Teri's NZ Adventures

2 weeks left

Author: Teri

Hello Everyone

Less than 2 weeks now before my time in New Zealand is over. It’s a bit of a shock to realize that. It feels like there’s still so much I want to do here. It also feels like just when I’ve got a good thing going here, I have to go home where I still have nothing going for me. C’est la vie.

This past weekend, a few of my friends from Auckland and I flew down to Wellington for a big reunion they do ever year. It was really nice to meet so many lovely people. We had a really good time. It was tinged with a little melancholy since it was the last time I am going to see Wellington, but it was definitely an appropriate send off and I couldn’t have asked for better final memories of the place than that. It was also really great to get to say goodbye to some of the people I knew from down there.

On Friday right before we left, I got mail; The new CD from C’s favourite band! I won it in a newspaper contest! I’m in New Zealand winning your prizes! Needless to say I shall cede it to C when I get the music from it as I feel she has more right to it and will appreciate it more and then I won’t have to pack it.

C and I have successfully earned enough money from selling her stuff to pay for two tickets to the Adam Lambert concert the Sunday before I go and we have awesome unicorn skirts I made that we’re going to destroy with glitter for the occasion. Anyone who wants us to wear them at work should make a donation to breast cancer this week. Let us know and we’ll send you a picture (or at least a link to a picture).

I booked the concert over my last chance to get to Australia again before heading home though. Oops.

This weekend C and I are going on a roadtrip to Taranaki because I haven’t been there and she has friends there. Hopefully the weather will be nice and I can finally cash in on my Christmas present of trail riding on the beach.

For those of you following my battles with the insurance company, I managed last week to get a response from my travel cuts insurance people. They forwarded the letter on to RBC, who were very helpful and looked into the situation for me. Unfortunately they were not the underwriters of the insurance when I had the issues with them. They did, however, change the relevant details in my letter and forward it on to the appropriate group. (The woman I spoke to was very helpful and understanding and told me I was very reasonable to deal with. I recommend RBC insurance to people). I am going to give this other group one more day to get back to me about it before I start heckling (and threatening to report) them. At this point, all I want is acknowledgement!

As for Avis, I sent them a letter detailing my concerns about their service last week. The manager of the location we rented the car from has gotten back to me and said they will refund $290 of the $500 of damages we were charged. This is, I feel, a rather significant concession on their part, so I will thank them this evening. I hope they will fix their website as I suggested so it no longer lies about insurance available to people under 25.

Now to convince Rapha that it’s still worth checking with his company’s insurance and getting him to pay me back some of the money that I sent him.

I also managed to obtain a new Tilley hat at half price, which I was only dubiously entitled to, so that company’s really great too.

I can’t believe I’m already missing Canadian Thanksgiving this week. It seems only a little while ago that I was in Brockville for the last one.

Sometime before I leave I should do some souvenir shopping.

I hope you’re all well.

October 7th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  No Comments »

?

Author: Teri

In April, C got me a job at her work while she went to the USA for 6 weeks (yay nepotism). I feel I did a relatively good job with minimal amounts of whining (and not an overly large amount of sarcasm and I learned how to drive standard and can sort of do it now *proud*) and my opinions were sort of validated in June when they asked me to come back for 3 months (though I try not to get too inflated a head; I’m only replacing Ahmed after all). They’re looking for someone to fill Ahmed’s role for at least the next year. They’re having trouble and C’s boss keeps dropping unsubtle hints that I should stay on for a year. The work isn’t amazing, but I can easily see myself being perfectly happy doing it for a year. So, what do I do?

Facts:

I’ve never had a work term of longer than 8 months, it would probably look okay on my resume to commit to something for a while even if it’s of dubious relevance to my degree

Holcim can, according to Hayden, sort out my visa

I currently have no job in Canada to return to

I am part of the wedding party for Christian’s wedding next summer.

I would also like to be home for Christmas, attend Con-G in February and MJ in April

I have booked a flight home for October. It will probably cost a lot to cancel and/or change it.

