Happy Birthday to the Queen

When I was still in the states coming off a 6-weekend-in-a-row travel streak, Cam told me we had a public holiday for the Queens birthday coming up. My first reaction was "3 days off. I'm sleeping the whole time." My second reaction was, "Why are we celebrating the Queen's birthday?" It's rather confusing seeing as 1. It's not the Queens birthday, 2. We don't live in England, and 3. People who do live in England don't get a day off for the Queen's birthday. At any rate, a holiday is a holiday and despite my initial reaction, we gladly took a little trip to celebrate. Looking back on the weekend, if I had to use one word to describe it, it would be.... lovely :)

For the three day weekend, Cam and I decided to spend one night in Akaroa, a little town on the Banks Peninsula. I've been to Akaroa twice before - once on my first Saturday in New Zealand, and once as a brief stop after a hike. I hadn't done much either time, and kind of wrote it off as a pretty place to drive to and enjoy a meal at a cafe, but not that much more. Cam did some research and came up with a whole slew of ideas of things to do in Akaroa, so we thought it would be nice to spend a couple days there exploring.

Akaroa in October 2014 - Cloudy but still beautiful.

We spent Saturday in Christchurch, and on Sunday afternoon, we drove out to Akaroa to begin our adventure. The weather was stunning and the views going over to Akaroa were nicer than I had ever seen them before.

Perfect Day

It was only Cam's second time in Akaroa so I was really happy that we got really lucky with the weather. We got to Akaroa just in time to have a New Zealand Sauvingon Blanc and a cheese plate at my favorite little outdoor cafe (the same one I went to in October) and take in the winter warmth (14 degrees C!).

Cheese Plate for Two Please

Next stop on Cam's itinerary was a trip to the Giant's House -- named by a little girl looking up at it who said it was so big it must belong to a giant.

House behind us! Sun still shining :)

Contrary to that idea, it's owned and lived in by an (assumingly) whimsical lady who has devoted her life as an artist to maintaining the grounds and creating an entire garden of mosaic sculptures. The sculptures are huge! Often over six feet tall. Here are some of our favorites:

The Prince and Princess of Akaroa!

Too Sunny!

Since the sun was going down, it was time to go find our accommodation -- and you'll never guess what that accommodation was. To keep things interesting, we rented.... a treehouse! The treehouse was part of a series of private huts on the hills over Akaroa.

En Route to the Tree House!

The treehouse had a main room/bedroom - with a potbelly stove and an electric blanket for keeping warm! - and a balcony -  complete with a daybed for some afternoon cuddles.

View from the day bed

Basically, it was perfect and designed for peace and serenity. We drove in to town for a special dinner at The Little Bistro and then retired to our treehouse for stargazing and the best sleep either of us have had in a looong time.

Cozy by the fire

One more perk of our humble abode? A breakfast made just for us in the main hut in the morning.

Main Hut for Breakfast

The main hut was eccentric to say the least-- with random odds and ends all over the place. Our hostess showed us her newest artifact -- a brass horn from an old car -- then told us to find something to read while she made breakfast and left us to find a National Geographic magazine from 1980 (heaven for Cam!).

We said goodbye to our treehouse around noon and went in search of a penguin colony about 20 minutes past Akaroa on the Peninsula. We drove up a steep gravel road, while constantly wondering if my rental toyota corrolla would make it.

High up above Akaroa Harbour

Cam reassured me that if we got stuck a friendly farmer would help us out -- Thanks, Cam. We made it most of the way to the penguin colony when the road got really steep and our ability to get back out of it in the corrolla became more and more in question. We ended up turning around and taking a less steep route down the hill. (which unfortunately wouldn't take us to any penguins)

This is where things got interesting. We were driving down the road, through a farm (which apparently was not private properly) when all of sudden we were stopped by 5 giant BULLS on the road. Cam assured me they were most likely domesticated but that if they decided to charge us they would do serious damage to the car (and me - Cam would be fine). Thanks again, Cam.

You may not proceed.

Fortunately, these bulls were used to being herded so we just drove (read Cam drove while I screamed) slowly at them until they decided to run in the direction we were going.

"Take a picture of this! You're herding bulls!" - Cam

Occasionally they would turn around and look at us, or two of them would fight with eachother, but eventually we did make it to the end of the road and they found a far away patch of grass to graze.

Coming to find his friends

The end of the road proved to be not that exciting (and I just wanted to get away from the bulls), so we got in the car and headed back up.

There was just one more thing on Cam's list of things to do. He had heard about an interesting set of trails centered around a historic cemetery that had separate regions for the "roman catholic cemetery" and the "dissenters cemetery". I was a dragging my feet a bit due to being mentally exhausted after fearing death-by-bull-charge for so long, but the toyota corolla was smelling a little smoky from braking down the mountain for the same amount of time, so the corolla won and we let it rest while we walked around the trails. Surprisingly enough, this ended up being one of the best parts of the trip. We found an opening in the woods that took us out to the roots of a giant tree that had previously been cut down. The perfect place to sit down and take in day 2 of winter warmth.

