Toque'in it up

Well, we've been busy bees the past few weeks. It all started with one wee-toque I made for a woman's newborn baby... Isn't the toque cute? The mom I made it for didn't sound all that impressed as she said, "Oh great, thanks." I almost yanked it out of her hands so I could give it to Craig and Hazel (who would LOVE it for baby Ryan), but the woman paid me for it, so I guess it's hers now.

Mountain Biking in Maitai Valley

The fun just got started after the toque ordeal... Brian and I wanted to take our bikes out for a mountain bike ride so I could get used to single track trails and riding up steep hills again. But first, we stopped for a quick ride with the locals at the grocery store. The trails were awesome, and I felt more comfortable on the bike than I thought I would considering I had not ridden much since I fell off my bike and broke my elbow a few months back. Feeling rather stellar and overconfident, I told Brian to get a photo of me doing a pop-a-wheelie on my bike, but the picture looks like I am just pulling up the handle bars with one leg safe on the ground for stability. Oh well, next time I'll be more hard core.

After the failed attempt at a pop-a-wheelie, I told Brian to do a big burnout and I'd video record it on his camera. Well... here's how it turned out: Not quite the burn out that I anticipated, but I thought it was rather funny that he 'peeled out' and then stopped to look back at me as though he were saying, "Did you get it? Did you get it?!"

Wanaka Ski Trip

Spontaneous? Sure, we're spontaneous! We were given three days notice of five glorious days off in a row from Kathmandu... What shall we do? Let's go skiing! Quickly and efficiently (efficient for us, anyway) we gathered the necessities into our car and drove 11.5 hours (the same distance that took us thirteen days to ride on our bicycles) to get to Wanaka. Our route took us down the west coast, the rainy, wet west coast. Near Greymouth, we saw a paper-boy driving his car and delivering papers out the rolled down window. Now, normally this wouldn't surprise me, but what made me stare was the fact that he was driving 110 kph down the highway in front of us delivering papers out the rolled down window, and did so pretty precisely without slowing down. His accuracy was supreme (most of the time). I was impressed. By the time dinner time had come and long since past, we found ourselves in Haast. Yucky, dirty, smelly Haast. I didn't like Haast the first time I was there with Beth. I didn't like Haast the second time I was there on our bikes with Brian. And, sure as heck, I didn't like Haast this time. Here's why: We decided to eat something at the local (the only) pub, if you could call it a pub - it was more like a hunter's meeting emporium with antlers hung on every possible stitch of wall/ceiling/floor space. Mental note: don't order Thai Curry Chicken from a place with antlers hung on the wall. It cost $23 for the Thai Curry Chicken dish, and it looked like it came out of a can and was heated in a microwave. I should have taken a photo of the monstrosity before us, but it grossed me out too much. We ate as much as we could shove down without getting ill, and then kept driving on our way towards Wanaka. Good riddance Haast!By the time we got to Wanaka, it was almost 10:00PM, and we were beat. Beat up with our lousy meal in Haast, and beat up with the rain and darkness and severely winding roads. It was our original plan to drive all the way to Queenstown that night and stay over with Perg and Christina, but once we arrived in Wanaka, the backseat of our car was looking mighty inviting. So that's what we did. We parked by the lake and folded the seats down and had a pretty sweet snooze all night. Come morning, we had a great view of the lake and the surrounding mountains warming up with the sunrise (of course all this became visible once the windows de-fogged). After the most amazing breakfast and coffee at the organic food store/cafe, Brian and I drove the rest of the way to Queenstown for a Fergburger (Canada needs a Fergburger - it's 162 times better than Burger King), and met up with Christina and Perg for a brief chat before heading back to Wanaka.

Once we were back in Wanaka, we stayed at Sandra's place (she's a Canadian nurse Brian and I bumped into at the grocery store in Oamaru when I broke my arm). She works part time in Oamaru, and part time at the ski hill near Wanaka called Treble Cone. We must do something special for Sandra because she let us stay at her place, she made us dinners, and gave us 50% off ski tickets. Sweeeet. We must also do something for Ed and Marion (friends of Brian's whom he met bike touring on the north island), because Ed gave us free ski rentals from the store he works at in Wanaka. Double sweeeeet. And lastly, we must thank Mylene (from Quebec) and Rusty (a native Kiwi) for driving us up to the ski hill on those nasty, steep and windy roads.

The three days of non-driving were fantastic. We had a big sushi feast one night; eight people ingested 22 homemade sushi rolls. Mmmm....

Left to Right: Brian, Rusty, Sandra, and me.

