Tramping in the Port Hills

Yesterday we both had a day off (well, kind of) so we decided to head out tramping to the Port Hills which surround Christchurch. We took a short bus ride from the city centre (about 30 minutes) and headed to the entrance of Victoria Park. After following some rather vague signs to the visitor center, we were able to arm ourselves with a map and plan our day. There are lots of options for tracks to take but for this visit, we decided to take the Harry Ell Walkway to the Sign of the Kiwi (about an hour walk one way). There were some really nice views along the way but the best ones came once we entered the Crater Rim Walkway, just past the Sign of the Kiwi. We were able to see the harbour and the hills in the distance. It was really beautiful. After hiking for a while, we rewarded ourselves with some delicious hokey pokey ice cream cones at the Sign of the Kiwi. Filled with fuel for the hike back, we decided to take the shared use Thomsons and Latters Spur Tracks back. These trails are also used for mountain biking and there is a huge mountain bike jump park in the middle where a bunch of trails intersect that looked really crazy. There’s also a permanent orienteering course set up throughout the park and we managed to accidentally find at least 5 checkpoints just by walking along the trail (we’ll be ready when it comes time to orienteer there!). We also saw some nice views of the city on the way back. It’s hard to imagine that we were only 30 minutes away and in the wilderness! Definitely not like New York! Hopefully we’ll get to go back soon to do some more of the longer tracks.

This weekend we’ll be on the road to Nelson for the big beach ultimate tournament. It’s Pirate themed so we’re planning on it being a crazy awesome time. We’ve only gotten one email from the tourney director so far and it has all been about the party and pirate costumes (and it’s all been written as if he is a pirate speaking to us). We hope that we’re actually playing some ultimate too. Stay tuned early next week for some tourney blogging!

Jen on the Harry Ell Walkway

The Sign of the Kiwi

The view overlooking the harbour

Along the Crater Rim Walkway

The view at the other end of the harbour

Christchurch City in the distance

The Jurassic Adventure

We had a really LONG day yesterday at the New Zealand v. England cricket match. No security detail this time, yesterday we worked the "Bouncy Castle." Unlike the earlier Twenty20 match that we worked at, this was full blown cricket. There's no telling how ridiculously long these things can last. Yesterday's match ran about 8 hours.

Needless to say, it's not the ideal spectator sport for some kids, so there was some entertainment set up so that people could enjoy it during some of the down time. From the feedback we got from some of the kids, it sounds like "downtime" is about half the match. They don't really like to watch The Black Hats bowl and play defense. They just want to watch the batting.

We arrived a couple hours before game time and shared the auxiliary field with some of the players getting warmed up. We unrolled the Castle, hooked up the giant fans, staked the thing into the ground and we were ready for action. Of course, no one would be arriving for a while so we had to test the thing out and make sure it was working, right? Hope you enjoy the footage of our races through the castle. Fellow ultimate player, Crystal, worked with us. Here are Jen and Crystal racing.

Eventually, the boss arrived and decided that we should try to put up a second ride despite the ridiculously strong winds. This one was a gigantic slide that was much taller than the castle. We just got it fully inflated when the boss decided this was a horrible idea. It took seven of us to hold it down and keep it from flying away. We now know what it's like for all those people holding the floats in the Thanksgiving parade. We struggled with it for almost an hour before we got enough air out of it to just leave it where it was un-inflated.

The rest of the day was less entertaining. Just a long series of letting kids on and off the ride. Some of the older "kids" got pretty rowdy and Chris had to break up one actual fist fight, but no major injuries. Who knew a bouncy castle could have such an effect (or maybe it was the ridiculously long and boring cricket match...hmm).

At the end of the night, we had the fun of deflating the castle, rolling things up, and trying to pack up the truck. You wouldn't believe how heavy those things are! Five of us struggled with it for an hour or so and by the time we were done, we put in a twelve hour day. It was hard work, but we're all pretty psyched to add "Bouncy Castle Engineer" to our resumes!

Go Crusaders!!!

Last night we went to check out opening night of the Super 14 action as the Canterbury Crusaders took on the Brumbies (from somewhere in Australia). As you’ve probably heard, they take their rugby very seriously here, so we were excited to check out the scene. Our flatmates, Maelle and Martin were also heading for the game, so we split a cab for the drive to the stadium. Arriving an hour early, the place was already swarming with eager rugby fans. We passed through security quickly since we already knew the drill and didn’t try to sneak in any juice.

