New Zealand (Week #2 + #3)

We’ve spent the last couple weeks in our former home of Auckland, NZ. It’s been great fun catching up with old friends and colleagues and visiting some of our favorite spots around town. We lived here for nearly six years which is about as long as we’ve lived anywhere so it definitely feels like a bit of a homecoming to us. There’s a significant amount of new housing all over the city which explains why the roads seem more clogged than we remember and the buses are even more unreliable due to a lack of bus drivers. So if you’re interested in moving to NZ to drive a bus, they would love to have you! 

Right now we’re housesitting in the posh neighborhood of Epsom taking care of a Japanese Spitz named Fred and a tabby cat named Albert. Fred is a funny dog who likes to hang out/sleep under chairs and couches, only eats cat food and is an unbelievable retriever. Albert mostly ignores us but periodically likes pets and spends most of his time carousing in the neighborhood.   











I’ve been ramping up my miles in recent weeks as I’m training for the Tarawera Ultra Marathon 102k on February 11 in Rotorua. While I love running in new places, it’s been really fun running around a city that I know well. One of the things that I’ve always loved about running in Auckland is the frequent, casual races that exist all around town. I’ve already made it out to three of these events and sadly my times are not what they used to be so I’ve got some work to do! Yesterday I joined a group of trail runners for an epic all-day adventure around Waiheke Island which was a ton of fun. We caught a 6am ferry out of Auckland so that we could be running early before the day was too hot. It was good to get some early, relatively cool miles in before the sun got too high in the sky. (Side note: the sun is notoriously strong here due to the country’s location directly below a hole in the ozone. Kids are required to wear hats in the school playgrounds. Restaurants and bars keep bottles of sunscreen by the outdoor patios. And people pay close attention to their moles for potential skin cancer. It’s no joke.) Of course, the sun eventually caught up to us and we were all rather hot and parched by the end of the day. Waiheke is incredibly beautiful and has tons of great beaches, tranquil bays and idyllic vineyards. It’s also quite hilly so we did a fair amount of walking as part of our ‘trail run’. I log so many miles on my own so it was really fun to have a group of people to run with as the miles go by much quicker and easier when you’ve got company.   








One of the things that I love about traveling is picking up on the different sayings and slang that people use. Kiwis are big on slang and I reckon you could write a whole book on the topic but I’ll share a few of my favorite sayings:

  • I’ll give it a squiz translates as I’ll have a quick look. 
  • Don’t forget your togs, mate means don’t forget your bathing suit, dude. And jandals are flip flops. 
  • Sweet as, bro means awesome.
  • To be ‘gutted’ is to be disappointed.
  • Yeah, nah means definitely not. 
  • Chocka means full and tramping is hiking. 
  • That fella is munted means that guy is drunk. 
  • Good as gold is a common response to ‘how are you?’ 
  • Chur is another way of saying thanks.
  • To ‘take the piss’ means to joke or make fun of.
  • And this is a new one for me - we heard the term ‘blow-ins’ the other day which refers to transplants who aren’t likely to stick around for too long. 


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