road to nowhere

pretty recently in my life, i thought the highest form of directional challenge i might face would be the order of lexington, park, and madison or which side of broadway 7th avenue would be on.  here in NZ, it's a whole other ball-game.

not only do i generally have no idea where i'm going (oh how i miss you iphone google maps!), but i also can't seem to pronounce 90% of the road names here.  this probably makes me sound a bit ridiculous, but i promise it's more difficult than you think.

maajdsflkjd;

i'll spare you the fozzy bear joke.

maybe i'm immature, but i feel strange saying i'm going to pick something up on "hickey" street.

karangahape? this one is so complicated, everyone calls it "k road"

i don't have a photo of it, but there's even a road in mission bay called "ngapipi."  yeah, try and pronounce that one out loud in a crowded room...

birthday bungy

i have the day off today for my birthday (a lovely perk of the job), so i had one of two choices of what i could do with a free wednesday. i could spend the day shopping, running errands, and eat an entire funfetti cake to myself orrrrrrr i could do something touristy that only runs on weekdays.  as tempting as option a was, i decided to go touristy and to do something that i've actually never thought i would ever in a million years have the desire to do - go on my first bungy jump.

i decided that for my first ever jump, i would go for the one off auckland's harbour bridge.  the thought of potentially landing in water versus concrete (pessimistic thoughts anyone?) seemed much more of a viable option for me so i booked in for a 9 am bungy.  didn't want to give myself too much time to think about what i was about to do...

despite the mini panic attack i had just before jumping, it was one of the best experiences i've ever had.  unfortunately for this blog, the feeling is completely indescribable.  speaking from a place of having an absurd fear of heights (i once came close to tears in a high school drama class when the class had to climb up into the rafters for a "tour"), a bungy jump is totally doable and should be on everyone's to do list.  i'm not saying i wasn't scared - i already mentioned my panic attack and am debating the level of embarrassment sharing the video version of my jump would amount to.  it's definitely terrifying when you're up there and they're asking you to scoot just one more inch to the edge, but the feeling during the fall and afterwards is 100 times worth it. i think there may even be another bungy in my future.

finally taking the dive - no, they didn't need to push me (though it was close)

 this is my post adrenaline rush face

alright, what the heck, i'll go ahead and embarrass myself and let you see the video.  just a quick warning, this video includes pathetic tears and a false jump (i.e. i don't do it the first time), so feel free to make fun of me: http://youtu.be/VDn4o46sHuY

hipstamatic street printz

just playing with hipstamatic on my way home from work...

flowers at a dairy

franklin road

cool door.

random statue in a park near my flat.

mural sidewalk on the way to work.

halloween

most of my friends that i am keeping in touch with have included a question on whether or not NZ celebrates halloween in their most recent emails.  the answer to this question? yes. do they celebrate thanksgiving? no, and i don't want to talk about it. (sigh)

anyway, last night i went with one of my flatmates to a friend's halloween party.  honestly, nothing really crazy to report. we went to a party, drank some wine, met a few new friends, and ended the night dancing to a live band at a bar on the waterfront.  the most interesting piece of the night for me was how difficult it seemed to be for people to understand what i was dressed as.  i was pretty sure it was obvious, given that i was dressing as one of my favorite childhood icons. the number of people who questioned my costume, however, was probably somewhere in the teens.  maybe i'm more americanized than i think.

i don't want to be vain and post 197312749873 photos of me trying to be cute in my costume (not like i have any of those...), but please feel free to let me know if my costume isn't  as glaringly obvious as i assumed it was...

circus

working in advertising, i'm pretty used to having gifts and invitations sent to the office from various media owners.  it seems anytime anyone wins an award or increases their circ numbers, such an occasion deserves a branded coffee cup or cupcakes for the entire office.  to be honest, however, so far the silly little gifts in NZ don't seem to compare to NY.  don't get me wrong, we get our fair share of invitations, but they are fewer and farther between than they were in NY.  looking at it glass half full, it does make you appreciate the times when it happens, especially when it's an obscure "gift" like the one we received this week.

this past week, a popular weekly women's publication was given the title of the "number one most read magazine in NZ."  not that i'm an expert on the market already, but probably the biggest surprise of all was that this magazine wasn't already number one. to announce such tremendous news, it was only natural that the magazine's sales rep, publisher, and editor send an email to the whole agency to let us know that they were coming into the office at 12:30 with a "big surprise."

and big surprise it was.  rolling up in a black limo, out came three women who worked at the magazine, two large buckets full of champagne, several pink balloons, and two young shirtless gentleman - so basically a circus. pretty cool to receive champagne in the middle of the day, especially when most everyone started drinking it, but definitely the most random media owner "gift" i've ever experienced.

just another day at the office...

iced coffee or milkshake?

i've honestly never really been much of a coffee drinker.  while people in college drank coffee to cure hang overs and get to class, i avoided the beverage all together.  even when i started working, except for the occasional starbucks gingerbread lattes (i mean c'mon, who can resist those things?), i pretty much stayed away and liked to consider myself a "tea girl." 

eventually, however, i ended up meeting someone in new york who got me into this fad of having an iced coffee with a banana in the morning for breakfast and i was hooked.  iced coffee has since become a weakness for me and when the weather warmed up this past weekend indicating summer around the corner, my habitual craving kicked in.  unfortunately, when i went to a shop here and ordered what was listed on the menu as an "iced coffee," i didn't quite get what i expected.

laura's long black on the left, my "iced coffee" on the right

when my order came out, it looked more like one of those crazy huge frappuccino things people who don't actually like coffee but want to feel like they are a part of the coffee drinking population order.  sure, the bottom half of the cup was filled with what i would consider an iced coffee, but the top half had not only whip cream with chocolate and cinnamon powder with coffee bean garnish, but a scoop of ice cream.

so here i was, the girl who ordered muesli and yogurt with fresh fruit for breakfast and basically a coffee milkshake to drink at like 9 am.  it tasted like a dd's coffee coolatta and was de-li-cious, but iced coffee lovers coming to NZ be warned before you go casually ordering iced coffees at authentic cafes.  not to sound too american, but unless it's dessert time or you're wanting a mid afternoon snack, see if you can find a starbucks instead.

hot water beach and cathedral cove

on our way back from whitianga, we decided to stop at a couple of the other beaches in the coromandel.  the first beach we went to, was called hot water beach.  probably sounds like the name is pretty obvious, but it's not the water in the ocean on the beach that is hot, but the water coming from underground.  this beach is over two fissures of water coming from underground reservoirs of superheated water from volcanos.  don't worry, we weren't chilling in magma.  the water cools as it comes to the surface, however, it cools to about 147˚F (that's the highest temp, but i'm trying to be dramatic here so).  most people who come to this beach dig holes in the sand so the hot water comes up through the ground to make something like a natural hot tub/spa, which is a pretty great way to spend your afternoon.


next, we headed over to cathedral cove to spend a few hours relaxing in the sun.  this beach is only accessible by boat or by foot, and since i haven't gotten around to buying that yacht yet, we decided to take a stroll.  this is somewhat of an understatement as the walk from the car park to the actual sand was about 45 minutes on fairly rocky, steep terrain.  if my friend shannon is reading this, table mountain was a 9 and this path was like a 7, but in a bikini and sandals.  once we arrived, it was absolutely one of the most beautiful beaches i've ever been to.  we stayed for about 3 hours, and it was very peaceful and pretty empty considering it's listed as one of the best north island beaches to go to if you're someone who googles those sorts of things....