This past weekend I got to witness the All Blacks obliterate the South African Springbacks in rugby. Apparently this is a huge deal, South Africa is supposed to be very good. I guess New Zealand is now favored to win the Rugby World Cup next year.
This week work has been pretty good. The guys and I have been taken out to lunch twice this week, and Friday Matt, Grant, and I are being taken to the Phoenix game. The Phoenix Wellington’s football team, but they play in the Australian A-League.
One of the campaigns that just finished apparently went above and beyond the client’s initial expectations. So Grant asked me to compile all this data into a neat format for him to use in his entry report for an award. I felt pretty good about myself that he asked me to do something. Then after going through the week after week after week of post analysis reports I understood why he asked me to do that. The client was the Ministry of Health, and the campaign was about flu shots. I think looking at so much data about flu commercials and web traffic gave me the flu. The next day I did not feel good.
Well that’s really my week so far. I know this is a short post, and I have no pictures to go with it, but my life hasn’t been too exciting the past couple of days. On the brighter side, I did buy plane tickets to Sydney the other day. I’m really excited for that trip, I’ll be spending four days of my last week there. I still need to book a hostel and find some stuff to keep me occupied while I’m there.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Rotorua and Thensome
After a delayed flight and wrong directions from a crazy ass bus driver, Kendall and I met up with Wes and Amanda in Rotorua. We finally found them at our hostel Thursday night. Once we were situated we explored the town a little then went to the grocery story to stock up for the weekend. Since our hostel was equipped with a kitchen, we all decided to cook for the weekend instead of eating out a lot.
Over dinner we tried to plan our weekend in “Rotavegas.” We didn’t get very far, and when we finally made some decisions it was way to late to book anything. So after breakfast on Friday morning we talked a little more and when Sarah arrived we finally decided to book some stuff.
Friday afternoon we ventured to Hell’s Gate Thermal Park. The funny thing about Rotorua is that it is in the middle of the thermal area of New Zealand. So there are a lot of geysers, and also the entire place smells like sulfur. Walking around Hell’s Gate was pretty cool. The sun was out and it was a nice day, but boy did it reek walking around that thermal park.
After we walked around the park, we went to the spa. The spa was all right; we went there thinking it was going to be a thermal pool and crazy mud pool. Well the spa looked like a collection of hot tubs. The mud pools had some privacy walls around them, but they were filled with borderline hot water that had some mud at the very bottom. Then the sulfur pool was this large communal hot tub-ish like thing. To sum up, Hell’s Gate wasn’t really worth my time or money. I wish I had spent my afternoon doing something else, but whatever it probably could have been worse.
Rotorua has a very large Maori population (the Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand) so Friday night we decided to do a Maori cultural dinner. We went to the Mitai Village where we learned about their culture and enjoyed a traditional Maori meal.
The meal we had was called a Hangi. Hangi is the Maori word for oven. The Hangi is a pit that is dug out of the ground then filled with some wood then large stones. The wood is set a flame and the stones act as coals. They use the hangi to cook the meat and some vegetables.
Saturday was simply an incredible day. We rented a car and drove out to Waitomo, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Rotorua. There we did a cave tour, which involved abseiling down a small cliff, floating around a pitch black cave on a inner tube, crawling through cave holes, seeing glow worms, and rock climbing the cliff we abseiled down. However, because I was walking through a river in only semi-water proof boots I ended up with a case of frostbite. When was the last time you got a case of frostbite in July? It was so much fun, I don’t even car that I got frostbite on my feet. It was totally worth it.
The scenery on the North Island doesn’t seem to compare with that on the South Island. Usually that’s how people describe both islands, but my trip last weekend on the South Island has really shown it to me now.
It was another good weekend for me. Sadly it was the last trip that my friends and me planned. I’m sure there will be at least one more though, especially since my boss gave me my last week off. Right now I’m trying to decide what I’m going to that week. I don’t really want to stay in Wellington; maybe for a couple of days I’ll try to get out to Australia or somewhere. Depends if anyone is willing to go with me.
Right now work is getting pretty intense. I’m working on two big projects along with my usually mundane duties. Then on top of that, during a meeting today my boss asked me if I was willing to help out with a brief. Me being a retarded intern I said, “yes.” I guess I’m not at that point where I can tell my boss, “Sorry, I already have a ton of shit to do.” I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point at MEC though. It’s hard to believe, but I really only have less than three weeks left. I kind of wish I could stay in Wellington and keep working for MEC. It’s been a sweet experience so far, sadly I’ll have to return to reality eventually and…graduate, ugh, just typing it makes me shudder.
