The SCUBA debacle

It's that time again my friends, my ramblings continue... We are back in Auckland again after another adventure, this time with Olichka and Steve. We took advantage of their holiday schedule and went away to Coramandel together for a couple of days. It was very beautiful and relaxing there. We only went on one hike (to Cathedral Cove which was gorgeous) We also tried SCUBA  diving - which was a little less exciting for me.

I will pause here to bring yet another installment of Kiwi culture shock:

1. They love to shorten words and say things like "avo" or "uni", to denote "avocado" or "university"

2. They are super friendly and social. I keep thinking that when people stop me on the street they want to sell me something, but they are just that friendly

3. There are two types of home ownership here: freehold and lease hold. Freehold is much like the US ownership, but lease hold means that you own the house, but not the land. This is due to Maori owning some of the NZ land. Lease hold ownership means that you pay rent and have a contract that is only valid for x years. There was a recent lawsuit because 2.1 million dollar home build on lease hold land had their lease go up from 8300 a year to over 70,000.  

4. Pavlova - A Kiwi dessert. Mike and I were very surprised that a Kiwi dessert has a Russian name. This is what Wikipedia had to say: Pavlova is a meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova.[2] It is a meringue dessert with a crisp crust and soft, light inside.[1] The name is pronounced /pævˈloʊvə/ or /pɑːvˈloʊvə/, unlike the name of the dancer, which was /ˈpɑːvləvə/.[3][4][5]

The dessert is believed to have been created in honour of the dancer either during or after one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The nationality of its creator has been a source of argument between the two nations for many years, but formal research indicates New Zealand as the source.[1]

The dessert is a popular dish and an important part of the national cuisine of both countries, and with its simple recipe, is frequently served during celebratory and holiday meals. It is a dessert most identified with the summer time, but is eaten all year round in many Australian and New Zealand homes.

Now back  to our regularily scheduled program:

I was a little anxious to try SCUBA, but assumed that it would be OK. Steve got Olichka the discover dive as an X-Mas present and Mike and I scheduled ours at the same time. Everything started out OK. I wanted to get into the water first so that I could adjust to everything without feeling stressed, but ended up getting in dead last. 

All was going well until I tried breathing through the SCUBA mouthpiece. I started hyperventilating and freaking out a little bit. The instructor came over and tried to help me. Shockingly, what helped is for him to basically flip me on to my stomach and have me look at the bottom of the ocean. It took a little while, but I finally calmed down and relaxed a little bit. I thought that now that I managed to regain control over myself I wouldn't have anymore issues - WRONG!

The instructor started lowering us down to the bottom. I was told that I would have to clear my ears every meter that I went down. The first one was difficult, but I managed to clear. We went down some more, and I felt a familiar (from flying) pain. I tried clearing, really really tried, but I could not. I started signaling the instructor that I wanted to come up. We went up a little where it didn't hurt, and tried going down again. I again tried to clear but couldn't. I started freaking out and hyperventilating again. I signaled to the instructor that I wanted to go up, but he kept signaling that I was OK. I argued with him for what must have been seconds, but felt waaaaay longer, and finally got him to bring me all the way up 

Once I broke through the water I ripped the air flow tube out of my mouth and tasted the fresh salty air. The instructor was right there wanting me to try again. I asked him to give me a second to calm down ,but he didn't give me as much time as I wanted, and we started trying again. Once again I was able to clear on the first meter. I saw Mike who looked concerned as I hit the second clearing. I tried super hard to clear my ears again, and again I could not, and again an underwater argument of sign language ensued with the instructor. I came up for air and this time Mike surfaced with me. I felt better immediately when I saw him. The instructor suggested that we try again, but I was having none of it, I was done. 

I was close to tears at this point. Mike swam up to me to check on me and I told him that I was OK, and he should continue with the SCUBA. I would feel worse if I took the experience away from him as well. There was some snorkeling gear in the boat so I did that, feeling slightly like a failure and trying no to dwell on that fact. Later on Mike asked one of the SCUBA folks if there are some people that are just unable to clear their ears and can never SCUBA and the guy said yes, which made me feel better. I don't know if I'm upset because I gave up so fast, or because I feel physically limited in this other way. In either case, it was kind of a fail. 

The next morning we were woken up by a torrential downpour, which wasn't so bad considering the fact that we were leaving anyway, but it did make packing up quite an adventure :). We drove back to Aukland and dried out all o our amping gear. We will stay until New Years.

Our current worry is the pace of our spending. It is really really fast. Food an gas are really pricy. Also, our campsite at Coramandel was $60 a night for the two of us, double what we are paying for the Auckland digs. It's looking more and more likely that we will either WWOOF or try to find some short term telecommuting work from the US. I don't know which one we will do quite yet. 

To   end this on a positive and personally successful note , I went for a short run this morning. I don't remember the last time I could say that. I'm also really looking forward to exploring the south island in a couple of weeks. I will keep you guys appraised of our movements and will write again soon.

