Blogs from Timaru, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 3

This weekend our friend, Jeremy, came to visit us in T-town. Jeremy is a long term acquaintance, having graduated from high school slightly ahead of our sons, tried college, and, since he wasn't totally enthralled with what he was studying, joined the US Navy as a photographer. Traveled a lot, saw a lot, grew a lot, and the result is a wonderful young man. He has recently graduated from the University of Washington (where he is once again in contact with our two doctor sons), and, while he awaits starting grad school this summer, he is living in Christchurch doing some personal research. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with Jer. He is bright, funny, and has deep insights into himself and others. He arrived on Friday afternoon. We had supper with our neighbor Randy at his ... read more

PLUMERS ADVENTURES IN NEW ZEALAND The objective of the above adventure is to have fun. That said, how we will know when we are having fun? It is usually easy to determine when we are NOT having fun, but it is not so easy measuring the fun part. For purposes of this blog, we institute a fun scale, in which @ zero is no fun, and ten, for the most fun possible. For the beginning of our trip to New Zealand, we must leave Philly @ 0600 am which means getting up @ 0300 am (fun scale=1), then flying for 5 hours to San Francisco, Racing to catch a United Flight to Tokyo, which is an additional 11 hours, and then we flew Air New Zealand for another 11 hours. Normally, this would rate a FS=3, ... read more

Last weekend, we went to Christchurch. We spent a lazy couple of days walking on the beach at the beach resort in Sumner, where we stayed at the Mariner Backpackers Hostel (beware of the rooms next to the kitchen or any other public area), and went downtown to take in some of the action at the Buskers' Festival. We saw some very good acts, as well as some that left us cold on what was otherwise a very hot day. Thank God for Starbuck's!!! Actually, I had my standard summer iced vente Americano latte with sugar free flavoring. Forgot to bring my Starbuck's card so I had to pay for the syrup. There are now at least two Starbuck's in Christchurch, plus the one in Dunedin makes three of the four on the South Island that ... read more

So here I am, our third weekend here in T-town, and I am in the latter end of a 67 hour shift of being on call. I only got called in twice, mid Saturday and mid Sunday morning for two cases each. I am on call for OB, but no epidurals were necessary, and I only got a couple other calls, so not so bad, methinks. Some of you are interested in the practice here. Initially, I was a bit surprized at how hard I was working. Perhaps that was because I had backed off to 3/4 time back home, and I am working a bit more than that. I suspect that as I get more used to the system and less stressed, I won't feel like I am working so hard. I began my job ... read more

Here are some photos of our house in Timaru. In many ways the much smaller scale of our home makes life much simpler. Multiple walking trips a week to the wharf for fish, and grocery stores, carrying all in my back-pack, has become a fun routine for me. The first time I used the oven it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to turn it on. Thankfully, the previous dwellers left the instruction manual. Every electrical item is designed and installed with energy conservation in mind. This did take some getting used to. Still trying to figure out sorting the trash... Shopping can be fun and full of surprises. After making home made salsa, I discovered that what i purchases as ' tomato sauce' was really Ketchup! and very spicy at that!... read more