A week in the Hutt (photo edition)

It's hard to believe, but my week in Lower Hutt is over as of tomorrow at 10:20am when I catch a flight to Queenstown. The week has absolutely flown by, and I've seen some people who are really important to me, whether from 3 years ago or from much more recently in my life. It has been a full week, a fun week, and after Kirsten's and my all-day shopping trip today I think I can say an expensive week! Haha. Here are a few of the things I've been up to this week in a photo montage:

Visiting Te Papa museum in Wellington with some friends from Kiwi Experience (me, Marlin, Kate, Victoria, and Dipesh)

Chillin' with miss Charlotte on Tuesday night (Muppet Show movie night)

The gang together again! Fish and Charlotte, Kirsten, Sam, Rich, and me :o)

A visit to Hutt Valley High School! So wonderful. :o)

Taking the train into Wellington from the Woburn station (right by HVHS - this was the station I caught the train at every Tuesday for Wellington Youth Choir rehearsal in '07)

Out for dinner with some WYC friends (Evie, Imogen, Isaac)

Rockin' out at karaoke (Emily and Evie)

Hanging out at karaoke with Dom

Reuniting with some of my former HVHS students (all of whom have graduated and are now at uni, 2 studying music, 1 in photographic design, 1 in English literature, and 1 in media productions)

OH! And these next pictures require some further explanation.... last night, Kirsten, Rich, and I went out for dinner. We had initially tried to go to the Hog's Breath Cafe, which turned out to be closed down. So, the backup plan was to head to the Cadillac Diner, a nice little 50s themed American diner.

We ordered a couple 50s diner-type drinks, in the spirit of the evening:

Shortly after our arrival to the diner, we realized that they were filming a restaurant make-over show there that night, and we were asked if we would be willing to appear in some of the footage. We agreed, thinking that we'd be in background scenes, like extras, etc. As it turns out, they had cameras and mics and everything right at our table when we were ordering, and they even interviewed us after our meals. The show will be airing on TV-3 (I think?) in September or October. Stay tuned to see whether my super articulate comment about the "thematically appropriate" decor of the restaurant makes the cut (how embarrassing). Haha. I was quite awkward about it all... while I was on camera, they said they thought they could detect an accent, and I said "Yes, but it's not American! I'm Canadian." The lady interviewing proceeded immediately to ask me how the diner stacked up to the American diners at home, to which I awkwardly replied, "I don't know.... I haven't been to many American diners.... I live in CANADA...." Oh geez. Haha. Here's to hoping I don't make it on TV in a couple months. :op

Today Kirsten and I spent the whole day shopping. I spent about $350, although to be fair, $117 of that was spent on international postcard stamps. Haha. I also bought 2 pairs of jeans (one full-length and one pair of cute cuffed capris), a new dress shirt, a pair of hot pink peep-toe heels with a bow on the toe (SO cute), a pair of black boots with a bit of a heel on them (that make me feel somewhat sassy when I wear them, even under jeans), and a duffel bag that I can check on the flight home because I can't fit everything in my backpack anymore. Haha. Busy day at the mall for sure!

I then went to St. James Church to sing with Fiona and her mom in the church choir for a farewell to Ros, their pastor (I'm assuming?) who has been there since 1983 and is now moving from Lower Hutt. It was a total fluke that the timing of it worked out like it did; I didn't think I was going to have the chance to sing in the choir again, as I'm not catching any Sunday mornings in the Hutt during this entire trip. Anyway, it was great to see the choir/church people and to sing with Fish again. And a nice little added bonus to the afternoon was when I got to spend some time with Charlotte as she plunked away at the piano. So cute!

So tomorrow morning it's off to Queenstown for some more crazy adventure travels. I'm doing the Nevis bungy on Tuesday, which is actually quite terrifying. My legs feel weak when I think about it. Haha. Now THAT will be an impressive DVD to show when I get home, I'm sure. Stay tuned for more updates from my travels around the south island! I'll be in Q-town until Wednesday, then it's off to Christchurch for Wed. night, off to Kaikoura on Thursday, then back to Wellington again on Friday! I'll spend Fri/Sat with Fish and Sam, then I'll be off on my tour of the east cape before heading back to Auckland. I'm over half way through my trip now, and as always, I'm having lots of amazing times but still missing Jeff and mom and dad, and of course Karyn and the musical beans. I will be happy to get back when it's time to head home. :o)

See you on the south island!

