I haven't been feeling motivated to sit down and write lately. There is plenty to write about, but taking the time in front of a computer to put it to words in another thing. Though I do feel like I have been out of touch with many people that I would like to catch up with; know that you are in my thoughts and feel free to drop me a line. I'll try to get back to you without too great of a time gap. Admittedly though, I recently responded to an email over a month old. It isn't that I don't want to talk with you, it is just that I don't want to sit in front of the computer for copious amounts of time. Even now I am antsy to stop typing and go do something, anything but sit here and type. I will do my best to continue this update though. It may take a few sittings, be unorganized as who knows what, and/or be not quite as thorough of an explanation of the splendid things that I have been up to lately. But hey, at least it's something... right?
Wellington is wonderful. I like it here a lot. The house I am living in makes it particularly enjoyable. We call it the feral house. This name was coined by a neighbor. I liked it, started using it and it wore off on the other flatmates as well. On afternoon of Halloween I heard childrens' voices, trick or treating, so I went to the front door excited to give them candy. I had never been on this side of trick or treating. Sadly though I found that they skipped my house. Boo! It must look too scary, but not in the Halloween sense. What's wrong with having a pond in the front yard?
The feral house is like a constant treasure hunt. Every time I set to cleaning up a certain space I find cool stuff. I cleaned and organized/labeled the spice rack and found not only lots of useful spices to cook with but also a tea-baller. Now I can drink tea made with loose leaf tea without getting the tea leaves in my mouth. As I cleaned other bits of the kitchen I found the various pieces to a food processor. Some of it was in the kitchen while other pieces were in the lounge. Go figure. I decided the the dresser cabinet in the lounge was a good enough place for it and put all the pieces together there. Hey! It's a small kitchen. I was pretty excited about this find and have since used it many times! I also found the pieces, again in various places, to a juicer. Sweet! One morning my flatmate Hugh found a travel sewing kit on a shelf in the lounge. The house also has a genuine junk drawer. There is all kinds of stuff in there, from felt pens to tape, screw drivers to stickers, labels to foreign coins.
Aside from the house providing things that I didn't know I even wanted, Wellington in general has been generous in offering me basically anything and everything I have desire or need for. A few examples. One week I was really wanting some wine. I couldn't buy any because it was January (see below for further explanation) so I figured I would just have to wait until February. Then one night while skipping I find a nearly full bottle of Merlot. And it was good! Another evening I was walking home from work. I decided I would walk through the bus tunnel. Some would say this is a very risky thing to do. I have been told that there have been cases of people getting badly injured. I figure as long as I am aware and not drunk I'll be okay. I'll even go so far as to say that I reckon it is actually pretty safe. There is no lighting and no side walk, just enough space for the bus to go through with a small buffer on each side. There are however alcoves every 48 strides when I am walking at a swift pace. These alcoves could probably fit three people in them, as long as no one is wearing a backpack or carrying bags and stuff. I don't use a light though I do have a cell phone if need be. So long as I stay aware and count my steps, I'm good to go. Also, in the evenings the buses only come through every 15 minutes. Anyway, this one evening I decided I couldn't be bothered to walk over the town belt but would rather walk through the bus tunnel to get home. I start to walk through and think to myself that I have never seen a bus while walking through and it would actually be pretty cool. There have been a number of times that a car driving on the road on the other side shined its headlights into the tunnel, which psyched me out enough to run to the next (or previous) alcove, but no bussed yet. But what is this? About 100 paces before the end I see the lit up front of a bus coming my way. I quickly pop into an alcove and anxiously wait for it the pass. And you know what? I was right, it was cool :-)
In regards to the above comment. I decided that for the month of January I would not purchase any food. It worked very well. Sure there were a number of times I would have liked to buy something, but really I didn't need those things. It was a fun experiment. I am buying food again now. Not much because we still skip, but sometimes we would like to consume things that we didn't find in the bin.
For the month of February I chose to leave Hataitai every day. I found myself getting sucked into my house. Time goes by so easily here. I realized that I should really be taking advantage of living in Wellington. February was an excellent month to do this as it is summer and there were heaps of things going on. Unfortunately I caught a cold for the last week of the month, but I still managed to follow through with my plan. March starts tomorrow...
