Vancouver Part 2
We had a slightly quieter day today, after yesterday which really took in the highlights that Vancouver had to offer. I had a pretty crap sleep last night, as our hostel is located right above a bar and as it was a Saturday night the music blared for hours, and I still didn't really feel comfortable sleeping in my bed. But I eventually got to sleep, and by not waking up until 9am I guess I got a reasonable amount of sleep.

First on the list for the day's activities was a trip over to Granville Island, which isn't REALLY an island, but a bit of land underneath a big motorway bridge which has been turned into a market and lots of shops. We took a short ferry ride across False Creek out to the "island", and began to explore it. There was a pretty amazing marketplace, with more food than I've ever seen before in one spot. It was quite cool seeing summer fruits such as strawberries and raspberries for the first time in many months, and the respberries that we bought we particularly nice. Besides the marketplace, the rest of Granville Island was pretty boring though - lots of expensive looking restaurants and ornament stores. After giving up on the place, we wandered up towards the bus that would take us out towards the University of British Columbia, which took us through some interesting suburban streets, and then through a nice park before we arrived at the university. Being a Sunday, and (I think) university holidays, the place was really dead - quite bizarre as you could picture what it would be like with thousands and thousands of students. We wandered around for a bit, looking for the Museum of Anthropology, which was supposedly the best museum in Vancouver.

Although not spectacular, the museum was very interesting tracing back the history of the "First Nations" people, with literally thousands and thousands of hand-carved masks, totem poles, and other assorted artifacts. Some of the carvings were pretty amazing, although I think it was the sheer volume of items on display which amazed me more than any one item in particular. Learning a bit more about the history of Canada's indigenous people was also quite interesting, discovering the distinctly different cultures of the different tribes was fasciating as well. After we had checked out the museum we headed back towards the bus stop, which once again entailed quite a lengthy walk through the university. This was actually quite a good thing, getting a good glimpse of their campus which rather unsurprisingly looked fairly similar to many of the buildings at Auckland University.

After getting back on the bus we headed across Vancouver towards the Sky Train station. The Sky Train was very very impressive, with trains arriving every 2-3 minutes it seemed, and travelling very quickly across an elevated rail which meant that we went very quickly to our next destination. Unsurprisingly, given such a quality service, the train was really busy - even though there were so many trains. About five minutes later we arrived at Metrotown Metropolis, which unknown to me at the time is the largest shopping mall in all of British Columbia - and apparently the largest food court in western Canada. With over 470 stores, this mall dwarved anything I've ever seen before in either Australia or New Zealand. It seemed to go on forever, with two or even three levels of shops all the time. The foodcourt was massive, seating over 1000 people I think. The whole place was pretty spectacular, especially as I had taken a bit of a risk heading towards the place because it showed up on the map as a mall, and I figured that we should see at least one Canadian mall. We had a good wander around the place, taking a few photos to prove that it is as big as I say it is. I looked through a few stores, but didn't really see anything that stood out to say "buy me". I'm going to do most of my shopping on the last leg of the trip in San Francisco anyway, unless something looks really fantastic. Overall, the prices of clothes looked fairly similar to how they would be in New Zealand, obviously taking the exchange rate and the always excluded (annoyingly!) GST.

After we finished with the mall, we headed back to the Sky Train station (which is right across the road from the mall), and then back to our hostel. So it was a bit of a quieter day than yesterday, although with an awful lot of walking which has left me pretty tired. Tomorrow will be something quite different again, as we head out of Vancouver over to Nanaimo via ferry. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find an internet cafe tomorrow - but I shall look!

San Francisco and Vancouver
So where was I? On the plane somewhere between Auckland and San Francisco I think. Anyway, after eventually giving up on my idea of sleeping I watched a bit more TV, they were playing Robotswhich I had wanted to see, so I watched that for a while until I felt really sleepy and tried once again in vain to get some sleep. Outside, the sun eventually came up which looked pretty awesome even though I was on the west side of the plane and not the east side, so I didn't get to see the sunrise properly. Nevertheless, it was quite nice to be able to look down on the clouds and the ocean, rather than just blackness (although I did see one light down below during the night, must have been a ship). Eventually (it seemed like forever), everyone was told that San Francisco was only about half an hour away. I stared intently out the window, keen on seeing my first glimpse of North American soil. In the far distance I saw a few shapes that looked like possible hills, but they could have just as easily been clouds. But after a bit longer there it was, the brown soil of northern California.