I think I’m all caught up on the blog!! This weekend the gang and are going to see a rugby match. New Zealand is playing South Africa in Wellington. OH, and next week I’m going to the Wellington Phoenix game in Matt and Grant. Steve gave me his ticket, and here’s the best part, we’re going with some media reps, so every thing is going to be paid for. Next few weeks are looking pretty sweet.
Over dinner we tried to plan our weekend in “Rotavegas.” We didn’t get very far, and when we finally made some decisions it was way to late to book anything. So after breakfast on Friday morning we talked a little more and when Sarah arrived we finally decided to book some stuff.
Friday afternoon we ventured to Hell’s Gate Thermal Park. The funny thing about Rotorua is that it is in the middle of the thermal area of New Zealand. So there are a lot of geysers, and also the entire place smells like sulfur. Walking around Hell’s Gate was pretty cool. The sun was out and it was a nice day, but boy did it reek walking around that thermal park.
After we walked around the park, we went to the spa. The spa was all right; we went there thinking it was going to be a thermal pool and crazy mud pool. Well the spa looked like a collection of hot tubs. The mud pools had some privacy walls around them, but they were filled with borderline hot water that had some mud at the very bottom. Then the sulfur pool was this large communal hot tub-ish like thing. To sum up, Hell’s Gate wasn’t really worth my time or money. I wish I had spent my afternoon doing something else, but whatever it probably could have been worse.
Rotorua has a very large Maori population (the Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand) so Friday night we decided to do a Maori cultural dinner. We went to the Mitai Village where we learned about their culture and enjoyed a traditional Maori meal.
The meal we had was called a Hangi. Hangi is the Maori word for oven. The Hangi is a pit that is dug out of the ground then filled with some wood then large stones. The wood is set a flame and the stones act as coals. They use the hangi to cook the meat and some vegetables.
Saturday was simply an incredible day. We rented a car and drove out to Waitomo, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Rotorua. There we did a cave tour, which involved abseiling down a small cliff, floating around a pitch black cave on a inner tube, crawling through cave holes, seeing glow worms, and rock climbing the cliff we abseiled down. However, because I was walking through a river in only semi-water proof boots I ended up with a case of frostbite. When was the last time you got a case of frostbite in July? It was so much fun, I don’t even car that I got frostbite on my feet. It was totally worth it.
The scenery on the North Island doesn’t seem to compare with that on the South Island. Usually that’s how people describe both islands, but my trip last weekend on the South Island has really shown it to me now.
It was another good weekend for me. Sadly it was the last trip that my friends and me planned. I’m sure there will be at least one more though, especially since my boss gave me my last week off. Right now I’m trying to decide what I’m going to that week. I don’t really want to stay in Wellington; maybe for a couple of days I’ll try to get out to Australia or somewhere. Depends if anyone is willing to go with me. Right now work is getting pretty intense. I’m working on two big projects along with my usually mundane duties. Then on top of that, during a meeting today my boss asked me if I was willing to help out with a brief. Me being a retarded intern I said, “yes.” I guess I’m not at that point where I can tell my boss, “Sorry, I already have a ton of shit to do.” I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point at MEC though. It’s hard to believe, but I really only have less than three weeks left. I kind of wish I could stay in Wellington and keep working for MEC. It’s been a sweet experience so far, sadly I’ll have to return to reality eventually and…graduate, ugh, just typing it makes me shudder.
I think I’m all caught up on the blog!! This weekend the gang and are going to see a rugby match. New Zealand is playing South Africa in Wellington. OH, and next week I’m going to the Wellington Phoenix game in Matt and Grant. Steve gave me his ticket, and here’s the best part, we’re going with some media reps, so every thing is going to be paid for. Next few weeks are looking pretty sweet.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Queenstown and More
Waking up at 5AM wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and check in at the airport was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. All I had to do was put my name into a kiosk, select my flight, and then hit print. That was about it, there was no security, no questions, nothing.
I brought two books with me thinking I’d finish one on the plane and read the other on the bus. The flight was incredible, and I didn’t need to open a book. I was too distracted by the sunrise on the snow peaked mountains.
