Update time...

Many things happen in a month. Friends have babies (please welcome Sjoerd in the world!), my brother finds a new job in the Netherlands this time, I had job interviews (yes plural!) and a presentation to do, Patrick leaves for a month to go to Ireland, I happily quit my contact centre job (YAY!) after having 2 cool job offers and decisions needed to be made. So as of August 11 I will be working as part of the academic staff at CPIT (Polytech in Christchurch, for the Dutch among us: compare it with a MBO/HBO) doing a 2 year project regarding integrated literacy.

Cool? Absolutely!
Impressed? Hell yeah!
Happy? Over the moon!

At the moment I need my time to arrange all the paperwork. Work regulation in NZ are so much different than back home, so I am reading every single paragraph of the agreement. Little things that make me happy: no more work in weekends, 36 hours is a full work week, I will get a teaching qualification and I am allowed to do courses at the institute itself...

I am also the lucky girl who can arrange a proper visa now. Which means a police record, a medical with X-rays, new passport, loads of papers to fill in, birth certificate, but, yes that will give me a 'Talent' Visa. I didn't know I had talent, but there you go. If it gives me a visa, I am more than happy to be talented!

I also need to get my NZ driving license so I can 'steal' Patrick's car again. Although they fully understand what a Dutch category B license means, they want to have it translated...even though it says 'driving license' on the front. Just another way to get some extra cash out of me!!

For the time being I have added 3 other posts:
- Mount Richardson: A day trip from 4 weeks ago
- Icy pictures from last weekend
- Mount Summer: 2 day trip last weekend

And yes: me, blogs and pictures don't go that well together, but I cannot be bothered to get the pictures right (I know some people who would spend hours on getting it right...I won't say full names but it starts with a P and ends in atrick... ;-)

Mount Summer

What is the best thing to do if you just quit your job? Right, go hiking! So while Patrick is away, some of his friends invited me along on a two day trip to Mount Summer, as a Mid Winter Christmas thing. There was snow (loads!), there was cold,


there were fun people, there were presents (the puppets are the result!) and yes there was good food and even better drinks (Will's home brew stuff was fantastic!) so very much like Christmas! Thanks to all of them for the great weekend!

And I still love playing with my camera so here is a selection!

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1) Our hut for the night: seems so close by, right? It took us an hour to get there: finding the track in the snow was difficult but hiking in snow is even harder. Especially for Paul who was upfront...
2) Partners in crime: Katrina, Paul and Cloe (don't think it wasn't cold because of Cloe's short sleeves: it was cold and I was wearing thermo's and a warm fleece jacket!)
3) Me in front of DOC sign: just to indicate how much snow there was...we didn't see the sign at first!
4) One of the presents was clay: everyone made something, who says it is just for kids?
5) Along the way we saw some giant icicles: I reckoned they were good murder weapons but Paul used them as an tooth pick...

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Icy pictures

On the hike we came across a waterfall which made everything around it frosty and icy...Narnia country: amazing if you ask me...

Mount Richardson

Just a day trip, but truly excellent. Mark (Patrick's flatmate) took Christine, Patrick and me into the mountains. Pictures say it all. And due to the fact that some people were complaining about the absence of pictures of Patrick, I post this one. Gnagna, I think nobody meant it like this and both you as well as Patrick won't like it...Tough luck, you are all in Europe, so come and get me if you dare...



Me struggling to get up the hill: whoever invented walking poles did a great job!


















A freezing Patrick who is only smiling because he knows he is having lunch after the picture moment..