Below the plane, over the sea, was a thick blanket of cloud. However, somewhat bizarrely about a kilometre off the coast of San Francisco the cloud just stopped suddenly, leaving the city cloudless and in perfect sunsine. We flew in over the San Francisco peninsula quite a bit southward of the city, doing a long circle over the southern suburbs and Silicon Valley, which was really interesting as we went over some incredibly long bridges across San Francisco Bay, before landing at the airport. There was a bit of stress for us because our connecting flight to Vancouver left at 2:40pm, and by the time we got to the terminal it was after 1pm. Luckily, our bags came through really really quickly, and customs going into the US was a breeze. We could relax a little, with about 35 minutes to kill before boarding the next flight. I went to the toilet and discovered a weird self-flushing system (damn Americans too lazy to flush!) The security to get back on the plane to Vancouver was pretty intense, although not unexpected being on American soil, as I ended up having to take off my shoes and my belt to ensure that the metal detector wouldn't be set off.

So we made our next flight, which was on Air Canada just for a couple of hours up to Vancouver. This flight took off directly over San Francisco, which was really really awesome, a real highlight for me so far, as first I got to see the whole city below me, freeways cris-crossing and all, before we swung out on the Pacific Ocean enough to get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge - something I had REALLY been looking forward to seeing - before heading northwards. I took some amazing photos of San Francisco and Oakland, as we flew over them, which hopefully I'll eventually get onto here in some form or another. This flight was far more interesting than the one from Auckland, as below there was an amazing variety of landforms. Initially there was an incredibly intricate patchwork of farms, before that gave way more wilderness-type land, and the odd snowy volcanic peak. There was one peak in particular that caught my attention, as it had an absolutely enormous crater that was filled with water, like a crater lake that was just monstrous in size.

After a couple of hours we arrived in Vancouver, and flew over the city once again before landing. I was really surprised by how big Vancouver was, as it seemed to stretch for miles and miles southwards of the airport. Although I know that far more people live in San Francisco than Vancouver, from what I saw in the plane Vancouver seemed like the bigger city. But anyway, we finally landed and passed through customs easily enough before heading towards our bus stop. Vancouver airport was actually surprisingly nice, definitely a lot better than San Francisco's which was clearly built in the 1970s and hadn't been touched since. After a few dramas with the buses, and realising that the buses didn't take notes, only coins due to their automatic ticketing system, we finally made it to our hostel.

The hostel is pretty basic, which was a bit disappointing at first as we really felt like somewhere nice to just crash. But hasn't turned out to be too bad as we've hardly been there. After getting organised at the hostel, and once again trying in vain to have a short sleep (was only about 6.30pm and still very light at that stage), we headed off to explore Vancouver a bit. People driving on the right side of the road was very discocerting at first, and still makes me look and think twice when I see it. We wandered down to Gastown, a nice historical part of Vancouver, to have a look through the obligatory tourist shops and grab a bite to eat. I was a good tourist and had some fresh Canadian Salmon for dinner, which was absolutely fantastic. After dinner, it was getting close to 9.30pm, but the sun was only just beginning to set. So we went for another explore around Canada Place, which provided some really nice views of the harbour while the sun was setting. We could walk all the way around, which was nice.

After that I headed back to the hostel, via the internet cafe to catch up on things back in NZ. I eventually fell asleep, although sleeping in a single bed after so long on a double, as well as being in a new place, meant that it took surprisingly long considering how exhausted I was.

I woke up this morning feeling about a million times better. It's amazing what a somewhat half-decent night's sleep can do. I planned out the day a little with my mum, sorting out that we'd go explore Stanley Park in the morning, and then see how the weather was before deciding the afternoon. So we headed off to Stanley Park, which is an amazingly large park pretty much in the middle of Vancouver, an amazing asset for the city. Unlike most parks, which are fields and fields of grass with a few big trees, Stanley Park is pretty much untouched forest, although there are the grass fields in parts of it. Furthermore, inside Stanley Park in the world-famous Vancouver Aquarium, which is apparently the most popular Canadian tourist attraction west of Toronto's CN Tower. I could see why, the tropical fish were amazing - some which would have been easily as big as me. There was a dolphin show on which was also pretty spectacular and very educational. But overall, the highlight for me was definitely the Beluga Whales, which was quite small for whales, but completely white. They were absolutely spectacular, playing around in the water incredibly close to where we were watching them. I've only ever seen whales once before, and that was just a glimpse of them in the sea off Brisbane. Seeing such majestic creatures up close was incredible.

