One of the things Rienus wanted to do during his year at home was to take part in a boxing program.  Basically he just wanted to get the chance to fight someone in the ring.  And that’s just what he did Friday night. 

After 12 weeks of pretty intense training where he went to about 7, sometimes more, sessions a week of sparring, personal training, kettle bells, power yoga, speed tests, etc it was time to see all his hard work.  He had a realy big supporting crowd of 30 or so family, friends, and maritime boys (and girl).  It was a black tie event and we were in a beautiful ballroom at Langham Hotel, a ritzy place in downtown Auckland.  Although we had general admission tickets we still have seats where we had no problem seeing the action in the ring. 

The drama of the evening started early when we got a call from Rienus’ dad saying that the person Rienus was supposed to fight might not be able to due to medical reasons, high blood pressure.  We hadn’t even gotten to the hotel and there was already a possibility that it might not happen.  I was worried since I know Rienus would be really disappointed if he didn’t get to fight and would feel bad that he’d had all his friends buy tickets for something that didn’t happen. 

We got there, found our table, enjoyed the nice buffet dinner and watched the fights.  When the time came for Rienus to fight they announced his opponent was not fit to fight and that they were “postponing” his fight and moved on to the next.  It got to the 13th fight or so and I was getting worried since it wasn’t looking like there was anyone left for him to fight. 

That’s when we heard the announcement for the final fight, the main event, and the first fighter out was Marienus Hazelman!!! 

The organization that put on the fight did a great job.  Everything was well done, they had great introduction videos of each fighter with interviews and showing them working out and their “journey” to get there.  They all had nicknames (Rienus was the flying dutchmen) and there was a big entrance with lights, smoke and loud music where they fighters entered the ballroom.  All in all it was really easy to enjoy.  I wasn’t nervous, he didn’t break anything and he had a blast fighting and hearing us all scream for him.

He ended up fighting a guy who was a trainer and maybe a pro fighter and weighed less than him but was much fitter.  Rienus came in 2nd, but knocked the guy to the ground twice with some good punches and all in all had a great fight.  His supporters would say he should have been declared the winner, but we might be biased.

Saturday we went out on a sail boat owned by a friend of Rienus’, for a motor (since the sails are being repaired).  We walked down to the boatyard in full sunshine and got onto the yacht and headed out to toodle around the harbour.  The views of the city from the water are delightful.  I got to drive for a bit, though my skills could still use some refining.  We got close up views of the Hilton hotel which is on a pier that seems to be sagging a bit, the maritime school that’s right on the water, nearly ran into a ferry, checked out a few other boats that had been pulled up from the harbour floor after sinking and listened to the boys talk about what boats they were going to own someday.  After an hour or so of wandering the harbour the wind had really picked up and it started to rain.  By the time we got back to the marina to put the boat away it was pouring.  So like any real woman, I went to hide down below deck where it was warm and dry and let the boys get soaked.  Thank you Shaun and Rienus. 

After an hour or so of rain the sun came out and it turned into a beautfiul day by mid afternoon.  So we were picked up by a friend to go watch a club rugby game.  This would be my third live rugby match.  The first being Janine Cade (now Torres) playing womens rugby in high school, the second being professional rugby in France.  So needless to say, I don’t really grasp all the rules yet.  Scrums, knock ons, off sides, trys, and a whole bunch of big dudes piling on each other, it’s really a delightful sport, if brutal is something you can deal with. 

The team we were supporting didn’t win, but it was a good game, as far as my qualifications go in judging what is and is not a good game. 

Now that I’ve got the basic rules down for rugby, it’s on to figure out netball and cricket.

Made it!  After a long flight (13hours and 15 minutes) from San Fransisco, I arrived in the early morning at the Auckland airport. I managed to get 5 or so hours of sleep, watch three movies and lounge on the three seats I had all to myself.  Rienus’ apartment is right in the heart of downtown Auckland.  Everything is within a 10 or 15 minute walk.  There’s a beauty/hair school about 100 feet (30 meters if you’re speaking New Zealand)  from the front door.  So I’ve already booked myself in for a complimentary wash and blow wave.  Do I know what a blow wave is?  No.  But I’m getting one for free. 

I’m recovering from jetlag, but think that after a good night of sleep tonight I’ll be officially adjusted.  Auckland is 19 hours ahead of Seattle (or 5 hours back, but the next day). 

I submitted the paperwork for getting an IRD number (like a soc sec #).  I’ll need one of these to get a job and pay my taxes.  Should come in the mail in 10 business days!  In the meantime I’ll be starting to look for a job. 

Went for a run this morning.  We’re right in the city, but the beautiful thing about Auckland is that they have so many parks and green places.  There are about 5 parks within a 5 mile radius.  So I ran throught the closest one and made my way to Auckland Domain – big park with a  museum, cricket fields, walking paths, duck pond, lots of beautiful trees and loads of natural beauty. 

