Rotorua

---

Last week I ended up swimming three times on my own. I have looked into some of the Masters' swim teams in the area. There used to be a swim club in the summer in Cambridge, so really close, but the team has pretty much dissolved due to lack of pool availability. I contacted the Masters' swim team in Hamilton and heard back. It sounds like they have a pretty good setup and it has a yearly fee, but then the members are only charged for the actual days they swim. They invited me to come to a practice or two to check out if it's what I'm looking for. I also heard about a Masters' team in Te Awamutu at the pool where I swam twice last week. I heard back this week from them and it sounds like a small group. I went to the practice tonight. The TA Masters' group is small and consists of people a fair amount older than me and around my swim speed. They were all really nice and welcoming, though. I asked if they do swim meets and open water swims and they said they do a lot of events as a group. In fact, they are doing a swim meet in a couple weeks and invited me to join them. They will carpool down to the meet and it's an overnight. I think I'm going to go. The drive to TA is a little closer and has less traffic than the drive to Hamilton. At first the TA team was more appealing for that reason, but I have some new news that will be bringing me to Hamilton more often. I'll probably still check out the Hamilton Masters' group next week to compare.

I applied to a part-time job teaching swim lessons at a pool in Hamilton. I hadn't heard back, but on Monday I looked on the website and saw there was still an open position available and there was a way to apply through the website instead of email like my application. I decided to call the pool to follow-up on my application and make sure my email was received. I didn't mean to catch the Manager off guard, but I'm kind of glad I did because she said there is still an open position and they're looking into the applicants and she'd get back to me. Well, a couple hours later she called me and asked me to come in for an interview! So yesterday morning I went in for an interview and was pretty much offered the position on the spot! I hadn't been in an interview in 7 years, so I wasn't sure how it'd go. I thought about the questions I ask during peer interviews and practiced some answers. I guess that paid off, because I felt pretty comfortable during the interview and it paid off. So they teach swim lessons from newborns up to school-age children. I'm not exactly sure what age group I'd be focused on, but I'm pretty excited. The idea of newborns in the pool is kind of scary to me, because how can they understand to not breathe underwater, right? I guess the body has reflexes for a reason, though. Anyway, I think it's also just that newborns make me nervous in any sense. No, I didn't mention that during the interview. They asked me to come today to observe a couple classes so I can see if it's something I'd really be interested in. I figured I'd enjoy it because I really enjoyed when I taught karate to kids and I love to swim, so this position combines those two passions. I ended up staying for all the morning sessions which included newborns-4 year olds. The parents are involved during the newborn sessions and the 3/4 year olds. I also stayed and participated/observed the adult aqua jogger class. I ended up enjoying every class, even the newborns class. 😊 Observing the teacher give tips on everything was really helpful. Thankfully I didn't just observe, though. I got to be hands-on and actually help and learn. The pools are pretty shallow which was tiring on my knees, but I'm sure that will get better. The position is part-time, but also includes cross-training in the office. Again, I'm not really sure on what my schedule will look like, but I'm really excited. I start my first day of official training on Friday. Classes start at 9 AM and it's at least 30 minutes away. That means an early morning for me. Okay, not really early, but considering I haven't had any real responsibilities for the last three weeks, it's early. Thankfully the uniform is even more lax than my Nursing uniform. Throw on a swimsuit and some workout clothing? I don't even have to worry about wrinkly clothing. Tough, I know.

A not-so-fun thing happened after my interview, though. I was feeling good so I of course wanted to call Paul right away to tell him the good news. Well, even though I am much more comfortable driving around I'm still not to the point where I want to drive and talk on the phone. Especially because it's illegal here if it's not hands-free and my little Kia doesn't have Bluetooth. I was spoiled with my Subaru back home, sigh. Again, first world problems. Anyway, so I was parked while I called Paul, but it was warm so I turned on my battery and ran the a/c. I also turned my lights on right away out of habit when I get in my car so I don't forget. Then since I was talking I figured I'd charge my phone. Anyone see where this is going? So, after talking with Paul, I looked on my phone for a place where I could get lunch and waste some time until my meeting at the Hospital about volunteering. My car was running on just the battery for like 15 minutes max. Then I realized I should probably turn my car on so I can actually drive. Not so easy...the lights and everything was still working, but my car didn't have enough battery life to start up. Good thing I was next to a business with a lot of people coming and going. Unfortunately, it's the business that just offered me a job 20 minutes prior. Pretty embarrassing, but the Manager and Assistant Manager helped me to find a parent that had jumper cables. So I got on my way without any more trouble and now I know not to use my car on just battery!

The meeting with the Volunteer Coordinator went well. Looking at my history of being a Nurse in a Hospital and my desire to be in a position with direct patient interaction, she informed me about two possible positions for me. One is working with Speech Pathologists to assist post-stroke patients with talking and communication. The other one is working with Physical Therapists in a "workout" type class, I think, for inpatient and outpatient people. This class sounds like it mainly consists of helping to get people settled in the class or helping with equipment. The Coordinator is going to get back to me after double checking with the staff to make sure there is a need for a volunteer and then she'll get back to me with more details. Both sound interesting to me, but I think I'll prefer working with the post-stroke patients. This is an area that I don't have a lot of experience in with my Nursing background so it'll be a good way to explore if it's an area I'd be interested in for Nursing. At the same time, I think it's an area that could bring a lot of value to the patient participants, too. Volunteering is usually once a week for four hour sessions. The Hospital is pretty close to the pool where I'll be working so I might be able to combine the days and save on some petrol and driving time. For my Froedtert peeps, some interesting observations from the Hospital are: they use voceras, the parking situation is nuts-I drove around a parking structure twice to find an open spot, the transporters wear royal blue polo shirts, and a lot of Hospital staff wore navy blue scrubs, and the Hospital is really big and kind of confusing to find your way around. Basically, I felt right at home.

