Super(bowl) Tuesday

It's been quite entertaining trying to answer questions about the American primary process. Many people over here are quite informed about what's going on in the US (wow, in other parts of the world they actually have news about what's happening in other countries!), so their questions can be quite detailed and specific. Overall, it's made me realize just how confusing and convoluted our system can be.

However, the most recent question definitely tops the list...

I was hurrying out of work to go catch the end of the superbowl (yes, it was already Monday afternoon here), and one of my coworkers said, "Superbowl? Now, remind me again, is that the same as Superbowl Tuesday?"

Oh dear. All though, come to think of it, they do have a lot of similarities...

Come on over (we need people).

Many Kiwi's are surprised that it was so easy for us to get 1 year work permits here in NZ.

They're used to heaps of people coming over from other commonwealth countries, but the US doesn't really fall under that category anymore. Even Bostonians, with their 'pahk' and 'cahr' , clearly can't pass for the true Brits.

More importantly, many of them have tried to get work permits in the US, and failed. Funny that. Apparently this is not an equal exchange.

But now, we start to see the true welcoming nature of the Kiwis. Our visas have no where near expired and they're already trying to get us to extend our stay. For all of you that are rooting for us to return to the states at some point, be forewarned, you're competing with all of Immigration NZ :

Happy New Year Mekayla

As someone who has visited New Zealand on a Working Holiday visa you'll know about our long, lazy summer days, with sailing and cycling after work and weekends at the bach.

Creating memories to treasure. And share with your friends and family.

Which is why I am writing to you now.

First, as someone who entered New Zealand on a Work Holiday visa you may be thinking about your future options. You have many, including staying here in New Zealand and applying for a work visa as a skilled migrant.

In fact, this is a great time to consider staying because with our current low unemployment, we're looking for professional qualifications and experience. If this is of interest to you, my advice is to complete an Expression of Interest application by clicking here, or alternatively complete a registration on newzealandnow.info/us. If you do the latter, we'll then send you a series of emails about life in New Zealand that will also include visa information and job links tailored to your age and experience.

Second, if you have colleagues you think would enjoy working and living in Aotearoa, why not excite their interest by sharing the attached video with them? It's a recent one from Tourism New Zealand, and reflects the passion we have for life. You can also refer your friends to newzealandnow.info/us by clicking here.

As one of the youngest nations in the world, New Zealand has much to offer. For work. For travel. For life.

If you are keen to stay and/or return to Aotearoa, why cherish your memories when you can continue the journey?

Regards,

Victoria Forrest
Immigration New Zealand

Australia? Did we go there?

Well, 3841 Australia pictures have now been reduced down to the much more easily consumed (and uploaded) number of 290. Mekayla still thinks that is too many. (As if you have something better to do than live vicariously through us. HA!) So we have also created a Top 40 list showing the best of the best.

Of course you have probably seen many of the top 40 on the blog, but now you can also download full resolution versions of them and use them as you see fit. Who doesn't want a desktop background of me sitting in a tent, or me looking at a termite mound. The possibilities for plastering my picture on every facet of your computer experience are endless. So dive on in:

Australia Photos

If you are unsure of where places are, take a look at our journey map of Australia.

Within each of the albums you can also start a slideshow of the photos by clicking on this icon on the top left of the page:

The slideshow does a good job of loading the other pictures in the background while you are looking at one. Unfortunately our site is not quite as user friendly as it should be, so most people probably never realize that the slideshow feature is there.

Speaking of updating the site, I updated the main page: www.saltypoint.com. Not that this actually makes any real difference in anyone's lives, but I've been having fun with web programming recently, and thought I would share.

Anyway, enjoy Australia. We need a bit of a break before trying to tackle New Zealand photos, but hopefully they will get up in early February. Of course the number of NZ photos keeps increasing too. I took 400 photos of seals over the weekend! Cheers!

NZ's Biggest Sports Bar

I managed to watch my first Patriots game of the season! Of course, it was also the first post-season game. For some reason they don't show much Patriots football in New Zealand. I was a little worried that my watching might ruin this rather excellent streak they've been on. Fortunately it turns out that I do not possess that kind of power. At least not yet...

From what I understand, this little streak has been big news back in the States. I also understand that most of the country rather dislikes New England at the moment. Seeing as how I don't want to anger my growing national audience, I will now cease mentioning of the Patriots (at least until after their Super Bowl win).

