Pics

Farewell TD and Shuziko & Nikki

The Lodge, Adam & Carly's Farewell.

Lovely couple!

Concert Black Seeds w most lovely girls!!!

Winter in Methven 2

Ok so I know I should write incredibly exciting new stories on my blog but to be honest the last 3 months, called winter season in methven, can be described in a few words...

Work, skiing, snowboarding, Mt Hutt, shite snow, pub, steelworks, drinking, party, fun & sleep :-)

Steelworks

Last coffee with Nikki at Primo before she left Methven, will miss this crazy girl!

Blue pub, Nikki's farewell

Uhmm....yeah what can I say :-) It was a good party Nikki lol!

Winter in Methven

The Blue "my 2nd home :-)". Yay for winter and amazin live bands playin on saturdays

Mt Hutt, my backyard

Waking up at Primo w my Soy Cappa

Wedding, Bday and Kids, Daan 1.5 jrs & Yfke 3.5 wks

Oerol Festival

View of Terschelling from the ferry Theatre production "Wiek" on the beach
amazing dance show

more then 300 artist created art on these structures representing brids moving in the wind. With high tide we rolled up our jeans and walked into the see to look at a great diversity of art.

Shaz and me! Ain't we lovely :-)!!

A month in the Netherlands

Rotterdam



















Maartje & Yfke (06-06-09) Marieke, Franse en Daan

Liek's Shop in Delft Beachbar in Scheveningen

A.R.E.A. 9

Katchafire, Rhombus, KORA, Salmonella Dub, Hollie Smith, The Phoenix Foundation, The Black Seeds, dDub, Sunshine Sound System, Ladi6 and many more!

48 hours of Aotearoa music non stop! Thats the life :-)

And some random pics!

Time flies...

As far as you know I'm still stuck somewhere mid Thailand ;-) Well I can guarantee you that's not the case. Very much living in Methven in my sweet old cottage with my cat Kitty and my flatmate Mike.

Pics of my House :-)

So what's been goin on in my life over the last 4 months...

Lets finish Thailand first. Julia and I spent our last week on Phuket Island. The first 2 nights at Patong beach. Oh my god what and awful place. It made me sick to my stomach to see the 13 year old girls dancing on bars in a bra and hot pants and what made it even worse the older men sitting at the bar looking at them. Only good thing I have to mention about Patong is that there was an Aussie bar that played the rugby! All Blacks against Aussie and we kicked their ass!

Next we went to Kata beach just south of Patong. Completely different vibe. More relaxed. This is one of the few places in Thailand where u can surf and so we did! Loved being back in the water and after we drank cocktails in my now favourite Thailand bar..the reggae bar. Right on the beach this open bar is build on the roots of a massive tree and is walled by a cliff. Just perfect!

Our last few days we spent on Pipi Island. All though it isn't that little bit of quite undiscovered paradise anymore it still is very much paradise! Sitting on the beach watching the sun go down sand between u're toes drinking margarita's...life doesn't get much better then this!

All in all we had a great trip with just one down side for me...I hadn't been able to eat much for the last week. Not actually being sick but just the thought of food made me nauseous.

Back in NZ it was straight back into it. Terrace Downs was hosting a big MTV event, Snow Jam 2008! It was madness but so exciting. We had 200 people MTV crew running around the place, building stages, setting up the sound systems, fences, parking lot was designed in one of the paddocks. And all these people came through the clubhouse for breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffees in between. And then the artists started to arrive on thursday. They were mainly NZ and Aussie band like Opshop, Potbellies, The vines, the Grates but also some international acts like Lil Jon, P-money, Dave dallas and Donavan Frankenriter!! We were quite nervous about the artist and how demanding they would be but it turned out that they were all so lovely! We had more trouble keeping the up them selves MTV girls happy then them hihih

Since then life has been about work, yep never ending story, and visitor. My mom arrived in NZ beginning of september. I flew up to Auckland for the weekend and welcomed her into my new country. Hadn't been back to Auckland since my first arrival here in april 2006. Loved it them but now I'm used to my small town life I found it quite overwhelming being in that big city again. My mom travel the North island and the top of the South, Marlborough Sounds and Nelson in about 2 weeks and then flew down to Christchurch. She was here for about 2,5 weeks and we did a little road trip. The days here in Methven she played some golf, relaxed in Methven and went sightseeing in Christchurch while I was working. All in all she loved her trip!

We Said goodbye to Emile and Celeste a week later. they left TD to move up to kaikoura and now have jobs at a fabulous Lodge and live in a beach house with perfect surf right on their beach. lucky bastards!! Only good thing about them leavin is that we had "The" best staff party in TD history (or so I'm told hihi)

Only two weeks later Maartje and Ruud arrived! After a week on the North Island I met up with them in Picton. Was great to see her again! Spent a lovely 5 days with them traveling the west coast down to wanaka. They treated me to a glacier walk. 2 years ago I did the Fox glacier and this time we did Franz Josef. All together this was my third time on a glacier but every time it amazes me. It's such a spectacular part of nature!

I flew back up from Wanaka, in one of those small 20 seat airplanes. Wow the views where stunning and landing was a bit exciting with our famous canterbury North West wind blowing :-). 3 days later they arrived in Methven. First day we spend around the area. Did the Rakaia Walkway, had lunch at TD, visited Trudie on the farm and had a BBQ at my house. Next day Christchurch, some sightseeing and had lunch in the botanic garden. Time went to fast because then it was Thursday morning, time to say goodbye...

That saturday I was introduced to more Kiwi culture... a bus trip! It was Michelle's hens night and all us TD country girls went dressed in pink of to the city. It was so much fun! you all get on this party bus, like an old schoolbus all equipped with massive sound system, rails and pole to hold onto while dancing and off we went. You go to 4 pubs and stay there about 30 minutes but I must say being on the bus was the most fun. There a several buses doing the same trip and they keep overtaking each other. Of course a roundabout is meant to be taken more then once around hihih. Jelly shots were passed around and everyone had brought drinks. Danced my hart out. It was a night long overdue!

So that's a bit of my life in a nutshell.

Oh somewhere in between me and michele went to see Fat freddy's in Christchurch!!

Application for residence is in, causing me to be a bit stressed but it will all be fine. Don't think it will come trough before Christmas though but early next year definitely!

Spending Christmas here, decided not to go back to NL just yet. Plan is to go back in June so have to start seriously saving up for that hihih.

Oh and just for fun...

Being a New Zealander is about driving a European car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, whilst travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows, on a Japanese TV, through a Chinese Sky decoder. :-)