DIY

Ok so we've always been a bit thrifty and into making things ourselves but we've taken it to another level lately. There are a few key bonuses to making stuff yourself:

1. It is CHEAP and we're back on a student budget
2. Things taste extra DELICIOUS when the flavours have been wafting through the house for an hour.
3. It HEATS YOUR HOUSE. Dunedin weather is never hot and never freezing, just almost always a few degrees too cold. In ultimate efficiency the oven also manages to bring the house up to the comfy zone.
4. It's FUN! We're still making friends around here so that leaves us with some time to kill, which is great because we're actually doing all those random things we never made time for in Madison.

Kate shaking a bottle of honey and yeast to make some mead. This bottle is now aging nicely in the bathroom cupboard next to the warmth of the water heater.

Some delicious creamy lemon curd (by Kate) on a tasty slice of rye bread (by Justin). Oh the blessed domesticity of it all.

We made pizza dough and had a make-your-own pizza party with a couple friends. We put some left over pizza dough in the fridge but apparently it wasn't ready to stop growing. Mutant pizza danger!
I like the kind of DIY where you ignore the instructions. This hideous beast is a dessert pizza. Word of wisdom: don't attempt to bake anything AFTER applying cream cheese frosting. Surprisingly the cream-butter-sugar mixture melts and oozes everywhere. However, it tasted AMAZING, especially the crusty bits where the butter and sugar caramelized on the edges. So delicious I am tempted to do it this way again.



Non-food related DIY and ultimate cheapskate move: we downloaded a picture of a Scrabble board, printed it at work and cut little letter tiles out of card.

Attention: Back online!

My deepest apologies to anyone who has been waiting for a post.

I'd like to blame this on the ISP's (internet service providers, AKA how you get the internet at your house) in New Zealand. To be fair, I really blame it on one of the companies in NZ. I wont name any names, but seriously, they suck.

A brief timeline of how it pans out goes as following.

Me: "Hi I'd like to get some internet going out at my apartment"
ISP: "Ok great, we'll send someone out to your place, the wait time is currently two weeks"
Me: "Great you're the best, etc, etc"

Three weeks later....

Me: "Hi, I called about the internet, it was supposed to be here a week ago."
ISP: "Oh, umm, yeah. We had some infrastructure issues and fell behind, sorry, we'll be there within the next two weeks"

Two weeks later....
Me: "Hola amigo. Donde esta mi internet?"
ISP: "Lo siento, who are you"
Me: (boiling rage)
ISP: "oh yeah, i see you on the list, probably another three weeks"
Me: "#$&%$&@^$#"

So after all of that we call company #2 they say it will take 2 or 3 weeks to get hooked up. Three weeks to the date, we have internet.

So forgive us and lets resume talking about fun things!

Fiordland Part 1

Our first trip outside of Dunedin! Fiordland National Park!

You might be thinking "hey where is the 'J' in fiord?" well I've got no clue.

The first night we slept here, not a bad view, that is when it wasn't raining. But our new tent seemed to hold up well against the rain.

It's great that the National Park itself is free to enter and the camp sites (all basic sites) are only $5 per person per night. There are also campgrounds outside the park that are FREE per night, run by the Department of Conservation.

The next morning we were off to Milford Sound. The road leading up to the sound is amazing.

Classic big fern from NZ shot.

At last here it is, Mitre Peak and Milford Sound. Spent a few hours looking around here, although not that much to do unless you want to drop some cash on a boat tour and since Kate is a poor student and I'm unemployed we weren't about to do that.

Spent the rest of the sunny day hiking... I mean TRAMPING, around the alpine lakes.

This Kaka bird was in a cage, but you can pretend that we saw it in the wild with a perfectly halved apple.

Part 2 soon….

Frantic Feb

Whew. February has been a busy month. We’ve moved into an apartment, bought a car, I’ve got my work visa, done tons of walking around the city, visited tons of thrift store (and there are LOTS in this city) and all the other moving to a new place and setting up a new home type of things. And we snuck a trip to Fiordland in as well (more on that later).

Here we are on the first day in the new place, only 1 mug and the thermos top to drink out of, but we did have some chocolate with Kiwi fruit in it.


Opening up my visa!

And our new beauty, a 1996 Nissan Sentra Q. NZ made, which is a bit rare since the last car assembly plant in NZ closed its doors sometime in the late 1990s and now all the cars are imported new or used (mostly from Japan).


