Seals and The Weather

Seals: I don't know how often this happens... Or if it ever has is Mt Wellington.... (I know a couple were seen in Mangere a month or so ago, but apart from that I have never heard of seals coming down the rivers).

Whilst visiting Mum yesterday someone spotted a seal in the river, so naturally, everyone ran over to the windows to take a look- surely enough, a seal who was eating a fish and then clapping his finns at us! Happily swimming around for a good 20 minutes or so- it looked like it was going to tip a kayaker over at one point!

And the weather. 

I'm pretty sure this is not "normal Auckland weather"...

It has hailed four times in three days so far, and the second lot today did this:

(My car- took about 5 minutes to make the windscreen clear (and the car warm) enough to drive!!)

(You could hear and feel the ice crunching and making the road slippery under the tyres when driving too! Wasn't overly pleasant, and then the melting of the hail caused it to flood a little too).

The roads and cars and everything was covered in hail stones for ages (an hour later it still is a little bit) while it rained and hailed and rained some more! 

It was funny watching people take photos of all the cars covered in it- shows how not normal and rare it is here!

The last time I remember something like his happening was in year 12 (2012) at school lunchtime where people swore it was hail/ sleet/ and some said snow..


Here is a link to the national newspaper story about it too (if your interested)- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11494851

(There was also a funnel cloud spotted about the North Shore area as well, which people were worrying about becoming a tornado)

End of Semester One

With only one more exam to go, I am nearing the middle of my Nursing Degree.  I am taking a break from study because it seems to be all I have done for some time now.  My next exam is Monday so I do have five days left before it.

This semester apart from writing assignments and being out on placement I have done some extra uni and non-uni related things:

- Bungy jumping in Taupo with Bianca and Sarah (flatmates)

- I have done an 11km hike

- Been in a flight simulator 

- Been on flat outings with my flatmates (beach, dinner, pub quiz (we won!), JUMP)

- Had nursing class dinners

- Learn't all about Auckland traffic in the mornings and evenings (before/after placements)

Basically I have been a lot more social things than previously...

Throughout this semester I have also in a way conquered my fear of public speaking... well, gotten over it, as I have had to do two presentations! One marked and one not marked (just course work).

Australia Aug/Sept 2014- part 1

This is going to be much easier for me to write, and for you to read if I break it up into parts.

On August 27th I headed off over the Tasman, from Auckland to Melbourne for a bit of a holiday (Uni mid-semester break) but mainly to go and visit my brother, Daniel.  Flying with Jetstar I was a little sceptical, but the flights were on time (apart from delayed due to fog coming into Melbourne) and were pretty good flights even if I was bored half the time due to no "backseat" entertainment.  They did offer around iPads at a cost, but I had my laptop to watch a movie on, but only got halfway through it due to motion sickness- hence being bored (even though its only a four hour flight too).

My plane through the boarding gate window.

The plane was due to land in Melbourne at 11pm local-time (1am NZ), we were originally half an hour ahead of schedule due to good tail winds and taking off bang on 9pm (they weren't having to hunt down passengers for once!)  When we would have been landing the pilot said over the intercom that the plane was being put into a left-hand hold getting to circle over the city due to fog on the ground.  Half an hour later we were cleared to land, and disembark.

Daniel met me at the airport and took me back to his fathers house where I guess you could call "base" for the trip as I only stayed there for three nights.  Daniel went to work the next morning and so I spent the day with Irene, she showed me around the local area a little, and went to see the new marina development, the beach, Werribee mansion and the mall.  We had lunch out and spent the afternoon back at the house, where I went for a walk to explore the area and finished watching the movie I didn't get to finish of the plane.

That night when Daniel was home from work we looked up places to go and things to do in Australia and ended up booking flights for 7am the next morning from Melbourne to Launcestion, Tasmania!

Holidays!

Over the semester break/holidays I got up some pretty awesome stuff! -Never ended up doing Rangitoto because the weather didn't want me to ;)

LOTS of stay at home- relax days! I spent a day colouring in, drawing, reading, and writing in pyjama day one day.. other days I watched movies/ TV, and some.. I just sat and did not all that much, it was really good, and rather relaxing!

I took Libby (Toni's daughter) down to the Auckland Domain to meet someone to take her to her Dads, with Toni and Sam (her son), and we went through the car wash on the way back (something apparently neither had done..) IT WAS COLOURFUL FOAM!!

When I was due to go down to work to meet someone for a catch up I had to sit in stopped traffic because they were chopping trees down and doing landscaping work down the Waiwera hill to make it safer I am assuming because of slips an rock fall that happen there quite a bit!

Spontaneous night to the City...

..Taylor and I started off by Taylor deciding to come to my flat after she finished work and then we wanted to do something different, spontaneous and just to get out of the house... so we went to Takapuna Beach, then headed off to have dinner at Pita Pit.

