Sunday, January 31, 2010

weekly update

so i'm still jobless. fantastic. as of tomorrow, i am requiring myself to apply for at least two jobs per day, as in my discouragement i have avoided further rejection by failing to submit anything at all. bryan had his orientation at subway last week, his official training beginning on tuesday, and is less than enthusiastic about the job for the following reasons:

1) his manager is difficult to understand and, according to frequenters of this particular franchise, is crazy.
2) the orientation, though only an hour and a half long, was unpaid
3) no free subs - just half off (still not bad)
4) minimum wage. minimum wage in new zealand is actually a decent NZ$12.50/hr (~US$9/hr), and there's dicussion about raising it even more in the coming months. very livable, unlike minimum wage in the US.

while remaining unemployed, we've continued to volunteer at the church, this week tackling the priming and painting of 8 support poles that are placed rather inconveniently for a church service (directly in front of center stage and in the middle of the audience) and had been painted a prominent navy blue. they are now a lovely shade of white that blends in with the walls instead of standing in contrast to them. we were hoping that this project would be a quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of job, but were asked most embarrassingly to stand in the middle of church this morning in recognition for our efforts and were subsequently engaged in plenty of strange conversations with people going on and on about the painting job, probably not knowing what else to talk to us about but wanting to welcome the newcomers. thanks for that, pastor terry...

today also marks the close of the two-week buskers festival, when about 50 street performers of various disciplines (juggling, acrobatics, fire performances, statue acts, music, clowning...) are invited to show off their stuff for massive crowds all around the city. the best ones that i saw were the american duo "the flash", who specialized in feats of balance and strength and kept the audience laughing, and "the oddlings", a couple from the netherlands who perform as a storeowner and his mannequin and demonstrate some impressive acrobatics considering that one of them is limited to the flexibility of a barbie doll. the australians with the late-night fire-show, "flame oz", were also pretty cool, though victoria square was packed when we arrived so i had a hard time seeing all that much over the crowd. (sarah ekelund, if you're reading this, i tried to get video footage of the fantastic didjeridoo player for you, but we were just too far away for it to work out. know that we thought about you guys, though.)

gosh, i really wish i had something interesting to tell you all about. we did spot a cross-dresser on the free shuttle bus that we take down to the supermarker, a man wearing the ugly kind of hibiscus-printed sundress that you buy outside of a florida souvenir shop on the rack marked "ALL ITEMS $8!!!!!". if you're going to dress as a woman, at least do so in style. the uncomfortable thing was that he appeared to be in a relationship with the bus driver, so he lingered awkwardly at the front of the bus to chat with him, forcing everyone to push past him to board. then we came home and watched transamerica :)

oh, and i met the cutest girl at church tonight, a 9-year-old named caitlin who commented multiple times that she "really liked my accent". she sort of sat with us during service, dashing off every few minutes to tell on her older brother and switching rows to try to avoid him. after service they, along with two other kids, showed off the most terrible card tricks in the history of the world. i don't think we'll be seeing them at the buskers festival any time soon.

we also wanted to remind you all to make your plans now to come visit us in christchurch, as the next 5 (or so) months will go by quickly. come now and you can even sleep on the fold-out couch for no additional charge ($45 hosting fee still applies). walking distance to town, free internet, picturesque riverside setting. what are you waiting for?

-rachel

pictures:
1) our walk into town along the avon river
2) "the flash" performing in cathedral square
3) the barbadoes street cemetery, just a block from our apartment, houses all kinds of interesting dilapidated tombstones, mostly from the late 1800s. the grave in the foreground is of a sailor who died at sea, hence the nautical theme on the tombstone.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

employment...slowly but surely

good news - we're now partially employed! bryan starts his new, ultra-glamorous part-time job at subway on thursday, allowing us to breathe a sigh of relief since all we've been getting lately are rejection letters. our flatmate jin had been trying to talk us into heading to china instead, where we could stay with her family and teach english to the neighbors' kids. the offer was tempting but didn't offer any help for the financial strain, so we're glad to find employment that doesn't involve any more dramatic relocations.

