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Published: August 24th 2015
Laura's new car
She's no LAHLAH, unfortunately I think that personalized plate is taken here, but Goldie is a good replacement for when I'm here. Kia Rio-it's so small and cute. Even if I park poorly, I'll still have plenty of space around me in the parking spot!I have been here for a full week now and I'm not going stir crazy yet. We have a TV, but not cable/antenna yet, but I hook my computer up to the TV and have watched some Netflix. Paul showed me how to use Chrome Hola so I can watch US TV with Hulu. Kitty and Carrie-I have to catch up on Bachelor Pad and then call you to talk about all the drama! 😊 Our SkyTV gets installed Thursday and Paul subscribed to the sports package so I can watch Monday Night Football. I'll be sure to wear my Packers' Nelson jersey Tuesday afternoons when I watch the games live. I'm saddened much like the rest of WI with Jordy's injury, but I'll be cheering the Pack on from afar. I just googled the closest Packer bar. Unfortunately it's in Australia, near Sydney, not near me. Okay, I'm not just watching TV all day, I swear.
Last week on Friday I went for my first run in my neighborhood. Basically, the whole town of Leamington is in the neighborhood because it's maybe 6 miles around the main perimeter. I found a suggested route on mapmyrun. I hadn't driven past
the area so I found the local rugby and squash court is just a couple blocks away. There is also a dog park, which is neat. We can't have pets, and I'm not too keen on giving away another pet after 2 years, so maybe I can just go be a creep and go to the dog park and watch other people's dogs. haha. The path then took me through the cemetery which led to a narrowing with thicker trees and stairs down to a stream. It was so pretty. It wasn't very good for running due to the narrowing and infringing plants, but it was a pretty area. I never would've guessed this stream and tropical feeling greenery was just a mile away. I'll take pictures next time. The path led by two farms of cows, a very common site on the North Island. The path returned to the street in a nice area with pretty houses. My lasted for about 4 miles and the weather was in the 50s and sunny. Not bad at all for Winter!
Saturday was my first weekend day here where I wasn't exhausted with jetlag and Paul and I made the most
Tramping 1 - Kahikatea Tree route 3
Swing bridge that continues on the Bell Track to Mt. Pirongia's Summit of it. We picked up my new mountain bike from a store in Hamilton. My last mountain bike that I left in WI was from my highschool years so it was probably time for a new one. There are quite a few mountain bike trails in the surrounding area, hopefully there are enough easy ones for me. It'll be nice to use the bike around town, too. There is a bike path to Lake Karapiro which is about 20km round trip from our apartment, which we look forward to exploring when Paul's bike arrives from the USA. A company picked up like 5 boxes of things including clothing and kitchen accessories, and Paul's mountain bike, back in July and they quoted 60-90 days to arrive here. We're expecting it to arrive in mid-September. Then it's off to the trails we go on bicycle.
After picking up my bike, we went car shopping. We went Wednesday afternoon/evening, but I wasn't quite keen on either of our two options-a Hyundai Getz and a Toyota Yaris. The Yaris was weathered on the inside from being a rental vehicle and the Getz didn't drive very smoothly. We went back to the same place
on Sunday with renewed hopes and a couple new cars to look for. The cars we went to see weren't too appealing, but we found a gold Kia Rio that met our criteria. Paul drove the car to an empty parking lot at the Mall so I could test drive it around. It was clean, not too old, not too much mileage, and drove well. Excitement from finding my new car was soon replaced with anxiety as I realized that meant I actually had to drive it home! Traffic was pretty busy, so we decided to hang out at the mall until traffic died down. I did have to drive to the mall, though. Thankfully it was not too far. I followed Paul and made it, whew! The hardest parts of driving on the left side is knowing where to look for oncoming traffic, remembering the turn signal is on the right (windshield wipers on the left), and not drifting too far to the left in the lane. At the mall, we did some window shopping and stopped in at a store that sells vacuum cleaners and carpet cleaners. Our apartment is basically full of carpet and while it looks
fairly clean, we decided a carpet cleaner is a necessity. We were able to get a fair price, still double the cost of the same one from Walmart in the USA (after conversion rates). Now I have something to keep busy with all week, how exciting! 😉 To waste more time, Paul and I went to the movie theater at the mall and saw "Trainwreck." I thought it was a good comedy/rom-com. I felt bad for the local New Zealanders watching the movie when Amy Schumer talking about eating Chipotle. They probably had no idea about the deliciousness she was talking about because they don't have any Chipotle restaurants in NZ. This pretty much breaks my heart, but I can survive until we come back in November...I think. After the movie, it was time for me to drive the 30 minutes home following Paul. Long story short, it rained intermittently, but I survived and didn't have too much anxiety. I think I'll get used to this whole left side thing eventually. Next thing to practice is swimming clockwise in a lane.