The weather on the South Island was perfect. The sun was out all day Thursday and Friday. I don’t think I’ve seen that much sunshine since I left the states. Apparently the people in Dunedin also had not seen the sun in a while either.
When we left Dunedin on Thursday for Queenstown, I thought it was a pretty cool town and I looked forward to spending Sunday there. There are a lot of cool old buildings there; it was like we got off the plane somewhere in Europe.
The bus ride to Queenstown from Dunedin was long, but also very scenic. We saw amazing snow capped mountains the whole way there. I have to admit though, I’ve seen so many mountains lately that they are starting to become less and less interesting.
Queenstown wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I didn’t really know what exactly to expect, but I wasn’t expecting the busiest ski town I’ve ever seen. All the buildings were fairly new, and they were filled with ski rentals, cafes, and expensive shops.
Thursday night, after the long day of traveling, we all signed up for a pub crawl. It was probably the best deal I’ve bought in New Zealand. I paid $25 to go to six bars with this crowd, and got six free drinks. Some were pretty good, others not so much, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Ironically it was Canada Day, so a lot of the bars had Canadian Flags and maple leaves everywhere. The Canadians sure were proud to be there.
Not going to bed until 3:30AM didn’t make the next day very easy. I woke up really early hoping that I would be able to sign up for a bungee, but we missed the first shuttle into town. Because of the Lord of the Rings tour a few others and I booked we couldn’t do any other bungee that day. So bunging was put on hold for a while I guess.
To kill time before our Lord of the Rings tour Wes, Sarah, and I walked around town taking in the scenery. We boarded the skyline gondola up the mountain where the views were incredible.
The view of the town next to Lake Wakitipu beneath The Remarkables can’t really be described with words. We couldn’t of asked for a better day either. The sun was out shiny bright and keeping us warm too.
We eventually met up with our tour guide for The Lord of the Rings. His name was David, and he wasn’t very bright. He couldn’t really tell us a lot about the scenery we were looking at, he mostly just referred to his book and read aloud from it when we had a question.
Towards the end of our tour I was talking to David about my bungee problem and he asked if we wanted to try paragliding. Wes and I jumped at the idea and David booked it for us right over the phone.
Paragliding was a lot of fun; it was a good time of the day to do it too. Seeing the sun set over the mountains while in mid air was definitely something I’m not going to forget. The best part of it all was going down. My guide made a hard left turn and we circled our way down. We got going pretty fast too.
Our last day in Queenstown wasn’t really spent in Queenstown. We had to get up even earlier than the day before to catch our bus to Milford Sound. It took almost five hours to get there, granted to stopped in a town called Te Aneu and many other places along the way to take pictures.
Milford Sound is tucked away in the Fiordland National Park. Besided hiking, the only way to get there is by taking the Milford Road. Thankfully, because we had booked spots on a tour we didn’t have to drive.
The Milford Road takes you past 14 fiords and below the 45th parallel, which is the 1/2 way line between the equator and the South Pole. Only 10% of the world’s population ever goes below it, and now I’m part of that.
Milford sound was mistakenly named, it’s actually a fiord. A sound is formed by a river and a fiord is formed by a glacier. All the fiords we past were amazing, but they had nothing on Milford. When we finally got to Milford we took a boat out to the Tasman Sea turned around and returned to the pier. Everything about Milford was amazing, the water, the mountains, the waterfall, everything. When we were coming back it began to rain, and then even more waterfalls began to form. We couldn’t go very fall with out spotting a few waterfalls.
After we returned to the pier, we got back on the bus and returned to Queenstown. Without any stops on the way the drive was much shorter. The remainder of the day was not very exciting. We all got some food and I basically passed out afterwards, but a good nights sleep is what I needed.
Once again we had to wake up early the next morning, this time we were catching a bus back to Dunedin. The bus ride was pretty fun, I sat next to this cool guy from California. He’d been living in New Zealand for six and a half years. His wife is a kiwi that he met on some skiing trip or something.
This time around Dunedin was pretty boring. We’d basically seen everything so we ended up just walking around trying to kill time. We found our way to the world’s steepest street and successfully climbed our way to the top.
Overall the weekend was one of my better trips. Not bunging was a big bummer for me, but I know the opportunity will arise again. I know this post is really late, but I’ve been busy at work I swear. That’s another story though.
I brought two books with me thinking I’d finish one on the plane and read the other on the bus. The flight was incredible, and I didn’t need to open a book. I was too distracted by the sunrise on the snow peaked mountains.