I dragged Mekayla to downtown Christchurch to watch the game in "New Zealand's biggest sports bar": The Holy Grail. It actually is quite big. Of course the biggest bar felt quite empty and cavernous with only a dozen or so football fans in it.

I think the bar was originally designed for more popular events and would always be so packed that everyone would have to stand. This is the only explanation I can think of for only having ten chairs anywhere close to the bar. It does have stadium bleacher seats though from which you can watch the lo-def broadcast on the "biggest screen in NZ". (NZ likes their HD TVs, but unfortunately doesn't broadcast anything in HD.) And when there is no crowd stadium seating is actually quite luxurious. Kinda like lounging around in the good seats at a Roman coliseum I imagine.

Anyway, a fun time was had by all. Hope everyone is enjoying the post season.

Work Work Work

For some reason, we keep getting questions about work. I don't really understand, since we think that work is a much less interesting topic than all the adventures we're having, but I suppose it's time to satisfy the masses and answer some of the questions:

Yes we've been working.

No, we don't think it's as fun to tell work stories as it is to make you jealous of all the beautiful places we get to visit in our time off.

No we're not shearing sheep or picking kiwi fruit (although I did consider getting a job as a bread maker at an organic bakery, mmm bread!).

Boring as you may think it is, we've actually gotten jobs more or less in our fields. I'm working at an insurance company and Greg's designing websites.

Didn't you know that's what our specialties really are?

Greg gets to sit at home all day, messing around on the computer, and I get to go into a big traditional insurance company and help them learn how to do User Centered Design. Very similar to the type of work I was doing at IDEO, except that working with a team of people that's familiar with the process, I'm working with a bunch of people who have never done this type of work before.

Turns out you have to spend money in order to make money. I don't think they would have been too happy if I had showed up in the faded shirt I've been wearing hiking for the last 5 months. Especially since all the software programmers wear ties and shiny black shoes to work. Ah well, I guess I can save the hiking shirt for casual Fridays ;-) .

Time for me to go learn some more insurance terminology!

Circling the South Island with My Parents

Well, somehow we all survived it. My parents have been visiting us for the past two weeks and we took them for a whirlwind tour of the South Island. A few times along the way I was not entirely sure how we would all survive the trip, but by the end we had found a balance and gotten into a steady traveling rhythm.

Since our Australia map has had an astonishing 230 views I thought I would make a new map to show this journey. All told we put an additional two thousand kilometer on the car and I took 1398 pictures. I think there were at least a hundred times that my parents collectively said "Wow!" at the incredible scenery we saw along the way.

For instance, they were both excited to get rather close to the Fox Glacier (it is impossible to capture with a picture just how big it really is).


Here they are on the way back from a rather long hike we took them on up the Pororira River valley.



Marveling at Mt. Cook:


We even got my Mother to cross a foot bridge that swung fifty feet above the churning melt-water coming from Mueller Glacier.


Occasionally we found ourselves out walking on beaches:


Or tasting a wee bit of wine outside of Queenstown:


Or just wandering through fields of flowers:


Hope everyone has been having a good start to the new year.

My parents made me promise to try and go through all of our pictures and get them uploaded to our website. I just went through and counted, and actually there are fewer than I had feared: 3841 from Australia and 3728 from New Zealand. I was sure I had broken the 10K barrier by now.

So sometime in the near future I'll try and cut that down to just the good ones. Somehow I don't think anyone wants to wade through all 424 pictures we took on our whale watch in Australia.

Toasty the Sandman

Toasty the Sandman
Was a jolly happy soul
With a fern-like pipe and a carrot nose
And two eyes made out of broccoli (florets)


Toasty the Sandman
Is a fairytale they say
He was made of sand
In a distant land
And he came to life one day

There must have been some magic
In that old dead gull they found
For when they stuck a feather on his head
He began to tramp around


Toasty the Sandman
Was alive as he could be
And the children say
He could laugh and play
Just the same as you and me

Toasty the Sandman
Knew the sun was hot that day
So we hit the beach
With a wine glass each
To celebrate Christmas Day


Up to the mountains
A walking stick in his hand
Tramping here and there all around the hills
Saying catch me if you can


Thumpety thump thump
Thumpety thump thump
Look at Toasty leap
Thumpety thump thump
Thumpety thump thump
Over the hills of SHEEP!