My Happy Place

It was at this moment that I decided I loved Akaroa. It's so much more than a place you drive to for a cute cafe and a walk around -- it was stunningly beautiful and had given us the relaxing getaway from Christchurch that we were looking for. And the best part was once we got back in the car we were only 90 minutes from home :)

Except for a quick stop at our favourite pizza place (Cassels and Sons at the Tannery)

Happy Birthday to the Queen and thank you Cammy for the wonderful weekend in Akaroa. Another great trip in the books!

The Very Real Challenges of Driving

Disclaimer: Mom, this might not be your favorite post ever.





Alpine Highway -- At this point, I had no idea what was in store for the drive ahead



When I first got here, there was some talk in the office about needing to take a driving lesson before getting my rental car. The other new engineer in the office from New York had barely driven before coming to New Zealand and has had a few incidents (to say the least). Management asked me how comfortable I was driving, and I said I thought I'd be ok, so they decided to forgo my driving lesson.

It's been going pretty well, but after a day of driving across the country  I have a few comments to make on driving here. I've found that the hardest thing about driving is New Zealand is... driving in New Zealand.

Hear me out.

There are plenty of things that could be hard..

1. Driving on the left side of the road

A coworker gave me the advice, "Follow traffic and go the wrong way on the roundabout". Turns out that's all there is to it. Honestly, the hardest part of driving on the left is remembering which side of your steering wheel has windshield wipers and which has a turn signal.

2. Navigating without GPS

Navigating in New Zealand is pretty simple because there's really only one road in any direction. As long as you don't stray from the path you can get pretty much anywhere you want to go. Sometimes the road will even change and as long as you keep going straight it'll all work out. For example to get to Taylor's Mistake the road will change from Blenheim to Moorhouse to Ferry to Main to Mariner to Wakefield to Evans Pass to Summit Road and you won't make a single turn. Just keep driving and you'll be there in an hour.

3. Other drivers

You might even thing the other drivers could make it difficult, but surprisingly, Kiwis are pretty good drivers. They will always let you cut in front of them in a pinch... as long as you're not on foot. Pedestrians do not have the right of way here.

4. It's really just being in New Zealand that makes it so hard. There is no such thing as an easy drive here and that makes it so difficult and ultimately, exhausting.

Here are the tales of the three longer drives I've done so far -- its definitely not all sunshine and rainbows:

My first free Saturday, I decided to get out of Christchurch and drive to Akaroa. I texted my coworker, Sarah, to see what she thought of the idea. She responded, "Yes, but make sure you're back by dark. The roads to Akaroa are really windy." Sarah's from Wisconsin (where I imagine the roads are flat and straight), so I thought, being from Pittsburgh, an hour and a half on windy roads couldn't be too bad. Plus, the directions were literally to make a right and keep going for an hour and a half. How hard could that be? Well those roads certainly were windy. Up the mountain, around the mountain, down the mountain, and around the bay... The views were unbelievable. I told myself that I would stop at the overlooks on the way home, but by the time I was heading home, I knew I just needed to go with the momentum and drive straight home before I passed out. but I made it safely! and before dark.

The view from Akaroa looking back at the hills I drove around. They don't look like much but those roads are windy!

I mentioned that my drive to the Taylor's Mistake hike yesterday was terrifying, but I just want to reiterate this one. I followed the road (because thats what you do here) as it took me up a mountain, but then I came to a 3 way intersection. One way said "Road Closed" but had some dates that didn't apply, one way was a dead end, and the last way said "Scenic Reserve" and had about 5 ft of grating instead of a paved road - similar to what I had seen on the Rapaki Track, where cars were not allowed. I chose the "Road Closed" path.. naturally. This road turned out to be a one-lane-for-two-way-traffic road, on the side of a cliff, with no guard rail. A few minutes in to scaling the side of this mountain, I started to feel like this was not the way to be going. There was also no other traffic, so I started to wonder if I had misread the sign and the road actually was closed TODAY. If that way the case I was in a liiiittle bit of trouble because there was no way to turn around. Luckily, I got to a place in the mountain with some extra room to back a tight turn around. A little shaken up, I drove back to the point where I had made my original choice, and decided the "Scenic Reserve"  (what does that even mean??) had to be the way to go. I parked my car next to some others, and started walking. A couple minutes later a car passed me. I felt extremely unsafe, but more than that,  I was thrilled to know that I too could be in my car! I ran back to the car, drove in to the scenic reserve, and quickly became terrified of the cliff, yet again. You know the rest from my other post, and once again, I made it home safely, but absolutely exhausted. I drove straight to my new apartment, left all of my belongings in the car, and laid down in my new bed.

Too scared and confused to take any pictures of the actual drive, but this is how happy I was to be off that road



I went out with some friends last night and told them about my drive to Taylor's Mistake. Each of their responses was pretty appropriate. From the native Kiwi: Welcome to New Zealand. You should probably let someone know where you are and when you're back if you ever do that again. From the French Canadian: OMG I would've been terrified. From my boss: Oh yeaaaaa. I really should've warned you when I told you to go there. Thanks, boss.

