miles dewey (davis)

Flood

Woke up today to a torrential downpour with lots of thunder and lightning. It sounded pretty awesome, and it was nice to lay in bed for a few and listen to the rain. Then we got up and saw this out the front door.

Youch. That's supposed to be a road. Luckily the larger street at the end of our block is high enough that it didn't have any standing water. No, it just ran right off onto our block instead.. It was seriously about a foot deep, and came right up over the sidewalk. Kelly had to wade through it to head out to work. Blegh. What's really amazing though, is that about an hour later it was all gone! The rain stopped and it all drained right away. I just hope this doesn't happen every time it rains..

Once I was able to leave the house I headed over to Borders to do some research among the cookbooks. With all my cookbooks at home I am without my reference section, and I now find myself very much in need of it as I have a rather fantastic job opportunity presenting itself for which I need to bring my best to the table! Literally. :) This is not a sure thing, but the position I'm interviewing and trying out for starts as a regular production role and then takes on more and more responsibility until taking up the reins as pastry chef. It may be kind of out of my league, but I might as well give it a try. In at the deep end, right? But really this would be a very cushy situation in which to learn how to really be a pastry chef. I've got a 4-day trial later this week, for which I'll be studying up on all the skills I think I may need to call upon, so cross your fingers!

This city has a lot of entertaining wildlife. Here and there you find these little lizards, anoles, sunning themselves on a fence or a rock. I always try to get close to them, but they're very wary and disappear in a flip of the tail and with hardly the rustle of a leaf to betray their passing. I found one halfway through shedding his skin the other day and tried to get a picture. But of course he ran away when I got in too close.
I think I may have stepped on one yesterday. I'm not sure, but something very wriggly came between the arch of my foot and my flip-flop, and I jumped about a foot in the air and performed a series of convulsive karate kicks to dislodge it. Hopefully he was flung to safety and not smashed..

I was recently waiting for the bus and a flappy awkward movement in a small tree next to me caught my eye. Glancing up I saw a ring-necked dove and her two half-grown fledgelings perched about two feet above my head. I could see their abandoned nest a couple of branches away. The chicks had certainly outgrown it, but they weren't very sure of their footing on the tree branches yet. The mother didn't seem perturbed by my presence. One of the chicks stretched his head down and peered right at me for about 30 seconds before shuffling around to sit closer to his sibling. This is the best picture I could manage with my phone.

I like this city.

Home Sweet Home (almost)

It feels good to have a home. Of course, visiting parents will always be "going home", but it's exciting and satisfying to be building our own home down here in New Orleans, especially after so many months of wandering without a homebase. It's a pretty slow process given we don't have a lot of extra cash lying around to spend on redecorating. But with every small new piece we bring in, every wall we paint, every shelf we fill, it becomes more and more our home.

So far we've got:

a bed
two nightstands
a desk
1 chair
a small dresser
a small couch
a kitchen table
3 kitchen chairs

And clocks! Kelly loves clocks, and we've got two cute ones so far.


Considering we've got 4 rooms plus a kitchen and a bathroom to fill, it's still mostly empty space. The apartment is half of a small house, running long and narrow front-to-back (shotgun, railroad, whatever). From the front door our rooms will go: living room; bedroom; guest bedroom; bathroom; dining room; kitchen. We've put up some great colors - red, blue, green. I think by the time we get done with it this apartment is going to be awfully cute. Patience is not one of my virtues, however, and I would really just love to have it all done and ready for use!

With my copious free time I've been getting to know this new city block by block. Of course, much time is spent researching possible jobs and bicycling from one bakery/hotel/restaurant to another in hopes of landing some sort of interesting position. But that can only take up so many hours in the day. So I come up with a billion little errands I need to run or things to do around the house to keep myself busy (read: away from Netflicks). I found a pretty awesome bike for cheap on Craig's List, which is where most of my life seems to have been acquired. Despite the already oppressive heat - 87 and muggy in May?? - I ride miles around this city's rough, potholed roads. Unfortunately this means I show up everywhere pouring sweat, but a paper towel folded into a small square and kept in a back pocket helps to maintain some semblance of composure.


Our neighborhood, the Garden District, is very bike friendly as most of the roads are residential and little-trafficked. In fact, most of the city is accessible by bike as there's not a hill in sight! Quite a change from San Francisco. However, despite the absence of snowy icy winters, New Orleans has some of the worst roads I've ever seen in a developed country. Like, seriously bone-jarring bumps and sinkholes and cracks. Kelly tells me that once upon a time all states were given leave to determine their own legal drinking age, with the stipulation that those who established it at less that 21 would miss out on federal funding for road development. Of course New Orleans placed itself in this latter category, and has apparently not been able to recover since. Too bad my bike doesn't have shocks.


The residents here are about as different from SF as you can get. Though I spend most of the day on my own, there's no shortage of conversation. Every cashier, fellow bus-rider, and pedestrian you meet is likely to call you either "baby" or "sugar" within the first sentence of your exchange. Old men sitting on their stoops call out to me as I ride by, not with lewd remarks but with greetings. It's amazing how making eye contact with people as you pass them on the sidewalk, and giving a little nod or smile of "hello", makes you feel intimately part of the New Orleans community. I think this city's already hooked me, and I think I like it.

I guess I'm turning Southern. Next thing you know I'll be sitting out on my porch swing in the heat, sipping sweet tea and chatting with my neighbors. Wait - I already do that! :)

n'awlins!

We have officially landed in New Orleans!


Welcome Home.

Onwards & Upwards

We'll be on a plane headed for home in less than 12 hours.

Good-bye, New Zealand. It was good while it lasted.





