New Zealand Day 1: Christchurch

Nate had a week off from work for the holidays, so went took a holiday to New Zealand. We flew to Christchurch on Christmas morning and spent the night at a Tudor-inspired motel where we enjoyed Christmas dinner. They even had Christmas crackers waiting for us.

Nate at dinner, looking like he's about to be crowned king by the lit chandelier.

Roxy with the kind of creepy headless suit of armour.

Before dinner, we took our rented Yaris for a spin on the winding roads outside of town. We saw our first kiwi sheep about two minutes after we drove out of town.

Hut at a rest stop on our afternoon drive.

There's nothing uniquely New Zealand in this next photo. I just think it's cute.

Baby buns. My Christmas present to you.

Murri Christmas!

Apologies in advance: Our Christmas cards will be late this year. There's a 'postie' union strike on for tomorrow and I put the cards in the mail today at 5:01pm (sure, I'll blame the strike and not my procrastination). They say it won't affect Christmas mail deliveries, but I don't see how that's possible if there's no one around the sort the mail.

Scan of the polaroid we got at the Murri Claus meet-and-greet.

A few weeks ago, the State Library of Queensland invited children to meet and have their picture taken with Murri Claus. Who is Murri Claus, you ask? Why, he's Santa's cousin! Where does his name come from? The Murri people are indigenous Australians who traditionally occupied Queensland. 

Before he arrived, we danced and sang songs about Murri Claus and his life in the Outback. Last year Murri Claus arrived in a tinny (a small aluminum boat) on the Brisbane River. There were some rumblings about seasickness from our song leader, so this year, Murri sauntered up, fresh off the trail and accompanied by a couple of elves riding on miniature ponies.


Many of the babies in my mothers' group had their picture taken with Santa Claus at the mall. We though we would go the non-traditional route with our bub. 

Who is this? Where am I? Why is everyone so cheery but me?

I expected some tears when we handed her over to Murri, but she did pretty well and only got a little panicky when everyone was trying to get her to smile at the camera. 

She was dressed in the Christmas outfit we got it for her to wear on the plane on our Christmas adventure! We're hoping she'll charm the flight attendants and maybe we can get some free headphones for the flight. 


So a very Murri Christmas to you all! We're celebrating it at the beginning of a nice, hot Brisbane summer. While a lot of you are shoveling your way out of a snowstorm or inching your way through a foggy morning, we're trying to beat the heat! Sure wish you were here!

Ta-da! She's one!

From this:to this:

in just one short year. We're going out tonight for Latin American food to celebrate.

Current favorite movie

Escape Artist

I was talking to my friend Katie the other day about her cat Brix. Apparently, Brix, an indoor cat, got his first taste of the outdoors a couple of weeks ago and now all he wants is to get outside again.

It made me think of Roxy. She is scooting all over the place these days. I'm afraid my long evening walks get a bit boring for her when she's stuck sitting in the pram for so long. She also doesn't do all that well when I try to browse at the shops. Instead of climbing out, she tries to scoot out of her pram.

While thumbing through some greeting cards, I turned around and saw this:

Lucky for me (and her!), she didn't have all the kinks worked out:

Those pesky feet sure get in the way.

I don't think she appreciated my laughter...or the laughter of a fellow shopper.

She spends some time every day looking longingly through the security gate we've installed on the front door.

"Nobody knows... the trouble I've seen...."

She's got a game plan, though. Sometimes I find the friends that she's sent to get help.

Her most trusted friend, Giraffe Reimsen. She should probably send one of her friends with legs next time.

Coincidence?

I mailed some items last week and noticed something interesting about the dimensions of the Australia Post mailing box...

It is exactly the right size to mail four packages of Tim Tams!

(Only two packs are shown here, but another two would make a perfect fit.)

I mentioned my findings to the postmistress on duty. She told me that she learned about that when her daughters were living overseas and requested Tim Tam care packages. Given that Australia has one of the largest diasporas in the world (about 5% of Australians live overseas at any given time vs. 2% of Americans), and the national love of Tim Tams, methinks this is not a coincidence.

A trip to the supermarket

A study came out a couple of weeks ago showing that the food prices in Australia have increased 40% over the past 10 years:

"Australia had by far the fastest food price increases among a group of comparable developed nations, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the G-7 and OECD averages".

The researchers conducting the study blame lack of competition. There are two main grocery store chains here: Coles and Woolworths (or Wooly's, as it's affectionately called). Basically, it would be like if only Safeway and Albertson's were the only grocery store chains in the entire United States. (If you're measuring by population, though, it would be like if there were only two grocery store chains for the greater Los Angeles metro area. There are 22 million people in Australia, 20 million in LA.)

Bottom line? We're not crazy! Food is expensive here!

To lighten this post up a bit, below are some pictures from a recent trip to our local Cole's.

First of all, the shopping carts are very hard to control - they don't go straight. This is a little game we play. Puuuuush the baby down the aisle!

Biscuits = "Bikkies" = Cookies

They hate gluten here. Santa is saying, "Rudolph. It's Gluten Free!" on this bag of Christmas candy.

Pet food is refrigerated. Chilled loaves of meat for dogs and cats.

Eggs aren't refrigerated, they're sold right in the aisle. The carton says to refrigerate once you get them home, though.

I don't think they have this brand in the States.

Confectionary = candy. Cordial = flavored syrup to add to bubbly water. Pronounced, "Core-dee-all." Although they sell home brew equipment, you can't buy booze in the grocery store.

Chicken flavor. They also have chicken and soy flavor or honey baked ham.

They probably have this in the States, like at GNC or something, but this was right next to the pie crusts. It reminds me of last summer. I think it was mid-February, we had been sweating for about three months and saw a guy drinking a carton of egg nog in the middle of the street in the middle of the day! Glug glug glug. There's also a gang of Russian gangsters in our neighborhood that drink buttermilk during morning tea. Straight buttermilk!

This is a seasonal item. 5 kg frozen turkey for about $52.