A Night Out in Queenstown

After a long day of snowboarding we hit the town. We went to a very popular bar called minus 5. They gave us big coats and took us into a cooler/bar that was at that time minus 8 degrees. (This of course is Celsius and am not sure what that converts to in Fahrenheit) Everything in the bar was made out of ice - the bar itself, sculptures, benches and even the glasses we drank out of. It was a cool experience, literally. After that we did some bar hopping and got to meet a lot of different people. We even saw some people that were from Lawrence, KS. It's a small world...

Snowboarding Trip

We traveled to Queenstown this weekend for a fun skiing and snowboarding trip. There were 8 of us Agriventure trainees altogether and most had experience on the slopes prior to this trip. There were only 3 of us that had never tried it before (unfortunately Fish and I were 2 of the 3) Needless to say we spent a lot of time on our bums!!! Eventually we got the hang of it and can't wait to go back. What a great trip!!!

The Cadbury Factory

Cadbury chocolate is what everyone is always talking about here. On our way home from Ashburton we stopped by the Cadbury factory in Dunedin to explore. We got a lot of free chocolate! The smell was overwhelming and we felt fatter even before we left!

Agriventure Seminar

We drove to Ashburton which is 5 hours away for the Agriventure seminar. We got to meet all of the trainees that are here or were just arriving. We had so much fun but the best part was seeing Fish fall in love. Yep, that's right, he has a new BFF!!! Daniel is a Danish guy and these two were inseparable the entire 3 days (as you can see from the picture) They drank lots of wine, tried to make their own exercise video and laughed like little school girls. It was quite the sight! We had a great time and are now planning lots of future trips with the group.

A Danish girl, 2 Czech Republicans, 2 Canadians, 2 Americans, an Irish guy and an English man all walk into a bar...

This picture was taken at the local pub which is right down the road from our house. We gather there about once a week to enjoy a Speights and visit with the local sheep farmers. It is common to see everyone in the pub wearing only their socks because there are no muddy gumboots allowed. This was the night of Megan's birthday. She is one of the Agriventure trainees that works on our farm. She had a great birthday - her boyfriend's shirt was covered in puke that night!

Our "new" car

This was our first large purchase in NZ. We bought this about two weeks after we arrived. We are already getting pretty attached to our little rocket. Unfortunately the Chech Republic workers aren't very good drivers. We now have our first dent in our baby. This happened about a week after we purchased it.

Yes, they are alive!

Hey everyone, I'm Kristy's friend, Candice. I talked to Kristy tonight (which was lunch time there!) and she explained that they are having a hard time updating the blog because the high speed Internet there is slower than our dial up. (It also takes a lot of time to read and reply to e-mails so be patient!) It makes it really hard to upload pictures and post to the blog, so I told her I would give an update, here goes...
They have settled into a 10 day work week with approximately 12 hour days. A normal day starts between 7 and 7:30 am and they are home usually around 7 pm. They get 4 days off after the 10 day week. This 4 day weekend they are going to Queenstown to snowboard and ski. They are meeting some other Agriventure people that they met at an orientation.
It is spring time there so it is chilly - about 40 degrees roughly. Kristy says it must be a different kind of cold though because she just can't get warm! They only have a wood stove to keep their house warm, and it inevitably goes out during the night, so they wake up to freezing cold. Apparently it is warm when the sun comes out, mainly because of a hole in the ozone layer over New Zealand. I guess in the summer there is even occasionally an "Ozone Warning" where they are warned not to be in the sun longer than 10 minutes! They haven't had to deal with that yet though because it has mostly been rainy up until the last week or so.
The area they are in is nice, but it is even prettier up north - unfortunately there have been bad storms farther north and lots of flooding - so good thing they are where they are! To get to a real town is about a 30 minute drive and most stores (including gas station, bank and grocery store!) are only open Monday - Friday 8am-5pm. That makes it very hard for them to get their errands done, since they are working so many hours. Gas is around $8 a gallon so it costs over $100 to fill up a 15 gallon tank! (And we think we have it bad!) Groceries are also expensive, and strange...Kristy said she found what looked similar to Spaghetti-O's here, except the picture showed the noodles and sauce served on a piece of bread and also noted, "Great as a pancake topping!" YUCK! They had baked beans the next night that Kristy swears had the same sauce as the Spaghetti-O's. Anything with tomato is very tangy. Kristy is not fond of the food but Fish thinks "it's not that bad." The water they drink is from the river and they have been told there is no filtration. There are also no laws regarding the disposal of ummmm, waste. So who knows what they are drinking! No wonder Kristy says it has a funny taste!
Well, that sums up what she told me. They seem to be doing well and while they don't love the work they are enjoying the adventure and all the new experiences! They send their love!