They had tons of giveaways for the early arrivals. We managed to pick up some Crusaders foam swords and cardboard armor helmets (HELMETS!) No “Hot” signs this time, so we had to settle for ones that said “Try!” and “Awesome!” It was a rainy night and we came prepared, thanks to Maelle. In addition to bringing home all the café’s left over muffins all the time, tonight she scored us some extra large garbage bags that kept us (mostly) dry all night.

There was plenty of pre-game flare. They sang some ridiculous “Ode to the Crusaders” ballad that felt out of place at a sporting event, but of course there were also appearances from the dance team and the T-shirt cannon. Next came the good stuff. The drawbridge on the giant fake castle came down and the horsemen took a few laps to pump up the crowd. There were even some enormous torches that provided some much needed warmth even 12 rows or so back. They really get into their theme.

When the game finally started, the weather really slowed things down, turning it into a sloppy contest. Not that we know that much about rugby, but at times it just looked like a battle for field position with each team kicking to try to pin the other team down. Penalty kicks provided the only early scoring and it was only 3-3 late in the first half.

The Crusaders scored a couple of trys and they never looked back. The second half was never really close. The home team extended their lead and finished the game with a flurry. The best play of the game was the last, with the Crusaders making a couple nice moves and a long run down the right side for a try as time expired. It was the most open field running we saw all night. They even made the conversion to finish strong and sent the fans that braved the weather home happy.

All in all, it was a great night of entertainment. We think we may like 7 a side a little better. It opens up the field for a little more action and scoring, but we may have to give this another shot when the field is not a swamp.

Latest Job Update: We haven’t actually worked at the golf tournament the last two days (it’s been rained out), but we’ve been getting paid anyway. So far this is the best job yet!

Valentine's Ramblings

Hope everyone is having a great Valentine's Day.
We had a nice dinner at one of the city's Italian restaurants.

Some other quick things that have been going on .....

We did our second orienteering event last night. We were a little more prepared to run this time. Good thing. It was a shorter event, only 60 minutes, but we managed to score a lot more points than last time. There were a lot more hills so it was a challenging course. Next week is the finals at the Uni, our ultimate field stomping grounds. Since we actually know the area for a change, we're prepared to dominate!

Just like orienteering at home!

Courtesy of Mom and Cars, we took our copy of the Bayport Gazette into Cathedral Square to work on our Photo Contest entry. At 9,165 miles from Bayport, we think we have a shot in the "Furthest Away" category.

We also registered for the Nelson Beach Ultimate tournament on the first weekend in March. It looks to be a great Hat tournament with plenty of food, entertainment, and other bonuses. There's about 20 Christchurch ultimate players going, so we'll have plenty of company. We'll let you know if you have to "Watch the Tram Car" or if they have "Sharks, Sharks, Sharks."

Job Update: We're both working tomorrow!! Jen will be spending some QT with some Kiwi pre-schoolers, while Chris continues his professional mingling at the HSBC Golf Tournament. No luck getting on TV yet.


Please help us name our blog! See the Poll to the right. All you crazy commenters can add your suggestions on this post and we can add them to the poll.

That's all for now. Check back soon for our stories about Canterbury Crusaders Rugby.

Akaroa

Hope everyone had a great weekend because we sure did! This Saturday, we booked a trip out to Akaroa which is a small town on the Banks Peninsula just slightly southeast of Christchurch. The day started out pretty cloudy, but our scenic tour to get there still offered us some great views of the town.

Once we arrived, we had to hustle to grab a quick lunch before heading out on a wildlife harbour cruise. We fought off the relentless pigeons to finish our sandwiches and then headed over to the wharf. We had heard that this was the best place to see the rare Hector (or New Zealand) Dolphins. They are some of the smallest dolphins in the world and they are only found in the wild in New Zealand. We saw tons of them! They are really curious animals and love to swim right up to the boat to play. We were even lucky enough to see two of them jumping out of the water and spinning in the air (of course we couldn’t react quickly enough to get a photo…sorry). We did manage a few video clips though, so we hope you enjoy those.

We also saw some beautiful scenery and some New Zealand fur seals sun bathing. The water was a bit rough at times and the wind was quite strong as we headed out, but once the sun came out, the day turned out to be perfect.

After the harbour cruise, we headed back to the town to walk around and check out the little shops. We got our first taste of Hokey Pokey ice cream which seems to be pretty popular here. It’s really pretty simple. It’s just a vanilla ice cream with some sort of small balls of crunchy toffee that are sweet and delicious. A perfect way to end our day in Akaroa.

We then boarded the shuttle for the hour and a half trip back to Christchurch (with one stop at a cheese factory for a cheese tasting; yeah that was definitely different). All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday.