We played "Zilch" (a.k.a. "Ten Thousand"): a dice game where you roll six dice and the aim is to build up 10,000 points to win. If you don't roll a one or a five on your turn, you get zilch, hence the name of the game. Hard to explain, fun to play.

I was doing okay to start with, but soon thereafter we started to blame my bad luck on the curse of the couch. I got zilch so many times, I ended up with zero, zilch, nada.

Games aside, the skiing was pretty good. The snow wasn't as great as Lake Louise, and the hill consists of, well, pretty much fields and fields of moguls, but other than that - oh wait, the patches of bare rocks and grass, yes, but other than that it was great!

Most of our time on the hill was spent with Mylene and Rusty (the two boarders with dread locks in the photo below). It was fun to follow behind them and watch them do jumps and tricks. It made me want to start boarding...

The second day proved to be a blessing from the weather gods: sunny, warm, and super clear. You could see all the way to Wanaka from anywhere on the hill. It was easy to realize that we were skiing in New Zealand, and definitely not Canada (the lack of trees helped to differentiate as well).

Brian caught a video of Mylene snowboarding. She had done a wicked jump in the same spot ealier in the day (photo taken by Rusty):So we anticipated BIG AIR, but the jump in the video ended up being a wee-jump - I think because it was the end of the second day and our legs were getting very tuckered out.

Both Mylene and Rusty have dreadlocks, as I mentioned before. They looked pretty awesome standing side by side while cooking quesidillas and drinking beer. Mylene's dreads are seven years old! That's a lot of hair to carry around every day. They look awesome though. I love them, and secretly wish I had dreads like that too.

On our last morning, before we made the mad dash, 11.5-hour drive back home, we posed for one last photo with our gracious host, Sandra. The remainder of our day looked a lot like this:But we did manage to stop a few times for road-side pee breaks, water bottle refills, and the occasional scenic photo opportunity:I believe the photo below is one of the coolest and tripped-out photo I've ever taken. It is not a double exposure. It has not been altered. How did she do it???It's a photo of a window reflection (the mountains and sky) with the image looking into the window of a small church with rounded open door at the other end. Here's another picture taken from the same spot, but off to the side:

More photographic horsing around in the passenger seat of the car at night with a six second exposure at night:

The trip was exhausting, but oh-so worth it! Especially since Brian and I have decided that we won't be staying in New Zealand much longer. Yes, you heard it here first: we're heading back to Canada... soon. The tickets have just been booked.

The plan-o-action: I'll fly to Vancouver on September 1, and chill out with friends and the fam for a week before flying down to San Francisco, where I'll meet my dear Brian (who will be flying directly from NZ to San Fran). We'll hop back on our bicycles and ride up the coast - the California coast, the Oregon coast and the Washington coast, and then up and over to Victoria and then on to Chilliwack so Brian can meet my parents. I think the next blog address should be "San Fran To Van".

It will be extremely sad to leave New Zealand now, with all our friends, fun activities, and the coming of spring, but at the same time it feels right to go, to head onto another adventure and make our way back to Canada. It has been said to me before, "Leave the 'party' while it's going strong, and you'll have nothing but awesome and fun memories about the place." Regardless of this fact, and how true I know it is... it will be difficult to get on that plane...

If I could write my own prescriptions...

If I could write my own prescriptions, I'd only charge a dollar (NZ).... I have to face the fact that every once in a while I get a wee-bladder infection. I get them, my mom gets them, and I'm sure Uncle Freddy gets them too. It's just part of life. You can drink all the cranberry juice you want, but the only way to get rid of the infection is a small dose of antibiotics. In Canada, I can go see my doctor and within minutes, I've got my prescription and off we go to fancy-free peeing. In New Zealand, however, it ain't so darned easy. Well, actually, it is easy, but it's terribly costly. After a quick pee in a cup, I was in the doctor's office waiting room twenty-seven times longer than it took for the doctor invite me into his office to say "Yup, it's a bladder infection. Here's your prescription." This whole process, which is not complex or time consuming, cost me $95.00 NZ. At least the ladies behind the counter were nice and chatty while they took my hard-earned money. Once I got to the chemist (a.k.a. pharmacy in Canada), it cost me $11.oo NZ to purchase five little pills guaranteed to produce fancy-free peeing. So, the grand total of $106.00 NZ was just enough to fit within the $100 CDN deductable on my travel health insurance. Hot damn.

Where's the camera when you need it?

