kind of an A + A // American Adventures + Misc

Good afternoon, friends! Well those of you who follow me over on Instagram will know that I'm still alive and having lots of fun over here in the US. We had a couple of days in San Francisco exploring (amongst our exploring we went over and under the Golden Gate Bridge but sadly it was shrouded in fog so our photos are horrific :/) and then we came on to Nashville.

Today has been my second day of work here, slowly learning the ropes. We work in the Above Rubies office from 9-5 doing things like packaging and sending orders, creating digital art to post on the Above Rubies social media, managing the subscribers database, answering the phone and sending off magazines. It's really fun. There are three other helpers here, one of which is also from New Zealand (we came over together). :)

Tennessee in the autumn (well over here they call it 'fall') is absolutely gorgeous. So many beautiful colours! Winter here could get cold, I'm told. We are preparing for a fun Thanksgiving celebration. Last night we went to watch a basketball game. It was awesome going to a real American basketball game! The other young people living nearby are really interested in Kiwi things... such as our money. I brought a $10 bill with me and some coins and they were a hit! Seeing other people's culture is so interesting. I'm loving hearing all the American accents around us!

Not sure how many photos I'll be posting, but hopefully I'll be posting a bit in the next wee while. Definitely not as often as I was this year, but I'm aiming for once a week. We'll see! There's always something happening around here. Anyway I'm enjoying myself wayyy too much to tell you what's happening (well ok I'm kidding guys just kidding just kidding calm down ok :P). But seriously though America is the coolest. Next to NZ of course. :P Everything is just... very American! Lol.

The rest of this post was created before I left New Zealand. I didn't post it on it's own because it's not very long in it's own right but hopefully with my little US trip update and letting you know I'm still alive, you'll be happy. :P Anyway. On with the awkward and awesome!

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Awkward:
- Going to bed (a.k.a. walking out to the sleepout) and waiting on the deck while Danella unlocked the door... and discovering what looks like an animal (like a hedgehog or something) sitting quietly on the deck next to you. So you get suitably frightened (I mean come on, it had a snout and everything) and both of you hurry into the sleepout to grab a torch so you can see what it is.
It was an empty potato chip packet.
I have no idea how that got there, we certainly do not eat potato chips in the sleepout (and even if we did, we'd put the empty packet in the rubbish like responsible humans).
Once we got over the trauma of thinking an animal was sitting on our deck, it was quite funny.

- Holding little Michael and cooing at him and having him coo and giggle back... then having him suddenly and without warning let loose a mini fountain of spit up all over you. Then he looked at me and grinned cheekily. I couldn't believe it.

- Seeing all my friend's facebook posts after the American election... :O Half of them were thrilled and half were horrified. All elections divide people but this one was the worst I've seen.


Awesome:
- A day trip with some friends to Castle Hill. Guys, this place is the coolest! It's where the battle scenes in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were filmed. We had so much fun exploring it and taking photos on top of the rocks. We also went exploring nearby Cave Stream (where you can enter a network of caves/tunnels and, following an underground stream, travel underneath the hill and pop out in daylight on the other side of the hill! It's super cool. We didn't actually do the underground caving bit because we didn't have torches.. but we enjoyed adventuring around near the entrance.
Here are a couple of photos....

Some of the really cool limestone formations. They are way bigger than they appear and this is very high up.

It was a beautiful day.

Posing in one of the Cave Stream entrances.

- Having heaps of fun at a trampoline park with some friends. Doing awesome things with friends in the last few days before I leave makes some neat memories.

- Encouragement in the form of letters and cards in the mail. Pretty sure no one has friends as great as I do!

Well that's all I have for your, friends... tell me, what have you been up to in the last week? 
How is your life going? 
What's the weather like where you live?

New Zealand, my home

Apart from three weeks and ten days of my life (three weeks in China and ten days across the ditch in Australia) I've lived all of my life in the country I call home, New Zealand.

New Zealand isn't a very big country at all. We boast of a relatively small population of 4.47 million.

