Jodi's Birthday (and a peek into our apartment)

Here is some evidence of Jodi's birthday, embarassing for both of us actually, but posted for the purpose of entertaining you fine people. Those are Tawnya's "I've been drinking glasses" (in our apartment) and that is Jodi below, in proper birthday style, making friends with the local fauna. You should see the pics we left out. She got real cuddly with an unsuspecting sheep.

B & A's Death Defying Plunge off the Harbor Bridge

"So what do you guys want to do today before you have to go to the airport?"

"Lets throw ourselves off the Auckland Harbour Bridge"

So thats what they did. It wasn't so simple for Adrienne at first, but nevertheless, the NZ air got to her head and she agreed at first to go tandem. Jodi adamently refused and I feel that I was not mentally prepared for such an activity on this particular day. Okay maybe a little more reluctant than that. I think we were more scared for our first nursing shift here (which was to be the following day)so wanted to save all our nerve for that. After all, we would be messing with other people's lives, not just our own. Alright, maybe we are just a bunch a chickens. But the whole plan is to throw ourselves off many things once Karen gets here in November. We will see how that goes!

So for 100 bucks you can see your life flash before you for about 1/2 a second and then plunge into the freezing harbor water and emerge alive (I imagine with great thanks and surprise). Unfortunately, Jodi and I had to watch from the ground very far away as you cannot go up the bridge with..er jandals on. So with great content we waited to see our friends go flying off the bridge attached to a giant elastic. So we were waiting to see the 2 of them strapped together, like some kind of extreme wedding or something. Instead, I saw a black dot followed by a loud and echoeing scream that could only be identified as Adrienne. It took a while so we wondered if there were some cold feet. But in fact the extra time was used to convince Age to go solo. So we were shocked and very proud. At least I was, Jodi had insisted to her beforehand that she should not jump at all. This scream was unbelievable, but the type you would imagine for a first timer. Age stated afterwards that she in fact discovered a "new" scream. One that came from deep within and that was executed with such power and strength that it may have been more shocking than the fall itself. The next flash a of a person was Brian, like an old pro the crazy SOB jumped backwards and by choice hit the water. If you look closely at the pics below you can see them each hanging and bouncing from the bridge.

When we first layed eyes on them as they walked off the bridge, Age looked like she had just been slapped really hard in order to absorb the shock of witnessing something totally incredible, when in fact she had overcome her wee little doubts and became that incredible something. Brian looked like he had just taken the best drugs on earth (I imagine it is) and could not stop bouncing around like a little school girl. They looked awesome and super pumped. It was cool to just be a part of their adventure that day and to document it. Age, you have definitely inspired us (or at least me) to just go ahead and do it, even if my body completely rejects it. Brian you have also inspired me to go all the way and hit the water, but don't be thinking I will be doing a backwards swan dive. Jodi...well we will have to work on her. But some gentle coaxing, perhaps a couple drinks and maybe a friendly nudge will do it. Stay tuned for sometime in December to see if I am all talk or not and if Jodi evens shows up! Good on you guys. Great day.

Adventures with Age and Brian...

Here are some pics from the chronicles of Adrienne, Brian, Jodi and Tawnya, starting with the Snow Patrol concert on a friday night. We then managed after a late night at the bar to have breaky at Denny's, check out an outdoor market, climb up (well actually we drove up) Mount Eden, drive across the harbour bridge and toured the North Shore, go for some amazing sushi and make a huge grocery run at Foodtown. Whew, all that in one (semi-hungover)day. The next day required an even earlier start (11am) where we travelled up the Northland to Goat's Island (well we looked at it from across the water) and a gravel road, hilly Lord of the Rings like countryside trip to Prakiri Beach, an amazing place free of tourists and hardly any people at all for that matter. All of these beaches and stops entailed a great deal of exploring the ocean life, rock formations, and of course an intense look into ourselves as we all reflected on the last 5 months. Sigh.

Also we are not sure why these pics are not lining up and it is really annoying as we are trying to conserve space, just like in our tiny but cozy apartment (pictures to come when we clean up this joint).










Mount Eden a dormant volcano in Auckland city with amazing views, and cows apparently.







Jodi wiping cow poop off her shoe and our family picture.





A beach on the North Shore in Auckland (across the Harbor)with a view of another volcano









Baby Sheeps!!




Goat's Island (there are not, nor have there ever been ony goats there)











The Mystifying Prakiri Beach





A trip up the Skytower elevator (with a glass floor) to have a farewell dinner in their rotating restaurant 200m above Auckland City. And for some reason we were all wearing different shades of green pants and "jandals" (flip flops to kiwis). Fab dinner with amazing views of the city at night. A fitting end to our summer with the dynamic duo B & A. We'll miss you guys!! Can't believe we will not be meeting up in some new random country soon. The dream is over.