Job till Christmas
So the engineering company that I was temping for over the last two weeks have now asked me to stay on until Christmas to cover maternity leave for someone in another department... sweet! I start that role tomorrow and I'll be sort of trained in for two weeks before the woman goes on her leave and after that, I'll be left to my own devices.
I'm well chuffed with that because I've gotten to like the people here and it's really convenient to get to from home, just a five minute drive. I might even walk it in the summer. Mind you, I said that when I was in UL and it never happened!
In other news, I had my first ever surfing lesson last Sunday morning at 9am. I thought I would be freezing (it is winter over here, after all), but the wetsuit and booties and gloves and hood meant that I was actually toasty warm... big surprise to me I can tell you. I managed to talk one of the girls from work into coming along too and we both enjoyed it so much that we're going again this weekend and we're dragging another girl along with us.
Winter eh?
I went to the beach today to have a look around. Thoses kiwis had me fooled you know, I thought they meant it when they said it was winter over here. But today, in August (our equivalent of Feb/Mar) the sun was shining, the temperature was19-20 degrees and I was too warm in my jeans (yet in the interest of decency I kept them on). Madness! Starting to worry if I might actually melt in summer at this rate! Unfortunately, my camera decided it didn't want to work today (I put manners on it when I got home), so I've no photos. But it was really nice and I'll be there again, so there'll be pictures posted here. I promise :)
Got me a job!
Taa daa!! I got a job... well, sort of. It's just a temping for two weeks covering someone's holidays, but it's better than a kick in the teeth (so I'm told). I'm working in the accounting department of a large engineering firm and it's just like I'm back in Boston Scientific spending the entire day with my good friend, Microsoft Excel. Still though, it'll pay the bills and it'll help me get other placements when I've got a wee bit of experience behind me.
My new flatmate, Maggie cooked us all dinner this evening. She's just started seeing a guy called Carl (or maybe it's Karl) and she was making dinner for him so Michaela (or "Macca as she prefers to be known) and I got fed too.... sweet! Long may it continue...
I reckon I'll head to the beach this weekend for a look. Christchurch is pretty much on the seashore, but I'm living the opposite side of the city. Still though, the city seems to be pretty easy to get around. For example, I gave myself half an hour to get to work this morning. It being my first morning, I didn't want to be late. I was 27 minutes early...
Keep the e-mails coming folks, it's really lovely to hear from everyone. I'm not too homesick yet, but it's best not to take risks so you should all keep in touch ;)
TTFN :)
Comments
Ok, I give in, I'll turn anonymous commenting back on. But remember it's bad manners not to let me know who you are. And I don't
like bad-mannered people. (You can't see me, but I'm frowning at you. Yes, you, Dave.)
Return to San Francisco
So after we returned to San Francisco, there were a few more touristy things left to do. Such as a visit to Lombard St, the crookedest street in San Francisco:
What I really was chuffed about was that, even though I missed them when they came to Waterford, I got to see some of the Tall Ships in San Francisco: 
So that's the last of my California posts. It's now 3:45pm and I've been here since 10:00am, uploading pictures, writing posts. I hope you all enjoy them and remember to leave plenty of comments (with your real name please and thank you very much!) We had a fantastic holiday and it was a great way to start off my trip around the world!!
I'll keep posting on events in New Zealand, still no job yet, but I'll let you all know when I get sorted :)
Napa (or Crapa Napa)
Our last stop on our week-long tour of California was the wine country of Napa Valley. The further up the valley you go, the more expensive accommodation becomes, so we stayed in Napa at the South end of the valley. There's a reason it's cheaper
It's Shite
So the following day we made our way to Calistoga where we saw one of the Old Faithful geysers. On average, the geyser errupts every 40 minutes throughout the year. Spewing boiling water and steam two hundred feet into the air.
Then we went to see a petriefied forest. This is where a forest was knocked down by lava flowing from a volcano. Over the millenia, the trees turned to silicone through a process of petrification. What you see in this picture looks like wood, has the texture of wood, even has growth rings and once upon a time it
was wood, but now it's stone
The following day was our last day with the car, so here's a photo of the Chevy Malibu that was my baby for a week, outside our motel in Crapa Napa
Coulterville, CA
Well guys, Coulterville was where we stayed while visiting Yosemite. The first thing we had to do was get there and this involved driving this road:
Cheryl, the owner of the hotel, said that she's had people show up white with fear from driving that road...
