The Garys

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Two more beautiful days in Auckland

Wow--I'm hoping that God saves a little more of this weather for the rest of our time here and isn't just giving us all of it in one big dose. It has been amazing!

The days here continue to fly by--there are just far too many things to do (and that's just in Auckland--the rest of the country still awaits!) Yesterday was pretty low key. We headed out in the mid morning and walked up "the big hill" to Parnell. Once there we checked out a few of the cafes and shops and finally settled into lunch at the Alphabet Bistro which proved to be quite good with interesting twists on lunch (e.g., I had the Mediterranean BLT which was pancetta, tomatoes, lettuce, and shaved parmesan on sourdough drizzled with some kind of balsamic--yum!) Since he day was beautiful we sat outside and were enjoying ourselves so much we had to stay a little longer for cappuccino. Of course that's when I realized that I had left diapers at home. Thus we decided to head back to the apartment for a bit before continuing the rest of the day's plans.

View from the top of the "big hill" heading into Parnell

Once we had picked up the necessities we headed up to Greenlane Hospital which is the private hospital where Josh will be spending some time while here (most of his time will be at the public Auckland City Hospital. We went up there to meet a couple of the people who have been helping Josh make all the arrangements to be here. Like everyone else here, they were super friendly. They suggested that we use the afternoon to visit One Tree Hill which was just down the road. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Cornwall Park (which was beautiful) and managed to successfully trek to the top of One Tree Hill for the amazing views (see pic below. By the time we made it down it was practically dark so we hurried to catch the Link bus back home (which proved to be a long haul since we apparently jumped on clearly opposite of the side of the "loop" where we would be hopping off!)

Views from the top of One Tree Hill

Greenlane Hospital

Liam running around in the wide open spaces

Cool tree in Cornwall Park

Today we headed out to Waiheke(Why-hee-kee)Island for the day. Took the ferry out there and enjoyed a short tour followed by a picnic lunch on the beach, a glass of wine in a cafe, and a trip to one of the many, many vineyards out here. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this one. It was breathtaking and we will definitely be back.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Auckland Days 2 and 3

So first of all-we Gary's are clearly not over the time change. Here it is 7:30 at night and I am writing this while barely able to keep my eyes open. Next to me on the couch sit Josh and Liam--both sound asleep with Liam almost snoring. Let's hope he (Liam) manages to stay asleep longer tonight since he didn't even make it to 5 AM this morning.

Secondly--the weather here has been amazing. Not a cloud in the sky for the last two days and that's the forecast for the next 3 days as well. Also--everyone keeps talking about how "cold" it is. And I learned today that this is apparently as cold as it gets. Yet--we have spent basically every waking moment outside in this "frigid" weather. I know it will rain but it seems that it actually is wetter in Aug/Sep/October, so Liam and I may miss much of that since we will just be here June and July.

The last two days have mainly been spent getting the last things checked off our to-do list, like finding a nanny and getting a bank account, as well as more exploring of the city. Starting tomorrow we hope to hit more of the "tourist" places and even take some small treks outside of Auckland (even if it's just the 30 minute ferry to Waiheke Island)

Monday we interviewed our first nanny candidate (to cover for the two weeks I will be working before my mom or Dianne are here--they will be watching Liam when they are around) She was awesome. Apparently the job market in New Zealand is pretty bad so there are a lot of really great people who are doing babysitting, etc. right now that are qualified in numerous fields. This girl is 22, just graduated in May with a PE degree and is currently watching an 18 m and 3 year old. She will likely nanny all year next year for a fam in Dubai and she is looking to bridge the gap with short term roles. Oh and did I mention she just spent 5 months teaching 3 to 6 year olds how to ski in Aspen? If she can do that--she can do anything. We loved her and decided there was no need to interview anyone else since there could only be 2 results that came of that--1) all nanny candidates rocked and we are stuck turning down multiple great people or 2) We still loved the first candidate the best and then just feel bad for wasting everyone's time. So we are super excited to have that resolved!

After we interviewed Jess (the nanny) we had her drop us off in the Parnell area to explore. This is a great suburb with lots of cafes and shops. We didn't really stop anywhere at that time but plan to go back and do lunch or brunch later this week.

That night we attempted to find a sushi place that Jess told us about (Saki Bar Rikka for Kacy if you are taking notes for your trip!) Unfortunately it was closed for the Monday holiday (the Queen's birthday). Too bad, since we walked probably a mile worth of laps trying to find the place and must have passed it 4 times before we realized it was the dark, barely labeled place that we had been walking by. We will return though and this time we know right where to go! Also since it is right next to Victoria Park--we got to check that out (it was okay--basically like other parks in the world!) Also--since that didn't work out--we ended up wandering around the Viaduct Harbor area and eating there(beautiful and all I could think about was how much my Dad would love looking at all of the yachts!)

Today we had plans to do the Sky Tower and the Auckland Zoo. But only ended up doing the Zoo (will probably do Sky Tower tomorrow). Only ended up having time for one because we got sidetracked with getting a bank account (which took a little more time than we expected) and stopping by the McK office to pick up my wireless card and access badge. Very nice office by the way with an amazing view over the harbor--I'll have to take pics of the view from the office I will be borrowing--it's pretty ridiculous! The Zoo is a great zoo--Liam was bummed that the penguins were off display but I told him we would go to this Antarctica adventure place that they have in Auckland (Kelly Tarlton's) and see the penguins there, and that seemed to appease him! They have tons of tigers and lions (and two of the tigers are cubs who will be celebrating their first b-day next week!) Liam of course loves the lions since they are all "mommy and daddy Ees" For those of you who don't know, "Ees" is Liam's much loved stuffed lion who he has had since he was born. When he sees the male lion he just yells with crazy excitement "That's Ees' daddy!!"Soooo cute--I love him!