Paul has been working a ton lately at work and at home. That's to be expected with a new position and everything. Since I haven't really done much of anything over the last couple weeks, it's easy for me to forget how exhausting a work day can be. Despite the long hours, Paul has been great at making time for us on the weekends. Last weekend, we celebrated our four year anniversary. We decided to leave for Rotorua Saturday afternoon so we could pick up our new couch Saturday morning. On Friday we took it easy and tried a new (to us) restaurant, Kebablicious, for take-away. It is a popular restaurant, for sure, we waited for at least 10 minutes for our meals to be assembled even though the food already looked mostly prepared, but still fresh. We quickly learned it's more efficient to call in orders, but we couldn't find a menu online! Guess we'll have to memorize our favorites. The food was worth the wait, though. I had the lamb/chicken wrap. I know, lamb, how can I eat it after seeing cute lambs EVERYWHERE? I just pretended it wasn't lamb. Lamb is a popular item on most menus in NZ due to its abundance, so if I'll just get it out of my system here. Besides, it did taste good. We also rented a movie from a store. No Redboxes here, there are actual video stores. Does anyone remember how difficult it was to register for a Blockbuster card? I kind of did, but was quickly reminded. They needed two forms of address identification. Thankfully I had a piece of paper with our address on it from when we purchased our new couch. They also needed me to write down a name, address, and phone number of someone in NZ, besides my husband. Thankfully I met Sue last week and have her address from helping her with her cows. (Oh hey, Sue, hope that was okay! I promise to return them on time so you're not held accountable for tracking me and my rentals down!) We ended up renting Pitch Perfect 2 and Black Sea. PP2 was fun, Black Sea not so much.

Funny story about our anniversary. I told Paul we shouldn't really get each other gifts because we were going on a weekend trip and we had limited time to go shopping independently. On Friday, I looked up what the traditional gift is for the 4th anniversary and it was flowers/fruit. So, I figured I'd get Paul/us a small floral arrangement from Paul's coworker's wife's floral shop. I got a small one so Paul wouldn't get mad I got something and told him not to. Well, Paul was awesome and surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the same shop. So now we have two floral arrangements which is two more than we could have back home since our cat at the time, Zoe, would try to eat any plants we brought into the house. What a stinker. Paul's coworker asked him the next day if I bought flowers, too, because his wife heard a woman with an American accent buying flowers (me). Not too many of us around here so the chances it was me, was pretty good. It's also funny because I stopped in a store or two after buying the flowers and then went home. Paul said he picked up the flowers from the way home, so we almost ran into each other at the store. Yes, we live in a small town, but also great minds think alike.

On Saturday we didn't make it down to Rotorua until late afternoon so it was kind of late to do any of the activities in the area since the sun was going to set about an hour or so later. Rotorua is a popular touristy area and has a lot of outdoors/adventure things to do, but also some Maori cultural shows. We decided to walk around town and ended up at Lake Rotorua and walked through a small park with geothermal pools. The pools were mostly mud and give off a sulfur smell. It's strange to walk and drive around the area and just see random areas of steam since the pools are super hot. Rotorua is one of the top geothermal activities in the world. Yellowstone National Park is actually the largest area. The area was pretty dead, but I can see it being really popular in the Summer. The lake was pretty. We had dinner at the Pig and Whistle, which was a recommendation from Becky Hager. Food was good and it was a short walk from our hotel.

Sunday we started our day at Wai-O-Tapu. It's a whole park of geothermal activity with craters and pools of different colors from the leeching of minerals into the steaming water. We also saw the Lady Knox Geyser which was cool and we used the Go Pro for the first time. 😊 I anticipate that as the weather warms up there will be more things to do that it'll come into use as well, like mountain biking, zorbing, and sledging. Never heard of sledging? You should look it up. Looks kind of crazy, but fun. It's like whitewater rafting but there is no raft, just you with a kickboard and flippers. Don't worry, Dad, it doesn't look unsafe. 😉 I would recommend this park to visitors. The trek around the park is a total of about 3k, but it's an easy walk. After looking at steaming baths, we decided to go to Waikete Valley Thermal Pools. It was a great way to relax. We wanted to then use the Skyline to go up Mt. Ngongotaha where there is a restaurant and a winery. Then there is an option to luge down. Unfortunately, we got there a little too late to take full advantage of it so we went back home and put the skyline on our future to-do list.

Thanks for reading! More pics to come later.

---

Comments

[Sue]

Haha...no problem except the video store by veggie fresh banned me a few months ago cos I told them what I thought of their service etc....(cannot do that in a small town)....but different address..:) Love your blogs..very funny

[KiwiLaura]

Video store
Haha, that's awesome, Sue!