Crazy Karaoke Competition in Wonderful Windy Wellington (now THAT'S alliteration)!

Last night Grace and I experienced the first true rainy, windy Wellington evening. The wind was so unbelievably strong that it almost knocked us over a few times... incredible! And it was raining so hard that, combined with the force of the wind, it was raining horizontal. Simply amazing! The bottom of my pant legs were actually noticeably heavier than they were before the rain hit, and my feet were actually slipping around inside my shoes (I suppose that's what you get for wearing dress shoes with no socks in the pouring rain!).

So Grace and I went into town in the early evening to catch the Vector Wellington Orchestra and Orpheus Choir performing Beethoven's 9th and a piano concerto by John Psathas (the NZ composer whose work I'm studying with my Year 11s right now - and there was even a pre-concert talk with John Psathas!). So we went into town, all gung ho, ready to meet Brett at the Wellington Town Hall, and when we got to the box office we saw that the show was sold out. NOOOO!!! So we texted Brett and made plans to meet up for Indian food instead. Grace and I then walked back toward the train station where we had seen a sign for a karaoke competition in the entryway of a bar, and we went in and got the details. Registration would be from 8-9pm and it was only 6:30, so we headed back toward Taste of India to ease our growling stomachs before our big karaoke debut. Grace, the master of directions in Wellington, led me astray for a whopping 40-minute walk "toward" Taste of India (which really wasn't close at all, thanks Grace! haha) in the pouring rain and wind. We laughed all the way there, complaining intermittently about how hungry we were.... By the time we got there my stomach was just about eating itself... I've never tasted better curry in my life! We met up with Brett and then went back to his hostel to eat and visit before heading back off to the karaoke competition.

Grace and I took the bus from Courtenay Place to the train station, then we walked to the bar and registered for karaoke. There are 4 heats or something, one every Saturday night, and then the finals are on September 1st. The grand prize is $1,000, and there's also a $500 prize for 2nd place and a bunch of other random prizes to be won, so Grace and I thought "Why not give it a shot?" We both competed, had a blast, and at the end of the night I moved on (with a few other people) to the finals... not to mention the fact that I snagged a fantastic brown t-shirt that says BROWN on the front, and Wellington Brewing Co. on the back.... the ultimate in fashion! I sang "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones and "My Guy" by Mary Wells (a flashback to my first karaoke experience with Karyn and Diane at Johnny's in Winnipeg!). Grace sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Danny Boy." And then, of course, we had to pull out our famous duet - "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" by Culture Club. So fun! We also met a bunch of silly funny guys at the bar, so we hung out with them, singing duets, dancing, and taking pictures. We ended the night dancing at The Establishment on Courtenay Place with our new friends before heading back to Grace's place on the train for the night.

*** Note to all readers: I can vividly picture my mother cringing, right at this moment, at the thought of Grace and I making friends with random strange men at the bar in Wellington, and going out dancing with them.... but don't worry, they were very nice and we had a lot of fun... no problems! ***

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't noticed yet, I've just discovered the joy of using different text colours in my blog entries. Fun, fun!

Anyway, there's the update from my fun weekend in Wellington. Grace and I met up with Paul on Friday and it was nice although a bit awkward, as I think Grace's and my excitement at seeing each other again combined with the very quiet Paul's jet lag was a bit overwhelming for him, but he has since messaged both of us to say that he had a good time and would like to get together again at some point. So we'll give that another shot and see how it goes!

Grace and I have also started a tradition of taking Photobooth pictures every time we see each other, so by the time I get back to Canada I will have the most extensive collection of outrageous self-portraits that anyone has ever seen! Grace and I were joking around about how we should put one of those on our resume or something. I'm pretty sure it would be a big hit!