Of course, when faced with a sixty-year-old woman dressed in fishnet stockings, fire-engine red stiletto heels, a rather daring and see-through top ensemble, rather excessively extended fake eyelashes with sparkles, and ravishing red lipstick, one would love to take a portrait. And the desire to photograph such a person quadruples when you realize the woman lounging sexily on the Ches lounge before you is actually a man. You're probably wondering where I was in the sweet little town of Nelson to view such a display of utter awesomeness: where else could it be but the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show! About twelve of us joined together wearing wigs, make-up and bras on the outside of our winter clothing to go and see the cult film in all its glory. Brian looked rather dashing in Hazel's pink and black lace bra (I especially liked the traditional striped sport socks filling the empty cups). The only problem of the evening was that I had terribly hard core period cramps that didn't respond much to heavy doses of Advil Liquid Gel Migraine pills or the warmth of a hot water bottle until right before we left to see the show. Ugh... The beginning of the movie was great with all the audience participation and such, but I found it hard to shake my groove thing to "It's a jump to the left! And then a step to the right-right-right-right! With your hands on your hips! You bring your knees in tight! But it's the pelvic thrust! That really drives you insane! Let's do the time warp again!!" You kind of have to be there to get it, but even with that I was getting a headache from the lousy recording sound excessively blaring out of the massive speakers positioned a mere six feet from my head. Brian and I decided to leave at the point in the movie where Dr. Frank-N-Furter serves Meatloaf for dinner (Meatloaf the singer). I think we timed it just right because that's where the movie takes a real turn and becomes even more strange than thought humanly possible, plus all the people watching are getting tired because it's 1:30 AM and they have been drinking excessively for about five hours or more and their costumes are likely becoming rather uncomfortable due to constriction in places I'd rather not mention.

Perogi Night exceeded all expectations!

Speaking of weird movies, we watched The Trailer Park Boys movie at Perogi Night last week. I've never actually watched an entire episode of that show before. I remember seeing it on television when I lived in Halifax and I shut it off promptly due to excessive swearing and a less than desirable plot regarding drinking, growing pot, and stealing money. But at Perogi Night, surrounded by a room full of over-carbed perogi people ready to pass out from overeating, I actually quite enjoyed the free entertainment, and even caught myself laughing - a lot. Bubbles does have that certain kind of strange charm... It's certainly one of those films that you have to be in the right mood for, and I suppose the combination of being semi-comatose with the sleepy-giggles was perfect. Plus it was wonderfully reminiscent to see glimpses of downtown Halifax, and who couldn't love ugly, dumpy Sackville just north of Halifax? That place stinks. As for the perogies... Well, don't tell Martha Montie (my grandma), but these perogies were on par with hers. [Gasp!!]

Stacy and Andrew did a fine job creating PLENTY of these little doughey pleasures. And it looks like they had fun doing it too. Dallen made a big pot of homemade borsht which flavour was enhanced by the tea mugs it was served in (the kitchen at Andrew and Bella's lacks almost as many dishes as our house).

The cooking process was as serious as could be when dealing with hot butter and bacon. Bella put on her night vision perogi goggles for the task.

One of the guests of honour that night was a wee rat called Little One. Little One and Rat Bag are Andrew and Bella's pet rats. They are super, and friendly, and pee on you if they get too excited. I am sad to report that Perogi Night was the last time I saw Little One. She was put down last week because of a tumor on her belly. She will be dearly missed.

Ode to Little One:

Little One, you were the best.

For a rat, you passed the test.

Your family loved you, you could see.

Even though you liked to pee

On our clothes.

A new rat member of the family has now joined Rat Bag in her cage: a silvery white rat, whose name has not yet been determined. She's settling in well with Rat Bag, who has only bitten her twice.

A package from home...

A package from home! A package from home!! Ooh boy! Dearest Mrs. Zurek (Brian's sweet mom) sent us a care package which arrived just yesterday. Inside we found homemade soap, chocolate bars from Poland, tea towels, hand-made dish cloths, and soup packages carrying the family name.I don't know how moms do it, but they always know things that they couldn't possibly know otherwise. For instance, how did Brian's mom know we only had one tea towel? Or that the sponge we currently use for washing dishes is getting raggy enough to toss out and we need a new one? The chocolate was easy - that's always required. But we are almost through using the last round of homemade soap sent over from Alberta.... Perfect timing and superb selection of care package loot. Thanks mom! (Love, Dee & Brian)

