Outta da House!

Jan 8, 2015 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

New Zealand is beautiful! It is magnificently green, you close your weary eyes, and the next moment it is all dry and brown. The green hills are rough now, setting into the beackground and the lanscape turns flat. It is getting green, the earth is rutted, the hills become finer. That scenery leaves me in pity of the travellers on the bus who just stare at their screens. To my cousins (you know who you are ;)): Imagine our sandpit along a stunning river, 2000x more beautiful and with a better view on wheatfields and our Wiehengebirge. That’s what it looked like in some parts! Though the bus doesn’t stop, it goes on. The most irregular thing I saw was the ice skating place in Taupo. It is summer and they just put an ice skating venue there! 😀

As we get closer to our destination, the city Rotorua which is known for its hot springs, you can actually see white smoke rising from the forest. At the last light of the day, we walk over to the hostel…

It is enough. I have spent a whole month in Wellington. The hostel, that still is my first accomodation here, became some sort of home to me. But it felt not quite like traveling, as nice as it has been there… I have grown very fond of Wellington, know myself around and got to know marvellous people. 🙂 I predominantly awaited my bag and haven’t seen a bit of it yet. Why hold on to your plan then? That’s why I decided to take a little trip in the North Island.

A most lovely Japanese girl which I got to know in Wellington works in a hostel in Rotorua, which I of course booked for the nights. We actually got there on the same bus and I was happy to have somebody who knows herself around here. 🙂

Rotorua smells of sulphur, sometimes more, sometimes less. I hope to get used to it soon… The wheather is different from Wellington. It is hot and feels like summer. Wellington is always windy, it hardly gets properly warm. I have had breakfast, sit in the curtilage of the quirky hostel now and the cat rests next to me. Cats are funny beasts. Sometimes they scratch, sometimes they beg for attention, then they have enough of your care…

It feels like traveling now, save to say. You are not bound to a place anymore, you can move freely. And only because you got to change your way of thinking.

The Last Days Here

Dec 31, 2014 | Photos, The Great Journey, Updates

Don’t you worry. I only mean the last days of the great year of 2014.

With 2 good friends out of the hostel I have seen much in the past days. From a very thorough visit at the Te Papa over an impressive and informative tour through the government buildings to the botanic gardens of Wellington to a climb of Mount Victoria by night. The nightly panorama of a town is a spectacular view! (Sadly no photos came out of this time…)

Some impressions for you:

In New Zealand they use quatratic screwheads!!

For mom: A picture that has me in it.

Whom did I tell to remember this picture? Here it is, I was THERE! 🙂

Inside the botanic garden there a wondrous things to see…

The rose garden is stunning!! 😀

I will return for sure!

After almost a month I am able to say some profound words regarding the weather… 🙂
Here in Wellington (there are big differences inbetween regions) it is always windy, around 20 degrees and it doesn’t rain often. The sun is very strong and you have to take the precautions seriously. But for every weather condition you can find a suitable program. Especially the Te Papa is a museum that you don’t have to suss out in one day, but to come back to many times…

Please feel free to contact me. I don’t have the chance to just dial you mobile- or land line and call you or text you via Whatsapp. You have my mail address… 😉
I wish you all a happy new year and all the best until we write, hear or see each other. 😀

Christmas in the Foreign

Dec 27, 2014 | The Great Journey, Thoughts

As this blog’s concept is reflective, I will write about my unusual Christmas in retrospective…

On christmas eve the barbeque for everyone in the hostel took place and in the evening we went to a house party. The flat (seemingly, I thought) was made out of people who once lived at the hostel and it was a quieter one. As we guests talked with each other, you could witness the ceremonial ‘Christmas Dinner’ from the side. At that moment I wished to be back in the familiar place, as what happened there looked so much like family.
The celebrative hugs at 12 o’clock felt very welcome then…

On christmas morning I could witness the mutual giving of presents with my roommates and along the tree a christmassy mood came up. The 3 Lindor chocolates went down nicely on us three.
Then we baked some cookies which came out especially delicious. 🙂

Any other christmas party I ever attended was different to the general drinking at the hostel, which dominated all festivity. I consciously withdrew myself from the loss of cognitive and motoric consciousness.
Nevertheless some interesting talks took place and after the secret santa presents were given to each other I held one of those fantastic espresso makers. It already gave some nice cups of coffee to me and I am grateful for that. 😉

Then today was the day we submitted to some kind of tradition. We went to the Wellington Waterfront with some people and…

Thanks Andras for the picture!. 🙂

Match!

Dec 21, 2014 | The Great Journey, Updates

You find this headline on almost every other Au Pair blog.
It means a crucial step: Host Family and Au Pair have come together.

We met on Saturday. On a playground in Wellington. They all came. Mother, father, the 3 kids. I got along well with the parents right away, quickly bonded with the little ones and soon got warm with them.
We talked much with the parents, played with the kids and it was wonderful.