I cannot extend my travel insurance but Holcim (C’s company) apparently subsidizes insurance and I would be able to purchase insurance for while I’m here.

If I stay, I can live with C and then live with [info]blademistress after V leaves her.

If I stay I can be here for C’s 30th.

If I stay, I’ll have more time to show C all the stuff she still needs to watch, see more of NZ, go to Auckland Armageddon and the U2 concert with all the fangirls.

I miss my Canada friends and my family

Another friend of C’s might need the work at Holcim and C’s garage more than I do.

Continuing to procrastinate being an adult might not be the best decision as I would still like to find a goal and work towards it and I keep not bothering to do that while I’m here but I’m coming around to the idea that that might not be such a big deal. My friends and acquaintances here are mostly older than me and have similar problems and are still awesome and driven in different ways and don’t have their lives as classically put together as some of my firends back home and make me feel better about being a total flake.

Okay, so that’s that. I’ll add more if I think of anything else but that’s the gist of the arguments currently. Feel free to add, challenge, change, argue and convince. I’m in decision-stressing-over mode.

August 30th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  No Comments »

August

Author: Teri

Hello everyone!

Well, it’s August already and I’m not sure how that happened.

I got a call this morning from my cousin on my Skype and it was really good to hear from him even for only 2 minutes. It made me realize that it’s been a while since I updated.

For the month of July, I’ve been working in a rock quarry. C works there and through helpful nepotism, got me employed back in April. I guess they liked me because they called me back for July through October. I love her a lot for finding me work.

The job consists of a lot of testing rock. In short, we have to make sure it is a certain size, shape and cleanness before it leaves the quarry in trucks bound for concrete and asphalt plants.

The other thing I’ve been doing is shopping. A friend of ours has a position with a company that does secret shopping. Companies hire her company to devise a survey and organize secret shoppers. They use the results to evaluate their sales teams. It’s a fun way to make a tidy side profit and get things like free coffee and ice cream. And it’s interesting to see what they’re looking for.

We are house sitting at a mansion with 4 cats, 2 ponds, a pool, a hot tub, a multitude of tropical fish, and ALL THE SPACE. C leaves me for Melbourne for 4 days next week and it’s going to be very big for just me.

Still not getting anywhere with Avis due to being busy and discouraged, but we’re still working on it. I’m also working on getting a new Tilley hat because they might provide it to me at half price and I’m going to complain to my insurance company for lying to me … as soon as I find contact information for them.

Other than that, I’ve been doing some Con-G work, hanging out with people in Auckland and pretending to look into work for when I get home.

Tonight we go to see a concert of one of C’s favourite bands.

G&G, don’t let Amy terrorize you too much.

Love!

August 7th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  No Comments »

Pictures!

Author: Teri

Got around to putting up the pictures of Lori and my trip around the South Island. Go find them here:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/theresa.michanna/SouthIslandWLori#

July 9th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  2 Comments »

Coming home

Author: Teri

Hey all,

Not much to report here. I have been catching up on sleep and working to sort out some things that I hadn’t had the chance to from Taiwan and the South Island.

For those who I haven’t informed yet, I will be working in Auckland from July 12 for 3 months. I have booked a plane ride home for October 19th. I will arrive in Calgary on the 20th of October.

July 8th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  8 Comments »

Back in Auckland

Author: Teri

Hey all!

After spending 3 weeks travelling around the north island with Lori, I have returned safe and sound to Auckland.

We had an amazing time driving all over the island, doing amazing hikes through all varieties of south island scenery.

We saw mountains, glaciers, snow-dusted fern forests, spraying ocean, arcing rainbows, plunging waterfalls and all manner of wildlife. It was less wet and cold than we’d feared and there was hardly a soul around.

We rented a car and named it Henry. He valiantly transported us up mountains, down valleys and around the wild roads of New Zealand’s coasts. I already miss him and Lori; we survived and even enjoyed each other’s company

There will be pictures posted when I get around to it. I have other chores to attend to first.