It's a beautiful country. The sort of place that has scenery photographers win prizes for photographing. Scenery that never gets old no matter how many times you see it. Inhabitants that are really friendly and laid back and easygoing (barefeet in the supermarket, anyone?!). Native birds that can sing really beautifully (and eat the rubber off your car while it's parked in a ski field carpark- I'm looking at you, kea!). A tourist destination.

A lot of people in other parts of the world don't know much about New Zealand. Fair enough. I mean, we're only a tiny little collection of islands at the bottom of the planet! 

But I think you should know some things about New Zealand. Yes we're tiny but we've done some awesome things!! In my opinion anyway. :P Allow me to educate you on my homeland. 

Sir Peter Jackson (maker of the Lord of the Rings movies) is from our country.

Sir Ernest Rutherford (the first guy to split the atom) hailed from New Zealand.

We've produced lots of famous rugby players. Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Jonah Lomu and Sonny Bill Williams to name a couple. 

The pop singer Lorde is from New Zealand.

Sir Edmund Hillary (famously scaled Mt Everest) is from New Zealand.
Jean Batten, who flew from England to New Zealand in 1936 and broke a bunch of long distance flying records was from here.
New Zealand invented the pavlova.

I could go on and on.. but you probably don't want to read any more of those, do you? Okay, cool. Well, let's continue.

I'm going to teach you about basic New Zealand geography.

In the above map (click on it to zoom in if it's not big enough) the highlighted region is Wellington. Wellington is our capital. It's where the government has Parliament meetings (in a special building called the Beehive). 

The blue circle marks the city of Auckland. That's the largest city in our country with 1.377 million inhabitants. That's a large percentage of the population of our entire country. 

The red circle marks Christchurch. It's the biggest city in the South Island and also happens to be my home town. Here's another map that shows it a bit better.

I love the fact that I live in a city that bears the name of Jesus! :)

Alright, now you know a bit about the locations of our three biggest cities, it's time for something else.

People who live in New Zealand are known as Kiwis. This is because our national animal is the Kiwi bird. This is the Kiwi.

How cute is that?! :)

Kiwis are nocturnal (they only come out at night) and have a long beak. They are flightless birds (fun fact - our Air Force symbol is the Kiwi - a flightless bird! How ironic is that?!) and are quite small. If you want to find out more about them go here.

It's important not to confuse Kiwi people with Kiwi birds or Kiwifruit. This is kiwifruit, just in case you didn't know.

This lovely gentleman who I discovered on YouTube is going to teach you about some of the phrases we use. Now bear in mind that a lot of these are more commonly found up North (Auckland etc) - us South Islanders tend to speak a bit more Englishly. I think this is because most of the Maori (indigenous people) were from up North and their accents are more of the stereotypical Kiwi accents so they infilitrated the Kiwi accent! Whereas Christchurch was settled by the English and I reckon that the average Christchurch person doesn't speak like the guy in the video. Anyway. Just watch it for yourself.


Also we do not call lunch 'supper'. Lunch is 'lunch'. The evening meal is 'tea'.

*Changes topic*
I have some American friends and they confuse me with their terms for baked goods. Especially scones, biscuits and muffins. Let me inform you about the correct terms for these baked goods.
These are scones.

A scone is a single-serving cake or quick bread. They are usually made of wheat, barley or oatmeal, with baking powder as a leavening agent, and are baked on sheet pans. (Definition kindly provided by Wikipedia). They are also AMAZING with jam and cream.

These are biscuits. In New Zealand we don't really do 'cookies'. Biscuits are flat (often hard-ish - although soft biscuits like shortbread definitely exist) sweet baked goods. 

These are muffins. Blueberry muffins to be exact. Muffins are very similar to cupcakes. They are often savoury although you can definitely make sweet muffins. They wouldn't normally be iced (the New Zealand term for frosting is icing) although sometimes you find like glazes or something on muffins. Muffins are amazing. Especially hot out of the oven. Mmm.

So there you go!! Your basic guide to lots of random New Zealand things.
New Zealand is an awesome place. I've travelled over most of the South Island and a bit of the North Island and I can inform you that it's a beautiful place with friendly people. If you come, make sure you travel south to Christchurch!

Sweet as. ;)

PS. A massive HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful Mum who is a year older tomorrow! Have an amazing birthday and an incredible year. :) I love you.