Thursday, November 24, 2011

Today I'm grateful for music. And hair.

Happy Turkey day. Remember peoples, attitude of gratitude. 

I should probably rename my blog 'Things I've found on the internet today'. I'm sorry for this shift in blog subject matter but at the moment my life consists of myself and the internet.

There's plenty of other things I should probably be doing, like packing or reading or preparing my Relief Society lesson. Unfortunately the lure of novelty websites are too much to resist.

Today I'm sharing a website that accompanies me through my web surfing. 8tracks.com is basically the same as Pandora Radio, but works outside the US. I was pretty disappointed when I realised that Spotify didn't work over in this part of the world. But never fear, 8tracks has been providing me with multitudes mixes over the last couple of weeks. The mystery of what songs are on these mixes is all part of the fun of it.

This is the mix I've been listening to while writing this. Enjoy the jams while you skim read my blog post for any interesting details, of which there are none. You might want to stop reading now.

 

So you're probably wondering why, when I have less than two weeks left in NZ, am I spending so much time at home on the internet. The answer is simple. Procrastination and work. These last couple of weeks I feel like I've been working non-stop, it's been busy. But I enjoy my job and it doesn't really feel like work thankfully. When I get a decent chunk of time off I do manage to take myself away for some me time. 

For example, last Saturday between Phoebe's birthday party and babysitting duties I slinked off for a hair cut. Whenever I get a haircut, I usually leave the salon feeling like I've just paid a buttload of money for the hairdresser to go scissor happy on my hair creating a cut that I don't even like. 

"I don't know, it just feels a bit flat. It's too straight" is what I said when the hairdresser finished. She asked me if I wanted her to put a bit of movement in it. Yes I would like a bit of movement I answered and went back to my mag. When she finished I looked up and entered a state of shock. I looked like I'd been sat in rollers all day. My mother would have loved it. But it really wasn't me. It was probably me thirty years from now.

My answer this time was "I never like my hair when I get it cut." I then proceeded to dig myself a deep, deep grave trying to convince the hairdresser I wasn't being offensive. 

I'd planned on going to check out a festival going on at a local park after the hair cut. Instead I walked for 5 minutes, looking at my reflection in every shop window, before I decided my only real option with this hair was to head home and hideout for the rest of the day.

When I finally got round to washing it myself I realised what was wrong with the haircut. It's exactly the same as it was before I got it cut.

This time I'd paid a buttload of money for the hairdresser to waft a pair of scissors around my head and then style my hair in a style that  was last popular in the 70s.

So that's the story of how I got my hair cut without it actually looking like I got it cut. Oh well, at least I have hair. I am thankful for hair.

I think I'm the only person on this planet who could write 6 paragraphs about a haircut. And that's the short story. Why are you even still reading? I'm boring myself. Ciao.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Barbra Streisand.

You know what they say, small things amuse small minds. Well, I've just spending the last whoknowshowlong creating my own versions of Duck Sauce's Barbra Streisand.

Check out GoBarbra.com. You will not regret it.

Here's one I created earlier.

I think I find myself too funny sometimes.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

This is a lesson in procrastination.

I'm beginning to stress a little bit about going home. 

And by stress I mean procrastinate. I seriously can not be bothered to pack. Too many decisions about what to take home, what to leave and what to throw out. It's like April all over again.

In my procrastinating state of mind, I somehow ended up playing with the premium features on Picnik. After several politically incorrect edits, I began playing with the facial hair tool.

Here's my tribute to Movember.


I hope you like it as much as I do. It may become a permanent feature.




Sunday, November 20, 2011

About Mraz.

If you'd asked me last week for my opinion on Jason Mraz, my answer would be pretty neutral. In fact I'd probably tell you that some of his lyrics are ridiculous and he's way too fond of the scat singing.

OK, so I can't think of any evidence to prove my point of the ridiculous lyrics. BUT at the end of one of my favourite songs of his, it ends with a voicemail recording that says "It's like you're an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea."

Ahhh, yeah, you just spoilt that moment for me.

When Amanda asked me to go see Jason Mraz with her I was a tad hesitant but agreed. And well, I'm so happy I went.

Ask me now what I think of Mr Mraz? Definitely one of the best live performances I've ever experienced. The guy is talented, he's funny and he really engages with the audience. It didn't matter that I only knew 4 of the songs.

My favourite bit has to be when he had us whale singing. Me and Amanda were in tears of laughter by the end, much to the annoyance to the woman sitting next to me. She needed to get herself a sense of humour.

Here's a video from the concert. It's the part where Jason Mraz gets a fan to come and sing with him. I'll admit it, I was thinking it was going to be like when Beyonce let a fan sing along, I was kinda wrong.


Friday, November 18, 2011

Road Trippin' Part 2.

So here is the promised part two. 

On day two we headed over to Waitangi Treaty Grounds & House. It's basically the place where New Zealand became part of the British Empire, although it's a lot more complicated and controversial than that. The grounds are nice and peaceful, looking out over the bay of islands. They have a huuuuuuge waka (canoe) with beautiful intricate carvings. It was built to commemorate something, but I've forgotten. I'm a bad tourist.


By the treaty house there is a meeting house, each panel representing a different Iwi in New Zealand. 



Next we headed over to the treaty house. There was a dress up box so I got in the spirit of things and dressed all 1840s in my bonnet pinafore. Obviously the clothes were for children, but I reckon we styled it out pretty well. 


I got some lols in the treaty house. This display clearly shows that this is where the inspiration for 'The Village' came from. 

A house within a house? Houseception. 


