Mayor Mail

It turns out that we have not figured out how to dispose of our garbage yet. Our landlord didn't give us a garbage can the first week and we just stuck the bags outside and only some got picked up. So this week, we put the garbage can out and they took the lid off but didn't take any of it. We had put our recycling into a black garbage bag and that had been picked up. So, I had to contact the district council for information on how it's done. Most of the information I did find on their website but still wasn't clear about the garbage can. The result of this was the other day in the mail we got a two-page letter signed personally by the mayor (it's not even a stamp!) welcoming us to New Plymouth! Included with the letter was all sorts of brochures and information about the city! That was kind of cool. Plus the question of garbage pick up was answered: we are just supposed to put a garbage bag out, not the can for health and safety reasons. And the recycling should be sorted into small bags - oops, I think our recycling has just been tossed for the last couple weeks since it was in a big bag. Next week though!
Yesterday at work Dustin got to eat barbecued wild pork. It was someone's birthday so they stopped work at 3pm and had some beers and pork! Pretty sweet.
I got caught in the rain this morning. I went out for a run along the walkway and it was sunny out. I was about 1.5km past the city centre and when I turned around to run back, there were dark clouds that looked like they were just over our area and there was a rainbow. Quite lovely but I realized that I was not going to make it home dry. It started coming down by the time I got to the city centre which still means a couple kms to home. It was super windy too but luckily it didn't keep raining all the way home. The rainbow stuck around though.

I don't know yet if Dustin is working tomorrow or not so we don't really have plans for the weekend. I'm sure we'll get out for a look around somewhere at least. We might meet up for a drink with a woman from couchsurfing. We were going to stay with her but she wasn't able to host us - which worked out since we found our place so quickly.

Job Hunt 2010 continues. The phone rang yesterday morning (not a common occurrence since nobody calls us haha) so I jumped up to grab it only to find that someone must have pocket dialed our number because there was nobody there but clunky noises. *sigh* At least incoming calls don't cost us anything.
It's really interesting to find that some people we've met haven't ever left New Zealand, or even the North Island! I think that because it's so far to anywhere from here - you can't drive to other countries and I think the closest places by flight are around 3 hours - you really have to want to leave to go anywhere. There is certainly enough to keep you busy between the two islands so I can see that being enough. But it really is something that we take for granted that we can just drive across to Bellingham from the Lower Mainland. It's not exotic but it still is a different country.

We had a nice visit with our couchsurf hosts the other night. They came over for dinner so it was great to have some company! I don't always realize what an extrovert I am until I don't have significant daily interaction with people. It's so energizing to converse with new people! So hopefully there will be more of that this weekend!