i'd been second-guessing our decision to stay in christchurch lately, partially because of the difficulty in finding jobs but also wondering if we were settling for an experience that parallels the one we would have had at home. certainly this year abroad has not been the kind of cultural experience that we would have gained from a year in india or mongolia or algeria, but when i think back to our original conversation about this trip last october, i remember that we weren't really aiming for a third-world country experience anyway. just being out of the country - anywhere out of the country - has given us the chance to re-evaluate our identities as americans (and as minnesotans). these identities were only reinforced by the vikings-saints game yesterday, which we watched at the holy grail sports bar in the company of a dozen or so other americans and the odd american football-appreciating kiwi. i'm not much of a football fan under normal circumstances, but being so far from home and seeing my local team on the big screen brought out the sports enthusiast in me. our pastor's two high school sons follow the sport a bit and have promised to have us over for the superbowl next month, though i'm wondering if the offer still stands if the game is aired live, which would make it lunchtime on a monday.

this season of unemployment hasn't been nearly as boring as we expected, as we've had no trouble filling our daytime hours with movies (it is, after all, oscar season), trips to the library (it was more difficult to get a library card than a visa), and cleaning out those storage closets at church. we've instituted a tuesday morning movie date complete with donuts and chocolate milk that we pick up from the bakery on the way, though i'm guessing we'll have to find another time for this new tradition once we get into a work routine. this weekend we even went rock climbing at the ymca with our landlord and his girlfriend, our bad technique resulting in some aching forearms and shoulders in the morning. our landlord does judo and somehow roped bryan into a martial arts/wrestling match on the thick mats in the bouldering room against his will; hopefully bryan earned his respect enough to result in the promised fixing of the phone line and dishwasher.
anyway, better go - someone's cooking lamb steak downstairs and i'm starting to feel queasy. i don't think this kiwi pilgrimage will result in an addition to the accepted meats groups after all.

-rachel

p.s. - i just realized i can post videos on here, so here's a little panorama from the routeburn track for your viewing pleasure. you may want to mute your computer, as all you'll hear are wind sounds. it also may be the world's most boring video...sorry :)

Friday, January 22, 2010

the misadventures of bryan and rachel

we've spent the last three days volunteering at the church, as otherwise we'd just be sitting around waiting for calls about the resumes we've strewn around christchurch. it's turned out to be a great way to meet people, as the pastors' kids and other interns are in and out during the day as well. and while we work, we talk, and when we talk, we find funny little kiwi words and phrases to add to our vocabulary, like these:

musos - musicians, band ("the musos are meeting for practice tonight")
togs - swimsuit ("you could go for a swim if you've got your togs")
bonnet - car hood ("do we really need to keep this bonnet in the storage shed?")
sweet as - awesome ("that song is sweet as!")
jandals - flip flops - bryan's especially fond of this term; we saw a shirt in a store in nelson that read "you can't handle the jandal" and was especially hard to pass up.

yesterday when we left the church at 3 (their closing time - fantastic, eh?) we headed downtown to retrieve a flash drive left in a computer at the library and to pick up some much-needed toiletries at the warehouse, the wal-mart equivalent. somehow, because we are truly awesome, we managed (in three separate incidents) within the course of an hour to spill three products. i set off the trend with a tester perfume bottle that i set back on the shelf unevenly, watching in horror as it tipped off the edge and shattered glass and smelly water at the entrance to the store as other shoppers snuck around the new hazard. a friendly salesperson rushed over and assured me that they'd clean it up as i offered an embarrassed apology and tiptoed out the side door, vowing never to return to that store again. not a half hour later, in the warehouse, having collected more items for purchase than we'd planned on, a bottle of conditioner slipped off of the pile that bryan was holding in his arms like a baby and leaked oozy hair product down the aisle in some forgotten corner of the store. and then, as we were just about to check out, i noticed a large green puddle on the top of my left shoe and traced it back to the dish soap nestled in the crook of my left arm, which had somehow cracked along the cap in a way that i still can't attribute to anything that i might have done. no wonder we can't find jobs in this town - christchurch hates us because we keep trashing its stores.