On Sunday, Paul and I went on our first Tramping (hiking) excursion together. We went to the Mt.
Pirongia Forest Park and took the Nikau Path to the Bell Track to the Kahikatea tree-the tallest recorded tree in New Zealand. The walk was about 12 km and took us around 5 hours. The hike up to the tree was longer than the return because I was getting used to the terrain. I had low tramping shoes on, but the path was pretty muddy and watery in some sections. The mud made things slippery and it took some focus to avoid the muddy slop areas. The hike was nice, though. The weather was in the 50s and the sky was a mixture of sun and clouds with a threatening look of rain, but it stayed dry. Inside the trees and ferns surrounding the path, the temperature felt tropical. Cool, but humid. We could see our breath, but not from the temperature. We ran into a tramping club from Hamilton. Their group consists of people older than us, but they were very friendly and invited us to join in on any of their hikes. They go tramping every other weekend at different paths in the Waikato area. We'll probably join them next month or so. The Nikau path took us
Tramping 1 - Kahikatea Tree route-Kahikatea Tree
Kahikatea Tree-tallest tree in NZ. 66.5 meters tall. past some farms with some young cows. They were so cute! Along the Bell Path in the trees and ferns, we saw the Koru, an important part of New Zealand culture. "The
koru (Māori for "loop") is a spiral shape based on the shape of a new unfurling silver fern frond and symbolizing new life, growth, strength and peace. It is an integral symbol in Māori art, carving and tattoos."-Wikipedia thank you Wikipedia. I was cautious along the path, but it was very reassuring knowing there are like no dangerous animals in NZ, especially snakes. Although, we did hear that a man went hog hunting in the Pirongia Forest and caught a 50kg one. Thankfully we didn't witness the kill or the hog. I'll spare the details of the hunting strategy for hogs.
For dinner, I wanted to splurge and we ordered Dominos. The special pizzas were interesting, including prawn (shrimp) pizzas. I chose the Godfather which was closest to a normal supreme pizza. The italian sausage on it was sliced, not crumbled. The large size here is like a medium size back in the USA, no surprise there, right? The olives were kalamata olives, and the crust was
kind of different, but it tasted good. We washed it down with some local beer. A great way to end the day.
Despite the long day of tramping yesterday, I went to a body pump class at a local gym. I'll definitely be feeling the effects of the two tomorrow. Paul is out of town for the night for work so it's my first night alone here. So far so good. The class had some women my age, but I didn't strike up any conversations this time. The first class I went to was free. It's nice that this gym offers drop-in prices for classes so I can randomly go without committing to a monthly fee. Also, I drove to the gym in my new car. Pretty exciting, even if it was only 0.8 miles away. Baby steps.
Paul's coworker's wife called me this evening and asked if I'd like to come over for tea or coffee tomorrow. I haven't met her yet, she just heard I was new to the area. So nice! I am looking forward to meeting her tomorrow. Thankfully she lives in town.
Now to catch up on some Bachelor in Paradise. haha.
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Dr. Julie
non-member comment
I'm so excited for you!
great blog post! I enjoy hearing about you new adventure. ?