The Wanderings of Doug and I

Well as I had expected the first week was kept mostly full of walking Doug, hanging out with Tia and relaxing when the weather wasn't quite as nice. But I got quite a few pictures and played with my GPS watch quite a bit.

For the second week in New Zealand I added17.5 miles of walking so I don't think they count towards my 1000 miles for the year. But I have gotten to explore so pretty walk ways that I will be hitting up for runs later on.

During my relaxing time I have taken advantage of housesitting in a home with younger children... by watching Tangled and all of the Harry Potter movies. There has definitely been some decompression this week in having some quite, personal space and time to think about not thinking about work. I have enjoyed catching up with several people of Skype as well and am almost use to how horrible a camera angle it is!

One of the things that I did here was go grocery shopping, in a larger grocery store than in Auckland and for regular groceries since I have my own (very nice) kitchen to use for the next two weeks. To begin with, it is still very weird to see eggs not refrigerated in the store. Turns out the US is one of the few places that puts eggs in the fridge. I am also still a little blow away by the no coffee creamer situation. I have found one small jar of powder CoffeeMate Creamer but that is it! I am also surprised at how most people drink freeze dried coffee (instant) that is added to hot water and don't have a coffee maker at all. Since I found the whole process of grocery shopping so interesting this week I decided to make it the basis of the 3 things I like and 3 things I wasn't so fond of.

1. How expensive the groceries seem. While I do keep in the back of my mind that the exchange rate is good, almost $4 for 2L of milk and chicken breasts being around $10.00 a pound means you change up your shopping list a bit.
2. The fact that Turkey doesn't exist here.... for a country that is so big on birds turkey is non-existent. There is no turkey for sandwiches, no ground turkey, and really when I asked about it they seemed shocked. It is apparently only very rarely cooked around holidays.
3. The last one is going to be non-grocery related. The inability of either acuweather or the weather channel to be able to give me at least which half of the day it will be raining correctly. I have been getting into the habit  of checking the weather a lot more regularly (read every morning before I get out of bed and several times during the day) than I ever did in Arizona. After all, knowing exactly how hot it isn't never helps. But, when the weather says rain in the morning clearing in the afternoon and the opposite happens.... it makes getting in a run more of a challenge. Also, I am a fair weather dog walker I have decided. Doug probably doesn't want to go out in the rain anyway right?  

And now for the plus side!

1. The fact you have to PAY FOR GROCERY BAGS! Yep, those plastic grocery bags here will cost you 10c each. While that is not a huge amount you want to know what a simple thing like that will do... really make you think about and even walk back out to get those reusable grocery bags! I couldn't help but notice that there also has been a total of one plastic bag that I have seen this whole time blowing around. This also cuts down on cashiers who get huffy when you have your own bag and the wonderful 2 or even 1 item per plastic bag resulting in 50 bags of groceries to bring in from the store.
2. The bike lanes here! This does tie in with grocery shopping because I have been riding a bike to get them here. Also a side note is that saddle type bags on a bike for groceries are pretty slick, way better than just the front basket I had at home. But back to the lanes, they are not only on both sides of the street but also about 1/2 a car lane wide! I have also been using this biking in traffic as a chance to practice this whole on the left thing. Still weird after a week.
3. The amount of locally grown/made foods that are in the grocery store and not super expensive. I feel like a lot of times in the US there is a local option but it is frequently more expensive but here there seems to be quite competitively priced local options. This includes things from fresh produce all the way to cereal or peanut butter. I am sure that this is partially due to the price of importing anything not made here in New Zealand but I still like it :) Not to mention the ingredients lists seem a lot sorter than ours.

Well now for the really fun part :) some of the pictures from this week!

 

 

 

While it might look like I have been playing favorites don't worry! Tia and I also spent some quality time together. She just wasn't as willing to hold still for pictures. But she was an occasional snuggle buddy and finally gave up fighting me picking her up :) it is futile! I will cuddle a cat if I want to.

 

 

In fact we were such good buddies she brought me a present to the door.... I think it is a lizard that had already lost his tail trying to get away from her. I also received a mouse... neither were dead so I think that means I rank pretty high!