Prado Dutch Oven

Last Sunday, a bunch of us girls went on a big winery tour in Blenhiem, on the east coast. First we drove to Picton to pick up Nick (Stacy's fun Aussie friend) from the ferry terminal. Hello's and welcome's done with, we scouted the teeny town for a cool coffee shop. My suggestion was the hip place with cool wooden seats (can't go wrong with a coffee shop with cool seats, or I'll also accept any coffee shop that's got "Coffee Shoppe" in the title). As we searched, we were passed by a bunch of school children tugging an army truck up the main street. Picton is weird, but this was definitely not expected. During our discussions, Nick gave us a great idea for our Stitch and Bitch: we can call it a Crafternoon so anyone who doesn't know how to crochet or knit can feel welcome by doing some paper mache or gluing random animal stickers to a large sheet of plywood. You know, crafty things. And whenever we say "crafternoon", we have to make these fun and stressful looking movements with our fingers as though we're repeatedly grabbing onto something the size of a hot cross bun. Stacy was determined to finish the scarf she has been knitting for weeks now, and did so during the drive through the mountains. How she didn't puke is beyond our comprehension. Here's the finished product:

On our way back to the car, I spotted this sign that makes it appear as if the local chicken joint has a transvestite rooster as their mascot. I told you Picton was weird.

Our posse for the day likely resembled some cold-climate gang because we were all dressed in jeans and our black puffy down jackets. Lisa donned the brown khaki pants (which I think made her the leader), but other than that, we probably looked a bit more ridiculous than scary.

We hopped into Dana's Toyota Prado, and headed for wine land: the Blenheim area has 50 different wineries within in a five-kilometre radius. Perfect for sampling the good stuff.

The first stop landed us some great wine samples, plus a free map of the wineries in the area, and the guy behind the counter was kind enough to circle for us the best wineries that were open that day, in addition to directions to a stone oven pizzeria and the local chocolate factory. This day was shaping up to be a good one!

Winery number two was pleasant. The wine was good. I bought a Pino Gris for Brian (who, by the way, was back in Nelson working his shift at Kathmandu - ouch).

I was the designated driver, so took small sips from everyone else's glasses... Dana and Stacy came up with some good descriptive words for the wines like "nutty" or "buttery smooth", which made them appear to be some kind of experts - but in reality, they are probably better experts regarding nutty smooth peanut butter.

My favourite hip shot of the day came from the third winery we attended. Sometimes not looking through the viewfinder creates magic (it's the spit bowl thingie):

After three wineries, we figured chocolate was in order, so we booked it over to the chocolate factory, which was identical to the chocolate factory Beth and I saw in Keri Keri on the north island months and months ago, and to be brutally honest, the chocolate wasn't that good back then either. We took some free samples and then snuck out without spending money on their overpriced, nowhere-near-Purdy's-quality chocolate.

We had to figure out something to do for a while because Nick's friend Alex was coming on the ferry to Picton later than expected. Pizza and beer seemed logical, so we found the stone oven pizzeria and planted ourselves down for almost three hours.

At one point, Nick discovered a cut on his hand and *poof!* the two health care workers in the group (both Lisa and Stacy) piped up and said, "I've got a band aid!"... They had the cutest little first aid kits in their hand bags. I feel a bit safer knowing that now.

One round of orders included the fanciest and prettiest coffee + Bailey's:

Then came the pizza. Oh boy, it was good, but oh dear oh dear, the middle one was ALL GARLIC and a few olives, three mushrooms, and a tad of cheese. Hello, I will be smelly.

Dessert came and went too quickly to be captured by my camera: Fudge brownie with raspberries and ice cream.

After the third hour struck, we figured we needed a change in venue, so we drove to the ferry terminal in Picton and came up with a number of strange yet fun things to do to keep occupied for about an hour. First up was a bathroom photo shoot of me and Stacy in our black puffies and jeans getup. Please note the ungodly colour of the soap on the wall (that's a pet peeve of mine - the chemicals can't be good for us all, and really, does bright pink soap make people more likely to wash their hands after a pee? I think not.).

The picture below shows the venue we had to deal with: pretty lame, pretty spacious, and was decorated with crap-blue carpet and an expensive pop machine.

A piggy back to get our creativity juices flowing:

A group shot in unique format:

Oh, here's the kicker: everyone doing floppy face shots. Shaking your head with your facial muscles relaxed and taking a picture at the most inopportune moments is always fun, with the exception of the guaranteed headache afterwards.

We got some videos of fun kicking games (wait for the video for explanation), and a relay race involving half-cartwheels, crab walking, and knee-knocker silly walks. The videos are on Stacy's camera. I'll try and put those on the blog soon. Before we knew it, the hour was up and Alex had arrived, and we could all go home.