After that we did a tour around Stanley Park, which was really nice as we got a good close up view of the Lion's Gate Bridge. Then we headed back into the city, before deciding that the weather was good enough to go across the harbour to North Vancouver and up Grouse Mountain. So we took the Sea Bus (basically a ferry) across the harbour, and then caught a bus up to Grouse Mountain. The trip through the suburbs of Northern Vancouver was really nice, just being able to see the 'normal' parts of a completely new city. The houses looked quite different to the ones I am used to, almost dolls-house like. At Grouse Mountain, we stopped at the base of a really really big mountain, before climbing on a gondela for the rest of our ascent. The view was absolutely fantastic, as Grouse Mountain rises about 1200m above sea level, and is not really that far from Vancouver City. Once we were at the top, there were a few walks to see a bird-show with a well-trained owl and some sort of falcon, as well as a grizzly bear, which was pretty cool as we weren't that far away from the big creature. We then had dinner over-looking one of the most incredible views I have ever seen, a vast panorama of Vancouver and many many kilomtres beyond it. It was similar to being up Auckland's skytower in a way, just three times the height and obviously not being quite in the middle of the city. After that we headed back to the hostel, via the Sea Bus again, which pretty much leads me up to now.

Wow, it has been a pretty amazing last couple of days. After the gruelling marathon of the plane flights it was really nice today to actually enjoy myself, and to see some amazing sights. Vancouver really is a cool city - especially in the summer as the weather is really really pleasant and the days are nice and long. It apparently gets very cold in winter though, although not nearly as cold as the other side of Canada.

Reporting From Canada
Well....... what a long day it has been. As I write this it is now 10:28 pm on Friday in Vancouver, yes it's STILL Friday. So anyway, I guess I should start at the beginning of things.

After we reached the airport yesterday, (well today.... WHATEVER!) we checked in, which was the first drama as my carefully weighed bag went over the limit for cabin luggage, so therefore had to be put into the hold, which was not exactly ideal, but I guess you just have to deal with it. So we got on the plane, had a window seat luckily, and eventually took off after the usual waiting and waiting around. I bought "The DaVinci Code" to read on the plane, which was definitely a good idea with all the waiting around for boarding, for everyone else to board and then the really annoying wait for the plane to actually get moving. We were actually fairly fortunate with the weather on take-off, as the rain cleared just enough to get a reasonable look at the lights of Auckland before we hit the clouds. After that, it was blackness, blackness and more blackness.

The seats in the aeroplane were clearly designed to be the most uncomfortable possible. With an annoying pillow that was required to stop my neck hurting like hell, but at the same time was really annoying unless it was in the perfect spot. There were a few movies on, but I wasn't really that interested in them so I just read and listened to my iPod. After a few hours (which seemed like forever), I tried unsuccessfuly to get some sleep but due to the shocking seats every imaginable position was horribly uncomfortable so I eventually had to give up.

Ugh. Internet cafe closing soon. Will update some more tomorrow. Needless to say I made it to Vancouver, and I'm really tired.

The Big Day
Now Playing: Seal - Waiting For You
So it's the big day. This will be pretty short as we need to leave for the airport reasonably soon. Just to say that I felt a few mixed feelings today, as the whole 'not seeing Amalia' for three weeks began to hit home. We had a really good time this morning though, lots of cuddles and the like, but I really am going to miss her. I have never been away from her for more than three days, so it's going to be difficult, but I'll just have to manage.

Anyway, there was a bit of drama as my parents' car broke down today, although with a bit of reorganisation that shouldn't be a problem. It's realy beginning to seem like reality now, looking around at everything thinking that I won't be back here for another three weeks.

Canada here I come!

Tomorrow!
Now Playing: Weezer - Beverly Hills
Well after months and months of planning, waiting and organising, the Canada trip is now tomorrow. After counting down the months, the weeks and then the days at 7:30 tomorrow evening I'll be taking off to Canada. I've been to Australia three times before, but this really is something completely different, going to the northern hemisphere for the first time ever and seeing amazing places such as San Francisco, Vancouver and Seattle, not to mention the Rocky Mountains!

Unless I manage to sort myself out enough tomorrow morning to update, this might be my last update for a few days. I arrive in Vancouver at 4:30pm local time on Friday, which is really bizarre as I leave New Zealand at 7:30pm on Friday evening. But anyway, I'm in Vancouver until Monday morning (once again local time), so I should be able to update during that time as surely it won't be too difficult to find an internet cafe in a big city like Vancouver.