Also, Mike has been doing some night photography and its incredible! Hopefully he will upload some of the best pics so that you guys can see it. I'm really impressed by how much he has improved since he started doing this. OK, the end :)

Week 2ish - more thoughts about the transition

Not quite sure whats wrong with me today. It seems that every time I'm in Auckland I start feeling restless and trapped for some reason. The last week has been great. Mike and I have done a lot of outdoorsy things and I felt happy and relaxed. 

It would be very hard to not feel blissful when you are constantly surrounded by beauty. NZ is so beautiful that it's not even fair. Imagine all possible shades of green as you rest your eyes on lush rolling hills. Periodically you catch the sand of beaches and the clear blue slowly getting darker as you gaze farther into the ocean. The sky is a light blue with maybe some little clouds drifting by. Its ridiculous! Now imagine the reds, oranges, yellows and purples of the sunset and a sky filled with stars at night. Completely unbelievable.

The farm we stayed at was incredible. There were people coming and going at all times and the atmosphere was alive with young energy. It was contagious. There was always something going on, and not just one something ,several somethings all at once. One of the days we were there we took a tandem kayak to an island and explored the deserted houses on it. On our way back to The Farm, it was low tide and the landscape changed entirely. we had spots where either one or both of us had to get out and carry the kayak over mud. It was a great adventure and i couldn't really lift my arms the next day, so overall great success.

 I must admit that in a way being surrounded by kids that were in their late teens and early 20s made me feel a little old and socially awkward. I wanted to join in to the fun, but felt that they wouldn't want me to. Of course Mike did not feel any of this. He is perfectly at home and at ease with everyone. I even resent him a little for this. (honesty is hard :)) I will need to figure out how to deal with the social awkwardness aspect on my own, because I have a feeling that when we go to volunteer on farms, our fellow volunteers will all be younger and I will just have to get over myself. I don't know why I pictured it any other way in my head.

The funny part is that it's not like I just sat in the corner the whole entire time. I spoke with several people and found out a bit about them and why they were there. I really think that it's just  mental thing for me. Mike said that I probably spoke with more people and for  a longer period of time than he did. I think I just need outside interaction more than he does. 

 Physically I'm making great strides. I can feel my body get stronger every time we go to do something. Yesterday we went on a 2.5 hour hike with 20lb backpacks in preparation for multi-day hikes. I think I did pretty well and now I'm feeling the burn. 

I noticed some strange body issues happening when we got here. For some reason I have a feeling that I weigh 300 lbs and look like a big horrible rolly-polly blob. Every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror I'm surprised that I don't look like that. My theory is that this is happening because I'm doing a lot of physically challenging things and feel really out of shape and sweaty all the time. I think as I get stronger my mental image will get closer to my physical one. At least I hope it does. 

In any case, in reality my clothes are fitting looser and I'm able to do tougher things now than I did when we first came here, so we'll see how all of this shakes out. I am hoping I will look AND FEEL like a golden goddess by the end of this trip (fingers crossed). 

I have been told by several people that it sounds like I'm not having a good time so far. That is simply not the case, I'm just trying to document the bad with the good. I know that once this trip is over my memory will gloss over everything but the highlights. I'm in a good mood 90% of the time. It's a big transition for me, and I want to make sure that I'm honest about how it makes me feel.That is all. I love you and miss you guys. 

PS - send me cheap easy recipes. We are cooking all the time an need ideas

Week One - We have arrived!

So here we go….

I had two goals for this trip:

1.        To get in the best shape of my life
2.        To write about my experiences.

I have been working on item 1 this whole week, and now it’s time to start on number 2. What I really want to do is document how I feel throughout this adventure. It’s not enough to document what I did, I want to have a truly honest account of what it felt like to take a year off and some of it I will want to gloss over, but I’m going to try really hard not to.

One thing that I expected was to somehow feel different once my feet hit NZ soil. I know it was a silly thing to have expected, but there it is. This was nothing compared to the panic that I felt on day 3. I started feeling completely restless and anxious and not sure if I had just made the worst mistake of my life. Mike and I talked it through and it basically comes down to this: I am very goal oriented and as my dad says – “ a soldier needs to be kept busy” What I’m trying to say is that now that I suddenly have all of this free time on my hands I’m not quite sure what to do with it. Mike warned me that this would happen, and I did set goals (as seen above) but on day three we were still in Auckland, and in a hotel, and everything felt very temporary and I haven’t been doing very many active things. I have noticed that every day now, I’m restless until I exercise. I seem to crave it. I’m not really sure why this is. In the default world, I am not a huge fan of physical activity. I do things because I have to, not because I like it, but out here, in a place I don’t have to sit at a desk for 8 hours a day, I can’t function properly without giving my body healthy dose of punishment. I still haven’t figured out why this is.

I am not sure if I will need to keep my mind more occupied, that remains to be seen, for now the body occupation is getting it done for me. I plan to do more writing (the blog, maybe some short stories) and hopefully the challenge of that will be enough.

In terms of the body, things are much better, if better means that I have a great opportunity for improvement. I had assumed that the fact that I can walk 6-8 miles a day would prepare me for the type of hiking that I would be doing here, but I was very very mistaken. What both Mike and I have discovered is that hiking in NZ is quite a change from walking around flat Chicago, or flat Burning Man.  Our original plan was to go on a 3-4 day hike right off the bat, but after going on a day hike with Olichka, we both realized that we would have to work up to carrying backpacks.

