bonjour from wellington!
it's the day before new year's eve and i am excited! i'm scheduled to be headed out on the ferry tomorrow morning, on the way to marlborough sounds. what is marlborough sounds, you ask? truth is, i'm not entirely sure, but every time i mention it people are like "ooh, how nice". my friend zander from church has a batch (cabin?) there and there is a load of people going over. hooray!
there is an obnoxious southerly wind coming in now, threatening to freeze me when i next dare to wander outdoors. a pity, since it was such a nice day today. i am sitting in "e-love internet cafe" where i can glance up to see japanimation and hear the computer manager laughing hysterically to japanese movies, the likes of which are certain to contain copious amounts of anime.
news at work? my boss, david, got his girls a delightful welsch springer spaniel for christmas. it is quite entertaining to watch them try and train it, they do so with such vigour and enthusiasm. the same enthusiasm that i'm sure wyn the pup was showing when he piddled on the floor.
we have a fish tank at work as well, with one fish that seemed a little off-balance. he got put in another tank at the back because he is stuck in any position besides up. for the last three weeks he has been swimming in circles, mostly upside down. needless to say this raises plenty of question and concern from those who see him, and we wonder if the kind thing is to flush him- but alas, he lives on.
yesterday i decided to go wildly adventuring to the 'burbs of wellington. my friend ashleigh was sitting at home bored and so i decided to go visit her. she made pudding and we had a grand old time. when my flatmates asked what i had been up to, i told them i went to karori for pudding.
the night before, friend cliona and i went to a show at the planetarium. little did we know that we would be the only ones to compose an eccentric astronomer's rapt audience. so for an hour we learned about stars, galaxies, lightyears, and a boatload of other things i may have forgotten as soon as i left. the astronomer himself was quite overjoyed to have two moldable young minds to educate, and he enthusiastically came outside afterward to point out constellations in the actual sky before heartily shaking our hands and letting us go.
my enthusiasm for cooking has waned as i attempted to make a delicous meal that turned out tasted more like mush nasty. i ate 2 meals of the dish before finally chucking the rest. i had a takeaway kebab for dinner.
so there's a minor update for you from the e-love internet cafe!
i love you all, and thanks heaps for all the christmas well-wishes. very much appreciated!
peace,
becki

hello all!
how's manitoba/canada/wherever keeping you?
life in windy welly is progressing beautifully. only it is really windy today.
so good news! ... i have a bed! my flatmate tom had his mother over the other day and she saw my bed ( which is a double wide foamie folded in half- also good for sandwiching yourself in between if you get really cold... but that's another story). she was apparently a bit appalled by it and told tom to offer me the mattress in her garage. so now i have a bed! how exciting!
apart from sleeping conditions, the rest of things are good as well.
newtown, where i live, is always interesting. an old man wanders the streets and randomly yells or barks at people. my friend justine said she saw him start up just as a girl walked past him the other day, and she took off running! my boss at amadeus got a "christmas card" from another man who wanders our streets. it is a selection of random newspaper clippings and mathematical formulas. then there is, of course, "crazy becki"- this chick who randomly misses her bus and ends up wandering through town at odd hours. today the kids got off school for their summer holidays, and mad cries of "WOOHOO!" could be heard echoing through the streets. it's an interesting place. nothing is unheard of because " after all, this is newtown". okay, so i just turned caps on and have no idea how to turn it off. i think it's stuck.
anyway, that's all for today. hope this finds you all happy, healthy and wise. or something like that. love you all,
becki

merry christmas mates!
hope your preparations are all coming along nicely-i LOVE christmas! yesterday i went to a mulled wine night at the home of some irish girls i met, and i knew it was going to be fun from the moment i opened the door and they were all wearing antlers! i think we will get together Christmas eve as well, and my boss is having me over for Christmas dinner! She is malaysian, and i will help her cook a malaysian christmas feast! i am unreasonably excited... today i got hints on curry making from an indian woman whose hair i cut, and my curry actually turned out very edible! still made my nose run, but no matter. i think by the end of this stint i may actually live on more than oatmeal and canned fish. woohoo! i'm getting hungry with all this talk of food... now i'm off to see my flatmate christopher's band play. i better get there soon, so i can leave in time to catch my bus home. i totally missed it by like 3 seconds yesterday. bummer. then i forgot my key. my flatmate found me knocking hopelessly on the door with my head leaned against the glass. i had just resigned myself to sleeping outside- i'm such a winner.
anyway, short, brief comments about my life- yay! there's a christmas carol playing right now!- i was SO STOKED to hear comments from new people and old, it always makes my day!
love you all!
becki

