I couldn't be more excited about my week-long trip to New Zealand before heading home for the holidays! It was my first time traveling solo, and I was a bit anxious, but it would be a great experience and I couldn't wait. I flew into Auckland, the capital, located in North Island, which holds about half of New Zealand's 4 million in population. It was a nice city, but it was a city city, and I found myself looking forward to my 2-day getaway in South Island's Queenstown.
Queenstown was made popular by its scenery filmed in Lord of the Rings. And trust me, it really is that beautiful. As soon as I stepped off the plane, the view took my breath away. The only other time I have experienced such natural beauty and serenity was in Interlaken, Switzerland. You can see a lot of my pictures in the slide show to the left. I discovered that traveling by yourself means you have no one else to take pictures of or with you, so I am definitely not lacking in my pictures of New Zealand scenery =)
I packed my 2-day trip full. Like Interlaken, Queenstown is known for its scenery as well as its outdoor adventure thrills. You can do just about anything you want, and it took me a while to narrow my choices, but I finally decided on mountain biking, whitewater rafting, jetboating, horse-back riding, and bungee jumping. Yes, bungee jumping. My hostel's host, Anne, helped me book everything, and I was set to go.
Biking through the Queenstown Gardens, in the forests, and around Lake Wakatipu was an extraordinarily peaceful excursion. As I stopped to take pictures, I sat on the bench overlooking the water and took in the silence and serenity. Really and truly, no worries mate. My afternoon trek through the town was exactly what I needed to kick-start my adventure.
And it was also a reality shock, as I forgot to put on sunscreen. You don't forget to put on sunscreen in Australia and New Zealand - there is sort of an O-zone hole down here. Needless to say, I was painfully crispy for the remainder of my trip, but I didn't forget my sunscreen the next day.My next day's adventure started out with a morning's worth of jetboating and whitewater rafting. The weather in New Zealand gets a bit warmer than Australia during the day, and a bit cooler than Australia during the night. Thus, it was quite chilly that morning. Jetboating is a neat experience - each boat weighs 3 tons, holds about 20 people, travels on the surface of the water at a max speed of 80 km/hr, and, while speeding, spins 360 degrees without tipping over. Quite a ride. Next, we rafted, but first we had to take a "nice little bus ride" to the top of Skipper's canyon down which we were rafting. It was an interesting choice phrase by our tour guide, as the bus ride was neither nice nor little. Our chaueffer Jarred, the recent "Czech republic driving champion," helped us wind our 45 minute way along the 4 meter wide gravel road built 140 years ago but only expected to last 100 years. I didn't have my camera, but trust me, it was scary. At one point, I looked out the bus window and couldn't see the road, only the valley 300 meters below. They said only one rafting bus had ever fallen off - I shouldn't have asked. But, we made it, and we rafted through the mica-ridden valleys that had once been subject to miners.
That afternoon, I jumped off a 45 meter-high bridge, and landed in the river below. I was attached to a bungee rope though, so I'm ok =) Needless to say, I was quite nervous, but I finally jumped. My jumping buddy, Ju, was much braver than I. He went first, and climbed back up a million stairs afterwards to film me jumping.
The next day, I went on a horseback adventure through the hills filmed in Lord of the Rings. My horse, Tigger, definitely had a bit of bounce in him, and I had fun trotting through the valleys. That afternoon, I took a skybox up a really tall mountain with Andrew and Kat, whom I had met out the previous night. We all luged (like bobsledding, but without ice) down the mountain, several times. Quite fun :)That was all in 2 days. I was quite exhausted, and spent the next day in Auckland resting before heading home for Christmas. New Zealand is a beautiful place, and I would definitely love the chance to return one day.
It was my last weekend in Australia before heading to New Zealand and then home for the holidays, and I wanted to take a trip. So we rented a car and headed west down the Great Ocean Road. Similar to the Pacific Coastal Highway on the western U.S. coast, Australia's Great Ocean Road is a popular weekend adventure for tourists and locals alike, and includes many fun stops along the southern coast before the grand finale stop of Port Campbell National Park, home of the Twelve Apostles.
And we were off again. Driving on the curvy 2-lane road was quite fun, and we stopped every so often if we came across a worthwhile look-out point. I found a sign along the way that was a good reminder to the tourists. Once we made it to the Twelve Apostles, I discovered there were actually only eight still standing due to erosion, but this fact didn't take away from the beauty of the natural site. I also learned that the so-called "London Bridge" had eroded and fallen down as well, but when I asked if the famous song was written as a commemoration, I was told the two were unrelated. 
Movember, the month formerly known as November, began in Australia and New Zealand in 2004 "by a group of young Adelaide men" who wanted to raise funds and awareness for men's prostate cancer and depression. The charity foundation "snowballed into a Mo-phenomenom," and in 2007 spread its fundraising efforts to the US, the UK, Canada, and Spain. Money is raised by guys who pledge to grow a moustache ("Mo".... + November = Movember) continuously throughout the month.
truly volunteered to be their honorary "Mo Sista" - some of you might recall the email I spammed you with for sponsorship :) To spice things up even more, the month was turned into a team contest for Best Mo, to be voted on by the rest of the office. As the month progressed, the Mo's grew longer (and itchier most claimed), the fundraising efforts grew more creative, and the team grew more competitive with their Mo trash talking. Toward the end, arrangements had been made to hijack the weekly Amdocs Ugot Shabot Friday afternoon Cakes for the purpose of announcing Best Mo contest winner. We were even able to snag some snazzy "Moughnuts" for the occasion.