For those of you who are curious, here’s a quick update on our jobs. Since quitting the horrible soliciting for charity jobs, we’ve been searching. As of now, it looks like we’ve had better luck finding jobs on the weekends than during the week. This weekend we’re working at a golf event for two days (4 hours each day) mingling with the crowd and collecting email addresses. Pretty hard work, right? We seem to be drawn to the odd jobs that pop up around here. Hopefully we can keep the streak going and string a few jobs together. We’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Hope all is well back home. Enjoy the week!

New Zealand Fur Seals





Dolphins Playing

Slammin' In The Morning

Our busy Thursday got off to a fast start. This part is for Marc, and any one else interested in Kiwi cuisine (sort of). I present to you the Tim Tam. Jen first discovered them while studying in Australia and got me hooked on our visit there a couple summers ago. They’re pretty simple, really. Just a chocolate covered biscuit with flavor fillings, but there’s just something about them. Frankly, it’s a crime that we don’t have them in the States.

Anyway, our flatmates, Maelle and Martin are now hooked on them as well. They work in a café and early this morning, Maelle was dreading another day at work. So we decided to get her day kick started by teaching her the Tim Tam Slam.

Step 1: Bite both ends off said Tim Tam

Step 2: Use it as a straw to drink a hot beverage of your choice

Step 3: Enjoy a liquefied, delicious chocolate mess

Good times!

Since we were off to such a great start, next we went into the office to quit our jobs street peddling. We’ve never been happier. It was a horrible job. We thought that we could do some good, but the commission based pay structure really left us feeling bad about things. It’s one thing if people want to give and help out, but we were taught “rebuttals” to try to talk people into it and it just didn’t feel right. The commissions also can bring out the worst in people. The girl that was supposed to be training me, actually stole a customer away from me in the middle of my “pitch.”

At least it was somewhat entertaining. Jen was partnered with a really cool person and the boss was a complete lunatic. We were trying to come up with a description for you and the best we could do was “Michael Scott on amphetamines.” He does these goofy cartoon voices all the time. “OOOOOOOWsome!” “Cah-YOOOOOL!” We kept waiting for “That’s what she said,” but it never came. Too bad. Anyway, both of us have some work lined up that should be much better for us.

Free of that burden, we were able to work security at last night’s twenty20 Cricket Match between New Zealand and England. It was really fun and just an insane cultural experience. Before the match, we were working the doors. Jen took peoples’ tickets and I checked their bags for alcohol, fireworks, guns, etc. It was a nice change to talk to people who were in a good mood and not accidentally tripping over signs while pretending to talk on their cell phone to avoid you.

They’re a little more lenient here with what you can bring into a stadium, but any containers larger than a liter we have to confiscate. They are also really nice about it in that we had cases of water to give to replace your confiscated beverage. Of course, not everyone was cooperative. This one guy went absolutely BALLISTIC when I told him he couldn’t bring in his enormous bottle of juice. We gave him some water bottles and he started dumping them out all over the place. Then he tried to refill the bottles with his juice, but he was just spilling stuff everywhere. We think he got more all over his sandals than in any of the bottles. I got an up close account, but through the crowd, all Jen heard was a lot of splashing, yelling, and garbage can rattling.

Once the match was under way, we were reassigned to the stands, actually right down on the playing field (or “the oval” as they call it). Thankfully, Jen was placed on the side where they are doing some construction, and her intimidating presence was enough to keep the 6 fans in the area under control. She was so close to the action that one of the players came over and chatted about how cold it was during a break in the action.

I was not so lucky. Imagine going to the Yankee Stadium bleachers and they just tell you, “Go over there and tell that guy he can take a break.” That’s it. No instructions and I’m thrown in front of the craziest section of the stadium (the Tui Stands) with 18,000 lunatic cricket fans! They were more vulgar than anything I’ve heard at Yankee, Shea or Fenway, screaming the whole game.

I was even the target of some of their heckling. “Hey, Guard! You suck!” But I got some positive hecklers too. They gave out these roll-up signs that say “Shot!” These two girls kept unrolling it so that you couldn’t see the “S” and screaming at me. It was really hard to keep look intimidating and all when you can’t keep a straight face. The Kiwis didn’t fare so well and the crowd got more and more grumpy. Eventually a couple fights broke out, but for $13.50 / hour, I wasn’t going anywhere near that.