So overall--not too much exciting to report--I hope to have something more fun over the next couple of days! (although we wanted to do a wine tour on waiheke but all of the tours say--"not recommended for children" so we decided we might feel a little too much like lushes if we ignored that and dragged along our 2 year old anyway! Thus, vineyard tour stories may have to wait for a day when we have a babysitter!)

Here's one pic for you--a view of the harbor at dusk. My battery ran out right after this one which is why I don't have others (we did get some video at the zoo today though so I may try to add that later!)

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Welcome to Auckland!

Alright, after too long away from this blog, I have been given a reason to renew it, and reinvent it as "Living as Kiwis: The Gary's Adventures in New Zealand" or something like that. (As I've said before--creativity is not my strength).

For those of you who this is a surprise to--let me give you the basics. Josh and his buddy and fellow ortho resident, Henry, drew the short straw on going to England with their residency program. Not one to sit back and mope-Josh decided to come up with and alternative "international rotation" option for them. Their friend Mike had already done some legwork last year to set something up in Auckland, so they picked up where he left off and voila--a few months later we are living in Auckland temporarily!

Josh will be a here a full 3 months and Liam and I will be here until the end of July. Everyone asks if I am taking a LOA from work and the answer is no. My job is one where I can work from almost anywhere, so I could have just done it from our home here, but even better-- my company has an office here in Auckland so I'm able to work from there. I will, of course, be taking my fair share of vacay too, but not 2 months worth!

So here we are! We arrived in Auckland yesterday after a 2 to 3 hour flight to LA and a 13 hour flight to Auckland. Liam did really well and 13 hours in coach was not nearly as bad as I thought it could be (mainly because Quantas is a pretty sweet airline). Liam did get some sleep but it was probably only 7 hours or so, not his usual 12 (more on the consequences of this later)

Our first intro to Auckland was a friendly one, the airport volunteer who took one look at our 10 luggage items and knew we needed help. She helped us load up two luggage carts, get them through customs (and our close call where we could have been fined since we forgot to declare my "gum boots" aka rain boots/wellies), and then direct us to the best transportation option, all without expecting or taking a tip.

Our next adventure was our arrival to the new apartment--at 6:30 AM. Technically check-in (since it's an apartment/hotel) isn't until 2 so it was a little dicey for the first half hour since we weren't sure if we would be able to get into the place early or just walk the streets of Auckland for 7 hours. Fortunately, once the manager arrived she was able to give the okay to let us in early and we got to see where we would be spending the next few months.

The thing about doing this "corporate apartment-type" option was that we knew there would be some big benefits but suspected there may be some, trade offs too. Below I will list the "good" and the "different" (since there is no such thing as "bad" here--we are in New Zealand people!) about our new home away from home.

Good

Immediate cable and internet (no need to set anything up--it was just plug and go)

Really good location--right around us there are a few restaurants and bars and plenty more in walking distance. Parnell--one of the neat suburbs (what they call neighborhoods around here) is also walking distance as is my office and downtown Auckland. Best of all the big Auckland grocery store is across the street which is hugely beneficial-even more so than we thought it would be as you will see in the "different" section.

Nice, new place with new furnishings etc. and full stocked with appliances, kitchen-stuff, etc. (I'll post some pics below)

Different

This place is small! Nothing around here is that big but there were a few options at least somewhat bigger. I think this is probably around 650-700 square feet so Josh, Liam, and I (and anyone else coming to visit) will be getting very close over the next couple of months. Plus it was pretty hard to find spots for our clothes and our 10 bags and suitcases!

Just enough stuff for 4 What I mean by this is that there is exactly 4 of everything--(e.g., 4 forks, 4 glasses) which means we will need to wash dishes frequently and may have to buy or request a few extras for when we have guests here. Interestingly--there are only 3 chairs for the dining table though!

And now--for the most different of all--I would like you to witness exhibits A and B.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Yes, that is our refrigerator you are looking at, or as Liam calls it, "Liam's frigerator" since it's just his size (he's already broken one egg since he can just reach in and pull out whatever he wants) So as I mentioned earlier, we will definitely be taking advantage of having the grocery store across the street since we will need to make daily trips!

Here are a few more pics of the place:

Above is the view from the balcony (you can see the top of the sky tower in the top left corner)

Okay, if I haven't bored you by now--I'll finally get to what we actually did with our time today. For the most part we just got our bearings and got some basics for the fridge (and some NZ cell phones). The weather was great in the AM but we got to experience the Auckland rain (very cold and windy) in the afternoon--it didn't stop us though! Liam was replaced for much of the day by someone we will call "impostor child". Our sweet, always good, little child was possessed. Clearly these are the consequences of not enough sleep. At one point today, after we let him take a nearly 3 hour nap--we got him up so we could head out for the afternoon and also try to get him back on schedule. That's when Liam screamed over and over again words I never thought I'd hear him say "Liam stay in bed! wahhhhh!" Eventually he seemed to recover once we got him outside. A few pics:

The "Impostor"

Feeling a little better in the rain

Liam loved the rain so much--when we got home he just wanted to hang out in the cold on the balcony

And then he fell asleep--standing up and in the cold =)

We were all asleep by 7 pm--which explains why we are all now up at not quite 5 AM on Monday

I promise my other entries shouldn't be this long! But I will basically be using this as my online journal to chronicle our adventures here, so if you are interested--feel free to stop by and take a peek every once in awhile!