The votes were in, the tallies were counted, and I was set to announce the Best Mo come Friday. It was the largest gathering I had seen on a Friday afternoon in the common room. The Amdocs Movember team - "Moustachio Fantastico" - was ushered to the front of the room, and the drumroll was sounded. Ironically enough, the winner, a guy named Shane who received a women's razor as his prize, had already mistakenly shaved his moustache the night before and had been close to an unofficial Amdocs disqualification.
There was still Friday night and the Mo Gala party. The last week leading up to Friday was spent deciding on a team costume theme for that night, and it was finally decided that we would dress 70s style and make shirts with "Mogan" on the front. A bogan in Aussie slang is a term for an Aboriginal native, so "Mo" + "Bogan" = "Mogan".
Between 2 kitchens and 15 people, Thanksgiving with my Australian family was a success! And I must say, I was quite proud of my turkey! To the left – big Tom, pre-oven. To the right – big Tom, maple roasted.
so not even enough time to take a decent nap on the plane. We didn't want to get too crazy that night, after all we had a whole day of sight-seeing ahead of us on Saturday. So, we found a local place - disco lights, cheesy music, brightly-dressed Australians - the usual. We proceeded to get our groove thing on. The bouncer was very strict and protective of his dance floor. One step onto the polished hardwood with a drink-in-hand and you were in trouble. It started to become quite a fun game, seeing who could sneak a drink onto the dance floor without being caught.
Our original plan was to do a bit of sight-seeing the next day, but we were badly craving some beach time. It was already shaping up to be a beautiful day (Sydney weather is typically warmer than Melbourne weather, because they don't have the bay breeze like Melbourne does), so we made our way to the infamous surfer's haven of Bondi Beach. The houses set in the hilltop reminded me a little of the scenery on the Italian coast. The beach crowd was quite mixed - surfers, hippies, tourists, they came from all over.
We had a great time though! Engaged in a few hand-stand contests with our beach neighbors. Somewhere in life I learned how to walk on my hands across a room and back (Meg - remember when we used to do this in our living room in Peachtree City?!) - so I succeeded in winning the hand-stand contest. We also had a few Charlie's Angels poses, and some sort of flying karate chop that Carson is demonstrating to the right.
That evening was a tourist extravaganza. We got ready and headed over to the Sydney Harbour for a dinner cruise. Basically, an evening of dinner and live music on a nice little boat that took us up and down the Harbour - it was quite lovely! Before boarding, we managed to take some pictures of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge (aka the Coathanger). According to Guiness World Records, this is the widest long-span bridge in the world. You can pay a lot of money to "scale" the bridge - i.e. walk on top with a tour guide. The bridge had its two-millionth climber back in August. I was making fun of all the scaling and climbing terminology until I actually saw the bridge and realized it probably would be quite a workout to walk on top of it. 
The dinner cruise was great! Lots of good food, good champagne, and good music ala Dianna Ross look-alike. Later that evening, as we were parading down the streets of Sydney looking for our next locale, we managed to capture the essence of two very quality mullets sported by two very quality bouncers. You can kind of see them in the picture, but I don't think they are done proper justice. Mullets are actually fairly abundant down here. It's almost a comforting feeling when I see them, it takes me home to my southern roots.
Our final day in Sydney was filled by our last touristy mission. We had to see the Opera House - you can't visit, let alone think of Sydney without noting this infamous icon. It's quite the architectural structure, and has become one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. Initially, we had wanted to see the Symphony play inside, but due to time constraints, we had to settle for just getting close and touching the building. It was still really awesome!
It had come time for Melbourne's annual Spring Carnival celebration, a 5-week-long horse racing fiesta that filled the city's streets with men in colorful suits and ties and ladies flaunting their grandiose, flowery hats, everyone eager to place their bet and win big.
Given that it's a season suited for quite the marketing scheme as accessories that have no other purpose in life make their way to store shelves all across Melbourne, I was blinded by choices. Should I go with a hat? Or should I choose a fascinator - a clip full of feathers that you stick in your hair, which I so fondly (accidentally) kept referring to as a fabricator. Being the decisive person that you all know me to be, I bought both. There we all are in our suits, ties, dresses, hats, and fascinators.
Hello family and friends, I must apologize for my lack of recent posting. No excuses, really. Just plain laziness. I made it back to Melbourne mid-October, visa issues sorted. A nice 2-week break at home, during which Meagan got engaged! Since I've been back, I've been having tons of fun (working somewhere in between), and I'm looking forward to many good times ahead. So stay tuned for some cool posts :)
The situation at work changes as unexpectedly as Melbourne weather. One week, I am crazy busy while the other project team has no work. The next week, I have no work and the other project team is swamped. One week, December will be my last month here. The next week, I might be brought back after New Years. I've given up trying to predict or plan, and when those back home express shock that I'm changing a Thursday international flight Wednesday evening, I am almost brought back into the realm of sanity for a brief moment. But, c'est la vie. I'm working in Australia, and I'm loving it. A few of my favorite co-workers, a handful of BearingPoint sub-contractors, have since rolled off our project. We celebrated their last day with a round of beers in the office - I'm still somewhat getting used to the Aussie culture.
I have finally found some girlfriends to spend time with. Don't get me wrong, I love drinking beer and playing pool with a bunch of bloakes as much as the next gal, but I need my gossip and shopping time too.
