes were good! Unfortunately, rational Cheryl evacuated the building this morning and never returned because I did not take the hint from my previous day's diet of water and a handful of crackers, or the more--way more--than a slight sheen of sweat that the morning's meander down the street left me sporting, that my mind was bigger than my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I'm certain I did not finish even one of those pancakes. 

But it was allll okay. Because the sun was out! We will get our beach day after all! (This was def. not a ploy on my part to hope that plonking myself on the beach would get rid of that sensation that the room was spinning everrr so slightly--take it easy on those pancakes next time you're recovering from the palgue-iest of plagues, oh chipper one--before we hopped on the bus home). We headed back to the beach and set up camp with our towels and books. This time we got in a good half an hour before the rain started up. We gave it a couple minutes before deciding this probably wasn't going to let up anytime in the nearish future and making our way to the bus stop. And thus concluded Christmas adventures 2k13.

Now get back to your life, future no-longer-wanderlusty Cheryl.

**I will admit that this day was not a total bust. I got my notsayinghowlong space out session! And it is a nice beach that I fully plan to revisit when I'm feeling a little better and also when I've checked the weather report. Plus, it was a nice change of pace to get out of our apartment and immediate neighborhood for a while to see someplace new. And I want to try those pancakes when I actually have an appetite because they seemed amazing. Sunshine on a beach! In December! Day off from work! Your problems are small! Things are mostly good! Fist-bump.

Some Things

1.  Judging by the little flurry of postings on the social media something good is happening slash already happened in Boston? What's this baseball thing, again? I'm serious. Everyone's all "So proud to be from Boston!" and "hashtagBostonStrong" and I'm just wondering if this actually means something because nobody said anything remotely direct in their Facebook flauntings and... that is more than enough typing on this subject. I'm sitting here more or less trying to stay on the same page about whether or not our federal government is back to its usual semi-functioning state.

2.  Also in the vein of what-happened-to-you-it's-only-been-three-months-since-you-left-the-country, tonight Julia and I had an alarmingly long and silent squinty-eyed staring at the ceiling thought session as we tried to determine when Thanksgiving falls each year.  Please note that Thanksgiving graces the very tippity-top of my favorite holidays list.

3.  Speaking of Tip Top.

I had a job interview for a clothing store today and when I arrived I discovered it was a group interview. Fu-huh-huh-huh-hun. Actually, it was kind of fun. Fun in a "welll, even if I don't get the job this was a nice little hour of social interaction to interrupt my hermit-y existence" way. Also, when we went around and introduced ourselves we had to proclaim our favorite flavor of ice cream and What It Says About Us.

Fine. Mint chocolate chip because it's cool and fun and consistently good and gosh I hope my eyes weren't rolling like they are now. I don't know, I had to come up something on the spot and coming up with somethings on the spot is not my strong suit or even my weak suit but rather my weakest suit. I'm just thankful my brain didn't shut off completely and forget every flavor of ice cream in existence.

I normally have a special reserve of hate for just such encounters but this one was surprisingly not awful. What can I say, they have good taste. My go-to group ice breaker is asking for people's favorite flavor of muffin. Although I generally do not make them pop into their cozy b.s. slippers and declare What This Says About Me because that is painful for everyone involved. Also I feel like the fact that I have a go-to ice breaker is telling of my social life but that is neither here nor there. I spent the whole time wondering what in the actual eff is "jelly tip" and why does that sound so atrocious and why oh why is it everyone's favorite flavor?

4.  I went to the library to return something and walked out with three new books. I'm pretty sure Julia and I are going to discover the borrowing limit from the Wellington City Libraries, and soon. Really really soon.

4.1  As I was checking out my three fluffy novels the super sweet and chatty librarian mentioned something about being done studying and I was like "huh?" She clarified with an exuberant, "You get to read real books!!" (?? Please tell me you find this statement alarming. It was right up there with the woman at the au pair orientation--I think she was one of the defensive driving instructors but I could be mistaken, that's all a blur of jet-lag at this point--who proclaimed, "Women aren't good at folding maps, we need the men to do that." Um, what?)

4.2 I love a fluffy novel as much as the next beach-goer but have also been working my way through a stack of psychology books.  Fo' fun. One semester I did a project where I basically got to design a developmental psych study about anything that struck my fancy without the restrictions that come along with actually carrying out the aforementioned study, which was basically the assignment of my dreams, and not the kind where you're being chased through a hedge maze by an evil garden gnome, don't tell me you don't have those. I digress. My study centered around children who have imaginary companions and Marjorie Taylor's work played an integral role in this hypothetical children with imaginary companions study so--

...you can imagine the way I gasped and pulled this gem off the shelf faster than you can utter "nerd alert" and raise a brow.