Stay tuned for our next big adventure: New Orleans.
(But first, meeting Westin! And playing with Brodie and Janet's dogs.) :)

Wellington

We're back in Wellington (yes, for like the third time).

Taupo was really gorgeous, but there was nothing to do (though I did go skydiving!). And thanks to reduced bus availability (we've officially left the high season) we had to stick around a bit longer than we would've liked. I was going to do the Tongariro Crossing but got rained/snowed out. I was pretty bummed about that as it's supposed to be one of the absolute best things to do in NZ, and is rated as one of the most beautiful one-day treks in the world. Too bad the weather didn't cooperate! We've found that when the weather inhibits outdoor activities, there's really nothing else to do. As a recent hostel roommate of ours said, you could probably do everything the country has to offer in just a month or two - if only you had good weather all the way.

Skydiving was absolutely AMAZING. Maybe the best thing I've ever done. I didn't really have any interest in it when we first got here, thinking it was just a kind of slightly ridiculous adrenaline-junkie activity. But then I spoke to a couple of people who had done it (most tourists who come here seem to make it a priority) and what they described to me was totally different from what I had pictured. Taupo's supposed to be a really great place to do it, so I just kind of signed up and tried not to think too hard about what I was committing myself to.

My tandem diver was a guy named Mike, who was probably a good 6 inches shorter than me. He called me an Amazon and wondered if there was a jumpsuit that would fit me. Luckily I was too busy being nervous to be self-conscious. :) We were the last people into the plane, a tiny little outfit with a garage-type door in the side. The other 14 people already crammed in there had taken up all the available bench space, so we squeezed into the floorspace between their feet and the door. To close the door next to us without severing any of our limbs we had to practically climb into their laps.

As the plane took off and ascended to 12000ft Mike took care of adjusting our harnesses and clipping us together in every way possible, as well as giving me instructions for when it came time to jump. The photographer who was to jump with us, Pascal, was crammed in next to us. He and Mike were very jokey together and completely casual, which helped to distract me from thoughts of exactly what I was about to do. I watched our height increasing steadily on Mike's altimeter, trying to keep calm and relaxed. Then Mike rolled open the door next to us, and we swung around so that I was hanging out over open space while he was sitting behind, getting ready to push off.

I can't really describe what it's like to be suspended outside a plane knowing that in a moment you will intentionally be jumping out, not scrambling to hold onto anything within reach. They took a quick picture of us, then Mike heaved off and suddenly we were falling into nothingness. I imagine a lot of people scream when they jump out, but I don't think I was breathing.

The first few seconds you really feel like you're falling. The air goes by you so fast it's almost impossible to draw breath. In those moments I thought to myself "If this is what it feels like the whole way down I don't think I'm going to like this..". But then Mike steadied us and as we stopped flipping around and turning over the falling feeling left my stomach and it was like we were suspended motionless, with only the wind actually moving. At some point I learned how to breathe again, and when Mike motioned to me I released my hands from where they had been clenched on my harness straps since before we left the plane.

From there on out it was fun. Amazing. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. Partially because I was hysterically excited inside my head, and partially because the wind had caught my cheeks and held them pulled back in a wide grin. I tried to refresh my dry mouth at one point, but literally couldn't move against the force of the wind. Pascal floated around us, getting pictures from all angles. I was just looking around, trying to take it all in. It's amazing how huge the world is when you really move through it three-dimensionally. I could barely sense the ground drawing nearer, despite the fact that we were plummeting at around 200 kmph.

Mike was keeping track of us on his altimeter and at around 2000ft he pulled the chute. This seemed to jerk us upwards, and we watched Pascal shoot past us as he continued his descent. He had all but disappeared below when we finally saw his chute open. The parachute ride is very serene, and the winds have slowed enough that you can have conversation. We glided around for about 5 minutes before reaching the landing field, where we skidded in for a pretty gentle landing on our butts.


It was amazing. Thinking about it makes me breathless and heart fluttery. I'd do it again in a second.
Amazing.


Pictures on Flickr. Also some pictures of the huge cave we took a tour through at Waitomo. That was pretty awesome too, but the pictures mostly came out blurry or dark. Guess we'll have to tell you about it some other time. :)

The Home Stretch

I'm really glad we tried WWOOF-ing. Really glad. I think it gave us a lot of insight into life in NZ for the true residents, not just the tourist perspective. Also, a couple of days later we went and saw a NZ movie, "Boy". It was awesome. Again, kinda like peeking behind the curtain to see what life in NZ really consists of.

Here's a trailer:



Look for it on DVD, or NetFlicks or something. Hilarious and touching.


That being said, we're burning out! Not just financially (travel is an expensive habit), but physically, mentally, emotionally. We've been on the road for exactly three months now. It's been amazing, for sure, but we're both very much looking forward to getting back to good food, privacy, and some sort of home-base. I think I've gotten my fill of hostels for a bit, and I know Kelly's felt that way since about our second week here. :)

So we've got plane tickets home! Our last bit of travel is all mapped out and we'll be heading home on April 13th. I know, it's kind of crazy that after all of this time and aimless rambling, we'll be back in the States so soon.. But we're both super excited for some things we have waiting for us there (including you all) and looking forward to moving on to a new adventure. For those of you who might not know, we'll be stopping in Charleston for a brief introduction to Westin, the newest member of Kelly's family, and then we're heading down to New Orleans to set up camp for a couple of years.

We're in Taupo at the moment, a small town on the edge of a lake larger than the country of Singapore. In a couple of days we'll head down to Wellington for a bit, then hop on a train back up to Auckland for another few days before we fly out.


Now we've just got to figure out how to make the most of our remaining time here. This was one good way I spent a bit of it:



















:)