NZ North Island - Morrinsville Saturday, May 24

This was definitely one of our more "interesting" days... It all started out fine: we got up nice and early to catch the bus at 7:30 a.m. so we could make it down to Rotorua.  We stopped for a few minutes in the town of Paeroa, which is known for it's mineral springs, which provide the water for the famous drink L&P (Lemon and Paeroa).  Brandon told us this was another "must" in NZ, so I had tried it on the plane. I didn't particularly like it because I don't like carbonated drinks, but when we stopped, I bought a muffin and ice cream made with L&P!

The bus driver let us out in a little town called Morrinsville, where we were to catch another bus to Rotorua. We had 10 minutes, so we quickly went across the street to use the bathrooms.  5 or 6 minutes later we came back only to find out that (you guessed it) our bus had just left!! We went across the street to a local gallery/museum and asked to use the phone to call the bus company. I was quite distraught, but George (as always) was very calm and making comments like "This seems like a nice little town to spend some time in." The lady in the gallery (Mary) was so sweet and seemed even more upset than I was. Finally, we arranged to catch another bus in the evening to get us on our way. In the meantime, we had all day to poke around Morrinsville. Mary let us leave our luggage at the gallery and we started walking. George will tell you it was one of the best days on our trip because we weren't interacting so much as tourists - we just meandered in and out of shops, had a leisurely lunch, and checked out the local library. I even got a haircut (one of the better ones I've ever had!). Around 4, when the gallery was closing, we went back to get our luggage and even though Mary had been off since early afternoon, she came back to take us on a little tour of the outskirts of town because she didn't want us to have a bad experience in Morrinsville! We were pretty amazed. And finally, we did get the other bus and made it to Rotorua.

Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way!

HAHA!  The Green Beanie is where I got my hair cut!

The small, but very nice Morrinsville Library

NZ - North Island Driving Creek Railway Fri, March 23

After spending the morning exploring Coromandel Town a bit and arranging for lodging for the next couple days, we went to Driving Creek Railway.  We weren't really expecting a lot, but it was in the area, so we decided to check it out. We ended up quite surprised at what we found! A rather eccentric potter, Barry Brickell, bought some land so he could start a pottery collective.  He began constructing a narrow gauge railway to transport clay to his kiln.  He enjoyed building the railroad so much, he continued over the next 25 years to expand it so that now it goes through 3 tunnels, 5 viaducts, and changes direction five times at reversing points to zigzag up the mountain to the top!  The incline is quite steep in places and George was very impressed with the civil engineering required.  All along there are pottery and brick artworks and retaining walls made of glass bottles.  Very interesting! We stuck around for quite a while after the tour, looking around at the art sculpture gardens, and actually saw the reclusive Barry Brickell in person, now 70+ years old.

All aboard!

Looking down on the train from the tower above

The "Eyeful Tower"

One of the glass bottle retaining walls

We had the most amazing food throughout our whole vacation!  We went to wonderful restaurants of all varieties and ate delicious meals including some fabulous desserts.  No wonder I wasn't the same weight when I came back!  On this night, we went to the Pepper Tree restaurant.  I won't post pictures of all our great meals, but here's what I had that night:

Free Range chicken on mushroom & brie filo parcel with spiced plum jus

Chocolate Mousse

YUM!

NZ - North Island Coromandel - Thurs, March 22

Ah - New Zealand (Aotearoa in Maori, often translated "land of the long white cloud") - what an amazing place!  On our third day we went to the Coromandel Peninsula, across the bay to the east of Auckland.  Since the ferry we had planned on taking was cancelled due to the weather, we took a bus.  Brandon and Renee had both highly recommended hiking up Castle Rock, where amazing views were to be had.  Unfortunately, with all the rain, the hike was dangerous and we wouldn't have been able to see anything with all the clouds.  So... we decided to take a tour to Hot Water Beach.

A beautiful bay on the way

Hot Water Beach is amazing! Because of the volcanic activity in the area, you can dig a hole in the sand, just a few feet from the ocean, and warm water will fill it. The locals love to come in winter to dig their own hot tubs. But beware, the water can be scalding hot, so you have to be careful where you dig!

