An oddity in the weather

Sigh. I'm afraid it is that time. I will now enter my second winter of 2005 before returning to the States for my third. yukLast night I didn't sleep well because I was awakened every half-hour or so to the pounding of hail on my window. It was incredible! Today is windy and cold and we've just had two more rounds of hail. They last for a couple minutes; millions of 3mm-diameter balls of frozen rain...just about ten minutes ago it was coming in at a 45 degree angle. It's mental! (<-- Kiwi expression!)
And all this on the night before and day of the meeting for the four-day tramp I'm leaving for on Wednesday morning. Yes, I'm heaps worried about freezing to death. ("heaps," another widely-used Kiwi word)
Oh! Anna's birthday party was on Friday night. I made her a pinata and filled it with lollies. (this posting is just chock-full of Kiwi slang!) I think I was the only American there...it was awesome! I'm making friends, many go to the church I've been attending, so it makes for fun group events to already know some of the people there. Anna's family has completely welcomed me in as a member, they let me help out and are teaching me Kiwi-ese. Sam, the newly-12-yr-old son, is being quite helpful in repeating phrases and words for me to mimic. He gives his honest opinion, "Hmm. You sound too British," "Yes! That was just right!" "No no, just say it normal [by this I assume he means Kiwi, and I now understand the frustration of people when I ask them to speak with an American accent and they say it's too hard]..." It's given me and Sam something to bond over!But the whole point of mentioning Anna's party was the fact that as I was leaving, I slipped and fell down 7 steps. They have this incredibly narrow and steep flight of stairs in their home and they live upstairs so they're unavoidable beside walking outside. It all happened so quickly...I was walking downstairs and Hollie (Anna's sis - the one Dan's age) was behind me. Hollie's boyfriend, Euan (as in, Ewan McGregor), was at the base of the stairs and we three were talking. All of the sudden my wool-socked right foot flew out from under me and I fell on my rear and slid down the remaining steps. Euan tried to catch me before I fell and I somehow managed to kick him in the groin. He had to take a sit-down break after that. A bunch of people came running and two of my friends, Jon and Dom from church, slid down the entire flight of stairs to make me feel better...and to get some of the attention from the crowd :o) Boy, the things that go on at parties...

My Bad Habit

Some of you are aware of my really bad habit of just "dropping in" on people. Well, I've officially done it to Anna's family. This morning I gave my neighbor a ride to a friend's house. She needed to be there by 8:30am and, seeing as how it's been cold and we stayed up late last night to watch Ocean's 12, I drove her in Emily's car. Once I dropped her off, I knew I was really close to Anna's house so I went there and "popped in" to visit. :o) Sigh, I have no manners; it was 8:30am. But Chris, Anna's mum, invited me in and offered me breakfast. Richard, Chris and Sam had gone to the Anzac Day parade at 6:30am, so they said it wasn't a big deal. It was like a saturday morning at home! They're on holiday right now and are being super-casual. I showed them pictures of my family and of home. Anna asked me today if I was still homesick. I'm honestly not anymore and a big part of that is because of her family. They've been so wonderful! I'm incredibly thankful.

Christchurch

today I rode with Claire and Emily to Christchurch (~5hr drive), dropped them off at the airport and hit the town! It was my first solo adventure. All I did was take my Lonely Planet guide...and flew by the seat of my pants. After actually arriving in City Centre...40min after dropping the girls off that the airport...and actually finding a park (for the car)...20min later...I headed off to downtown! Although there is a trolley that loops City Centre, I decided to hoof it. The first thing that caught my eye was the super-quaintness of the city. I had read that the city had a lot of gothic influence while being built, it was no joke. The everyday bridges are beautiful stone with elaborate decoration. I passed by the Canterbury Provincial Council Buildings and later returned for a free walk-though were I took approx. 500 photos. The woodwork was incredible.I walked through the weekend market, but didn't buy anything. Christchurch, from what I saw, is a mishmash of modern arts and rich heritage. I'm definitely going to return and spend more than 3 hours!Drove home and froze, nearly to death, in the car. The heater in Emily's car doesn't work (or I couldn't figure it out) and even with the vent off cold air still blew in. I had a blanket over my legs, a polyprop long sleeve, two sweaters, and a bandanna. It took 30 min of holding my nalgene with boiling water inside for my hands to warm up. But on a really fun note, I had a blast driving on the left side of the road in a right-side-steering-wheel-manual-drive car! I didn't make any mistakes! And I parallel parked!

Gammons

Hi to my dear Gammon friends! I was thinking about you all today and missing my little drop-in-for-food-and-fellowship times with you!!! Thanks for letting me come over and love on you :o)

Spanish

I've been having lunch on thursdays with my spanish tutorial instructor, Lilian. She's a lovely woman originally from Guatemala who has lived for the last 10yrs or so in Canada with her husband and their two girls. She and her family are fluent in Spanish and French, all are either learning or improving their english. It's incredible. So Lilian and I, over lunch, learn english and spanish, respectively. She had showed me pictures of her daughters and I had met her husband who also works at the university. Today her daughters, Sofia - 7yrs and Valentina - 3yrs old, came to uni. I had so much fun visiting with them and trying to speak spanish to them. Sofia is quiet and shy, but she understands most english, so we were able to carry on a conversation. Valentina is a bundle of energy and rambles on in her own spanglish, "Hola! Hi!" Super cute. Lilian said she'll keep me in mind if they need a babysitter. It was nice to be around little guys again.

Obviously I forgot all about my journal.... 137 days ago

Hi again! Every time I think to write here, I convince myself I have no time to do so...I'm going to try to be ok with just writing little tidbits here and there. I'll definitely write more that way. So, the new news: I'm running again, sort of. I've gone three times in the last two weeks. My neighbor runs regularly so I've started joining in every other day. Hopefully it'll last this time. Went to Queenstown two weekends ago. I went with Student Life and had a great time, especially getting to know some awesome people. In an amazing turn of events (not really), I met my friend, Bruce, who bears a striking resemblance to Elijah Wood. My sister wants me to bring him home with me! Then I sprained my wrist via three events: a handstand on friday, kayaking saturday, frisbee thursday. I went to the student med center the next week and found out nothing was terribly damaged, but I got an ace bandage out of it!
I think it necessary to mention that I've been pulling near all-nighters when I have essays to write. Which, unfortunately, are fairly often. I tend to stay up until 4 or 5 am and get up around 7 or 8. It's gross. I really dislike it. But something about living with four girls and getting work done in a timely manner just doesn't jive. That's all for now! However, here's a note from my German neighbor, Christian:
Nudity at home is a serious matter and should be considered and discussed to such an extent that both the parents and kids feel comfortable about it.Have fun with the new liberty of life. In these modern times we can afford it.
ok, Liz again. Sorry about that. I had NO control over what he was writing. Apparently he's been reading some pretty up-and-coming theoretical texts. Or something. But then, he is German. Ok, now he's mad. And he's saying that I just involved his whole country. And the new Pope is from Germany, too. Whew. I didn't offend him.