Some of my expat friends (US and Australian--our Kiwi friends were able to spend Christmas with their families) from church decided we would get together and have what we called an orphan Christmas party this year. Since we're apparently a bunch of camera-happy people, we ended up with about a million pictures. So, since I'm pressed for time (I'm leaving for a two-week vacation tomorrow--yay!) and want to get this blog done expeditiously, I'm just going to upload a ton of pictures and put captions with them instead of telling all the detailed stories.
Me, Michelle, and April (the three Americans) giving thanks for the canned pumpkin--which Michelle brought from the States last time she visited there. (Canned pumpkin isn't available here. We have to buy whole pumpkins and cook them.)
Even though it's summer here, April and her flatmates decorated their window with a winter scene. I guess it's supposed to make it feel like Christmas.
Michelle was so proud of this ham. Wendy, remember how proud we were of the turkey for our first few Thanksgivings? This reminded me of that.
Getting ready to pull our crackers
Christmas Eve dinner--yum!
And the Christmas Eve dinner aftermath. (I loved this picture--Michelle has a great eye.)
Michelle, Jo, and I spent the night at April's flat since her flatmates were out of town. And then we woke up early Christmas morning to open presents ("pressies") in our pajamas. This is a panoramic view from April's living room window. Evans Bay is on the left and Lyall Bay is on the right, and the suburb of Kilburnie is in the middle. (Unfortunately the view comes with a price: the bus stop is at the bottom of the hill and it's no fun to walk all the way up, especially when it's so hot outside!)
You know how Harry Potter felt on his first Christmas morning at Hogwarts? How he didn't think he would get any presents but he got a bunch? That's exactly how I felt! People just kept handing me gift after gift! April's flatmate Tara, who wasn't even there for our party, got these great stockings for everyone and then filled them with some super cool stuff. It honestly took about a half hour just to go through all the stuff in our stockings.
One of Tara's stocking stuffers: a pellet gun with a laser sight. Her note said, "For when they get to be too much." (She didn't specify who "they" were.)
A chocolate orange!
I'm sad that this is too far away to see--it's so cool! (But I don't feel like getting out my camera and taking another picture now.) My friend Andrew, who also wasn't even at the party, gave me, among other things, a keychain that says "Heath" on it. It has a coat of arms and everything! (Andrew's last name is also Heath, so we think we must be related. Apparently he even knows that our mutual family HAS a coat of arms.)
Me with my loot. (Wow, that's a lot of pictures of just me. There really were other people there too.)
I thought this was funny. Jo's on the phone with her family and Michelle and April are both Skyping their families. This must have been the only room where they could get wi-fi or something. I felt bad that I wasn't Skyping my own family! (I'm talking to some of them tomorrow.)
So then, because it was the hottest day of the year so far, we went to the beach! Seems so weird to be lying in the hot sun on a beach in December.
This beach is right by the airport runway so we watched the planes come and go. I never realized how many people fly on Christmas!
Enjoying the sun
Going for a walk around the bay
Beachcombing in the rocks
Yay, it's Christmas! Me, Jo, and Sister VanCleave (an older sister missionary from the States)
Picking up the trash--nasty.
Just chillin' Good friends, good food...a fun day! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!
The day after doing the Waitomo Cave thing, still completely exhausted, I decided to climb a mountain. That's a great cure for exhaustion, right? In my defense, I thought I was climbing to a much smaller peak. You can't see the top of Mount Pirongia when you're right next to it--there are too many foothills in the way. So from what I could see, I thought it would just be a quick three-hour trip: two hours to the top and one hour to the bottom. Four hours later, when I finally reached the summit, I could see the little mountain I thought I was climbing, way down below me.
There aren't any views until the very, very top of the mountain; there are too many trees in the way. And then, when I finally got to the top, the fog started rolling in immediately! So not fair. I just barely got these pictures taken before the fog obscured everything.
And yes, I was just as tired as I look. And I still had to go back down. After some weekends, I'm glad to go back to work.
I had to be in the central North Island last week for work anyway, so I flew up a few days early and spent the weekend exploring. I went to the Waitomo caves to see the glowworms. There was a tame option available, rafting through the caves on a big rubber raft with a bunch of other people, but there was also an adventure option. Guess which one I chose?
Here is the group I went with. We're all looking so fresh and eager at the beginning of the trip.
We started by abseiling (a fancy word for rappelling) 40 meters into the cave. They asked for volunteers to go first, so I volunteered (mostly because I was kind of nervous and just wanted to get it over with). It was pretty fun. The cave entrance was narrow in some places and it was hard to go backwards without being able to see where I was going, but I didn't get stuck. (Whew!)
After everyone got into the cave, we walked through some other caverns looking at the glowworms. I didn't know they would look so much like stars. I thought the whole cave would glow or something. I swear I could see constellations up there.
Since I had voluteered to go first before, our guide made me come up to the front of the cavern near a cliff while he was talking to us about the glowworms. He was strapping my harness to something while he talked but I didn't know exactly what it was--I thought we were going rappelling again. So I wasn't expecting him to turn off all the lights and then push me off the cliff! It was a zip line! Wooshing through the pitch blackness, with little glowworm lights whizzing by me was...terrifying! The ride didn't really last that long; once I figured out I wasn't falling to my death it was basically over.
Then the guides gave us inner tubes and told us to jump off another cliff while holding the tubes on our butts. They had a "chicken" option which looked much more complicated than the simple "jump off a cliff" option. I was scared (and still shaking from the zip line thing) but decided that if I could go bungee jumping, I could jump a few meters into some water.
We floated through the cave for about 45 minutes, sometimes towing ourselves along with the help of a rope attached to the side of the cave. That was my favorite part. Everyone turned off their headlamps, the glowworms were everywhere, and it seemed like we were in Wonderland.
Then we got to the end of the floating part and had to walk/swim/crawl through the caves for about the next hour. It was fun for a while, but the rocks were jagged and I was totally banged up, even with the wetsuit on. It was also completely exhausting.
To get out of the cave, we had to climb up two waterfalls! This picture isn't me (I took it off the touring company's website) but it COULD have been me--this is one of the waterfalls we had to climb up. Granted, rock climbing is much easier when there are two tour guides telling you, "Put your right hand here. Now put your left foot here." But even though it was kind of a "soft" adventure, it was still exhilarating.
I was completely and thoroughly exhausted by the end, and I did nothing for the rest of the day except lie on my bed and watch movies on my computer. But it was still awesome and I'm glad I went.