-rachel

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

backtracking: travers-sabine circuit

it's about time that i complete the chronicle of our hiking adventure, as my dad will probably feel ripped off if we don't get around to mentioning the weeklong trail that we all completed together. the travers-sabine circuit was notable for a few reasons: crossing the travers saddle on day 4 gave us our highest tramping altitude yet (1832m), the 7-day trip was our longest time out in the backcountry (an earlier 8 day trip included an overnight in the town of glenorchy with its showers and ice cream), and hiking in nelson lakes national park means that we've hiked in 8 of the 9 south island national parks (we'll have to get to mt cook before we leave). on top of this, the walk was strenuous but beautiful, so it was an all-around winner.

nelson lakes, being positioned in the middle of the northern bit of the island, isn't very easy to get to with public transport, so we exercised some creativity and patience in our travel days between there and christchurch. on the way out, we took the tranzalpine train due west to the west coast town of greymouth (which you may recognize from earlier blogs as the place where we finally found a rental car to take down to queenstown) and then caught a shuttle bus up the coast and inland to nelson, where we stayed at the bug, our old home. the next morning, we caught another shuttle taking us back south a little ways to st arnaud, the tiny town servicing visiting trampers during the busy christmas season. so without further ado, here's how it went:

tue, dec 29
st arnaud to lakehead hut, 6 miles

the stifling air and crowded mattress platforms at lakehead hut are evidence that the tourist season is, unfortunately, at its peak. we've been used to having huts to ourselves or shared with a small handful of other people, and so are overly whiny about being packed together in this way. we caught the afternoon shuttle and, after a week of celebrating christmas and my dad's arrival with large chocolate bars and restaurant meals every night, eased our way back into exercise with a 3-hour walk along the lakeshore to lakehead hut. i forgot to store our track brochure in a plastic bag before we set out in the rain, and am now faced with the delicate task of prying the soggy pages apart in the hope that a warm night in the hut will restore it to a usable condition by morning. we do have a (dry) topo map with us as well, so it's not tragic if my efforts are unsuccessful, but i would like my dad to think that i'm semi-capable out here in the wilderness.

wed, dec 30
lakehead hut to john tait hut, 8 miles

in order to allow my dad to ease into this weeklong backpacking trip, and also being influenced by the arrival of a nasty raincloud, we decided to ditch our original plan to push through to upper travers hut and stopped instead at john tait hut shortly after lunchtime. we didn't schedule anything for the last three days of his trip so that we'd be free to take our time and explore any side trails that might prove interesting, hopefully allowing the trip to be more of a pleasure than a discipline. i suppose there are times for both, but i personally prefer the former :)
hiking as a three-person "group" as opposed to as a couple is more different than i expected, having more opinions/emotions/food preferences/etc to consider. the problem we keep running into is that each of us defers to the others, so decisions are taking quite a while to be made. i suppose this is why hiking guidebooks suggest that groups elect a leader from the beginning whom they will agree to follow in case of conflicting opinions.
i realize that lately i've been mostly silent on the parts of our day spent on the trail, looking instead for unusual occurrences that end up consisting of new socks, tweaks to our cooking methods, and minor variations in hut design. these must be terribly boring to read about, but we're equally bored with hikes that give us deja vu. restlessness is certainly lurking in the corners for us. we were unsuccessful in changing our plane tickets (we bought roundtrip tickets returning in january, hoping to change this to july when the summer booking season officially opened), meaning excess cost (story of our lives) but also giving us the freedom to return home via fiji or hawaii or even to extend our travels by another year in some as-yet-undetermined location. we're already making plans for a short hop over to australia, seizing the opportunity while we're so close.
but strangely, as we consider alternatives to returning home immediately, i'm growing more open to the idea of returning to something close to our old lives, realizing that things will have changed there as well, offering new challenges and colleagues and opportunities for deepening existing relationships. as much as we think we move forward while everything else remains stagnant, that "everything else" moves forward without us, too.