So far, I love it.  It has all the best things; city life, natural beauty, more restaurants than I could eat at in a lifetime, Rienus, ocean in every direction, and friendly people with (adorable) accents.

The second month is nearly over  and already it’s been a great year thus far.  Maybe my favorite to date.  I have a few outrageously fantastic adventures coming up this year and I’m waiting with great expectation for all of them.

Tonight I get to visit with cousin Jill Wallace and her babies.  Haven’t seen them in quite awhile, so it’ll be a treat.

Next weekend is a trip to Portland with a college friend to visit, Lydia, my college roommate (not my sister). Who I haven’t seen in far too long.  We’ll play with her new dog, I’ll get to see the place she bought recently and enjoy visiting.

After that comes one of the BIGGIES.  Lydia (sister) is Oh-so-Pregnant and is due March 4th.  I’m going to be an aunt!!  I’m mentally preparing for changing poopy diapers and falling in love with something that is part me.  It’s the very first.  First grandchild for mom and dad, first nephew for me, first baby for them so I know every single thing he does is going to be an experience with all us adults giddy with every move he makes. 

I spent the good part of an evening with my hand jammed between the floor and Lydia’s belly in the hopes of feeling him move.  Lydia would say, “He’s moving, that’s huge, can’t you feel that?!?”, which I would respond with a “uh, no, nope, I don’t think so”.  This went on for some time until I did feel “something”.  Which I am taking as a success and is down in the record books as me and Baby Rogers’ first interaction. 

The second BIGGIE is my best friend Jill’s wedding in April where I have the honor of being the Maid of Honor.  With a wedding comes lots of parties, showers, wine, gifts, dresses, jewelry, flowers and fun.  I get to play a part in it all and I am enjoying it already. 

And if those two BIGGIES were BIGGIE enough I then am moving to New Zealand in May for the remainder of 2010.  My boyfriend extraordinaire, Marienus, lives in New Zealand and is going to school in Auckland to get his Captains qualification.  Like a graduate degree, but for sailors.  For those of you who don’t know, he and I have been dating for 2+ years (give or take) and the last 7 months we’ve been apart.  He’s just so wonderful I can’t bear to be without him anymore, so I’m moving to his city!  He has lived most his life in Auckland and his close family and friends are all their so I’ll have a wonderful network of people around me.  I got a working visa for the year so I am hoping to find work with a non profit that works in microfinance.  If that doesn’t pan out I’m shooting for a florists apprentice and if that doesn’t work out I will do just about anything to get paid.  We’ll see what happens, but regardless of job I am so excited to be with him in a normal life setting for 7 months straight where I can get to know his family and friends as most of our time dating has been on ships or backpacking around the world. Rough, I know.

It’s cliche to say, but I think 2010 is going to be a good year.

October 4, 2008

The last two days aboard have been absolutely fantastic!  I had nearly a full day off, which is rare in itself, but for two days in a row!  Our day in Lahaina, Maui started with the morning hours in the library, then hopping in a taxi with Rienus to go to the beach for a swim.  We went to Kaanapali Beach which was rather touristy with restaurants and shopping right near the beach.  There were good waves to play around in and after a quick swim we had lunch and met up with some other people from the ship.  I had the entire rest of the day off so I laid on the beach, played something that resembled volleyball with the one I’d brought from the ship and had cocktails on the beach.  All in all a delightful day.  After Happy Hour we all trekked back to a beach nearer to the ship where we spread out our towels and sarongs, bought some snacks and watched the sunset behind the ship.  There were still surfers and paddle surfers going strong as the sun was going down over the horizon.  We made a final stop at a restaurant before heading back to the pier for out last non-ship food for the day of onion rings, calamari and spring rolls.  Good for the taste buds.  My punishment for a free day full of fun was serving my time behind the karaoke machine once I got back onboard.  We had a crowd of about four people who just sang over and over again.  The karaoke crows is unique bunch. 

My second day of freedom required even less work than the first.  I opened the library, but a friend had volunteered to take a couple of my hours there so that I could go SKY DIVING!!!  We had a group of ten who all trekked out in a severely over stuffed van about 45 minutes north to the much less populated side of the island.  We had to sign away our lives on a paper that kept saying things like, “Skydiving is dangerous.  You can be seriously injured or killed.” And “You have a choice, do not skydive if you are unsure.”  I had to stop reading or else I was going to freak myself out and not be able to do it.  So I signed 47 times and we all waited around for our names to be called.  It worked out perfectly with our group where 6 people went up in the first plane and the four of us on the ground were able to watch/film them coming down and landing, and then they were able to do that for us.  When it was my turn I was a little apprehensive, but really didn’t get too nervous at all.  As the plane was going up at a pretty severe angle and my ears were popping I was trying to enjoy the view and not think about what was coming next.  And it was a glorious view.  My instructor pointed out the North Shore and a few beaches here and there.  You could see Pearl Harbor all the way across the island, the area where the ship was docked and a teeny tiny little field…where we were hopefully going to be landing.  I was the last of the four out of the plane and really I think I was too busy just going through the steps to be nervous.  He (Wyatt the instructor) asked me if I was ready and after my ‘yes’ said, “On three, ONE.” And then we jumped. 