After the match, we got a behind the scenes look at the stadium and even a post game interview for the local TV station. We don’t think we’ll ever look at a sporting event the same again. When we got back to the office, they were asking if people were interested in working the season opening Rugby match next Friday. We decided that if the crowd was this intense for Cricket, we don’t want to contest with the Rugby fans. Instead, we’ll be joining them! We just bought tickets to the match, and no, we will not be sitting in the Tui Stands!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Super Bowl Monday!!!

So what are a couple of Americans who just started new jobs to do when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around on Monday afternoon? Take an extra long lunch, of course!!

We did a little research prior to the game and found out that the Holy Grail Pub would be the place to be for the big game. We had no idea what to expect, but we were not disappointed by the giant movie sized screen on the back wall, three tiers of seating, and smaller plasma screens everywhere. It sure beat constantly clicking "Refresh" on the browser, which was our way of taking in the NFC Championship game. Normally, The Grail showcases the big games for the New Zealand All Blacks and other weird sports like cricket, but today the Americans took over and packed the place by noon.

The crowd was pretty evenly split between Patriots fans and Patriot haters. We think there were a few other authentic Giants fans mixed in too. What can you say about the game? Just amazing! Even the most hardened Eli critics (you know who you are) are bound to come around. Right?

The crowd was actually quite civil. We were sitting next to some Patriots fans and the woman next to us came over and shook our hands "good game" afterwards. I don't know how she knew we were Giants fans (other than Chris' hat and the fact that he can no longer speak). Anyway, she was really nice and may even have some Boston teaching leads for Jen. I guess in New Zealand even your typical New York/Boston rivalry is turned upside down.

By the time we made it to summer league tonight, the majority of Americans were easily identifiable. James from New Jersey was unable to even stand since he was downing vodkas and So Co's all afternoon "to make Eli stop sucking." Job well done, James!

"That Manning Kid" is a champion!!!!

We're Thirsty For Wine!!!!

The latest big news from Christchurch, other than all the rugby matches and upcoming Waitangi Day, is that we found jobs. They’re not great, but we are going to give it a try for a while. You know those annoying people in the streets soliciting for charity? Yup, that’s us. Just no bell to ring all day. If it wasn’t for charity, we know we wouldn’t be up for hassling people in the streets. But since it’s for a good cause, we are willing to give it a try for a week. Although we may need to take a long lunch break on Monday to watch the Super Bowl. GO GIANTS!!!!!

After working a whole day and a half (hey, it’s been a while), we needed a break to do something touristy, so on Saturday we headed out on the Canterbury Winery Tour. Of course at home we live just a short trip away from the wineries, but we’ve never actually made it out for a tour and some wine tasting. Pretty much, our knowledge of wine is “like it” and “don’t like it.” We learned a lot, hung out with some really nice people and got to sample plenty of vino.

Our first stop was the “Mud House” (sounds appetizing, ay?). Our server was a guy from Florida doing something very similar to us. He got us thinking about doing some work on the vineyards (yes, we’re already looking for another job). Anyway, it seems that the specialty of the area is Reisling, which conveniently also seems to be our favorite. We picked up a bottle of Mud House to enjoy later.

Our next stop was Waipara Springs. The area is known as the Waipara Valley and it’s filled with vineyards (pronounced vin--YARDS). At this one, we were seated in a nice outside garden and the wait staff kept bringing over new wines for us to sample. Nice quiet setting right? Well, all of a sudden, the party carriage arrived. We heard them before we saw them. Up came a Clydesdale-drawn covered wagon with the sound system pumping “Baby Got Back.” We expected to see Duff Man holding the reigns, but no such luck. It was pretty surreal.

The rest of the day was pretty calm in comparison. We visited two more wineries and sampled a large variety of wines. Not surprisingly, Jen really enjoyed the sweeter wines especially the “Sticky” Reisling. We also discovered a new wine called Gewurztraminer that we had never heard of before. It was very good, also very sweet.
We shared the tour with an Aussie couple on their honeymoon, and a Kiwi couple whose daughter it turns out “flatted” with one of the Christchurch Ultimate players we’ve met. Small world!

We got home in time to catch the finals of the Wellington Rugby Seven’s international tournament. They play short games (15 minutes) with only 7 to a side. It really opens up the field and speeds up the game. In an exciting final, New Zealand beat Samoa by scoring a “try” in the final seconds. It was a really exciting match, easy to see why Rugby is so popular here. We are going to try to catch a game in a couple of weeks when the Super14 season starts. If it’s anything like what we’ve seen on TV, the crowd should be wild and we’ll have plenty of stories for you!

Hope everyone at home is doing well and a big CONGRATULATIONS to everyone’s favorite commenter, Tom and Nelly on their engagement!!!!