thu, dec 31
john tait hut to upper travers hut, 3.5 miles

this afternoon i finished a book in the sun outside of the hut, which has a spectacular view from just above treeline at the head of the valley. it seems an exceptional place to welcome the new year, which will arrive from behind the mountains in the morning, allowing us to glimpse 2010 before nearly everyone else in the world. there will be no new year's resolutions this time around, save for my traditional short-lived goal to floss more frequently, as we'll be plenty satisfied to settle down and live quiet, contribute-to-the-community lives for a while.
the stream we followed up to the hut today held clear blue water that rushed down waterfalls and formed attractive trailside pools, leading us to pause constantly for long breaks in the sun. in this way we successfully dragged a 3-mile walk out over 4 hours.
now in the hut, i'm enjoying a retreat from meeting new people (my introverted self has had quite enough of that over the last 4 months) by hiding in a corner and listening in on other peoples' uncomfortable interactions. one man, discovering his partner in conversation to be a general practitioner, has somehow wheedled him into writing out a prescription for some special type of painkiller. i suppose these are the kinds of awkward situations that come with the job, but judging by the look he just flashed his wife, he's long ago lost his patience for them.
shortly before sunset i went out for a short walk around the hut, but veered off the trail in trying to get to a nice grassy spot under a tree and plopped my left foot into a hidden bog, soaking my formerly clean and dry sleepy socks. went to bed at 10. to my knowledge, no one in the hut stayed up until midnight.

fri, jan 1
upper travers hut to west sabine hut, 5 miles

on the first day of the new decade, we reached a new personal highest point: 1832m. we haven't quite figured out the official rules for the "highest point" designation, as there are plenty of places where you can drive a car well past this elevation, but we're celebrating our achievement anyway. the weather was gorgeous today, hot and clear, and the lure of the alpine regions was exceptionally strong. after the 90-minute climb up to the saddle from upper travers hut, the track begins a steep 4-hour descent as it loses 1200m of elevation, causing our knees to ache uncomfortably and making us appreciate that we're not hiking in the other direction.
west sabine hut is pretty full tonight, so we set up the tents outside. i was disappointed by this decision for two reasons:
1) it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and i don't relish the prospect of taking down a wet tent in the morning, and
2) some guy is stuck on a ledge that he climbed onto and couldn't get down from, and i'm interested to see how his predicament ends. (note: i think the guy got down all right, but no one in the hut the next morning seemed to know any details)

sat, jan 2
west sabine hut to sabine hut, 9 miles

the nine miles between west sabine and sabine huts were almost completely joyless, owing to hours of rain that quickly drenched every inch of our clothing and turned the track into a slippery mudfest. after yesterday's stunning mountaintop views in perfect weather, this feels like a low blow. yesterday we were considering taking a side trip up to blue lake, but we ditched that idea when we woke up in puddly tents and are now determined to finish the original route in as direct a manner as possible. talk of movie-watching and long afternoons on the couch with a pizza is dominating our conversation today.
we skipped lunch, as there were no dry spots to be found and soggy crackers are to be avoided at all cost, and feasted on tuna and oatmeal (what a combo) upon our arrival in the warm hut. the folks already here consist of a family wearing the ridiculous rainbow-striped long underwear so common in the outdoors stores here and an overly chatty american woman dressed in something equally preposterous, but to their credit a welcome fire was going when we arrived, so they must be decent human beings in spite of their clothing choices.
our only complaint about this hut is that, being located on lake rotoiti, it attracts hordes of sandflies which each seem compelled to welcome my dad personally. there's a dock in front of the hut where some trampers meet the water taxi back to town, and where others who dip their toes in the water receive a friendly (but reportedly still painful) bite from the eels.