I've also had to start thinking about my sleeping patterns, as tomorrow night's sleep is going to be pretty messy. With all the time differences to take into account, I'm really not sure whether it'll be mainly day or night while I'm flying. I get the feeling that it'll be night, but a very short night because as we're flying mainly northeast we'll be flying towards the sun, which obviously goes east-to-west, which I think means that there won't be that many hours of darkness. By my calculations we have our stop-off in San Francisco about midday local time, so hopefully the weather will be OK there, so that I can possibly see the Golden Gate Bridge. The weather in Auckland tomorrow will be crap, so I will miss out on seeing all the lights of the city as I fly out, which is a bit annoying but oh well you can't have everything.

So next time I update I may well be in Canada!

Excitedness
Now Playing: Coldplay - Low
Only three days till I leave now. And it really it beginning to sink in - well at least the process of going to the airport and getting on the plane seems believeable now, I'm not quite sure whether the whole being in Canada part seems real.

Work today wasn't too bad. The novelty of being back at Queen Street has worn off, but still being with all my friends at work is quite good. Everyone seems really interested in hearing about my trip, and a surprising number of people have actually been to Vancouver, Seattle or San Francisco and tell me all sorts of places that I need to go to.

I made a belated start to my packing last night. However, it's a bit difficult to get everything organised because some of my clothes are in the wash, some of my other things that require packing are also required before then. There's a long list of little things that I also need to remember: like cellphone charger, contact lense case, spare set of contact lenses, sunglasses, iPod connector, and a real myriad of other things. I have made a bit of a list, although I'm sure I'll forget something. We've also made a real effort to go light on the packing, with small bags in the hope that they'll be able to go on the plane as cabin luggage, which is a real benefit as you don't have to wait around at the baggage claim, which also means that you should be ahead of the crowds to go through customs. While that may not seem like a big deal, after 12 hours on a plane it will be really really good to just zip through customs.

Four Days
Now Playing: Gwen Stefani - Rich Girl
It's now only four days until I leave for Canada, and yes I really am finally starting to get excited about it. I have triple confirmed where my passport is, and have made a few steps towards organising a working cellphone while I'm away. Confusing matters slightly is the fact that for some reason Canada, the US and Peru (Peru???) operate their cellphone network at a different frequency to the rest of the world - 1900 MHz rather than 900 MHz - which means that a lot of NZ cellphones won't work in North America. Fortunately my phone is triband, which means it can. All I need to do is set up a mini-account, switching my prepay onto a post-paid credit card. The down-side of global roaming on my cellphone means all sorts of nasty increased costs, because even if I was to call a local Canadian number it has to go back to New Zealand before the call gets connected through to Canada, at the international calling rates which are fairly steep. Text messages back to New Zealand only cost 50c though, which although more than normal I guess is fairly reasonable. I now need to organise what I'm going to take, and what I'm not - and do something with the 40 or so university library books that I have out, as I have a bad feeling that someone will recall a library book of mine the day I leave, which gives me about 5 days to return it before I get charged $3 a day, which as you can imagine would add up to quite a lot by the time I was back in the country.

Anyway, I had a fairly relaxing weekend. Did a little bit on my thesis yesterday morning, although of course probably not as much as I should have, and took Amalia over to my parents' house on Saturday night because it was my mum's birthday. Apart from that I played a lot of Sim City 4. I have a lot of odds and ends to finish off at university this week, although they will all have to happen on Thursday as both tomorrow and Wednesday I'm working. Work is quite essential though as I don't really have much money at the moment since my university pay stopped last week. It's also quite nice to be back at my old store, as I wrote last week, meeting up with people that I haven't seen for a long time.

This time in four days I'll be checked in, and just waiting to board the plane.

Wow.

A Sociology of Auckland's Free City Curcuit Bus
Now Playing: Colin Hay - I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You
Well I finally got back to university today, and made a bit of progress on my thesis. My supervisor finally got back to me about my ethics application, and let me know the few changes that I'll need to make. It actually looks quite straightforward what's left to do, which is a good thing as I really need it all to be complete before I leave for Canada, which is about this time next week. While I didn't get that much writing done, I reread my introduction which is actually surprisingly good, and read a quite a bit too. I finally get the feeling that everything is clicking now, that all the bits and pieces of knowledge that I have about urban sprawl and how to do something about it are finally coming together. I'm really not sure if I've managed to translate that knowledge onto paper quite yet, but I'm sure that'll come along eventually.

