Grandpa wins! And other news.

My request for car name submissions pretty much confirmed what I already knew: that my Grandpa is the only person who reads my blog. So thanks for the suggestion, Gramps! Manuel it is.

So far Manuel has been a swell car—he’s taken me safely up to Napier and back for my Christmas roadtrip. However, much like my Thanksgiving experience, I found that Christmas without the fam (even though we don’t celebrate) really sucks. But on the bright side, I’ll be ringing in the New Year with my urban family when friends LauraLe from SF and Jane from Christchurch join A and me for a couple of wild days in Wellington. And from here, LauraLe and I will be heading up North for some much needed fun in the sun. Beaches. Wineries. Sheep sheering. We’ll be taking in all that the North Island has to offer.

Grandpa, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Now accepting submissions.

I just bought a car. And not just any car—a manual. So now on top of driving on the wrong side of the road, I also have to deal with shifting with the wrong hand. It’s scary as (this is New Zealand speak—they like to add the word “as” to adjectives for emphasis). But it’s also sort of exciting. Ashley thinks it’ll help stave off Alzheimer’s, kind of like doing Sudoku.

Anyway, I’m thinking that my new car needs a name. In high school I drove the Blue Beast. Then there was $*&%@#$ Piece of &%*@. And my last car was lovingly called the Tin Can. I recently drove a campervan named Murray. And I was frequently a passenger in a Mini Cooper named Wills (after Prince William before he turned ugly). I guess if this car was red, I could call it Hot Ginge after Prince Harry, but it’s white, so that won’t do.

What do you think? Any suggestions? Is Mr. Thornton too much for a Suzuki Baleno?

It's pretty cool, I guess.

My friend Melissa and I have an unnatural obsession with Napoleon Dynamite. Randomly, yet at frequent intervals, we like to bust out with a, “Tina, eat the food.” Or, “Your Mom goes to college.” Or, “And here we have some boondoggle keychains. A must-have for this season's fashion.” Anyway, you get the picture.

So over the course our weeklong roadtrip, we were humming an endless loop of Jamiroquai’s Dance and practicing our sweet moves at every stop. This is the result:


Though nothing can compare to the original:

Gosh.

Gone fishin'.

It’s pretty crazy the difference 12 months can make. Last year I was obsessed with spinning class and high fashion. This year it’s spinning rods and high tide. On Sunday I went fishing for the first time, and it was surprisingly fun. Of course, I had quite a bit of help, but I did bait the hooks myself and then stab the fish I caught in the face after I reeled it in. And I think I probably could stomach hacking its head off and gutting it, too, now that I’ve witnessed the proper way to do it. I can’t decide if this makes me barbaric or simply practical.

Thanksgiving: The Post-Bird Analysis.

Let me first start off by telling you how I feel about Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday, hands-down. I love everything about it: the sentiment, the gluttony, the family time. I love waking up late to the smell of a cooking turkey (Mom’s an early riser). I love reverting into an obnoxious child, which I invariably do when my sisters are around. I love getting all boozed up with my Grandpa before dinner and then lounging around in front of the fire with my nieces afterwards.

Anyway, Thanksgiving: it’s the best.

So, spending it in another hemisphere was kind of hard. But even though it made me really homesick, I wasn’t about to let it pass unnoticed. After searching far and wide, I found myself an 8-pound, $40 turkey (to put this into perspective, my Mom told me she bought a 29-pounder for $9). I found a pumpkin. I bought all the fixin’s. I was going all out. The only problem? I had no idea how to make any of it.

Skype to the rescue.

My sister, Katie, was nice enough to tell me how to make dressing. Her instructions, verbatim:

• Melt some butter and throw in onions and celery ‘til they’re soft.
• Sprinkle breadcrumbs with:
o Pepper (lots)
o Thyme
o Sage
o Poultry seasoning
o And maybe some rosemary if you feel like it.
• Pour the other stuff on top, stir it, and stuff it up the turkey’s bunghole.

Very precise, I’m sure you’ll agree. And apparently, “bunghole” is a technical culinary term. Listen for it on Top Chef.