Still waiting on the internet at home, which we were told would take “about two weeks.” Currently it has been near 4 weeks and although the company is apologetic about the delay, it still doesn’t give me internet at home. If it doesn’t come by the end of the week, head will roll (or we’ll go with a different company).

More soon!

Botanic Gardens

Here is a look at the botanic gardens only a 5 minute walk from our apartment.

The rose garden

Inside the tropical greenhouse

A curious Kea (native alpine parrot of NZ) who was attracted to my phone at the aviary.

And some ducks who stole the bag of food right out of my hands, ran behind a tree to hide and gobbled the whole bag down!

Dunedin 1 week in

We've been in town for a week now, busy, busy, busy looking for apartments, setting up bank accounts, Kate starting to do some work around the lab, me trying to sort out visa stuff….. and on and on.

Anyway, GOOD NEWS! We've got an apartment and we move in tomorrow! yeeeeeeah, its been 5 MONTHS since I've had a permanent residence and I'm pretty exited about it. No photos of the place, that's in a post to come soon.

Today we took a break and visited the beach. The beach is on the other side of town from us so we splurged on a bus ticket. So when I say "other side of town" I mean about 9km (5.5 miles), yeah Dunedin is tiny. So tiny we ended up walking all the way back to our place.

Lots of surfers out today

The obligatory sign post to far away places…..

Coffee. I realized I haven't had a coffee since arriving in town. This is a crime on many levels, but even more so because of Dunedin's reputation for good coffee. Most coffee is espresso based, or at home people either use a plunger (french press) or just rock instant grounds. I have yet to see an American style drip machine anywhere here, including at the shops.

This long black (americano) hit the spot.

Stumbled across the greatest park of my life:

A kids bike course for learning the road rules (I'll be on this once I get a bike)

A Whale (and a monster thing in the background)!

Dino Slide!

Time for bed!

Arrival!

We made it!

Finally in Dunedin, here are some of the first snaps of the downtown area. Here is the downtown and Otago Habour.

Seems to be a lot of these old brick buildings, apparently they are Late Victorian and Edwardian in style. Whatever they are, they are cool.

The train station outside and inside.


And a picture of a building on the University of Otago campus, where Kate is soon to be starting at.

We'll post some more pictures and details about the city once we know them.

Auckland

One day in Auckland, biggest city in New Zealand. A whoppin' 1.2 million people or approx. 30% of the NZ population (~4million total). Put it another way there are more Wisconsinites in the world than Kiwis. Speaking of Wisconsin…..


What is this? It's Burger Wisconsin, a NATIONAL burger chain. They claim the burger was invented in Seymor, Wisconsin and that the world's best burgers are also from Wisconsin. Nice claim, not sure if its true, but I'll give us the benefit of the doubt.

Cool Fact: New Zealand 1st country to grant women's suffrage.

We ended the day catching a bus back to the hotel, about halfway back I noticed that he had a giant stuffed tiger on the dash, amazing.

Minotaurs

A few last days in Adelaide involved a few dinners and 43C (110F) heat. The first was a CJ's house out on the porch.

Mr. Wade arrives.

Also caught up with some of Kate's friends from High School. It was their 10 year reunion this year, which means mine isn't too far behind (yipe!).

And probably the best fact I've learned in a while:

And with that the Aussie adventure comes to a close. It's finally time to head to New Zealand!

Melbourne Pt. 2

Most cities try to stop street art, Melbourne embraces it and it has run wild. You would be pretty hard up to find an alleyway in the downtown that DIDN'T have some art in it. Here are a few examples:


Kate in the one alley that wasn't overrun with art.

Later in the day we visited brunswick street in the Fitzroy neighborhood. Oh look, some street art!
Brunswick St

When you think Fitzroy think Williamson street in Madison crossed with Williamsonburg in Brooklyn and you are coming close. Much of the music and art coming out of Australia crosses through this neighborhood along with that loads of cafes, pubs and restaurants to boot.

A baby hung up by wires? I rest my case

Cool lights and pictures at Sista Bella

Melbourne Pt. 1

Mmm, what does this tasty delight mean? Road trip to Melbourne! Yep, this is some certified greasy, salty, and great tasting roadhouse food. Along the 8 hour drive we passed the incredible shabby looking Giant Koala.

Melbourne loves its coffee, it is everywhere. This particular cup is from a shop in St. Kilda.

An act of desperation?

On Wednesday nights in the summer Melbourne opens up the markets at night. Lots of craft stalls and an incredible amount and diversity of food stalls, very cool.

Sangria!

They have a stage for live music at the markets. You can see it better from the bar across the road AND the drinks are cheaper too.