I had a bit of time to spare, so figured that I'd wait for the City Circuit free bus that drives around Auckland City. Normally I don't catch this bus unless it basically arrives at the library at the same time as I do, because I'm impatient and don't want to wait around for it. But anyway, I jumped on today in a mass of the most diverse range of people you'll ever see on a bus. Because it just travels around the city, you get a whole range of people: the international student, the tourist, the bum, and so forth. I ended up sitting next to some guy who kept on falling asleep and had the worst body odour I've ever smelt. Literally I felt completely nauseous about it - which was strange because he apart from the falling asleep bit (which was really quite amusing to watch as the movements of the bus kept on waking him up) he looked quite respectable. I'm sure there's an interesting story there somewhere. Also, behind me were two girls maybe around nine years of age, who were playing the most incredibly intricate imaginary game, which seemed to involve talking to non-existent people on a non-existent phone. It reminded me about the games that I used to play with my sister when we were younger, which involved the creation of a massive imaginary world (which of course I mapped, being the budding geographer). I was somewhat tempted to stay on the bus to hear more, as it was incredibly fascinating. But the smell from the guy next to me was getting very unbearable and I was probably about 5 minutes away from puking my guts out.

Back At McD's
Now Playing: Coldplay - X & Y
Well I worked at my regular McDonald's store for the first time since.... February I think, today. My university tutoring money has finished, so I thought the extra bit of money would be quite useful when I got asked to work today. It was a bit odd going back there, after such a long break, because it oddly didn't feel like I had really been away. At first the place annoyed me, as things were really disorganised before lunch, but luckily that pretty much was fixed at lunch time as everyone seems to appear out of nowhere. It also gave me a chance to do Deli Choices for the first time, which is quite funny as while I have been working, at head office in fact, we don't do the Deli Choices there which meant that I was actually behind everyone else in my knowledge. A rather unusual situation really, asking everyone whether I was making them correctly.

On the down side, in terms of my thesis it was pretty much a wasted day. I saved things a little by reading a very interesting book on urban sprawl. It was good because I have reached a bit of a dead-end in my writing, where I know that there's lots more on the part I'm up to that I want to write about, but I don't seem to have taht much information on it. Hopefully this book will help things out a little in that respect. Tomorrow needs to be a very constructive day, as it will also mark one week until I'm off to Canada. I've written about 18,000 words of my literature review (an awful lot of writing!), which means that there's probably not much more than 4,000 more words for me to write. I still get the feeling there's a lot more I want to say though, which probably means that I might have to do a bit more editing and delete a few more things which I have possibly said twice.

Mixed Things
Now Playing: Black Eyed Peas - Going Gone
Yesterday was pretty cool. Again McDonald's surprised me by actually getting their shit together by organising a social club outing to Extreme Entertainment in Botany Downs, basically a ten pin bowling alley with pool tables etc. etc. McDonald's crew outings are generally good because of the total extravagence that we can afford due to all those $1.50 a week payments slowly adding up. We had a lot of food, drinks, and 2 games of ten pin bowling, which meant a lot of bowling. By the end of it, I was starting to get the hang of things - that you don't really have to bowl it that hard, just getting it straight is the most important thing.

One of the interesting things was actually going out to Botany Downs. I haven't been out to that part of Auckland for about five years I think, and in that time A LOT has changed. When I was there last, there was just the Pak 'n' Save Supemarket and the ice-skating rink, surrounded by a it of farmland and a few construction sites. Compared with now, where the whole place is one massive shopping area, the change has been quite amazing. However, my 'urban sprawl' mindset kicked in, and realised that the whole area is a pretty good example of the commercial strip development which is one of the main components of sprawl. I guess some parts of the area aren't too bad - such as the town centre linked to above, but the rest has all been seen before.

Last Man Standing
Now Playing: U2 - Electrical Storm
Everyone else seems to be having all the luck. While I'm stuck in a rut, wanting to be with someone who is already attached, while having a routine that brings me into contact with basically zero new people on a day-to-day basis, it appears as though just about everyone is finally finding someone to be with. Just this weekend, two of my (previously) single friends have hooked up with someone - which I am of course really happy for them. But of course on the other hand there's the frustration of why is it not me, why is it that there's always a catch?

The girl who I'm still pretty keen on, but trying to refocus my mind away from to avoid further disappointment is the perfect example. Here is someone that appeared completely perfect: amazingly good looking, similar interests, really fun and friendly to talk to, and actually seemed to like me. But of course there's the catch - which I did actually suspect all along as I'm a great believer in the saying that "if something seems too good to be true then it probably is". Which basically leaves me nowhere. Between my studying at university, my time at home and the random few other things that I end up doing in my life I actually manage to meet surprisingly few people. This at a time when I'm at Auckland University, home to the largest concentration of 18-23 year old females in the whole of New Zealand.... it's really quite a sad situation.

