First week of 2016

First week of 2016!
This year began at the NYE ball at AF borgen.

What a great night, everything went smoothly until my dress got caught up the chain of a bike on my way back.

Thankfully my dress was not beyond saving!

Anna made a mini-me:

We also breifly adopted a confused cat that got lost in the neighborhood. I miss him already.

And after preparing some very creative late xmas gifts we did some workout in the apartment. Happy days.

Peace out!

Flying time and Pak'nSave

Woah I just realized it's been almost 3 months since I made a post here.

Can't even remember all that's happened, but I'm having a great time over here. Right now I'm working at Pak'nSave, which is quite alright after all.

Don't have lots of pictures, but here are some of when me and Mike went to Mount Manganui and Tauranga, just because we all love pictures.

Kathis farewell party. You are very missed my love!

Peace

Puppies and Potatoes

So this, everyone, is Polly!

Isn't she a cutie!?

She and Flossy are best friends.. 

.. or at least that's what she thinks..

I'm sure Flossy has another opinion !

But at least they entertain each other :)

Two days ago I was home here alone with 5 girls, my three and two friends from down the road. I was making dinner for all of us and when chopping potatoes I suddenly realize I was also chopping a finger. Thank heavens it was my finger, but still a bit annoying. So I clean a piece of nail and skin of the cutting board and knife and put a plaster on to carry on with dinner (it was fairly late and the girls were all starving). After a while I see that I've bled through the plaster and there are spots of blood on the bench around my thumb. So I clean it up again and put another plaster on. By now it throbs so badly I have to keep it over my head while cooking which makes things a bit more complicated. 

So after finally getting everyone fed the neighbor comes over to pick up her girls and I ask her if she could help me put a new bandage on. I still don't know in what shape my thumb was, and once I finally dared to have a look it turned out not to be that bad. Phew! 

this is what it looked like a day later, healing so fast! 

Bartenders and Babysitting

Whoa, time flies!

After my great time at the lovely Andersen family I was heading back to Rotorua. But before we get there I just want to make sure that it's commonly know that I beat the crap out of my host dad Tonni at Black Ops. (Yes, Tonni might have some objections to that statement but it doesn't count since he cheats, haha!) Just thought it was important to point out that I still do, to til this very day, hold the title as champion. Until we meet again at least.
As you can understand I've had a great time, the kids are amazing and their parents great. Looking forward to come down again and visit!

So I left Andersen family and went to Auckland for a few days.

You can see the Skytower in the background. In the picture I'm sitting at Mt Eden, which happens to be a dead volcano.. kinda cool aye?

Met some nice people including a guy called Steve who gave me a ride from the airport to town. He was so sweet and looking after me, and the next day I was txting him and mentioned that I was starving since I forgot to eat lunch. So he orders me a pizza online and gives me an address.. just like that!

It might seem like just a nice gesture but it made my whole stay in Auckland, and I ate it all somehow!

After Auckland I took a but to Rotorua where I started WFA-ing at LavaBar! (WFA- working for accommodation) so I'll be staying at the Base until Christmas, coming out to Murupara to babysit once a week to earn some money for food and other kinda important stuff. Working at LavaBar is great, me and the crew's been going out having fun after closing the bar basically every night so far. I'm missing out on some sleep since I would come back to my backpacker between 2 and 9 am. But I'm having a blast and it's only for a few weeks. Plus, I get to see much more of my friends since I live in town now, which is awesome!

Me and CC went to Hot n Cold;

Yay, looking forward to go there again. Next time I'm not driving tho!

Doing the Zorb!

Wiie that was fun as!

Matt's place, with the fat cat Friggles!

Then after one and a half week in town I went back to see my wonderful kids! Hadn't seen them in a month and they were almost as happy to see me as I was to see them. Which means they were very very happy.

That's about it folks!

Cheers

Weekend in Christchurch and Roadtrips

So last Friday I was supposed to leave the South Island and fly back to Rotorua. But since my plans were to go there and enjoy being homeless, unemployed and car-less I wasn't too excited about going. So when Fiona asks me if I would like to stay a few more weeks I say; Of course! but my flight leaves tomorrow.. But apparently that's no problem, Fiona and Tonni are buying me a new ticket and I get to stay here! woohoo :)
But we still had the rental car I was supposed to bring up to Christchurch, so I decided to drive up and have a weekend there. That was a great idea! I made some friends at a hostel where Erin (whom I met at another backpackers in Dunedin) works, and on Saturday me, three guys from Argentina and a guy from Israel go on a road-trip to Akoroa.

The Land of the Long White Cloud

Roadtrip! # David, Ben, Santiago and Ninja

One and a half hour roadtrip, here we go!

Look at that people, that's NZ for you!

Feeling special

Look at those heavy clouds. On the way home we drove through the clouds, literarily! Definitely an interesting experience, I'm glad David was driving.

Living on the edge.. god my shoes are getting old, thankfully they cost 7$ at the warehouse!

Scary dark sky in the background, when we arrived it looked..

..like this! 

One of my favorite places so far! wonderful, beautiful New Zealand... 

I lived so cheap this weekend, the guys payed for petroil, lunch, dinner, drinks (there were quite a few) and then I got to stay (or rather sneakily stayed) at there flat for free. They gave me breakfast on Sunday as well, and when going home from Chch (its about three hours) I decided it would be pretty cool to hitch a ride. So I did, and ended up getting picked up by a very nice Mexican guy who bought me a drink on the way on the conditions that he would drive me the whole way home, with was 45 min past his place. Pretty good deal, aye? I seem to be great at dealing with Latino guys! Oh and he asked me out so this Tuesday we went to the movies, and saw a NZ movie called 'how to meet girls at a distance'. Very funny and silly movie :)

me hitch hiking

Cheers!

Wallabies and company

Here are some pictures of when me and Anne took Quinn and Coby to see and feed the wallabies in Waimate! a great day with lovely weather.

Quinn saying hello to our little bouncy friend

Anne serving dinner

We got to hold a wee baby! 

Quinn and Coby hanging out, aren't they sweeties?

about-time updates

wow, so there's been a lot going on the last month!

Firstly I agreed with my host family not to stay with them until Christmas. I had planned to go down to the Andersen family (where we stayed during the south island trip) to help out while Fiona did a wedding photo shoot in Bali.

And after a week here they asked me if I wanted to stay a little longer, which indeed I did! (going back to being homeless, unemployed and without a car was tempting, but I decided to stay here).

more pictures are coming up soon, once I learn how to handle these MACs .. confusing stuff!