Abe and Erin’s travels

It was Erin’s NZ Birthday today – I slept in and chatted with her for a little while.

We went to the Ocean fRestuaraunt for a wonderful lunch – Don wasn’t there but the food was great as usual.  We made a trip to Kilburnie for necessary wine/beer/food.  I turned in early – I guess the Twins stayed up and partied hard!

Work was going fine until I checked my email  – Erin discovered that someone got a hold of our visa #!!  They charged $800 to a Wallmart in New Jersey.  We don’t know exactaly how they got the info but there was a recent scam with ATM skimmers on B of NZ atms where they collect your card informaiton and pin via high tech wireless technology – so beware, if the ATM macheine dosen’t look right don’t stick your card in it!

What I think is the most likely explination is that an employee at one of the restauraunts we went to copied all of the info from the card and sold it to someone on the internet.  It sucks cause it was pretty stressful and difficult to work through for both Erin and me!

I ended up going to JJ Maones and drowned my sorrows in a Murphy’s Stout and a Chicken Schnitzel burger with chips….TGIF right?

Work was fine – stopped by Tattoo City and set up a consult with Manu (thanks Hop)!  I think I’ll get the ink here! Here is his web site – manutattoo.co.nz

Nothing exciting to report today.  It has been fun riding the bus into Lower Hutt – the people watching is great and I can’t beat the view of the Wellington Bay as I arrive into the Hutt!

Today was my first day at Hutt hospital, while the twins had to go back to the wonderful Wellington public hospital. 

I really enjoyed Hutt – my preceptor Richard and the entire staff are very helpful and friendly.  In fact Richard drove me to his house and introduced me to his wife Robyn.  We had a coffee and went to the local Rotary club meeting (which was held at an old New Zealand television station building).

I’ve never been to a Rotary club before and this experience was really cool because I was able to have a glimpse into a New Zealand Community.  Everyone I met was super down to earth.  In fact I was suprised to find out that many of them were very influencial members of the community – I didn’t feel that they were looking down their noses at me.  I felt very welcome and privliged to spend the evening with such a wonderful group of people. 

One of the speakers for the evening was a WW2 vet who talked about growing up in the UK durning the German bombings, his time serving on a navy vessel and eventually as a dock supervisor in Wellington.  I love hearing people talk about their history!

The company was great and I felt so honard to be a guest at this meeting – it was a wonderful evening.

Not much to report. Pretty mellow.  Watched Cinderalla Man – Carrie drank a bottle of wine and we went down town for ice cream.

I’m not sure that this will be necessary to blog every day now that we will be starting work and really not doing anything especially exciting.  I’ll try to keep the diligence that Erin had and blog each day no matter how little we do. 

Today has been pretty mellow.  We went to the cafe in Kilburnie, and of course, ate really good food.  I had the eggs benidict with smoked salamon and the Twins had ginormis BLT sandwitches.  Yum! 

I’ve been blogging for awhile and doing laundry.  Carrie and Rashmi have gone downtown for Sunday Mass, I didn’t want to go cause I probably would have been struck by lightening or something when I walked in the building.  The church looks beautiful – I bet they are really enjoying the service. 

During lunch we decided what to do for the rest of the trip.  I think we will make our way to the South Island for a day (likely Picton), rent scooters and check out the area (scope it out for future visits).  We may to a bungy while we are down there – we will see. 

Going north looks like a go as well – we will problably hire a car and stay in a backpackers for a weekend.  We should be able to check out some good wineries and see some LOTR attractions.

It looks like tomorrow we will make our way to the Red Coastal Walk and check out the Seals. 

I’m kind of bummed about having to go to Hutt on tuesday.  I hope to make some time for surfing and diving before I leave – we will see.

After the last couple of weeks of serious travel we started to take it easy.  We didn’t do much except go to downtown with the simple mission of getting ice cream, eating good Indian food, and finding a solution to our picture backup issue (the burner stopped working).  We went to the best Indian food restaurant – Little India (again, recommended to Carrie and Rashmi by a local at the hospital). 