I even got desperate enough to haul out my old NZ Dating profile and give it a good upgrade: new picture, some adjustments to my profile and so on. I did a quick search for anyone who appears interesting and send about 8 girls an e-mail. Four days later, no replies yet.

Ugh.

Weekend Away
Now Playing: Jack Johnson - Staple It Together
For the first time since September last year I actually went out of Auckland for the weekend. As I wrote on Friday, it was a bit of a last minute decision to head up to Mangawhai, but I'm quite glad I did. First of all, I got some good driving practice between Wellsford and Mangawhai Heads, driving along some country roads which I haven't really done that much before.

I also got a pretty decent amount of unviersity work done, at least much more than I would have done in Auckland. There must be something very peaceful about having a nice sea view while I'm trying to write, because things seem to flow a lot easier than usual. That could be the case, or it might just be the fact that this phase of my literature review is pretty easy - as I'm pretty much describing the negative effects of urban sprawl, rather than making some complex analysis of some concept compared to another.

I managed to play some beach cricket for the first time in forever too, which was nice. I don't think I realised quite how much I have missed playing cricket - but just playing some very informal cricket with my Dad was such an awesome feeling. Like I was doing something that I really really missed. I guess once it heads back into summer I can help my Dad out with his coaching of my old school cricket team, which will mean that I'll get a bit of practice in, and might even be able to see quite how bad I've become in the five or so years it has been since I really last played any serious cricket.

The beach at Mangawhai Heads

Mangawhai
Now Playing: The Shins - One by one all day
Well it looks like I'm finally going to have a reasonably interesting weekend. I'm off to my parents' beach-house at Mangawhai Heads tomorrow morning, which should be a pleasant change from being in Auckland all the time. It also means no internet for two days, but I am sure that I'll live! Hopefully the quiet surroudings will mean that I'll be able to get quite a lot done on my thesis, so that I'm not struggling in the next two weeks to get my literature review done before I leave for Canada.

Well I've been complaining about how boring my weekends have been lately - and finally something a bit different is going to happen, so I'm a little bit excited about it. Should be nice and relaxing at the very least.

This Site
Now Playing: Coldplay - White Shadows
I seem to have been running a bit short on ideas when it comes to updating this site recently. Ugh. I mean it's so frustrating because on the one hand I know that just out of the blue something can come in to my head that will make fascinating reading, but it just never pops up when I want it to. I might be on the bus home and "bam!... that would be awesome to write about!" but of course I can't exactly write about it then and there can I? Furthermore, there is stuff going on that would make interesting reading, but I just can't think of a way to write about it all - and it also wouldn't be fair on a lot of people to have it all published on the net.

So in general I stick to the boring things that I tend to write about. I guess the positive thing is that I've often thought this in the past too - wondered why on earth I'm writing about such boring and mundane things, but then at a later date having gone back to read it all, have actually found it really interesting. So I guess that might happen at some stage in the future.

But anyway (I seem to say that a lot...), I had a pretty slow start to the day. It's already 2pm and I've only really just got to university (and here I am wasting my time!). Amalia woke up at about 8 this morning, which isn't too bad as it was 7 yesterday morning, so I got up to change and feed her, except it was so bloody cold I just about jumped straight back into bed. Changed and fed her as quickly as I could, grabbed a few toys and jumped back into bed with her. In the past she's been a bit uncertain about being in my room, and especially in my bed, probably because it's a new bed, and she hasn't really been in the room that much because I'm not generally in there that much. But that's beside the point, yesterday she had gone to sleep next to me in bed, so it seemed like she was getting a bit more used to the room. We had a really good time after that, she had a couple of toys to play with, and kept on going after my sunglasses so I eventually put them on her which looked pretty groovy. After that she was starting to get tired again, which she quite often does in the morning, so we had some pretty awesome cuddles before she dozed off on the bed.

The funny thing with her sleeping is that she'll always find the seemingly most uncomfortable position to go to sleep in. She's not really interested in having her head of my pillow, with the duvet pulled up over her. She's much rather be spread horizontally across the bed (just to kick me out of it!), or as she was this morning, almost at the bottom of the bed on top of the duvet feet up against the wall. I guess she just likes her freedom!