The beauty of it all was really I didn’t have to do anything but enjoy the ride.  The free fall was so fast that I couldn’t hear, my mouth went dry and I could feel my cheeks jiggling as the air beat across my face.  When he pulled the cord I felt myself drop for a split second then my harness tightened around me and we floated on down.  I got to steer for a bit, pull on the right and you spin around to the right, and vice versa.  Although I couldn’t get it spinning fast enough so I passed the controls back to him. 

When I landed I was giddy and all I wanted to do was go again.  The view was absolutely gorgeous the entire way up and down, I can’t think of a better place to skydive.  Death defying leisure activity #1.  Check.

For some reason I have a strong affection to all things Portuguese.  So I thought I was going to love Lisbon.  I was right.  Although it has the same name, the Portuguese spoken here sounds completely different from teh Portuguese in Brazil, but I can still pick up about one word out of 20.  Not too bad.  I met a whole bunch of people the first day of being here so I´ve had some fun company to wander aroudn with.  I have shopped, visited a castle, been to the beach –great beaches here–visited a couple different neighborhoods, gone out to a fado house to hear the music of Portugal and eaten pasteis de nata which are delicious custard tarts.  I love Portugal because I started off with a great experience in Brazil, but also because theyºre just so Portuguese.  You can see a huge difference in the buildings and architecture from Spain and the rest of Europe, plus the language soudns completelly different and people here are NICE!! 

I had heard about the ever present train strikes, but really thought somehow I would escape their effects.  I was wrong.  I left Montpellier early morning on the 20th.  Rienus and I cabbed from his friends house to the airport where we had coffee and said goodbye since he´s heading back to work on a ship, coincidentally, that´s home port is in Seattle.  Then I got myself to the train station and waited around for my train.  It was going to be a long day with three train rides and the last one a night train.  I had reserved the first adn third train, but wasn´t able to reserve the middle one from France.  Not good.  I thought 10 hours between the trains would be long enough to buy a ticket on one of the 7 trains that would leave during that time.  But as I arrived at the window I needed to do this they pulled down the shade and put of the closed sign.  After a bit of asking they said they were on strike.  AWESOME.  Needless to say there was a lot of running around and frantic phone calls and being transferred to the woman that spoke english, who wasn´t ever there, etc.  By 4pm I knew I wasn´t going to get out so I wandered until I found a hostel.  I think I spent about 6 hours at the Barcelona Sants train station trying to figure it all out. 

I had a leisurely evening of calling a few friends who I haven´t talked to since I´ve been away from home, since now I won´t be talking much since Rienus left.  After a few hours on skype I went for a jog once it cooled down, around 9pm.  I love summer with it´s long long nights.  I had only run about 10 minutes when I got to the Plaza Espanya where there is a huge fountain and a million steps going up the hill to an art museum.  There were a MILLION people there so I thought soemthing was going on.  Turns out thats the usual turnout because the view is so gorgeous at sunset and you can see the whole city, plus the fountain puts on a show every half hour or so that´s pretty impressive with music and lights and all that.  So I watched the sunsent and sat with hundreds of other tourists enjoying the city.  As I was sitting there I realized that I´m completely alone for the next part of my journey (in Europe) and that is absolutely fabulous.  I was dreading the solitude, since I´ve been spoiled having the company of Rienus everyday and making decisions together and meeting people together and was thinking that I was going to be lonely, and those things are probably true and it´s going to take me a lot longer to figure out which way is south and I´m going to miss him terribly, but the freedom of traveling alone and the selfishness of being able to do exactly what I want whenever I want, really is unique.  I had had a bad day and was feeling bad for myself so it was a bit of a revelation at the time. 

Today I will be doing some walking, down Las RAmblas, the big touristy walking street, then wandering along the beach and soaking up the sun, then heading back to the station to catch my train. 

Here´s hoping for no more train strikes.

this is a test post…

I just discovered one of the miracles of technology, thanks to my bro-in-law Josh…

Check out my Glacier Bay pictures from my week on the Noordam in July!  Click the picture to link!

I just posted all my pictures from the Alaska trip. Check them out at My Photos (a link on the left).