On this day I would decide over my place to stay and thus over a full year of my life. That had me going nervous beforehand, but after talking with the current Au Pair there was no reason against the family and the gettogether wasn’t bad at all…

They have two girls aged 5 and 10 and a boy who is almost 8 years old. The youngest was a little more reserved, but the older two were rather engaging and wanted to know many things. They are well used to get new Au Pairs, you could tell…

Did I mention the New Zealanders are sporty? As all kids came with their scooters. And in the skate park they showed tremendous skill with those, especially the boy…

The family lives in a suburb of Wellington, about 10 minutes away from the city centre. Wellington is a beautiful place and by far not the worst point to go travel the North Island. Besides, I have contacted a little amateur stage and might indulge in my most loved hobby even here.

That’s what my plan looks like now: First wait for my bag staying at the hostel. Then buy a car in the South Island and complete my 3 months of work in order to extend the (already issued) Working Holiday Visa and to generally paint the South Island. From April I can come to the family and work and live there for a year and see the North Island in its details.

So it happened. I have a family.

But that’s only one in many accomplishments of the past days…
For example, I did my own laundry for the first time of my life. (insert cliche applause here) Even nothing changed color or shrinked (I didn’t try on everything though). 🙂

My roommates changed into real native english speakers now (her canadian, him english) and we get along perfectly. They are responsible for following fitment that lives with us:

Yes, he IS beautiful! 🙂

My first christmas far from home I will so spent in the hostel with international flair, sunshine and a barbeque on christmas eve..
And it was a great honour to serve my lovely roommates with the 3rd self cooked meal. (still counting yet :P)

Waldis Pasta, as we call it at home, are the bomb! (when I look at it, the hunger for it arises once more)

One day I felt the winds of liberty paired with a craving for shrimps. So I went and fried together some utterly delicious (I always measure by the familiar cuisine at home) Garlic-Lime-Shrimp-Pasta. That is fun, tastes well, you are fed AND you are satisfied with yourself and the world around. Win-win-win-win! 😀

Up the Hill we go!

Dec 16, 2014 | Photos, The Great Journey, Trips, Updates

The university is just a few hundred meters away from here. So half an hour should suffice.
What I didn’t take into my calculation, that it is a few hundred meters beeline and without the elevation…

Soon I quickly climbed upwards stairs and paths and the sweat started going the opposite direction. After repeatedly asking for the way and some more meters on the university grounds I finally arrived at the music school. The concert had just begun, but I wasn’t the only one who didn’t make it. After waiting for the first intermission we slipped into the concert room and found ourselves amongst an audience just about twice as many as the cellists in front of us.

It was wonderful. The cello is quite a fine instrument… After some classical pieces anyone bringing a cello had the chance to join and play Christmas songs together. Anyone would sing along, but I haven’t had as many english Christmases yet as to know the words …
It was a small fraction of home again. A little journey to all Christmas parties of the past. Music is more than just noise.

This time I took my camera as I knew there would be much to see. In fact, I wished for less than I actually got to see. I went to the (inner-)town belt in order to climb up Mount Victoria.

Yeah, it was even steeper as it looks. 🙂

Some times I went on about how quickly you can get ‘into the mountains’ in the areas of the Black Forest. But back then I haven’t been in Wellington. As Wellington doesn’t only offer hills closeby, it even offers great views after just some little steps.

First I went off the beach promenade direction upwards. The small wormed alleyway was leading its way along some houses. Haven’t I told somebody sometime that I love those overgrown, quirky houses? There are many of them. No ancient buildings as you see in Germany, but never seeming less comfortable.

It smelled wonderfully of some kind of blossoms…

Then this phenomenon appeared for the first time. Up the stairs, up the stairs, but then you see nothing. A few steps later the picture gets complete: It is going downhill after. It’s a nice effect to end a stairclimb like that with the sun shining right at you.

A few meters further I left the street and went into the bush.

Then again, this phenomenon. This time I didn’t get a street to see, but a meadow with some posh people enjoying the late afternoon. From here you could see a dazzling panorama of Wellington already.

I wanted to go even further up. After listening to a bird that first uttered hollow noises, then whistled and screeched (interesting combination) my way led through strangely familiar scenery.

Without thinking long I remembered the fact that the first scenes of The Lord of the Rings were shot here. And it looked exactly like it. Fascinating. It would have been too much to look out for Hobbits though…

Another clearance, another meadow, again a stunning panorama.

Then, after a few more stony steeps this phenomenon appeared once more. Only this time it wasn’t the next summit I saw, but a car. It was the parking lot of the Mount Victoria Lookout.

And there I stood. On top.

A panorama with extra sun and a glimpse of Wellington.

My camera is so able!

Right now I am sitting in Miramar (it is basically next to the Wellington Airport) and just process a special experience.
I got in contact with a family from one of the Wellington Suburbs that is looking for an Au Pair. The mom works only 200m from my hostel, so we met there and had an interview. This one was quite different from the one back then on Skype, and that was just like I hoped it would be.

Now hopes are high for me taking care of a household and 3 kids from April next year…
But we will see what the current Au Pair has to say. Yet it all sounds very nice.

In Miramar they have a neat cinema which holds a restaurant as neat. My stomach holds the breakfast special, there is music fitting the style of the cinema, the cute baby smiles at me over its mom’s shoulders and the room vibrates slightly due to the bass of the movie above.

Outside there is gistening sunshine and it is a good day!