We stopped off for lunch in Mangonui and had delish lasagna with a roast vegetable salad on the waterfront. 

It was divine.

It was also comforting to know as we were driving round Northland that there was only ever a low fire danger.


We continued on our drive up to Cape Reinga. Once we hit the home stretch it was 100km of nothingness. Just us, the countryside and some staunch poultry. Seriously, there were turkeys and chickens out in the road, among all the roadkill possums.

We finally made it to Cape Reinga and headed to the lighthouse. It's the place where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific ocean. The water was a beautiful green blue and ever so choppy. The place was just beautiful. I love the sounds of the ocean.


On our way back down, we took a detour and drove 20 minutes down a dirt track wondering if we'd ever actually make it to 90 mile beach. We made it to the beach, seriously, beach for as far as you can see.

We managed to get some signal on our phone and booked to stay the night in Ahipara. It's at the bottom of 90 mile beach and it's a gorgeous place. We got ourselves some chippy and headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. And take pictures. As we sat there it was like we were on the beach set of the Last Song.


The next day we began the journey back to Auckland. We came across this beautiful place, which I can't remember the name of, but they loved a dolphin there. Not only was there two statues of this dolphin, it was also buried outside the village hall.


We stopped off in the middle of the forest to check out a Kauri tree. And it was huuuuuuge.

We got to Dargaville, a place famous for growing potatoes. There wasn't much there but we drove up to a museum on the top of a hill where they have the mast from the Rainbow Warrior.


We then decided to take another beach rest and headed to Baylys beach. Somewhere between Dargaville and Baylys beach my camera battery died. Woe is me. For that reason, I have no pictures to prove how gorgeous the beach and the surfers were was. Must. Go. Back. To. Baylys.

After lunch we continued on road, finally made it back to Auckland and then I bade farwell to Sarah and Hamish as they drove off into the sunset.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Road Trippin' - Part 1

This past weekend Sarah and I escaped the city and road tripped it up to the very top of New Zealand. It was a rather epic road trip distance wise. Just check out this google map of our route.


Now, I don't know how precise it is, but google tells me we did 1,016km. That's 631 miles for you imperial-heads. That's equivilant of travelling from Manchester to Ahlen in Germany. That's just 40 miles more than driving from John o'Groats to Cardiff. It's quite far, ok, get it? We did it all over 3 days.

We drove through the countryside (which Sarah said looked like Wales), through forests (which Sarah said looked like a rainforest), along the coast and on dirt tracks to get to beaches. Sarah was right, it did look like we were in Wales and the Amazon at times. It was pretty cool when we were driving though the countryside and spotted the sand dunes off in the distance. I ain't ever seen that before. Those sand dunes gave Formby a run for it's money.



We agreed to meet at the car rental place just before 9 on the Friday morning. As both me and Sarah suffer from chronic tardiness we both knew this meant anytime before 9:15. Well, we both shocked ourselves by turning up by 9 and our speedy getaway was only slowed down by the guy who took forever sorting our rental out. We were happy to discover that our rental was a yellow Honda Fit. We named him Hamish and he was quite a cutie. Sarah even wore a coordinating top, it made Hamish happy. Well, I imagined it would have done if cars had thoughts and feelings.


Hamish's song was definitely Black and Yellow by Whiz Khalifa. A song which featured on the mix CD I made for the journey. We so ghetto.

It took me a moment to get used to driving Hamish. After 3 months of cruising round in a Ford Territory (which has no name), I felt like I was back in my little Polo (RIP Nora). It was like sitting on the floor, and seriously, where was the cruise control? We kept the tunes blaring as we took a little detour to try and find One Tree Point. We ended up at an oil refinery. True story.

We left the highway to check out Whangerei. You probably read that place name with a 'Wha' sound at the beginning. Wrong. Try again. It actually is pronounced with an 'F' sound at the beginning. Now I know nothing about linguistics so I hope I explained that correctly. Anyway, I don't know if we were in the wrong part of town but there isn't much in Fongarray (again, no expert with them phonetics). There is a restaurant called Killer Prawn though.

We spent a long time in this second hand book shop. We get drawn into second hand book shops quite easily, they're the only place in New Zealand where you can buy a decent book without having to sell every limb and your firstborn. Sarah browsed the books that would actually be read while I looked at the pretty old books, looking for ones with inscriptions. I can only assume my fascination with these stems from watching Definitely, Maybe a few too many times. We both know I watched it for Ryan Reynolds, not the story line. After the purchase of a book, we went on the hunt for food. As we were running out of time we ate our lunch in the car. For those interested, lunch was from Subway not Killer Prawn.



Back on the road, we continued our journey to get to the Bay of Islands. We decided to check out the Lonely Planet to see if there was anything worth seeing on the way to Paihia. And there was. What we found was some pretty famous bogs created by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.



Kawakawa is also famous for it's train line which runs through the middle of town. And as we were heading back to the car a train passed through, right by where we'd parked the car. Kawakawa is the perfect place to stop for a toilet break as you get to see those famous loos. Between the stalls there are bottles in the wall, so you can totally watch people on the loo,  if you're into that kind of thing.


As we approached Paihia we were in awe of the sea. I guess coming from a landlocked town that seeing the sea is a pretty big deal. We rocked up to Paihia, checked into our hostel and went to explore the town. It was a nice little place but not much to do unless you wanna fork out a load of cash to get out to sea. We ended up at a bar chatting with some fellow Brits. Like you do, because obviously we came ALL the way to New Zealand to talk to fellow Englishmen.


Stay tuned for part two. And possibly three. I'm not making any promises.
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