Hope you’re all well.

June 30th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  No Comments »

Taiwan

Author: Teri

Hello everybody!

I hope this finds you well!

I’m procrastinating writing a post about Taiwan because three weeks of intense travelling is hard to summarize! I started a written diary since I didn’t have much chance to update on the internet and the trip is 40 pages of that journal!

So, I’ll just start with the highlights:
First of all, the food in Taiwan is amazing in its variety, tastiness and price. I am going to have such a hard time getting back to my NZ travel diet after the last 3 weeks there. In the first 2 days there, I ate more food than in 5 days in NZ.

As a result of spending a lot of time with my friend’s family, I ate a lot of home cooking as well, which exposed me to some food I never would have chosen to eat on my own. Goose intestine and heart meat is really quite good. I still hate those little dried fish and shrimp though.

The shopping is also amazing there. I tried really hard not to buy too much, but I failed. You can buy anything there and it’s usually cheaper. I’ll have to go back when I have more money and suitcase room! The whole culture there feels a little disposable, partly as a result of the consumer culture; when it’s cheap and easy to buy things, you can just throw out what you don’t want and it was easy to fall victim to that while there.

Taiwan is a lot like Singapore, but grungier. It made me understand why Singapore prides itself on cleanliness; I know now what it’s comparing itself to. That being said, Taipei didn’t really give off the feeling of being dirty, just overcrowded with underdevelopped pollution control measures.

The Taoist temples there are all amazing. They’re beautiful and elaborate. I’ll post pictures soon but trust me when I say they won’t do it justice.

Now, the highlights of the trip.
I spent a lot of time visiting my friend’s family because it’s been a while since they’ve seen him. Mostly that involved drinking good tea, eating good food and listening politely to a lot of Chinese.

However, we did get a couple of really good outings in. We went to the south part of Taiwan, called Kenting. It’s hot there. I learned to be afraid of riding motorbikes then got over it. We explored the coast, went to a cool native forest and did some snorkeling.

We went to a national park riht near Taipei and did some mountain climbing in a thermal vent region. It’s quite a bit different there than in Canada because the vegetation goes all the way up.

My friend’s dad took us to an Asian-style hot spring, which was really neat. He also set up a meeting for me with an environmental professional from the Taipei government. He even spoke English! It was really interesting how the issues in Taipei are more or less what you’d expect, but their priorities in which ones to deal with are all reversed compared to Canada. Also, their government is terrified of increasing environmental strictures on industry because they can’t afford to lose the business.

I also got to tour one of the Taipei waste incinerators. It was really cool and space-age-y.

That’s enough for now I think. I’ll respond to comments with more detail if desired or you can find me on skype. I should be available a lot this week as I plan for Lori’s arrival and try to get my things sorted out. I still have a lot of business to take care of with respect to my stolen stuff.

June 2nd, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  5 Comments »

Taiwan trip over

Author: Teri

Hey all, I’m writing to you from the Hong Kong airport again. This time I don’t have enough battery power for a solid post, but I’m drafting one to post when I get to Christchurch tomorrow.

I’m well, Taiwan is really neat, the Hong Kong airport is really big and I have 2 hours left to kill with no book and no computer ;_;

Lori joins me in New Zealand in just over a week!

I hope everyone’s well and I look forward to being back in touch this week.

May 31st, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  4 Comments »

Author: Teri

This time I’m in Hong Kong. Their highly civilized airport has free wi-fi. I won’t say I’m home free until I get through customs in Taipei, but I’ve safely made it this far.

The flight was long, Hong Kong doesn’t look anything like I expected from above, though the airport is everything I expected and more (read large and city-like).

The flight was flight-like and I’m exhausted. On the movie side of things, I thought Percy Jackson was actually quite good. The casting was hilarious. The only thing bothering me is how Medusa got her body back after the last demi-god incident.

May 11th, 2010  |  Posted in Uncategorized  |  5 Comments »