July in Wellington

We kicked off July with Jen's birthday. Jen and I went out to dinner on her actual birthday at our friend Simon's restaurant. But Jen erased all those pictures so all we got to show from that night is our feet!

To celebrate Jen turning 25 she had a party on the weekend following her birthday. It turned into a international party with people representing England, Germany, Argentina, France, and Turkey.




Jen made 80's t-shirts for herself, Nat (other birthday girl) and Deb. After some pre drinking at the apartment we danced it up at Boogie Wonderland. We are pictured here with our friend Charlie. One of the first people we met way back in January!

In preparation for Fiji we felt it was necessary to get manis and pedis. We headed to Lower Hutt to find a good deal. And a deal we found getting both done for 50 dollars. Unfortunately we forgot it was winter here and had to buy these funny looking jandles for two dollars. We waddled around the mall with them on until our friend Darcy kindly picked us up!

Darcy and his girlfriend Jenny had us over for our first lamb dinner in NZ. Can't say we are fans of lamb but it was a great night out!

Our friend Adelle left for the UK to meet our other friend Hayley. We had her over for dinner with some other nurses to say goodbye. Then we headed out for a night on the town and ended up at BK, our fav after bar hang out.

Tui Brewery and Palmy

A late addition: Deb on the longest bike in the world. It just hangs out at the Tui Brewery. There are 4 seats: one for stearing, one for balance and two to petal. It is in the Guiness Book of World Records. Finally something not just world famous in New Zealand.


Well now that Kitch has a monday - friday job in welly we have to use our week-ends for our favourite week-end activity - roadtripping. We used our free avis car rental and headed up to visit the Tui brewery. Tui is our very favourite beer here (and maybe ever) and it's made about 2 hours outside of wellington in a small - and very sketchy - town.




Kitch and viper. Drive on driver.
We made it (and at times we didn't know if we would). Tui headquartes is dedicated to all things Tui. Who doesn't want to furnish their home with beer store merchandise?

We were scheduled to join a group for our tour and anticipated a group of young people... perhaps a group of hot kiwi men... yeah not so much, We were slightly shocked when the bus rolled up and ALL SENIORS unloaded... an entire bus of drunk, beer loving seniors. They'd been drinking on the bus since wellington and they were ready to get their drink on.
After the tour we got free beer (good thing cause i think the seniors were going to revolt if they didn't get some beer soon) We also managed to somehow get ourselves in on the nachos that the group had preordered... what can we say the old people forced us to eat free nachos!

We were booked to stay in a hotel right by the brewery but after doing a drive by and noticing the desertedness of the town (and the fact that the brewery advertised our motel as discounted for truckers) we decided to keep on driving and head to palmerston north, a cute little university town. We found a motel - with cable! We had a great dinner and dessert before settling in with our tv and electric blankets for a cozy night in palmy.

Fiji

Winter in Wellington is really only fun for so long before we decided to pack up and leave the cold behind for our first trip to the south pacific. We arrived in Nadi, Fiji and spent one night there before boarding the yellow boat for the Yasawa Islands where we were going to be staying.


After winter in NZ it felt good to be in the sun, sun, sun

Thanks to Scott, our great travel agent, we were happily surprised to learn that instead of oiur dorm accomodation we were actually sharing a bure a traditional Fijian hut. Very cute and tropical. Although the open window meant that anything could get in, including birds while deb was on the toilet... why does deb seem to have problems with animals bursting in on her at inconvenient times?

We went on a visit to a local village one afternoon. Our resort staff was pretty funny and our tourguide for our village trip was this small child. Our real adult tour guide kept disappearing but the kid was with us all the time.






We went to a local school and saw the kids and their class rooms.


Romantic sunsets. Oh romantic fiji... and deb and kitch.


Shake it debi, don't break it. Deb in a musical statues competition, she fnished second. You may recognize this staff member. Our tourguide from the village tour guide/ nightly entertainer /activities organizer he did it all. And none of it that well but we loved him anyway.

Fiji Gold.... we drank a lot of these. In fact all we drank the entire trip was water and fiji gold, practically the same thing really.

Up early for a sunrise walk, more romantic moments...and just deb and kitch.

Fiji gold on the beach - still delicious.

Kitch "enjoys" a glass of Kava - the national drink of Fiji. Made out of ground pepper root it tastes like muddy and water and one glass makes your tongue and mouth go numb... oh those fijians know how to live it up.

Our last night on the island we had a group come in and perform traditional Fijian songs and dances as well as ate a traditional Fijian feast that we had to eat the traditional way - no cutlery.

Bye Fiji, we miss you already. Back to Nadi to pack up and head back to cold, rainy Wellington.

Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! We had a going away party for our friend Hayley to go to but we brought along a few canada day props to make sure we were doing c-day justice.

Hayley is a nurse with Debs at the hospital so it was nurses night out.

Would it be canada day without lots of liquor? I dont think so...shots all around. Would you trust your premature baby to these people?


Oh Canada!