4.3  Upon hearing that I studied psychology, Super Sweet & Chatty had pretty much the exact same reaction as everyone other person I've encountered here with whom the topic comes up. [nervous laugh] "So are you going to analyze everything we're thinking?! hahahaaaanervouschuckle." ? ? ?
At least this response is slightly less perplexing than its "ohhh! are you reading my mind right now?!" cousin.  I wish wish wish there was a modicum of hyperbole in this particular segment but I'm sorry to report that there are zero winners in this little conundrum.

I think from now on I'll resort to this:

5. Happy Halloween, friendlings! People don't really make a big deal of it in New Zealand but Julia and I are going to host a little shindig this weekend. Costumes mandatory and hopefully we'll be munching on some Reese's pb cups. A true American Halloween celebration for our Kiwi friends.

Here's an unrelated picture of a Halloween past.

Bye.

--Chey

Uh-nother Uhp-date

So, I've been pretty quiet over here on the blawg. It's not for a lack of things to clickity-clack type about. It's partly due to the fact that I had been moving around the country quite a bit, partly due to my inability to write anything remotely coherent, and largely due to laziness.

Mostly, though, I'm going to go right ahead and place a hefty slice of blame pie on the internet's plate. In the race that is the internet, New Zealand is the tortoise that gets stuck on a patch of grass, falls soundly asleep and is disqualified. We're talking slower than dial-up. And then you're a lucky little rubber duck--count your blessings, thrice--if the page actually loads. Yesterday I overheard someone mention that she has personally experienced better internet in developing countries and... I fully believe that there was no hyperbole going on there, Travel Scout's* honor. After grumbling about this to my friend Amanda I received this gem in reply:

I don't mind all that much but it makes blogging a little dicey because most days I don't feel like sitting around for an hour and a half waiting for pictures to upload. As of this week my internet situation improved dramatically. 

After leaving Auckland I traveled around much of the South Island for a whirlwind few weeks. My Plan B (after not staying in Auckland) was to make it all the way back north, meet up with my friend Julia in the Northlands for a little while, head back down to Auckland to visit some friends before heading back to the States.

This country likes to have a good hearty laugh at anyone who dares to make plans. I got to Wellington and liked it. Really liked it. Julia had been talking about looking for work in Wellington and after a few unnecessarily stressed out chats--thank you, Julia, for talking me off alllll of the ledges--we decided to change our plans and meet up and look for work and a place to live in "the coolest little capital in the world."

Long story not quite as long, Julia and I found an apartment and have been applying for jobs like mad. Well, Julia started her job today! I'm still searching, though, so.......... any good thoughts, positive vibes, prayers, crossed digits and/or leads on Welly jobs are welcome and appreciated, please and thank you.

This is Julia:

first dinner in our apartment. fancy.

Life is pretty sweet. We've been enjoying not living out of a suitcase or having to worry about our food going missing or being woken up by loud roommates. It's also been wonderful to be able to sit on a couch and read a book without a steady stream of strangers walking past.  We've been settling into our new home here and exploring this city--okay, fine, we've been spending a lot of time at the library (books! movies! free wifi!). But we have a list of things we want to do and experience once we start making money! Most of them revolve around food.

Fun little side-note: our apartment building was built to withstand some pretty strong earthquakes, which means that it was designed to move around. This also means that it feels like we're on a boat or a really large rocking chair on days when Windy Welly is particularly deserving of its moniker. It's fine as long as I don't think about it too much.

 Our view. Hi Welly.

I know

New Zealand has some ugly sunsets.

 

mmmm let's title this "Delirium in Party Hats"

We are a couple of normal little ducklings.

Eat a cider donut for me,
Cheryl

*Kathleen, Julia & I are starting up Travel Scouts. We work on a system of badges and demerits. Earn a badge for successfully navigating a new bus system, surviving a snoring pants-less hostel roommate, snooping out free wifi, and more! Just beware that you don't earn yourself a demerit by holding loud, loud, very loud conversations while your roommates are sleeping, not washing your hands after using the restroom (!! I used to think those "employees must wash hands before returning to work" signs in restrooms were a bit excessive because who over the age of five doesn't? A horrifying number of fully-grown adult humans, I've discovered), or pissing off the locals.