Sept. 10 to Oct. 6

This past month has been quite a bit better weather and travel wise although the job search has still been frustrating.  This past month has seen the arrival of spring and slightly better weather, although by better I mean raining only half the month instead of three quarters of the month.  Two weeks ago Ashley, Danielle, and I rented a car and drove up to the Hawkes bay region.  This region is about four hours drive north of Wellington and includes the large town of Napier and Hastings.  It is popular for its warmer beach climate and an especially good area for wine production, particularly Pinot Noir.  The drive was particularly nice and I now understand why counting sheep before bed is considered a sleep aid because that job would be utterly exhausting here.  New Zealand has about 40 million sheep or about 10 per person and I think I saw about 1 million of them during our drive north.  The baby lambs are extremely cute and really are like small puppies except that they run away when approached.  The weekend was especially nice and we managed to do some tours including a honey bee operation, wineries, cideries, a small wool processing operation, opossum world, an aquarium, and just walking around town.  The best part of the weekend was Danielles idea to do a full day bike tour of the area which took about six hours and included stops at three wineries and a chocolate operation.  The weather was perfect and the fairly significant quantities of free wine kept us going throughout the day.  That evening we ended up playing scrabble with the girl working at the hostel and her guy friend before going to bed in our very inexpensive yet surprisingly nice bunk bed shared room.  The next day we made our way casually back to Wellington and "big city" life.

After the trip I got back to contacting and interviewing with more recruiting agencies and accepted a job offer only to find out three days later that they changed their mind.  Without going into too much detail, returning to Raleigh in December in combination with time I am unavailable due to pre-planned trips with my family has made it quite difficult to find regular employment related to my educational background and so the search continues.  However, this dilemma has given me more time to keep up with political developments and watch the financial crisis unfold from a New Zealand perspective.  Perhaps the most interesting story of these two weeks was my first and hopefully last experience of getting hit on by a middle aged gay drag queen.  Following a show at a local improv comedy club a random guy joined our table and introduced himself as the resident drag queen of the bar who goes by the alias "The Duchess!"  That was perhaps the strangest introduction I had ever heard and my initial humor quickly turned to awkward conversation as somehow within five minutes everyone else was having their own conversation and I was stuck listening to "The Duchess" ramble on about some random drag queen history or something.  At some point a bad joke and corresponding hand touch and rub of my shoulder invoked an urgency to either leave or inflict injury upon the man Queen and fortunately my roommates decided to leave with me.  After a beer at a Karaoke bar and some late night Kebabs we finally called it a night.

The next day I was greeted by the presence of my Mom, who arrived early in the morning for a nine day visit and mother-son trip to the south island.  It was actually a great trip despite the long drives and we managed to check out Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, and those citie surrounding regions.  The strange and somewhat gruesome highlight of that trip for me was the unfortunate early slaughter of a cow that found itself in the path of our train on the way to Christchurch.  Our conductor quickly informed us what had happened as a collective EEEwww and AAAwww sound emanated through the carriages.  That was followed by some stick poking out of the window and a tasty looking rack of ribs visible from the front of the carriage.  Eventually everything was cleared and we continued on our way through some of the most beautiful countryside I had ever seen.  The train follows the east coast down to Christchurch and winds between caribbean blue ocean on one side and soaring snow covered alpine peaks on the other making for a gorgeous and mentally conflicting combination of climates.  Also, being the start of spring here all the flowers and trees are blooming make for exceptionally pretty gardens which it seems all cities are obliged to offer.  Mom and I managed to do a brewery and Cadbury chocolate tour in Dunedin followed by a Wine and Cheese tour in Queenstown and a beautiful view of that city via the Gondala.  I can truly see why Queenstown is considered the adventure sports capital of the world after being there.  They literally offer every extreme sport activity you can imagine.  Just to give you an idea they have skydiving, bungy jumping, paragliding, jetboating, ski/snowboarding, luging, aerobatic flying, white water rafting, horseback riding, and dozens of further activities that will pump more adrenaline through your body than you knew you had.  Unfortunately I couldn't talk my mom into participating in any of the more extreme activities but hopefully I will get my chance when Dad arrives in early November.  Finally, the drive back to Christchurch was lovely and allowed us to see spectacular Mt. Cook which is the tallest mountain in New Zealand at 12,300 ft and the beautiful blue lake at its base.  It was a wonderful trip and a taste of what New Zealand really has to offer.  I hope everyone is doing well back home and I have included a few pictures of the past month for your enjoyment.