Groovy Baby

At last.....
Now Playing: Three Doors Down - Father's Son
Quite interestingly the other day I was writing about how I still had about half my ethics approval form to fill in, and hoped that it wouldn't take as long as the first half did. Thankfully I pretty much completed it today, in hardly any time at all - mostly due to all the questions being along the lines of "will there be any human remains disturbed during your research?", which I guess would be applicable to someone studying archaeology, but really didn't have anything to do with my research luckily. I still need to fill out a few questions regarding how I'm going to handle the audio tapes which I will use during my interviews, but apart from that hopefully my ethics will be done. So that will be one part of what I need to get done before I head off to Canada in just over two weeks now. Of course that's the easier part of what needs to be done. I still need to write about another 8,000-10,000 words on my literature review. But I'm fairly confident that'll get done.

Anyway, enough about university.

As of tomorrow it's only two weeks until I leave for Canada. It's definitely starting to loom large in my mind, as last night I even dreamt about flying out. This is quite normal for me, as I remember the times when I was going to Australia I would dream about it quite a few weeks beforehand. Although things always get messed up a bit, for example last night I'm pretty sure that the flight was scheduled to leave at 7:30am while the actual flight leaves at 7:30pm. Also, for some reason we ended up in Australia rather than Canada. But hey, that's normal for me. One time I had a dream that the All Black were playing a rugby test in the lounge at my parents' house.

Just Another Day.....
Now Playing: Zero 7 - In The Waiting Line
The trials and tribulations of my cold.... well funnily enough the pattern continued today for me, in that I woke up feeling somewhat sick, yet at the same time completely different to both the previous two days. On Monday it was a sore throat and slighly feverish feeling, on Tuesday it was a really badly blocked nose and initially a rather sore stomach, and then today the blocked up nose continued, but the cough, which surprisingly hadn't reared its ugly head began to kick in. Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow morning feeling 100%, and although I shouldn't really be that optimistic in regards to feeling better, I have a funny feeling that something odd like that could well happen. It seems like the bug that I have caught is changing ever so quickly, on a daily basis in fact, that it'll just disappear pretty soon.

But anyway. Today as per usual I worked at the McDonald's Head Office. At one stage I thought about it, and I don't actually think that I've worked at my normal store since either the very end of February or the beginning of March. I think it was probably the first week of March, as I remember thinking that I was meant to be back at university, but was really just continuing the pattern of work that I had been doing for the previous few months beforehand. Anyway, since then I haven't worked in a 'proper' McDonald's store, which would make it by far my longest ever break from McDonald's since I started there back in January 2000. As I've mentioned before there are the positives and negatives to that, in that although it really is a pretty crap place to work, getting overworked and underpaid compared to my other employment opportunities, I do miss the people. I have had breaks in the past from McDs for a few weeks, either because of exams or overseas travel, but never anything this long. I know that when the time comes (which it inevitably will) for me to go back to Queen Street it's going to feel really weird. Already I'm completely behind the times as I don't know how to make any of the Deli Choices menu, which has now been out for a couple of months I think.

Just over two more weeks until I leave for Canada. It's very exciting, although as the time draws nearer there's a bit of a tinge of apprehension to it all, as it will by far be the longest that I will go without seeing Amalia for. I know that I'll miss her like crazy, and I just hope that doesn't detract too much from what should be a holiday of a lifetime.

Inevitability
Now Playing: Jack Johnson - Never Know
Ah yes it had to come. During the past couple of weeks it seems as though just about everyone I know has come down with the flu, or at least with a cold. It has seemed like an epidemic of sorts, all over the country classrooms have been emptied, offices abandoned and the like. Well maybe that's all a slight exaggeration, but it has seemed like just about everyone has got it, except for me.

Of course that had to change, yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat and straight away knew that my luck had run out. Of course that's developed into runny nose, sneezing, feeling all blocked up etc. etc., although luckily (touch wood) I haven't really got a fever yet, so it doesn't seem like it's the flu.

I have had a pretty unproductive last few days. Yesterday most of the day was spent cleaning, while today I wrote a little bit on my thesis, but nothing really that substantial. While staying at home is good in the way that I don't have to waste an hour and a half on the bus or walking to the bus, but it also generally means that I don't get that much done throughout the day. I mean sure there's 10 minutes of writing here, 20 minutes there, but not really the substantial 5-6 hour day that I really need to put in so that I can make some big inroads into what needs to be done. I have set myself the deadline of June 24th (when I leave for Canada) to get my literature review done as well as my ethics approval. This seems like plenty of time, as the literature review is perhaps almost half done (although I'm sure there will need to be lots of re-writing as I seem to repeat myself about 20 times), and the ethics committee thing that I need to fill out is also about half done. Although I'm not sure if the half that's complete is the easy half or the hard one, and it took 3-4 days of writing and thinking to even get that half done.