sun, jan 3
sabine hut to speargrass hut, 9 miles

the hut cleared out early this morning, the other trampers being eager to reach their destinations before the predicted afternoon rain arrives, but we lingered until 10, enjoying cups of tea warmed on the fire and sweetened with the brown sugar usually reserved for the oatmeal. despite lengthening our camping days from 5 to 7, we have plenty of food, as we planned for side trips and built in an emergency supply. our shopping must also have coincided with some dessert cravings, because we've amassed an impressive supply of chocolate for this journey.
megan, last night's hut warden, commented to us that today's hike is one of her favorites, and it's not hard to see why. the forest it passes through is draped in moss, exuding ancientness in a way that inspires a reverent hush along the trail. being farther from the river it also drains better and isn't as boggy as yesterday's route. about a half hour before speargrass hut we came across a little tramping treat - the longest wilderness boardwalk we've ever seen, maybe even half a km long. it spared us some particularly rough and wet ground underfoot.
we shared the 12-bunk speargrass hut with a family of five who'd been in the hut with us last night as well. i'd written in the hut book that we were hoping to finish with a day hike up to nearby mt. angelus, thinking that no one would call my bluff with the forecasted spate of wet weather, and was forced to quickly backpedal when the mother offered the information that it now looked like the weather would clear and encouraged us to go for it. we were saved in the end when a gust of wind kicked up as we were heading out to the carpark the next morning, allowing us to "commiserate" with that dratted weather which wouldn't let us go up to the ridgeline after all :)

mon, jan 4
speargrass hut to st arnaud,9 miles

it wasn't until we settled into our hotel room to begin two full days of movie-watching that we realized that we'd completed our last day of hiking for the foreseeable future. there's not really any sense of accomplishment yet, though when we added up the miles and found that we've hiked 769 miles in 71 trail days there was some personal pride. i'll reflect more on the backpacking experience later, when we've successfully segued into a working lifestyle and have enough distance from the trails days to figure out what we've learned from them.
though st arnaud is such a small town that it's surprising to find a gas station here, we'll stay for two nights to recover under the glow of the southern cross (a southern hemisphere constellation that contributes to the kiwi identity) and the equally magnificent glow of the "open" sign on the adjacent fish and chips shop window.


-rachel


pictures:
1) water flowing over small rocks. taken on day 3 on one of our long rest breaks in the sun.
2) the short but steep side trail down to this waterfall was definitely worth it. had it been a hot day, we would gladly have jumped into the chilly water at the base of the falls.
3) a hardy little plant that grew on the mountain slopes above treeline.
4) my dad climbing up to the travers saddle.
5) view of lake rotoiti from the dock in front of sabine hut.
6) view from the front porch of speargrass hut
7) my shoes, after 769 miles of hiking. note where the leather has ripped apart near the toe, leaving the impression that these shoes are adorned with wings. i finally parted with them for good at the end of this trip.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

books.

while moving into our new apartment, a process that took less than an hour and involved the transfer of items from our backpacks into themed piles along the perimeter of the room, we discovered something startling: our books had multiplied like rabbits. at the beginning of our journey we carried five books between us, each one carefully calculated to fit into our lightweight(ish) backpacking model and provide maximum enjoyment over a long period of time. as we finished each book, it was swapped out for another (the rule of diminishing quality tended to apply here) at the next hostel or holiday park. i never did finish c.s. lewis' letters to malcolm, one of my original picks, which is more a reflection of my reluctance to leave behind a book-friend that has travelled with me on both the lonely and the lovely trails than of the quality of the book itself.

but over the course of four months, new purchases transformed our collection of five to a mini-library of fifteen. fifteen(!), not even counting the road atlas and park maps and magazines. my husband is primarily the one at fault, having discovered an enjoyment of reading previously smothered by a stronger affection for movies, and now being inclined to return home from a grocery shopping trip with a handful of new finds from secondhand bookshops. while in nelson i gave him a budget of $6 to find a new book for the trail, and had to laugh when he came back toting the lord of the rings trilogy, which was evidently okay to spend $18 on since "it includes three books, so they each cost $6!". somehow he squeezed the massive trilogy into his pack and had finished it by the time we found another book exchange, where he again counted it as three volumes in order to maximize its swapping potential.

while it's been wonderful to discuss our reads together, as we tend to trade books first with each other before releasing them into the wider world, we have discovered one area of disagreement that has caused a small amount of friction and a larger amount of good-natured teasing: i am a staunch supporter of reading all forewards, introductions, prefaces, and acknowledgements (not to mention all of the goodies that come at the end), while bryan can hardly be bothered to read the dedication page before diving into what he considers "the real book". in his opinion, if the page is garnished with a roman numeral, it doesn't count. not only are these portions not mandatory, but they're not even recommended for their potential to give away key elements of the story that should be learned from the story itself (also his philosophy of movie trailers).