When we got to Coulterville, we thought we'd stepped into a set from Maverick: 
Here are some pictures of the Hotel we stayed in and here's the link of the review I wrote for trip advisor.com: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g32257-d76678-r3725412-Jeffery-Coulterville_California.html Also, here's the link to their website where you can learn all about the ghosts that haunt the hotel www.hoteljefferygold.com 
The Sierra Nevada - Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
On Thursday the 21st of July, we left San Francisco to travel around California a bit. We got a bus to Fresno and then rented a car so we could see some of the National Parks. The first place we went was a town called Three Rivers just south of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. In these parks, the largest living things are to be found; giant sequoias. While some redwood trees grow taller, in terms of volume, this tree here; General Sherman, is the largest living thing on earth. It just wasn't possible to fit the entire tree into one shot, so I took two:
The size and beauty of these trees just isn't possible to capture on camera. It's really difficult to understand how trees of this size can grow in a place that's just a few miles away from desert and scrubland. Absolutely amazing. Here's a picture of me beside a fallen Sequoia. This tree has been hollowed out over the years and it's actually possible to walk through the tree... pretty cool, I thought:
The driving in the Sierras could be pretty hairy at times; 10 mile an hour hairpins with sheer drop offs can take it out of you! Here's an example of the type of roads I had to drive. Note that the road I've just switched back on is immediately below me as I take the photo:
We spent two nights in Three Rivers, allowing us only one full day in the Parks, but we took plenty of photos to make up for the lack of time. Here are just a few:
For more information on these national parks and the sequoias, see http://www.nps.gov/seki/
San Francisco Giants Baseball Game
In a fit of "All-Americaness", Siobhan and I went to a baseball game on Wednesday the 20th of July. It was a really nice day, perfect for a day at the ballpark!
The game is actually pretty slow going... pitch, strike, pitch, ball, pitch, ball, pitch strike, pitch strike, next batter and so on and so forth. It only gets going when a batter actually hits the ball (surprising how infrequent that is actually) and then it's all action for about 5-10 seconds while the batter runs around the bases and the fielders get the ball back to stop him making a home-run. The local team in San Francisco are the SF Giants so we were, of course, supporting them.... that could be why they lost :(
Their website is
www.sfgiants.com if you'd like to take a look. In the meantime, here's some photos from the game (we had to be careful not to call it a
match..... it's a
ball game). 
San Francisco Continued. Bay sailing and Alcratraz
Tuesday the 19th of July, we went on a sailing trip around San Francisco Bay. The weather wasn't great. In fact I had to wear my ski type jacket that I only had with me 'cos I was heading for winter in New Zealand! The photos aren't great 'cos of the visibility, but the experience was fantastic. The boat was a catamaran and was called the Sea Cat Adventurer.
That afternoon, we went to Alcatraz and had an audio tour of the cell house. It was really interesting and you can really feel what a cold and miserable and damp place it would be to be incarcerated in. What I found fascinating was the the prison officers and their families used to live on the Island just down from the cell house. The children took a boat into San Francisco every day to go to school (it's only about 10-15 minutes) and the families used never lock their doors. They felt they lived in a very safe place since all the criminals there were securely locked away.
Also interesting (and news to me) was the fact that, in 1969, a group of Native Americans took over the island in protest to their treatment by the US government at the time. The occupation lasted until 1971 and eventually, the government policies of trying to disband all Navtive American tribes was discontinued. You can read more about alcratraz at
http://www.nps.gov/alcatraz/ if you're interested
Sunny (and cloudy and windy and rainy and foggy and COLD) San Francisco!
Well finally I get around to some posts about San Francisco. Siobhan and I arrived on the 14th of July at about 11pm local time and promptly fell into bed in our travelodge by the airport. The next day we went to our hostel on Mission st which was our main base in California. It was a really nice hostel, with a bus stop literally just outside the door for easy touring around the city. Their website is
www.elementssfcom if any of you would like to take a look. There's a bar/restaruant on the rooftop terrace which we made use of while we were there. Here's a view from there in the morning, with the fog rolling in from the Pacific.
So our first day was spent mostly at Fisherman's Wharf. We got there by cable car
and we looked at all the sights and went to see the acquarium. And look.... I found Nimo...! 
They also let you touch some of the fish and being the big brave type, I touched one of these:
and one of these:
So when you're at Fisherman's Wharf, there's loads of touristy things to see and do. Every second shop is a souviner shop and in between them there are seafood restaurants, take aways, cafes and so on.... Pier39 is the major attraction and you can check out what's available there at www.pier39.com . There's plenty to take photos of too... so I did. This one is of Alcatraz with one of the boats from the Blue and Gold fleet in the foreground. These are the only boats that actually go to the island and you can get a guided tour around the prison too.
This is one of the Sea Lions that stays at pier 39. The Sea Lions haven't always lived here. They arrived shortly after an earthquake in 1989 and have been there ever since. In winter, there can be up to 900 of them at the pier. In summer, most of them migrate, but there is a population that stay there year round.
On the Sunday, we went to see Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco, founded in 1776. This is the mission that the city was founded on and was one of the few buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake. See http://www.sfmission.com/sfbirthplace/ for a wee bit more info and history.
Later that day, we went to see the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was very very foggy there, so I didn't get any great photos, as you can see:
Here's a crazy surfer under Golden Gate Bridge:
Monday was our alleged shopping day, but we discovered that a lot of the small, interesting shops were closed that day for some reason, so not so much shopping was done.
This post is getting a bit long now, so I think I'll start another one...