On a more positive note, we had a manager's dinner for work tonight which was pretty cool. Especially as I get the best of both worlds while not really having to work there (apart from a pretty cruisy day at head office on Wednesdays), but I'm still counted as a manager which means I get to go to the stylee events. For our dinner we went to the flash Observatory Restaurant, at the top of the Sky Tower. The food wasn't too bad, although compared to other buffet restaurants there wasn't an enormous choice. However, it seemed very high quality tasty food (they had a really nice salmon thing), and the desserts were good too. That's not even mentioning the view..... It was a pretty good, fun night. Good old stories were brought up, and a fun time was had by all.

Don't Feed Me! I Want To Feed Myself!
Now Playing: Jack Johnson - Do You Remember
Amalia seems to have decided that she doesn't want to be fed anymore. Whenever I make her up some food, and shove a spoon towards her mouth she starts shaking her head rapidly, keeps those lips of hers tightly shut and after a while tries to knock the spoon away with her hand. This is pretty unusual as she's normally been pretty keen on her food, eating pretty much everything and anything that's pointed in her direction.

But now she thinks that she's a big girl and can feed herself. Which is all good in one respect, as I can just put the food on a plate in front of her and just leave her to eat it all, but the problem is when the food is messy. Today she was given a bowl of yogurt mixed with cocoa pops, and a spoon to eat it all. 15 minutes later it was absolutely everywhere, seemingly except in her mouth. I don't think I've ever seen such a messy, sticky baby. It was straight into the bath as she was absolutely covered in the sticky mix. Oh well I guess on the bright side she enjoyed herself, and at least ate a little bit of it.

Wealth
Now Playing: The Getup Kids - Overdue
I went with my Dad to one of his client's places today on the way home from their place. My Dad is a landscape architect, designing and planting people's gardens, and other related plant stuff. Unsurprisingly, the people who can generally afford a landscape architect are fairly well off, and in the richer parts of Auckland. And so it was today, as we headed off to a place on probably the most expensive street in Auckland, overlooking the harbour and Rangitoto Island just beyond. The house had been built in the early 1980s, designed by a world-renowned architect, and still looked amazing today. It was pretty cool being inside a place like that, just admiring the design of the place, as well as the impressive view. The owners seemed like pretty cool people too, having made their millions through the bread business I think.

As we left, I mentioned to my Dad that once day when I make my million I'll buy that house. It just seemed so incredibly nice, swimming pool overlooking the amazing sea view, private beach at the bottom of the backyard, and an incredibly stylish house to live in. That is the life, although I am very sure that they earned every last cent of it, setting up a highly successful company and all. But it was nice to dream about it.....

Apart from that, I had a pretty boring day today. I spent far too many hours playing Sim City 4, although on the other hand I have created a couple of really cool cities. It has been really really cold in Auckland the last couple of days, but today we finally got some more wood and coal which has led to a very effective fire, and the somewhat surprising sensation of actually feeling a bit "too warm" after sitting for a few hours close to it. Talking about the effectiveness of our fire, gee it must have been a boring day!

Canada
Now Playing: Jem - 24
Well it's not really that far away now. 22 days from now and I'll be about a third of the way between Auckland and San Francisco, which is just a little over three weeks. This means that I'm actually starting to think about what I'll need to take, ensuring that I won't forget any of those important little things (like passport, iPod, socks etc.) Actually being in Canada still seems like a distant dream, and I don't know whether that will actually seem real until I step through the departure gate at the airport.

I guess the only disappointing thing about being in Canada when I am will be missing out on the bulk of the Lions rugby tour to New Zealand. Although I wouldn't be going to any of the matches, and may well be able to find a TV somewhere in Canada that shows the test matches, it's more the atmosphere of being in Auckland that week that I'm a bit annoyed about missing. Apparently roughly 20,000-30,000 Lions supporters will be descending on Auckland that week, not only to go and watch the game but also just the be there in Auckland to support their team. It would be a pretty insane week, especially at McDonald's which is right in the middle of the city and is therefore going to go crazy for the whole week. As I've mentioned in previous posts I was in Sydney when the Lions toured there back in 2001 and that was a pretty amazing atmosphere on the evening of the final test match.

But I guess I can't really complain. As I'll be enjoying the holiday of a lifetime.