...Taking random "selfies" (I hate that word with a passion..) at the beach...

KiwiYo for dessert..

This is just the beginning of our random, just cause we felt like it trip into the city on a Saturday night.

After eating and as we were about to head back to Albany we were on the road to the motorway on/off ramps, talking about how I love the massive bendy curve bit from Esmonde Road North, and how Mum always forgets and hates it and seems to end up heading into Auckland City.  

On our way into the city we had a few options of where we wanted to go and explore and ended up at the Skycity parking lot where we thought, hey, lets go up the Skytower just for the fun of it! 

Down to buy the tickets... I didn't have my student ID on me but he let me get in for student prices! YUS!

Going up... up... up... 51 stories up! 

You could see the city from inside the lift!

Taylor's first time EVER going up the skytower!!!

Random skytower photos..

AUCKLAND CITY!!

Standing on the glass.. scary when it decides to creek!!! haha..... we jumped on it too!

Taking photos of the magnets.. (I should keep this in mind sometimes...)

Love this one!!

After the skytower we went for a walk to look at the cathedral.. (Skytower is the red lit building in the distance)

......Photos....

Sad to be leaving... 

actually it was cause these people tried to use the ticket booth before us..... we were there first.. :)

It was a rather awesomely spontaneous trip into the city but it was pretty cool to see the city at night and walk around Hobson Street and down a couple others... walking past clubs and bars... Hurry up and turn 18 Taylor!! 

Finished my night off with a cider at my flat :) 

18th Birthday!!

Well, yesterday, November 5th was my 18th birthday and also my last day of high school ever!!!!!!!!!

Pretty good day to end on too!
I had Lisa be the first person to sing/ say happy birthday to me, I had my last day of school, with no school work being done, playing cards in study, pranking the school/ teachers, had ALOT of fun, and got to go out to dinner.  Highlight would be my brother Daniel remembering and calling me during interval at school!!!
Here are some photos from my birthday dinner last night, in Mission Bay in the city with Mum, Wendy, Danielle and I.  I will add more picture when I have got them from Mum's phone.

I also have my graduation tonight, so I will post on that soon too, with more photos :)

More arm wrestling in Bio, for the last time ever!!

Taylor and I at lunchtime at school!

 This is where we went in Mission Bay, Auckland

Danielle and I

Mum and Wendy

Danielle and I afterwards... It was dark and freezing cold!!

TV Habits.. Told you I would

Yeah, my tv habits are not the best.

I spend maybe two hours infront of the TV some days, none other days.  I record a lot of programs on the TV box to watch later as often I am not home to watch them.  It doesn't help that when i go away for two weeks all the programs set to record get deleted though... Parents that don't know how to work the telle...  That instance I was able to catch up online though, so it wasn't too bad.

Every night I record/ watch Home and Away which is an Australian program that aires over here mon-fri at 5.30pm, and then Shortland Street which is a New Zealand program airing also mon-fri at 7pm.

Then I also watch a couple mindless comedies or just random programs where you don't really have to follow whats going on which means you don't have to think to hard!! Ha.

The one hour weekly shows I watch are Grey's Anatomy (finally caught up on during the last school holidays!!!), Private practice (I haven't yet started watching this season thats been on for a couple months... they are waiting for me...) and when we did have Sky TV I would constantly have Air Crash Investigation on as I have a love for planes and just the mechanics and stories behind it all.  Doesn't scare me off flying either!!

I have a love for documentaries too but we don't exactly get that many any more because we only have freeview and not sky which means that we have the basic TV programs you can get here.

On December 1st the whole country will be digital and that means that you must have a box which you get the TV channels through, for most people (everywhere but Auckland/Northland) are digital already.  Its been in process of happening for the last 2 years or so.

I miss the sky, but I managed to get Mum to buy the freeview box that recorded 2 channels at once while you can watch another.  If we didn't have it, we would be paying a ton in internet usage as I would be streaming it through tvnzondemand or the TV3 one...

How do you write so much about TV your wondering? I have no idea what the answer is to that apart from the fact I like waffling and thats how I managed to pass a Bio test I just did a couple days ago... add in the right term in the right context and waffle your life away... and then pass, more than the pass rate threshold too!! LOL.

Knee Check Up

**On a side note, on Monday I had another appointment with my knee surgeon and my knee is on the way to recovery, I am back to normal running and working without problems bending up and down.  I have another appointment on Monday 4th November this year (the day before my 18th!!) for the 6 month (I think actually only 5 months) check up.  It will still take about 18 months for us to know the outcome of the operation if it had actually worked how we hope or not, as there was only a 60% chance that it would, but doing it wont have made it worse.

Editing to add photos from the trip to the city:

This is the Gillies Ave off-ramp, a lot of traffic for 3 in the afternoon!

The rainy crappy weather... the "merge-like-a-zip" lights are already on... Didn't think they went on until 4pm.  