Little India passed Rashmi and Carrie’s test for a good place to get authentic Indian food

while I was beside myself in gastronomic heaven

We all had a great meal

We were all so full after the meal that much to Rashmi’s dismay we skipped ice cream and took the wild ride on the 14 – not a good idea when you are stuffed!

We picked up an external drive from Dicks Electonics – I spent the rest of the evening trying to get our photos backed up on CDs.  I was finally successful by about 12am.  Carrie and Rashmi were troopers and stayed up to make sure I didn’t throw the laptop out of the window.  I was able to catch a glimpse of what a late night study session was like with the Carrie and Rashmi sisters (much better than my solitary self implosion the night before a big test).  Rashmi started speaking in toungues and Carrie just laughed miniachally – it really kept me sane through the tech support with the computer (or scared – I’m not sure which).

I hope Erin will go through these posts and correct the most egregious spelling errors…. if not then the rest of you can suffer!!! HAHAHAHAH!  That’s it, I’m going to Hell!….What?

Yep after the exhibit we did in fact go to Hell – I’ll explain in a couple of lines.

The LOTR exhibit at Te Papa was freaking amazing –

 here is the front of the meuseum with the banner for the exhibit.

They have a miniture or manequette in the main entry:

  it’s the corsair that Aragorn captured with the army of the dead.

Here we are infront of it

When I go back I’ll take more pictures of the boat – the details are outragous!  Unfortunatly its the only part of the exhibit that we could photograph.  The rest of the exhibit was strictly no pictures allowed.  SUCKS!

Anyway – they had a huge amount on display – costumes for Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Saruman, Arwen, Strider, a miniture hobbit costume, the King of Rohan full armour, tons of the weapons and armour used in the movie – costumes/armour for all races in the movie from the southern warriors to the Urk Hai.  They have samples of the plastic hand crafted chain mail availble to touch.  They have the weapons (which I loved) on display.  Lots of original pencils by Alan Lee, acrilics and scene lighting boards by other artists on the film.  They had videos of never before seen interviews and documentaries accompanying various exhibits. They actually displayed the full miniture of Minis Tirath – amazing (easily the size of half of our house and about 2 stories tall)! There was also the full miniture of Osgiliath and the tower of Mordor (also huge). Oh – and they also had all the villians as well!!  The Nazgul rider costume was pretty freaky in person!  If this exhibit ever comes to Denver we are going!

They also did this perspective movie magic thing – we had a good time with it:

We spent about 4.5 hours in the exhibit – it was so much fun! 

After the exhibit we decided to make a trip to Hell (just cause it was Good Friday, and we were hungry).  Hell is a pizza place in Hataitai (and I guess a chain located all around NZ).

There is Racshmi and Carrie outside of Hell

There is the 3 of us standing in the street getting ready to go to Hell

Rashmi took some great pictures of the inside of Hell –

Here is me with the man 

and a picture of the pizza box

Pizza was great – I think we will go again!

Well they left today – Erin went for a run before leaving.  We picked up a lunch in the Wellington Airport and watched the surf pick up in Lyall Bay.  After Erin and Christrian left Rashmi Carrie and I tried to walk to Lyall Bay to watch the waves, but realized that the bus was the only way to get there. 

We didn’t have a camara, but the surf was the biggest that I have seen since we have been here.  About 2.5 to 3 feet.  I couldnt’ resist and decided to jump in without a wetsuit – very cold!  I was able to stay in for about 45 min, but it was just to cold to wait for the waves.  Not having been in the ocean for so long – I was only able to catch one wave.  It will be fun to rent the foamy and wetsuit at least once while I’m here.

The rest of the day was pretty sedate – we made a quick run to the grocery store and then ate at a great restruant in Hataitai that serves wraps that kick Chipolte’s ass!  I had the combo that was loaded with veggies and well seasoned meat.

We turned in early to rest up for the LOTR exhibit the next day.