Normally the story would end there, but I have to explain the title of this blog entry. I drove us all back to Nelson in Dana's Prado (it seats eight!), and on the way, I guess that garlic pizza worked its way through my system pretty quickly (I blame it on the relay race) and I let out a few of THE SMELLIEST and most raunchy farts I think have ever ventured out of my bottom. Being unfamiliar with the car, and driving down a windy mountain road, I couldn't find the automatic window button, so we all had to suffer in the Prado Dutch Oven. Plenty of "Ewe! Gross!" and "God, Dee!" and "It's a Toyota Dutch Oven!!" End of story.

Sudden Social Schedule

Our social schedule has blown through the roof top this past week! For myself, it is commonly comfortable to sit at home reading novels and drinking tea and exchanging some laughter with Brian. However, last Thursday our social schedule started off with a bang! with our Spaghetti Night in NZ, which was awesome. Brian and I put tea light candles in jars along the dark steps up to our front door. The candles looked so beautiful... Once everyone arrived, we started cooking - and what a meal it was! Spaghetti noodles with two types of sauces to choose from: traditional tomato sauce or green-goopy looking pesto (it tasted better than it looked).

The funniest part about the whole night was the lack of dishes, or better said, the ingenious use of other non-traditional serving dishes. Sweet Bella ate her pasta out of a Pyrex measuring dish (I'm positive the handle was extra handy), and she was lucky enough to get a fork (I didn't get so lucky and ended up with only a spoon), and to top it all off, she got to cuddle into the one and only ugly blanket.

Two nights later, all the Canucks in Nelson celebrated an early Canada Day at Dallen and Ginnie's place (my boss at Kathmandu). The idea of the whole night was Canadian food, music, and the colour red. Dallen made some pretty stellar burgers on the ol' barbecue, and played some cd's including Tragically Hip, Moist, Barenaked Ladies, etc... It was kind of like a flashback from the late nineties, except for the fact that all the people at this party were in their thirties.

For some Canadian food, Brian and I brought two rather strange things: homemade brownies and homemade eggnog. We figured we'd go for something original that no one else was likely to bring. We were correct in our assumption. No one else brought homemade eggnog, that which actually tasted A) just like the eggnog you buy in the store, and B) pretty darned good. Call me naive, but I didn't know that one of the key ingredients in eggnog is raw eggs. Go figure. It's kinda gross to think about, so I try not to think about that when I'm drinking it. Few people at the party knew what eggnog was, at least the non-Canadian groupies anyway - I guess eggnog may not really be "Canadian", but it feels like winter here and I will always remember that winter + eggnog = good times. With a small cup of the nutmeggy sweet stuff left over, Brian and I took it home and had eggnog coffees the next morning (oh boy, so goood).

Other people brought chips and dips and vodka. Classic.

The lighting was very low, so I didn't capture many photos of the Canadians and our Kiwi friends in midst party-dom, but I did manage to score a good pic of (from left to right) Stacy, from Victoria, BC and Sarah, a native Kiwi.

Brian and I left a bit on the early side because we were both still trying to get rid of some nasty cold bug we caught the week before. The rest of the gang stayed up real late watching the Americas Cup sailing race.

The next evening, the whole gang went out to a pub called The Prince Albert, where the deal of the century was a three course beef roast special on for $13 a plate. Naturally, we couldn't say no, so we joined in and listened to a live jazz band while drinking locally brewed beer and eating tasty beef roast, slightly overcooked veggies and Yorkshire pudding that had an odd aftertaste similar to fish and chip batter (hmmmm.... wait a minute...). It was fun, but at the end we were ready to retire to bed and let our bellies digest all the food we jammed in.

Two more days of work later, a bunch of us girls had a girls night, where we ate pizza from Hell's Kitchen (pretty good pizza, and they have fun with their name in the phone book as it just says "HELL 0800-666-111"). We watched a chick-flic and ate chocolate covered almonds and drank Sarsaparilla (a.k.a. root beer).

And if that wasn't enough, tonight we are heading to Stacy's place for our second weekly Spaghetti Night in NZ, except this week we are calling it Perogie Night in NZ. I'm heading over later this afternoon to help Stacy make the perogies (I've got some Ukrainian perogie-making-skills in my blood), Brian and I are bringing homemade German bread, and Dallen is bringing his famous borscht. Goodness, this is going to be good. I don't know if I can handle all this social activity. I'm craving a good book, the ugly blanket (gasp!), and a warm mug of tea... But, heck, there's no way I'd miss out on homemade perogies.