Haha, the Chelsea Sugar truck- its got sugar mountains on it :)

The Art Gallery

Yesterday afternoon I went down to the city to the Auckland Art Gallery with Carla, Lisa, and Toni.  Art may not entirely be my thing, but there was some pretty amazing works of art there!  Some being of original art of New Zealand artists mainly, there was some pretty amazing landscapes that I throughly liked!  I love architecture type things, so the 3D models of buildings on the top level where we went and saw last were totally right up my alley, they even had little paper (1cm tall?) people cut out and put on to show the size in relation to life size that we see.

I think I have been to the Art Gallery before at a trip for primary or intermediate school, but I am not entirely certain.

It was definitely an awesome experience, that I got to have with people I love :)  We would have been there for nearly two hours looking around, and going through the different exhibit areas.  It was a very nice and chilled afternoon, having dinner out in New Market (Epsom) afterwards.

Rainbows End

I had the most amazing day on Saturday celebrating Toni's 28th Birthday with a trip out to Rainbows End in Auckland! The day was pretty much perfect for it with there not being any rain, no drops or anything, it wasn't the warmest, but it was still so amazing!

We went on the motion master, and pirate ship before heading up to the fear fall!!! I was freaking out a little on the fear fall going up, and then waiting for it to drop from the top, the first time I screamed with my eyes shut the whole way down!  I screamed a lot that day... oops (la).

I have been to Rainbows End I think twice before this time, last time was five years ago! Not much had actually changed, just one new ride added- don't remember what it was called though, oh and the fact I don't think I am as much of a dare devil as I use to be... Still love amusement parks though, still want to bungy jump too! :)

I never got any pictures from Rainbows End as the camera decided not to want to co-operate with the new SD card that got put in before we left that morning.

Knee Update #2

Monday July 1st I went back down to see my knee surgeon in Auckland at the clinic where I got really good news from him- that being that healing and everything is on track, in fact, better than he expected!!

I am even going back to work in the school holidays, back to cleaning and doing the laundry at the local geriatric hospital.

I am back to walking relatively normal, going up stairs totally fine, just down can be a problem sometimes for some reason, but overall, I am only taking the pain killers when I need to and am generally a lot better knee wise.  Swelling and brusing is still there, but at a minimum.

If you have seen my Facebook, I did post a thank you status for those that have helped and waited etc at school :)

Update on my knee

As you know I had knee surgery last week.  10 days on and I am finally back at school for the first full day on Friday 7th June.  I have been in for the critical lessons needed to keep me up to date for a math internal that I will be sitting early next week.

Everyone thinks I am crazy weird for wanting to be at school when I have medical permission not to be there - even my doctor.

Wednesday (5th June) I went back down to my surgeons clinic in Auckland to have the bandage taken off and stitches removed with strips put on to hold the incision closed and waterproof dressings put on.  The bruising also started coming out pretty nicely, and the swelling has also meant that I haven't been able to wear my jeans yet, but I kindly got given a pair of track pants that have a zip up the side to borrow so that I can have pants to wear and not my skirts and shorts all the time, as it is winter over here.

My knee has caused a lot of pain when I'm not sitting down with my leg up, so I ended up at my local doctors clinic being prescribed with a higher dose of pain killers which have worked wonders!

Top view of my knee- 2 incisions (one for the camera- small one about 1.5cm in length, and one for the lateral release procedure- bigger one about 4cm in length)

Side view of my knee- yeah, thats the bruising, it continues round the back of me knee too.  The swelling isn't so bad at the moment as I have been from my bed to the lounge and had my leg up all day so far.

I am still on crutches and could be for quite sometime (a couple weeks+ most likely), I am fully weight bearing but not walking correctly as I can't bend my knee at all when standing or walking, though I can physically move it with my hands when sitting down.

Pictures from surgery

Just as I had come out of recovery.

Same day as the op, the yellow on my leg is iodine- it doesn't want to come off still!

 About an hour after I got home from the hospital.

This was taken yesterday- the difference in size! The left knee does have a bandage in it though, I had managed to get leggings on for under my skirt (I can't wear jeans at the moment cause my knee is to fat).

SkyWalk

I did it, and I made it out alive!!

Myself, Dylan, and Lisa- before we went up to go and do the SkyWalk.

"On the Edge", as a sort of challenge Dylan (Instructor/ Guide- he was Canadian and knew more about Auckland than we all did.)

Dylan got Lisa to come over to me and pretend to push me off the platform.

Lisa and I.

Larissa, myself, and Lisa- We had organized Lisa and I to do the skywalk together and Larissa must have been booked into do it at the same time too.  She is a german AuPair who has been here for five months, and will be here for another two.

Looking over the edge! Scary at first then I got use to it and could quite happing lean over and take a good look around the amazing city of Auckland, New Zealand.

This was an absolutely amazing experience that I got to have, I am so happy that I did it and I now and thinking of doing the SkyJump too.