Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

It might be the fact that there are 25 days until NZ (and only 7 working days in there!) Maybe it's because I had the tunes cranked and finished work at a decent time considering the mail load today was heavy. Or the fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies I just made and ate. It might be the promise of homemade guacamole with dinner tonight. I have a feeling it's a combination of all these things and more - today I kept getting hit by waves of happiness and excitement. Literally, waves of them, from top to toe. Sometimes toe to top. Even yesterday, which by all accounts could have been just terrible, I didn't mind that 3/4 of the way through my route I could feel the rainwater squishing in my boots. I didn't mind that I had the silly idea that it wasn't a gaiter day as I felt my pants soak up more and more rain, wet climbing up my shins. I just kept walking with the knowledge that I wouldn't be stuck out there forever. As far as weather goes, this job has really ...

The process of purging has begun. Over the last 6+ years of living together, Dustin and I have managed to accumulate a whole lot of "stuff" that has spent much of it's life with us in boxes. Even though we've generally moved every year - due to travel or want for somewhere different - we're still able to pare down this silly amount of goods. So I spent Sunday afternoon posting stuff on Craigslist. Much to Dustin's chagrin - he is an expert CL seller and Sunday is not his recommended time for posting, especially without a phone number! (So I don't want a lot of random calls from people who don't show up when they say they will quite often!) However, he'd already left for Logan Lake and I'm just not into the Super Bowl so why not get it up there. We can always post it again on a better day if there's not too many bites. But, one person will be making their own yogurt after tonight! For asking price, no less! It probably seems silly to some pe...

Today I had my third encounter with crime on my mail route. Not a personal encounter, no danger or anything like that but still rather unsettling stuff. I crossed through to 92 A Ave and saw a portion of the block was taped off with yellow Police-Line-Do-Not-Cross tape. I don't think I've ever seen that tape in real life and not counting all the fake Halloween types. There was a cluster of people and a police car within the tape's boundaries but my loop took me in the other direction first. So I rubbernecked as I moved down the street and when I came back up I was on the side with the tape on it but still not close enough to ask any of the police what was going on. A few houses up the block, the homeowner (whom I met the previous day as he told me stories of his 35 years delivering mail in Fiji) opened the door as I got to the top step so I asked him. He said the police knocked on his door that morning to ask if he had heard anything over night because a body was found ...

Well it already feels like 2012 is older than just 6 days. Neither of us took extra time off over Christmas so maybe it just feels like we haven't taken a break. But our mindset is somewhat set on our plans for March so we didn't really consider taking extra days off, I mean we had a 4 day weekend and then a 3 day weekend so that was a good deal. I think we underestimated though all of our plans over the last couple months and they left us kind of drained. Theresa was in town over the holidays and it was funny because she asked what we've been up to and we were kind of stumped and it became apparent that we seem to have two modes: work, and travel. Now Dustin's headed out of town during the week to work in Logan Lake. They are building something for the mine up there. So I'm solo on weekdays now. But that's ok, it just encourages me to work on projects or be more social! We spent New year's with a handful of close friends which is exactly what we like to d...

Slightly overdue update but also timed just perfectly. Today I received an unusual email from Immigration New Zealand. It simply advised me that my immigration status has been updated. Since we hadn't applied online this time, I was expecting to hear back from our contact with the agency we applied through, not with an automated email. However, what better way to find out we've been approved than following a link and trying to remember a long unused username and password (only used a few times back in May 2010...) and getting it on the first try? Sure is a good thing that we had a bottle of bubbles in the fridge to give this moment proper pomp. (Sorry Brian and Crystal, we'll get another bottle for you! haha) So yes, the officially official news is that on March 18th, 2012, we depart this soul-sucking city for greener pastures once again. We'll then have 12 whole months to make arrangements to get longer working visas so that we can live peacefully among the kiwis. It...

Here we are back in Surrey. We got in Tuesday in the early afternoon after about 26.5 hours of travel. I think we're just starting to feel like we're onto a normal schedule! We didn't feel the jet lag on the last trip but this time we did a bit more. We departed Melbourne on Tuesday the 26th at 9:30am and arrived in Vancouver at 1pm on the 26th. After we left Phillip Island, we had a day of driving ahead of us. First stop was heading to the city to drop off the surf board. It took a couple hours to get up there and then we continued through to Torquay but hit some big traffic jams. So that was another couple hours. We found a Mexican place for lunch and the Dustin was on the hunt for some flip flops as he lost a couple pairs along the way. There are a few good outlet shops in Torquay so we checked them out. Turns out the surf comp had a lay day for the men and the women were out but there was only a short time left for the day so we didn't end up heading right down to...

Apr 21/11 7:21pm Dustin went for what will very likely be the last surf of the trip today. We're down in Phillip Island and although the wind was a bit rough, he went out anyways. At least we had some sunshine too. After leaving Denmark we got into Albany and stayed there for a couple nights. I liked Denmark better but Albany was still on the to-do list. Unfortunately the surf there was not working when we got in and Dustin booked in with a surf coach for the next day but the conditions weren't too great then either. But was it good for him to get out and pick up a few pointers on his technique. While he did that I went to the farmer's market which wasn't very big and then walked around waiting for the shops to open up. We had to get the van back in by 3pm on Monday and Albany is a 4.5 hour drive to Perth so we decided to leave Sunday and take it leisurely rather than have to be on a schedule on Monday. Turns out there's pretty much nothing worth seeing in betwe...