After the beach, we went for a hike to Cathedral Cove. I love this picture - it was so pretty!

Then on to Mercury Bay, where we went to a site commemorating Captain James Cook's observation of the Transit of Mercury in 1769.  Afterwards, he circumnavigated and charted all of New Zealand.

And we ended our tour with a night walk through a giant Kauri tree forest. They are massive trees that grow very straight with little or no knots.  They were used by the Maori to build boats and later the young trees were used by Europeans for masts and spars.

And I'll end this day's post with a sunset photo that we took just before seeing the Kauri trees:

NZ North Island - Bay of Islands Wed. March 21

Kia Ora!  (Maori for hi!) New Zealand is set up very well for tourists.  There are different bus companies and plans to take you pretty much anywhere in the country, loads of hostels (as well as hotels, of course) plus a fabulous network of visitor's centers that can make reservations for tours and lodging anywhere in the country.  We did most of our traveling by bus.  We bought a certain number of hours and then we could plan our route anywhere the bus went.  We would call to reserve a space, take the bus to the next city, stay as long as we wanted, then call again (or go online) to reserve the bus for the next place we wanted to go.  It worked out quite well. So on our second day, we walked to the bus depot and took the Intercity bus to the Bay of Islands area, 5 hours northwest of Auckland. The first thing we did when we got there was to buy Hokey Pokey ice cream (a recommendation from Brandon). I loved it (and the name!) and tried to buy it anytime I could! The best description I can think of is a honey brickle - vanilla ice cream with crunch.  YUM!

George holding the ice cream so I could take a picture!

On the boat tour, one of the coolest things was seeing a pod of dolphins.  We also saw the famous "Hole in the Rock", but couldn't take the boat through it because of the poor weather/currents.  We had some rain and were very thankful for the raincoats we brought along.

And on our second day, George bought the first of many cookies in New Zealand.  To give a little background, he has become the "Cookie Grandpa" to our two beautiful granddaughters.  Every time he talks to them, he tells them about or asks them about cookies!  So he took every possible opportunity to buy (and eat) cookies on our trip!

Another great day in New Zealand!

NZ North Island America's Cup Sailing - Tue. March 20

We left from California the night of the 18th, but didn't arrive in Auckland until the morning of the 20th due to crossing the International Date line!  Even though we splurged for a SkyCouch, we didn't get much sleep during our 12 1/2 hour flight.  Then made it through immigration and the very particular Biosecurity (where I had to show that the bottoms of my boots were clean). When we got to the baggage claim area we had a good laugh at this sign we saw:

Ya gotta love the Kiwi humor!  After we went to the Visitor's Center to get some brochures, checked into our hotel, and had a yummy Indian lunch, we walked to the marina where we had tickets to go sailing on a real America's Cup Sailing Yacht.  George has always loved sailing and this was an incredible opportunity.  He loved it!  Me?  Well, let's just say I was fine once we got back into the sheltered harbor.  We had quite a bit of wind and no one but me seemed to mind that the boat was heeling (leaning) WAY over! :-)

Looking at a boat just like ours with the Auckland Skyline in the background

George at work!

I'm happy now that there's not so much wind!

We even saw a bungee jumper go off the Auckland Bridge!

And to finish the day, we went to the Marine Museum, which was quite extensive and very well done.  One section even had a moving floor, to simulate a moving ship!  There was a lot of information about Peter Blake, a New Zealander who led the country to several successive victories in the America's Cup.

And for dinner, I started the trip out right by ordering Lamb Cutlets with Kumara (a New Zealand sweet potato). What a great first day!

