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November 24, 2006

15 Minutes Walk

To pay tribute to my 5 minutes walk to work in Leijonakaupunki, I think it is appropriate to document my 15 minutes walk to work in New Zealand.

No kidding, it really looks like that. The path to work goes along the beautiful Oakly Creek. It looks extremely rural, but it is quite in the middle of town, not far from one of the main traffic arteries in Auckland. I'm just so extremely lucky to be able to walk to work in the forest, instead of sitting in a car or swallowing exhaust fumes walking by the main road.

Nicoletta, my colleague grew up in the area and she said her friends would come swimming in the waterfall (they'd even jump down the waterfall!) And you could catch eels in this creek and actually eat them! There are still huge eels in the water, but this creek is just in the middle of Auckland, - I would be very doubtful about eating anything that breeds in this water.. How much of poluted water they must have swallowed!?!?

Otherwise, we're completely settled in our house in Avondale. The misery of living in the dark cold tiny house in Titirangi is all forgotten (its only been a week and a half!!!) Actually this starts feeling like living, not like settling down anymore! We still have to get a bigger fridge and some stuff for the house, but our worries are reduced by some 90%. It feels like its time to get some hobbies, start some projects and actually live, instead of sorting things out.

Going to parties is a part of "living" as opposed to "sorting things out" too. I was grabbed along to this one by Nicoletta, my colleague. It was fun! We don't know many people here yet, but it is Xmas season here (all sorts of pikkujoulut here are twice as joyous, as it is summer here.) BBQs abound, just walk down any street on Friday or Saturday night and you'll definitely smell some burnt (sorry, BBQed) meat, hear popping of wine bottles being opened (except that probably you won't hear popping, as most of wine bottles here have screwcaps! Supposed to be so much better than corks! That was a bit of a shock for us when we were travelling here in April, but now we're very used to that! More convenient and the wine doesn't get spoiled by bacteria and oxygen!!!), happy chattering of people on every terrace.

Depending on your social circle, you may be invited to parties (or have parties at your home) all the time through December. We have just 3-5 lined up at the moment, but imagine if you were local?!?! Parties every night!?! Thats what I call "living" :) !!!

And Kaj, obviously, manages to squeeze in at least one surf session for each weekend! Last weekend we went North to Te Arau Point. This is East Coast and there's usually no swell, unless there's a storm in Pacific Ocean. Once you get waves there, they're very beautiful and clean, not like the messy West Coast.

The sand is clean and white, not black, as on the West Coast. Pretty amazing beach. Kaj is most likely going there again this weekend. I may give it a miss, as there are no surfboard rentals around and I don't have a surfboard, so its pretty boring to paddle on a boogie board. And the water on the East Coast is extremely cold. I wonder, if its because of icebergs that are passing by 100km from the shore at South Island?!?!

Posted by gkligyte at November 24, 2006 09:31 PM
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