Anyway, due to a minor oven snafu (snafu in the sense that I apparently have no idea how to use an oven), my turkey didn’t finish cooking until 9:30 at night. Which meant that my pumpkin pies didn’t finish until 10:30. Needless to say, my first attempt at Thanksgiving on my own was a long and arduous task. But in the end, it was a delicious one, so I’ll not complain.

But all deliciousness aside, when it comes to Thanksgiving, Dorothy Gale said it best, “There’s no place like home.”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I miss you.

Hutt Bogans and Tramp Stamps.

Have you ever heard of pack floating? I hadn’t either until I inadvertently signed myself up for it, thinking I was just going on a weekend tramp in the Ruamahunga River gorge. When I became apprised of the situation, I was oh-so-close to backing out because it’s kind of insane. But I didn’t, which leads me to believe that I might be kind of insane.

Here’s the deal: pack floating, as its name suggests, involves using one’s backpack as a floatation device when crossing or following the course of a river. The trick is in making sure you have a plastic packliner without any holes in it. When sealed tightly, the liner turns your pack into something similar to a life jacket, though slightly less stable.

Our plan was to do a two-day loop, hiking to the DOC hut we were staying at on Saturday night and then hiking/pack floating our way out through the river gorge on Sunday. Sounds easy enough, but let me tell you, it was brutal. Lugging that pack up and down the sides of mountains takes a level of endurance that I was not at all prepared for. My legs were literally shaking with fatigue be the end of the first day.

Day two was exponentially harder. Immediately upon setting out, we had to do our first river crossing, trudging straight through waist-deep water in our hiking boots and polypro thermals (the most amazing material of all time, btw). So I was basically soaking wet from 7:30 in the morning until the time we made it back to our van at 5:30 in the evening. And it was effing cold.

Once we made it to the main part of the gorge where the trail ended and we were forced to follow the river the rest of the way out, we all put on wetsuits, which helped a lot. However, mine didn’t have sleeves, and wet polypro can only do so much. But for all the cold and over-the-top physical exertion, pack floating was still super fun. I’d definitely do it again, and probably enjoy it a lot more now that I know the ins and outs of how to go about it.

Some tips if you’re keen to try:
• Unless you live in the tropics, a wet suit is vital. Don’t do a half-suit; you need both tops and bottoms.
• Polypro and/or merino under the wetsuit is even better. Layers are your friend.
• Wear at least two pairs of wool socks. Yes, they’ll be wet and soggy the whole time, but wet wool can still keep your feet from freezing.
• Gaitors. They’ll help keep the gravel out of your boots. I was sorely missing them.
• Make sure your packliner is new. If you spring a leak, you’re screwed.
• Don’t use the chest strap on your pack. You need to be able to get out of it quickly if something happens.

And that was my weekend in a nutshell. I actually feel pretty bad-ass for having made it. The crazy part is that the trip was only graded “medium.” I shudder to think what a “fit” trip would entail—I’m pretty sure I would die.

Anyway, I also learned some new and colorful words to add to my international vocabulary. My tramping companions (two brits, an Aussie, and a Canuck) taught me various derogatory terms, though my absolute favorite was a “Hutt Bogan,” which is somewhat akin to the American redneck. “Hutt” refers to a town near Wellington. And a “Bogan” is recognizable by his scraggly rat-tail or full-on mullet.

Eager to reciprocate in this cultural exchange, I had the privilege of explaining the definition of a tramp stamp. As you can tell, our conversations were very deep and meaningful.

The Thanksgiving Conundrum.

Every year, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. So this year, Thanksgiving falls on November 24th. And therein lies my conundrum. November 24th in New Zealand is actually November 23rd at home. And given the fact that Thanksgiving is an American holiday, should I celebrate it on American time? Or should I strictly adhere to the fourth Thursday formula?

Of course, as of right now this is all a moot point anyway because I cannot seem to find a turkey anywhere in this entire country—a national tragedy that people, thus far, do not seem to comprehend. My mom assures me that a chicken would be almost the same, but I'm not convinced. And who knows if cranberries have made it this far? I'm not going to hold my breath.

Will it all end up being a depressing disaster regardless of the date? I'll keep you posted.