Our Trip of a Lifetime - Intro

So... to celebrate 30 years of marriage (and George's completed work project), we took an awesome 10 week vacation to New Zealand, Fiji, and French Polynesia!!   I give credit to a teacher I had in Costa Rica who planted the idea for a grand 30th anniversary celebration because we were in good health now but if we waited, well, who knows what the future holds?  We decided to take advantage of the length of time to visit some faraway places that we probably wouldn't be able to enjoy on a short trip. How did we choose where to go? One inspiration was our children's trip to New Zealand about 8 years prior.  They had such a good time and did so many cool things, we wanted to see it for ourselves. Another of our inspirations was the movie "The Truman Show", where Truman wants to visit Fiji because "It's as far away as you can get without coming back".   And our inspiration for French Polynesia?  Well, what couple do you know that wouldn't want to visit Tahiti???  Along with the fact that my late Aunt Susan and Uncle Bob had planned a trip but never went, so this was also in honor of them.  About one week of the 10 was travel time in the air and visiting family in CA a few days on either end.  I kept a journal and my goal here is to share our day to day adventures.

First days in Costa Rica June 2011

I arrived safe and sound with my luggage on Saturday, June 4. Got to my "mama tica's" house just fine after finding the taxi driver with my name on his paper. (The nickname for a Costa Rican is "Tico" - or "Tica" if it is a woman, hence I have a "mama tica" in Costa Rica.) On Sunday, it was Maria's birthday (the name of my mama tica). It was also Brandon's birthday. I called Brandon using my Skype account and my iphone - worked beautifully!!! Lots of Maria's family was here - her mother, 2 sisters, one sister-in-law, and 2 nieces. Lots of good food and had fun singing happy birthday in Spanish.
Monday I started classes. My class in the morning was with Francisco and two other students. It went pretty well, although I was a bit frustrated because I couldn't speak very well compared to the others. One of the student's name is Thomas, the other is Karen. Karen and I went to lunch together. She is 46, lives in Massachussets, and is getting ready to get a degree in ESOL to teach adult learners English. We went to lunch together, then I went to my afternoon class. My teacher in the afternoons is named Tatiana. She is very nice and we went over lots of grammer.
Tuesday my morning class was frustrating for me, so the teacher suggested that it might be good for me to have a class without other students so I could progress without stress. It turned out to be a good idea, I think. Today (Wednesday) I had my class in the morning with the new professor and had lots of time to talk and review grammar. I feel a bit more confident after my classes today! Karen and I went to lunch together yesterday and today as well. Today we found a place for a respectable lunch (egg, rice, beans, salad, and a drink) for only about $3.00! After classes I went with a couple of the staff members and two students to a little shop where they sold pastries and coffee and had a great time.
Every day I have homework, so with both the morning class and afternoon class plus the homework, it makes my day pretty long! I'm looking forward to next week when I won't have the afternoon class and will have a little more time to sightsee or whatever. Not sure what I will be doing this weekend - perhaps go see Taylor Brooks (a friend and fellow teacher) who will be arriving Friday and staying here for a year as a missionary!!
So... goodbye for now. More updates later!
Melody

Monteverde (continued)

So - we went on a night walk in Monteverde.  There wasn't a whole lot to see, however, it was still fun.  We saw a tree that had been taken over by a strangler Fig and the whole inside was hollow - pretty cool-looking when the guide shone his flashlight up the middle of the tree!  Probably the most spectacular thing was this Orange-kneed tarantula we saw.

The next morning, we took a bird-watching tour.  It was supposed to start at 6:30, but we managed to have the hotel owner get in touch with our guide and change the time to 5:30.  Really early, but that's the best time to see the birds!  It turned out to be a really good thing that we changed the time because we saw a ton of birds the first hour and then it started to rain.  After spending 30 or 40 minutes in a nearby bread shop, we continued on to the Monteverde Cloud Forest park to see more birds.  To get there, we hitched a ride with a friend of the guide's in back of his truck over a VERY bumpy road.  Wow - what a trip!  My knees were about shot by the end of the ride.