Today was a new day, another opportunity for an exhausting drive. We have Monday off work, so I decided to take a two day trip to the west coast. I had heard the drive was nice, and there's just one road so I figured it would be pretty pleasant. Wrong again. Damn this country. The first half of the drive was absolutely beautiful!!

The mountains were massive (I guess I can finally agree with Sarah that the port hills of Christchurch are in fact "hills"). They were all different, and surrounded by beautiful creeks and rivers and lakes.


Rain was coming just to the left of this frame, so had to pull over and snap this one while I could

But after I got through the mountain ranges, and in to the rainforest, the blue sky disappeared and was replaced by an overbearing grey sky. It started to rain and the road signs changed from "Scenic Lookout" to "Death Corner Overlook". I'm not even kidding. Don't mind if I don't. So I kept driving, thinking it would get better. It couldn't be that grey on the coast right? I stuck it out and went to Hokitika as planned, felt tired by the drive, and bummed about the weather, and decided that I would go to my hotel in Greymouth, take a shower, rest for a few minutes and then try to enjoy the rest of the trip as a new person. When I got to Greymouth, the entire "city" was shut down for a motorcycle race (not my cup of tea) and I couldn't even get to my hotel. I had little patience left, so at that point I gave up, got a coffee, and told myself if I left now I could make it back through the mountains before the sun went down. Luckily, I was right (finally), and the mountains were just as beautiful on the way back, but by the time I got home I was so exhausted that I collapsed on the my couch and was able to convince myself that I had ebola. #paranoid. But also just so downright exhausted.

Pulled over to capture this view on my way back. Loved driving through the mountains, but happy to be home.

I'm happy to report that after some rest and some food, I no longer think I have any form of an illness.


I think I'm going to take a break from driving for a while. I'm excited to get settled in to my new apartment tomorrow and you'll be happy to know I have plane tickets for my three upcoming trips. Phew.

Where am I?

After all the excitement of getting to come to New Zealand, saying bye to all of my friends, and spending a little extra quality time with my sisters and my dad, I landed in New Zealand. That first day if anyone asked me how it was going I responded saying, "it's weird and uncomfortable." Thank you to all of those who responded "It's new and exciting!" I needed that.

My first reaction to NZ was, "wow all the buildings are really short". Similarly, the Thornton Tomasetti office is two stories. No more 18th floor for me. I do sit on the second floor though, so I can see mountains ("hills" - but I'll get to that later) in both directions. The office is quite small, probably 15 people total.  A bunch of people from the office went fishing last weekend and so this Friday we had a fish fry for lunch! Everything in NZ is fried, so in addition to the fish we fried wedges, broccoli, and bananas. It was a great first Friday lunch!

My morning walk to work

That Friday afternoon, the weather was beautiful and some coworkers and I went to an outdoor bar for happy hour. By the time I got home it was 5 am NY time and I was ready for bed. It was great to hang out with the people outside the office, try a few kiwi beers, and have a good laugh. Fun fact: a lot of kiwi beers are "hand poured" which means that they come out kind of like a guiness - no carbonation and about 55 degrees (not cold). I had an IPA which was really strange as a not cold, smooth beer, but apparently is quite common here. I hope you're all as interested on kiwi beer as I am ;) .

Saturday morning, a coworker, Sarah, and I decided to go for a run. She asked me if I wanted to do hills or flats, and I said, let's try the hills. My mistake.. That was a mountain! We walked up most of it, had some spectacular views, saw probably 100 sheep, and ran back down. Sarah is going to move in with a friend for a couple months, so offered to hand off her apartment to me! It's a massive two bedroom apartment (so mom you can stay in your very own room!). I'm so excited to get out of the motel.


I didn't have my camera on Saturday, but I did this route again, and took this picture the second time.
"Excuse me, Pardon me"

With no plans for the rest of the day, I got in my car, memorized my directions because I don't have GPS, and drove out to Akaroa. It's about an hour away, on the peninsula off Christchurch. The roads are extremely windy, but I made it, and the views along the way were breathtaking, despite the overcast skies. I think I'm starting to like NZ :)

View of the Bay in Akaroa, NZ



180 degrees from the last photo
I really liked the orange on the mountain, but a shopkeeper told me its a terrible weed in NZ and they are required by law to spray it or it will spread like crazy ad not die for 20 years.

Thank you guys so much for sending love the past few days -- I really appreciated it even though I was bad at responding. The culture shock from NY to Christchurch was pretty extreme, and I definitely questioned my willingness to accept this job a few times. Someone in the office told me that every person in Christchurch is picked for our ability to adapt to adverse circumstances, and work well under a deadline. I tried to keep that in mind when I was feeling blue.
I think this trip is going to fly by, and I'll be glad I did it, but I'm definitely still adjusting. Luckily, the scenery helps with that :)
Miss you all and love you all! Wish you could be here with me!