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas!.... or not.
i did, however, go to a christmas dinner party yesterday with some friends from church. everyone was dressed to the nines. except me, of course. i wore a green dress with massive polka dots and ripped jeans underneath. classy to the core. but in my defense, i live out of a backpack. so that was great- a bit strange to hear everyone talking about going home to have a christmas barbie (aka: barbeque, yes they really do call it that here, though i don't know if they throw shrimp on it...). there was a tree at the party, and another canadian girl and i were trying to decipher if it was actually sold to them that way or if they just hacked off a cedar branch and went for it, lol. they saw us looking at it and told us it was the cheapest they could get.
i played violin at work yesterday. my boss found out i could play, so he took the violin we had displayed off the wall, got me some strings and said "play!". so i did. and he played guitar. yes, my boss and i spent the afternoon playing "rollin', rollin', rollin'..." the absurdity of it makes me laugh, but then again, that seems to be my life.
hope things are going well out on the home front, i'm always excited to hear from you guys--- love you all and have a stupendous evening!
becki

word!
so a lot has happened since my last blog .... wait, did i say that already?
i'm no longer part of the hostel housekeeping team (praise the Lord!). still invited to their christmas party though- woot woot!
the way this came about is that i was walking down the street by my flat, exploring the territory, and came across a salon. i randomly entered it and asked the owner " what are the chances you would hire me full time for, say, two months?"
they freaking said yes!! so i am now a stylist at Amadeus Salon and Sound Studio. they have a guitar on the wall for random playing. i love it.
i am back home... i love being a hairdresser! i love NOT cleaning toilets!
this means that i not only have sundays off, i get every evening off as well! yup, i'm a genuine 9-5er. hardcore. and between them and my flatmates i'm getting filled in on wellington's extensive music scene. hooray!
anyway, i would LOVE to hear from you all as i've discovered there's free internet by my house- yippee! my flatmate christopher also keeps me filled in to the free stuff scene. the other day i came home at 11 and he was hauling a washer up the stairs (left outide a thrift shop or something). the next day he proceeded to offer me food which he had reportedly stolen from restaurants' food trash. he said he only had to climb a few fences and do some minor tresspassing to get to it. but, we decided, what's life without a little civil havoc?
so yes, cheers from new zealand, i love everybody, hopeyou're all doing GREAT! random thought... check out my brother's picture on "the carillon" website. little hottie with a big injury. thanks to anyone who prayed for him- it really is a miracle to have him around. love you bro.
peace to all,
becki

kia ora good friends!

so a lot has happened since the last blog. i am now employed as housekeeping staff at base backpackers hostel in wellington. it's interesting if not glamourous. i like to think i'm like the chick from blue crush (movie) only i don't surf and i'm not buff. minor details. i've discovered that not only do i dislike making beds, but i'm quite bad at it. therefore i spend much of my day gazing at sparkling porcelain basins and singing into freshly scoured drains. (aka: bathrooms). good times! the toilet, as it's called here, is a surprisingly good place to meet a variety of people. then again, so is changing sheets. i've had some good conversations while doing my housekeeperly duties.
i also have a flat. my flatmates are comprised of painter Tom, rock star Christopher, and gardener Dan (Deanne? not really sure). on my door there is a small sign saying "please lock this door before leaving to prevent random people from entering and defecating in the washing machine". no joke! i knew i would fit in here. it's very comfortable and wonderful to have a "home", however temporary. my flatmates even provided me with a mattress and duvet! oh yes, and some bread that christopher got from "dumpster diving". i didn't ask too many questions, lol. i even managed to make some real food today. it was curry. boy, was it ever. i had to keep blowing my nose between bites.
anyway, so that is life thus far. i found a cool church here and went to check it out sunday night. it turned out it was a free concert that night by "the lads". good times, good company. i think i'll probably go there again.
i think this little reprieve will be good for finances and spirit. i must admit the homesickness gets pretty bad when you're on the go all the time.
i better get going, it's nearly time to do my night tiolet round-- can i get a woot woot?
i love you all and hope you have a lovely evening!
becki

the long- awaited pictures... (here's to you rachelle!)

- ocean view from a hill in the coromandel

-waterfall on our hike through the tongariro national park (i beleive there's still active volcanoes around here)

-juanita and i in helensville, eating a pine cone. can't really remember how that came about...

-my backyard in opotiki, bay of plenty

-my stray bus buddies and i doing a hot hood picture after completing our hike through tongariro

so there's a little, tiny taste of what i've been seeing out here.

another random experience: i am now housekeeping staff at my current hostel. i begin in exactly51 minutes. there are 135 people checking out this morning, so there should be lots to do!

i love you all, everybody

peace to you

becki