Despite the light rain, we enjoyed our time and were able to see quite a few more birds, although the first hour was definitely the best.  I was really hoping to see the Quetzal bird, but since I didn't, I'll just have to come back to Costa Rica again!  :-)

 This is an Orange-bellied Trogan

 - really quite beautiful, though my photo doesn't do it justice

Necklace and earrings in the form of the Mot-Mot bird made by a local artist

After walking through the village of Santa Elena, we returned to our hotel and got packed up to head back to San Jose.  We waited and waited, but our bus never came.  After the hotel owner did some calling, come to find out the bus company had made our reservations for the 22 of JULY, rather than June.  Oh dear!  We ran through some possibilities, including staying another night at the hotel (but we would miss our classes at the Spanish school), paying a good deal of money for a taxi, or trying to get to the place where the public bus would be going to San Jose in about 15 minutes.  Just as we were thinking we'd try the public bus route, a taxi driver pulled up.  The travel company that had made our reservations had sent the taxi for us.  It made for an anxious hour or so, but we did make it back safe and sound.

Our adventures in Monteverde

Well, a friend(Sue) and I visited Monteverde this last weekend. We left Saturday morning and went by bus for about 3 1/2 hours. The last 45 minutes or so is over a VERY bumpy road - we were glad to arrive!

We had a little under 2 hours to kill before our tour, so we walked down to a very pretty restaurant named Flor de Vida (Flower of Life). I was pretty excited because the waitress pointed out a beautiful bird that was right outside in the garden. It was a blue-crowned Mot-Mot. What a beautiful bird!!

Then we went on a tour of a sugar-cane plantation. It was very interesting! I started out by taking the tour in Spanish, and really understood the vast majority, however, there were some new words, so I decided to change to the English group so I could really understand the process and everything. They also had coffee plants, bananas, and pineapple on the plantation. They showed the system for processing coffee and then for the sugar. We ate pieces of sugar cane (well, not really ATE - more like sucked on...), rode in an oxcart, and made a candy from the cooked sugar cane juice. We also had a snack including juice from a fruit grown on the plantation, coffee, and a picadillo (a little like a stew) from another plant. A very good tour!!

More to follow!

Riding on a traditional oxcart

Sunday, June 14

Sunday we got up about 7 so that we could go to the National Gym in Sabana Park in San Jose. The daughter of my mama tica, Caro (short for Carolina) was in a competition. She competed in the floor exercise, the bars, balance beam, and the vault. She won quite a few medals, including best overall in her age group and level.

Here is a picture of my Costa Rican (Tica) family

Gaby, the 17 year-old is on the left, Caro (14) in the middle, and

my "mama tica" on the right.

To celebrate, I took the family out to eat. Since Caro was the guest of honor, she got to choose and chose Pizza Hut. Either I just haven't been to Pizza Hut in a very long time, or it's different here in Costa Rica, because they actually had quite an extensive menu, with salads, pastas, lasagna, and other dishes besides pizzas. It was quite good. We even had Cas juice instead of Coke, which was wonderful. They make a lot of fresh juices here, in all the restaurants and homes. Cas is a fruit that is green and the juice might remind one a bit of lemonade or limeade, but I think it's bettter. Muy Rico, as they say here! Oh - and here´s something I thought was very interesting - they were using motorcycles to deliver pizzas!! I forgot my camera, but one of the girls took a picture, s0 hopefully I can get it from her and put it on my blog at some point.

After lunch, we went back to the house to drop off the girls and Laura (my mama tica) and her friend Marco took me for a drive up one of the nearby mountains to see the view of the city. It was quite spectacular, although this picture doesn´t do it justice.

Below is a picture of the typical Costa Rican dish called casado. It consists of rice, beans (sometimes black, sometimes red), usually chicken (although this one was fish), salad, and fried plantains. This one also had a tortilla and was served on a banana leaf. Delicious!

Saturday, June 13

Well, this weekend certainly didn't go as planned!! You know what they say about the best-laid plans... I was supposed to go on a tour on Saturday, hopefully to see the somewhat illusive Quetzal bird. Unfortunately, it rained quite a bit Friday and there was a landslide in the area, so it was impossible to go. Bummer!! Instead, I called Jessica and we met with the other female student here, Sara, to go to San Jose. We went to the Agrigultural Fair which is basicallly a farmers market, but it was HUGE! We saw lots of fruits and vegetables that we didn't know.

This fruit is called guanabana, is sweet and is used to make juice.

This one is "manzana de agua" - water apple. It is sweet and a little like a pear.

This fruit is called "guayaba" and is a little tart, maybe a little like an orange,

but you eat the skin too.

