Josh and I drove down to Wellington yesterday and returned today. We caught Jessica's music recital (our first ever recital) and spent time catching up. We had soooo much fun and soooo many laughs. We left Palmerston North around 2:30 in the afternoon, I was eating a microwavable Watties chicken curry with rice meal (they're so good and were on sale last week at Pak N Save so I'd bought 10!) It rained so hard all the way down to Wellington.
We made it to Jess and Ike's apartment just before 5...on time! We met Ike since Jess had already left for the recital. We met up with Jess and Ike's neighbors, a young Danish couple, and literally crossed the street and walked up a hill to the university (a 7 minute walk at most).
As we entered the recital hall, we saw someone handing out programs. It was Elise, another American Rotary scholar studying in Wellington although she too has her Ph.D. We said hi and found some seats to watch the performance. The majority of the songs were in French or Spanish and were opera. I kept waiting for Jess, who kinda looks like Emmy Rossum, to start singing songs from Phantom of the Opera. 
After the performance, we stopped by the apartment so Jess could change and we could figure out where we wanted to go for dinner. We decided on a place called the Loaded Hog which has a lot of everything and a place that Ike and Jess had a 30% off coupon for out of a Wellington discount book.
We found easy parking not too far away from the restaurant considering it was close to 7 on Saturday night. When we entered the building and started looking around for seats, the entire place was PACKED...and the building was HUGE! Eventually, we spotted two empty tables that could be pushed together, however, we still needed five chairs. Josh and Ike went around and rounded us up the right number of chairs and we moved on to what to eat for dinner.
Josh ordered a burger and I had a chicken/bacon (really ham) salad. The food was so good and Josh really liked his hamburger because it tasted like meatloaf! We hung out for so long we were hungry again as we left the restaurant (well, it did take a long time to split the bill as it's not a common practice here). 
We headed across town to Strawberry Fare for dessert. I thought Josh and I would each get our own dessert, however, the brownie at $10.50 had nuts in it and all the other desserts were around $15.00. I opted for a mochachino and Josh got the brownie which we said if it didn't have many nuts in it, I would help him eat. When the food came out, it looked great: wonderful presentation. We had some big laughs over dessert, one of which was over the fact that they didn't have artificial sweetener in packets here so I had to take this huge bottle of liquid artificial sweetener to put in my coffee...nothing subtle about that!
After figuring out how to split the bill again, we dropped Elise off at her apartment before returning to Jess and Ike's for the night. They recently upgraded to a futon instead of the homemade "couch" (boards and cushions) that they'd purchased online when they first arrived in New Zealand. Jess told a funny story about how the Salvation Army wouldn't even take the "couch" back to their business to sell, but they did throw it away for her!
The futon was super comfortable because it had two pads whereas the one Josh and I have in the states is not comfy at all. We got really good sleep and only woke up the next morning when Ike left the house around 9 to meet up with some guys from church for a breakfast. The three of us, Jess, Josh, and I had breakfast at the house (a great spread of cereal, fruit, toast, juice and coffee) and looked at photos on the laptops until Ike returned around 11:30.
We decided we'd go out for lunch with Elise so we picked a spot called Sweet Mother's Kitchen, drove down to Elise's apartment, and tried to find parking which wasn't quite as easy as the night before. Sweet Mother's Kitchen is a mix of Cajun and Mexican types of food. The place was crowded inside and out so that was a good sign. We found two tables outside that we pushed together. 
The menu was divided into items they sold on weekdays/weekends and times of day. The chicken salad that I wanted wasn't on the weekend menu but I asked the waiter if they could make it anyway and he said yes...SCORE! Josh ordered a spinach and feta quesadilla. When the waiter asked what we wanted to drink, I asked if they had free refills on their "fizzy drinks" (soda in New Zealand speak). The waiter, not a native Kiwi based on his accent, looked so confused! He said no, there weren't free refills and where is this place you can get free refills? We all said, "AMERICA!" which I thought was pretty funny. Although you don't typically get free refills on soda in NZ, I still thought it was worth checking out.
The food was really good again today so we were happy. After eating, we returned to the apartment and parked Jess and Ike's car on top of Salamanca Street and began to walk down the hill to their apartment. Josh noted as we walked along that many of the cars were missing mirrors on the left-hand (sidewalk) side of the street. That's when I noticed OUR CAR WAS MISSING ITS LEFT SIDE MIRROR!
Apparently, this is a common type of vandalism on Salamanca Street. My blood didn't boil in anger but I was pretty upset. What can you do though? I thought it must have been a cosmic trade off of sorts because when we left Jess and Ike's apartment to go to lunch, I'd been really worried that we left the laptop out and Jess and Ike's laptop was out in open view too in the living room of their apartment. I really didn't want someone to steal the laptop because it has all of our photos on it. I've been especially on edge of laptop theft since many of my UCOL students have had laptops stolen from their flats. So, anyway, the laptop was still there but we were one car mirror less than when we had arrived in Wellington. I know in the scheme of life this is a very, very minor thing but it is irksome due to the fact that we were planning to sell the car in a few months' time. Bugger!
Elise had to return to her apartment because she had some event later that evening. We'll see her again the first weekend in October when she'll stay with us in Palmerston North after a opera she's performing at in Whanganui. After Elise left, the four of us chatted for awhile before Josh and I decided to hit the road back to Palmerston North. We'll most likely see Jess and Ike again in mid-October at the Rotary farewell get together in Wellington.
The drive back to Palmerston North was a lot faster since it wasn't a heavy downpour like yesterday. It amazed me to drive past the same landscapes that 24 hours ago had been covered by gray clouds and buckets of water. Blue skies, green grass and a bright yellow sun are much better to look at to me. When we got back to Palmerston North, we were a little sleepy since although we got good sleep the night before, we didn't get to sleep in quite as much as we wanted to. We easily fell asleep and took a 2 hour nap even though our landlord neighbor is constantly using what we refer to as the "bone saw."
Have I told you about this bone saw?!? Our landlord likes to do woodworking stuff and by "likes" I mean he's addicted to building things at least 12 hours a day EVERY DAY! He has a detached garage that he has turned into his woodworking shop. Problem is, it's right next to our bedroom/house. The bone saw usage was occasional at first, however, now it's just a constant buzzing that Josh and I hear.
The bone saw cranks up early in the morning and runs late into the evening...I can't imagine what their electricity bill must be like. Granted, of all our neighbor noise issues: the New Mexican "Humpsalot" couple who were constantly amorous at 3 am, the Fayetteville roomies who lived downstairs who had ridiculously loud parties, or the screaming Fayetteville family who lived on the other side of our master bedroom, this noise complaint is the most manageable...although sometimes I think my brain is going numb from the sound.
In other news, Josh and I had the article on Americans' views of rugby published in the local paper. I can't find a link online yet but if I do, I'll post it. We're going to write another article about the difference between American and Kiwi culture. Also, I'm going to miss tea with the mayor tomorrow because I'm going out of town for work. Josh will have to fill me in on all the details. That's all for now.
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