Since we left Auckland on Monday our days have the following components: sleep, hike 2-4 hours (feels like uphill both ways) buy groceries, drive to campsite, eat dinner repeat. We also do pushups first thing in the morning. Mike wants to add P90X to our morning routine, but so far we are having problems setting that up. Guess who has two thumbs and is not really upset about skipping p90X in the mornings!!! That’s right, this gal!!!

The other thing that I wasn't expecting was how much I was going to miss all of my friends. I think about them all the time. Before I left, Olya gave me a little necklace with a fox on it (to remember the foxes) and I find myself playing with it all the time. I think she knew what she was doing when she gave me that little fox. As I start falling more and more in love with NZ, that necklace is a constant reminder of the family and friends that I have in the states. It’s my tie to everyone.

Mike also noticed that I think and talk about work a lot still. I don’t think that I do, but I’m sure he notices it more than I do. I do need to find a post card for them. They asked for one and I need to find a good one. I also find myself wondering if my position has been filled yet. When will I be able to let go?

Hiking in New Zealand is amazing. I feel like I’m really doing something good for myself. The hikes are hard for me and at the end of a really steep uphill sometimes I feel like I want to die, but I love it. It’s so green here. It seems like colors got magnified. The weather is unbelievable too. The other thing that I love is the sheep. They are everywhere. You can hear, see and smell them on every hike. Outside of Auckland everything smells like childhood at the dacha: flowers, grass, and farm animals. I have flashbacks of going to the nearby village with my grandma to buy milk so fresh; it’s still warm from the cow.

Weird observations about NZ so far:

•        Sheep are everywhere
•          Conservation parks look like prisons (they have hard core gates to keep out all rodents since they eat bird eggs and are very destructive to the indigenous nature
•          Butter is very yellow – Olichka explained this: cows here eat grass, not corn and grass has beta carotene in it, so the butter looks different
•          They don’t just drive on the left, all of the escalators are inverted too and they walk on the wrong part of a walkway. I spend my time trying not to bump into people too much

I also wanted to thank the Fishlins and the Balbekova/Bayliss household for their amazing hospitality. You guys are amazing. Olichka and Steve get a double shout out for picking us up at the airport at 6am on a workday J

It's all happening

As the craziness of Thanksgivukkah has finally come to an end, I am now sitting down to write our last pre-trip post. I keep oscillating between being really happy, tired, and scared out of my mind. Sometimes this happens within a span of 5 minutes. Just to fill you guys in on what has been going on so far here goes:

The grandparents took the news WAYYYYYY better than anyone could have predicted (except Mike and myself that is) They were very excited that we are going on a trip and once we promised to Skype they seemed to calm down. One of my grandma's even asked if we were bound to stay only in Australia and New Zealand, or if we could go anywhere else if we got bored. I told her that the world is our oyster and she seemed happy. Once they shock wore off, they did express some worry to my parents, but overall, I think they are happy. I have made peace with my parents I think. I spend a lovely Black Friday with my mom not shopping and went for a very nice long walk with my dad on Saturday. They are still not happy that I'm leaving, but I feel like we are leaving things on a positive note.

Mike and I are also done with work. As of November 22 we are unemployed. I haven't been in this position since I was 14. I may have freaked out a bit over that weekend and scored a wonderful hangover as a result. I couldn't completely not work on Monday, so I spent a couple of hours, re-certifying myself in all things Epic before my access got revoked. I am now good through the end of 2015.

Mike is taking it all in stride I think. We have not really had a chance to really hang out in over a month. I miss him a lot. Thanksgiving is always very hard for me because we never spend it together, and this year it was especially difficult. I still have not seen him, as he had to sleep over at his parents to do some things for them before we get out of town.

I originally thought that the 2 weeks we had between quitting our jobs and getting out of the country would be spent with us being tourists in our own city and enjoying all that Chicago had to offer, but between the renters, and the motorcycle, and the random errands, and Thanksgiving apart, I don't think that this will happen at all. I'm hoping maybe we will do that when we come back, but maybe its impossible to staycation for people like us.

I will miss living with the Shaffies a lot. Before we moved in, I was worried that we would all get on each other's nerves and get really sick of each other. I can't really speak for them, but to me it was a very pleasant surprise that it feels so natural. Once I got used to living with 2 kids everything just fit. I can't really describe what its like to live with 2 kids, if you don't have any of your own. They are so fun, and cute and at the same time you feel exhausted sometimes. Overall I am enjoying having this peek at family life.

I have a feeling of impatience now that is growing every day. I have waited for this time for 3.5 years, and I really want to start on the adventure. I am keeping my expectations non-existent. As long as there is change, I will be happy. I want to not know what I'm doing tomorrow. I want to be open to everything and have no responsibilities to anyone but Mike. I can't imagine a life with no obligations, where you wake up every morning and ask yourself - what do I want to do today? I want a day where Mike wakes me up with the words - "arise sir, great things await" and I believe him.