After that we went to the Central Market. It's a huge enclosed market with all kinds of little stores that sell souvenirs, fruits and vegetables, chicken (and all the parts...), fresh fish, beef, flowers, herbs, coffee, and has places to sit down and eat. Basically, you can buy anything you want there!

Then we went to the movies at the mall in San Pedro (a suburb of San Jose, the same city in which the school resides). We saw Night in the Museum II in Spanish. It was rather hard to understand, but fortunately, there was a lot of action that didn't need all the words... Then we went to the house where Jessica is staying to watch a movie on her computer: Mall Cop. Funny! Afterwards I had all kinds of trouble trying to figure out how to get home. Couldn't reach the taxi company because the line was constantly busy. Couldn't reach my "mama tica". Couldn't reach anyone from the school. And Jessica's "mama tica" was out. Finally, after about 2 hours, I was able to reach my mama tica and she woke up to come get me. It was about 11 or a little after. I felt bad, but here it's just downright dangerous to be walking around on the streets at that hour of the night. Anyway, all's well that ends well, right?

And I think I'll leave Sunday's news for tomorrow.

Weekend at Cafe Britt and Irazu

Well, I've been learning a lot and remembering a lot of my Spanish. I think it's going pretty well. I've been writing my diary every day in Spanish and it's really great practice. Now I just need practice speaking.

I had a good time this weekend. On Friday, my new friend Jessica and I went to the movies. We were hoping to see Night at the Museum in English with Spanish subtitles, but since they didn't have that one, we ended up watching Angels and Demons. I thought it was good, but pretty intense!

Saturday I went with Jessica on a tour of Cafe Britt. On the way I practiced my Spanish with the driver quite a bit. Cafe Britt is the most well-known brand of coffee here in Costa Rica. They buy coffee beans from over 1,000 local growers. It takes about 3 years for a coffee plant to start producing, but once it does, it typically produces for 40 years! The coffee beans (called cherries when they are on the bush) are harvested over a period of several months by hand because they don't all ripen at the same time. The cherries actually have several layers that are taken off before the coffee bean is ready to be roasted. It was a very interesting tour with great demonstrations and visuals. Below is a picture of the basket that they tie around their waist to put the cherries in (thereby keeping both hands free for picking).

Then Jessica and I returned to San Jose where we took a tour of the National Theater. It's a beautiful building and the tour was very interesting as well. I think the most interesting thing is the picture that is painted on the ceiling. It represents the economy of Costa Rica and was on the back of one of their bills (that is no longer in use), but since the painting was done by a European, it is wrong in several places. For instance, the way the man is carrying the bananas is incorrect. In addition, coffee beans do not grow near the beach, only in the mountains. The faces of the women are also much more European than Costa Rican. After the tour of the Theater, we went to a small artisian marketplace where Jessica bought an Ox Cart very typical of Costa Rica. I think George will be happy that I didn't buy one! Here's a photo of the picture on the bill:
Sunday I went on a tour of Irazu Volcano. It was a beautiful day and we could see the crater very clearly. The water is a pretty green color because of the sulpher in it.

In addition, I went to the Lancaster Gardens where they have some incredibly beautiful orchids. The picture below shows the orchid that is the National Flower of Costa Rica.

It's taken me all week to write this blog because I've been so busy with classes and homework and other activities. This week I've had one class in the morning and then another in the afternoon. In the afternoon class I've been translating some of the notices that I've written for my job. A lot of work, but very rewarding and I think I've learned a lot. We also had a small cooking class, went to the big Central Market in San Jose, and last week I visited the family I stayed with last time. Hopefully I'll have time to write a bit more next week.
This picture shows us making tortillas and Picadillo de Chayote. Chayote is a vegetable that grows in abundance here. It is green and shaped a little like a pear and tastes a little like zucchini. I like it a lot. Picadillo is (as they say here in Costa Rica) "Muy Rico! This weekend I have plans to go on a nature tour and then Sunday I'm going to go to a Gymnastics competion in which the daughter of the family I'm staying with will be competing. Busy, busy, busy!