obviously, there is always much to talk about when you've been traveling; I'll have to limit myself, since the library is about to close, thus booting me off the interet (unlike in the U.S., you have to pay to use the internet @ the library, in NZ, along w/ public restrooms, which so far i've managed to avoid. what a pet peeve, paying to pee!).
We are currently in the Hawkes Bay region of the N. island, in the town of Hastings, working in a vineyard, pruning & such. it sounds quite romantic, doesn't it, working in a vineyard? I wouldn't say it's anything but, b/c it certainly can be pretty, but that's not exactly what you're thinking about for 10 hrs/day, sweating in the sun, having your ft hurt from walking up & down the rows, occasionally being snapped in the face by a vine that you're pruning/messing w/. It's been tough holding to work, when we really want to be out playing, but, we need some $$ to do so, after buying the van & what-not.
We're working w/ an entirely Asian crew (not exactly sure how that happened), so we're learning a lot about China & Malaysia, & are definitely the oddballs out, not speaking Chinese & not being completely covered from head-to-foot w/ numerous layers of clothing. I'm not kidding about the completely covered, either; there's 1 lady I call incognito lady, b/c I wouldn't be able to recognize her on the street, as she has on a hat, sunglasses, a couple towels around her face/neck & lots of clothes. they're quite adamant about taking care of their skin, those ladies; I've been wearing a hat & a bandanna, & some sunscreen on my arms, due to the brutal NZ sun.
we've now been working a total of 6 days, but we've been here 7 (no work Sun), so we counted this as our 1-week anniversary of work. Therefore, we celebrated in style, taking our supervisor Owen to get icecream w/ us from Rush Munro's, the premier icecream place in the area, where, according to the guide books, people come from great distances to enjoy. Enjoy it we did, me w/ a double scoop, combining caramel & hokey pokey flavors, mm, mm, good. if we hadn't originally said we were waiting until our week-anniversary, there's no way either one of us would have made it this long w/o.
which brings us to Liz & liz scary similarity #2: an obsessive love of icecream. both of our friends make sure they stock icecream or are prepared to go out for icecream whenever we visit them, respectively!
the other highlight of our week thus far has been visiting the (free) Opossum Museum in Napier. yep, not kidding again, the possum museum, featuring such elaborate gifts as $300 sweaters (60% merino wool, 40% possum), nipple warmers, &, my personal favorite, "Opossum Pete's Peter Heater!" obviously, this was cause for a picture... the museum talked about the inundation of the intrusive possum (30 possums to every kiwi), 7 also featured a great game, shooting possums w/ a rifle, which 1 proud papa allowed both his children to do.
that same day, we also visited the honey factory (who knew there were so many different kinds, to be sampled often, in order to better compare?), & the cheese place (the gould was my favorite), all b/c they were illustriously free. Have you noticed that much of our interests revolve around Free & Food? more on this to come...