and here's the part that you can't tell him: i think he's winning me over. after attempting on two consecutive evenings to enjoy the 23-page introduction to wuthering heights that made constant reference to the plot intricacies of a book i hadn't yet read, i skipped the introduction entirely and read only the biographical notice of ellis and acton bell and the editor's preface to the new 1850 edition. and that's not all - an antarctic classic saw me pass by its 57-page introduction (by one of my favorite authors, no less) without a second glance, and two novels whose authors perch securely atop the current bestsellers list were abandoned more than 100 pages in due to lack of interest. unheard of. i still haven't decided if this is a big step forward or a big step backward.
so, in short, we're pleased to have a local library from which to source all of the books that we intend to read over the next five months, though it is a bit embarrassing to rummage through the childrens' section in search of the final harry potter book...
-rachel

Monday, January 11, 2010

flatting.

well, i've got plenty of updates for you all, as it's been a full two weeks since my last post, but i have mountains of pictures to sift through from my dad's visit, so i'll begin with the more recent occurrences and post later about our last big hike.

i'm writing this from our new "home", the townhouse in christchurch that we'll be sharing with jules (the owner, in his early- to mid-thirties), occasionally his girlfriend missy, and dave and jin, a chinese couple who've been in new zealand 8 and 4 years, respectively. jin's actually out of town for a month or two, so we won't meet her for a while. the house is currently being cleaned at boy standards, meaning that it appears tidy at only the most cursory of glances; though these are, admittedly, our default standards as well, i hope to take advantage of my abundant free time and give it a good scrub-down. the house is in a nice enough spot right on the avon river on the east side of the city, though inconveniently located nearly two miles from a supermarket.

we're just thrilled to get out of the grungy hostel that we stayed in for a night, where dish soap was kept in old (used?) water bottles and the floor left a thick crust on my new white socks. the walls were covered with handwritten notes proclaiming things like "i've been in tons of hostels and this one is BY FAR the best!!!" and "had a great time - we'll miss you, kiwi basecamp!". i've given this matter quite a bit of thought, and have come up with the following possible explanations for these notes:
a) the author was employed by the hostel
b) the author was drunk or high for the entirety of their stay
c) the author was only accustomed to accommodation offerings in the third world

our booking was actually for a second night, but we gleefully handed in the keys a day early, despite the nonrefundable payment, and skeedaddled down to the private room awaiting us in our apartment.

we've also found the church that we'll attend while we're here, city church, which is located just a short walk from our new place. not wanting to fritter away our short time on church shopping, we attended a sunday morning service, enjoyed it, and will be meeting with the pastor on wednesday to discuss potential involvement. we were also graciously taken out to lunch by paul (an elder) and his wife nancy, who treated us to a delicious meal at what they refer to as "nancy's kitchen", their favorite chinese restaurant, before driving us up to the cashmere hills for an incredible view of the city.

the job search begins in earnest today with an overhaul of our resumes (in nz it's called a CV - curriculum vitae) and some online searching for job postings. if these don't turn up much, we'll look into temp agencies or go door-to-door, unsavory as that is. i've already spotted a job at the university of canterbury that i'd love to have, a 4-month position as an administrator for their disability resource service, but we're certainly not the only ones hunting for jobs so we expect plenty of competition.

oh, and we got a cell phone after all - it's a prepaid phone, so even local calls aren't cheap, but if you happen to have some stellar international plan, you can give us a ring at 022-677-5028. or at least i think that's the number...i'll double-check when bryan returns from shoe shopping. speaking of shopping, we've allowed ourselves a few splurges in order to put together some semblance of an interview wardrobe and a normal, non-backpacker outfit; apparently i've turned into a girly-girl, as i've been gravitating to decidedly non-outdoorsy skirts in my recent outings, and i must say, they look pretty darn good. :)

-rachel

again, the pictures don't match the text...sorry...
1) bryan playing with the ducks in nelson
2) my dad and i at arthur's pass, a quick stop on the tranzalpine train
3 and 4) a massive fish and chips lunch in lyttelton on christmas day