The weather on the South Island was perfect. The sun was out all day Thursday and Friday. I don’t think I’ve seen that much sunshine since I left the states. Apparently the people in Dunedin also had not seen the sun in a while either. When we left Dunedin on Thursday for Queenstown, I thought it was a pretty cool town and I looked forward to spending Sunday there. There are a lot of cool old buildings there; it was like we got off the plane somewhere in Europe.
The bus ride to Queenstown from Dunedin was long, but also very scenic. We saw amazing snow capped mountains the whole way there. I have to admit though, I’ve seen so many mountains lately that they are starting to become less and less interesting.
Queenstown wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I didn’t really know what exactly to expect, but I wasn’t expecting the busiest ski town I’ve ever seen. All the buildings were fairly new, and they were filled with ski rentals, cafes, and expensive shops.
Thursday night, after the long day of traveling, we all signed up for a pub crawl. It was probably the best deal I’ve bought in New Zealand. I paid $25 to go to six bars with this crowd, and got six free drinks. Some were pretty good, others not so much, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Ironically it was Canada Day, so a lot of the bars had Canadian Flags and maple leaves everywhere. The Canadians sure were proud to be there.
Not going to bed until 3:30AM didn’t make the next day very easy. I woke up really early hoping that I would be able to sign up for a bungee, but we missed the first shuttle into town. Because of the Lord of the Rings tour a few others and I booked we couldn’t do any other bungee that day. So bunging was put on hold for a while I guess.
To kill time before our Lord of the Rings tour Wes, Sarah, and I walked around town taking in the scenery. We boarded the skyline gondola up the mountain where the views were incredible.
The view of the town next to Lake Wakitipu beneath The Remarkables can’t really be described with words. We couldn’t of asked for a better day either. The sun was out shiny bright and keeping us warm too.
We eventually met up with our tour guide for The Lord of the Rings. His name was David, and he wasn’t very bright. He couldn’t really tell us a lot about the scenery we were looking at, he mostly just referred to his book and read aloud from it when we had a question.
Towards the end of our tour I was talking to David about my bungee problem and he asked if we wanted to try paragliding. Wes and I jumped at the idea and David booked it for us right over the phone.
Paragliding was a lot of fun; it was a good time of the day to do it too. Seeing the sun set over the mountains while in mid air was definitely something I’m not going to forget. The best part of it all was going down. My guide made a hard left turn and we circled our way down. We got going pretty fast too.
Our last day in Queenstown wasn’t really spent in Queenstown. We had to get up even earlier than the day before to catch our bus to Milford Sound. It took almost five hours to get there, granted to stopped in a town called Te Aneu and many other places along the way to take pictures.
Milford Sound is tucked away in the Fiordland National Park. Besided hiking, the only way to get there is by taking the Milford Road. Thankfully, because we had booked spots on a tour we didn’t have to drive.
The Milford Road takes you past 14 fiords and below the 45th parallel, which is the 1/2 way line between the equator and the South Pole. Only 10% of the world’s population ever goes below it, and now I’m part of that.
Milford sound was mistakenly named, it’s actually a fiord. A sound is formed by a river and a fiord is formed by a glacier. All the fiords we past were amazing, but they had nothing on Milford. When we finally got to Milford we took a boat out to the Tasman Sea turned around and returned to the pier. Everything about Milford was amazing, the water, the mountains, the waterfall, everything. When we were coming back it began to rain, and then even more waterfalls began to form. We couldn’t go very fall with out spotting a few waterfalls.
After we returned to the pier, we got back on the bus and returned to Queenstown. Without any stops on the way the drive was much shorter. The remainder of the day was not very exciting. We all got some food and I basically passed out afterwards, but a good nights sleep is what I needed.
Once again we had to wake up early the next morning, this time we were catching a bus back to Dunedin. The bus ride was pretty fun, I sat next to this cool guy from California. He’d been living in New Zealand for six and a half years. His wife is a kiwi that he met on some skiing trip or something.
This time around Dunedin was pretty boring. We’d basically seen everything so we ended up just walking around trying to kill time. We found our way to the world’s steepest street and successfully climbed our way to the top.
Overall the weekend was one of my better trips. Not bunging was a big bummer for me, but I know the opportunity will arise again. I know this post is really late, but I’ve been busy at work I swear. That’s another story though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)