Cash-flow

So... I started my travels abroad in early September. Y'know what else happened in September? The dollar lost a ton of its value. Here is a chart that shows how many Euros a dollar would buy over the past 120 days:

I know I am not in Europe, therefore the value of the dollar to the Euro isn't totally relevant to me, but it would have been annoying to put charts of the dollar against the shekle, the rupee, the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar, etc. and it is indicative of how the USD has been faring globally. It ain't pretty. Dammit!

One USD is currently buying about 0.65 Euros. Sweet Jesus. I need to go home. And I will. But first, Chile.
-Katie

Bye Dids!

You're leaving...
Gonna miss you.
Love,
Katie

Business

Here are the updates:
1. I got into graduate school, hooray! (That may mean bad news for all those reading this in Seattle...)

2. I left Rangiora for good a few days ago. I stayed there with (Pheonix's parents) Kate and Rob off and on since December. Who knows how they put up with my nonsense since then, but they did and with grace and generosity to boot. I know it doesn't suffice to just say thank you so thank you a lot. You guys rock. For real.

3. This is from a while ago, but it's... a pig that sits on command.

Hil.ar.i.ous. The video you just watched is of Lucy, a kuna kuna pig. She is in one word: horrific. Here's a close up:

See. Pheonix thinks she's cute. I think not.

4. All of you reading this already know I no longer look like this:

but you didn't know that I look like this:


see:
Heh heh.
To finish up the big news, I'm in Wellington and I'll be here until the 27th when I fly up to Auckland for a few days and say goodbye to Pheonix...
-Katie
Confidential to Lexi again: you're not allowed to comment on this post.

Couchsurfing

I finished WWOOFing a few days ago and now I'm back in Rangiora with Pheonix's parents. It's been kind of a slow week here, lots of rain, lots of planning for South America (gulp), and lots of eating Big Bikkies (again, gulp). Without any pressing moments of hilarity to report, I thought I would let you guys know about one of the ways Pheonix and I have been making our travels more kick ass and affordable:
Couchsurfing.

(Mom, Dad, don't freak out.) Basically we sleep on random peoples' couches around the world. We use individual accounts to search for cool people who live in the places we want to visit. Then, emails are sent, accounts are examined, more emails are sent, and then we meet, we hang out, and we sleep on their couch. (Note: we have yet to sleep on an actual couch. So far we've had big cozy beds in guest rooms. Hot.)
So, I get to meet rad people, learn about new places from people who live there, and keep things on the cheap. Um... yes, please.
Join right now and start offering your couch to people like me. For reals, it's way kick ass. Way.

-Katie

The Life of a WWOOFer

This:

is where I sleep.

This:

is what I eat.

This:

is what I drink. Right now. At 2:43pm. Ha ha.

-Katie
Oh, and to everyone who told me to cut my hair, I did, thanks for the help. The final straw was Lexi saying I looked like an Indigo Girl (confidential to Lexi: shut up and now we're in a fight).

This is fowl (hyuck hyuck)

Pheonix and I have been WWOOFing since the 26th and so far it's been a blast. We are staying with Tanya and Simon and their adorable two kids: Samantha and Thomas. They live on a 9 acre family farm in Nelson, NZ. We do chores to earn our room and board. One of our responsibilities is to help tend to the poultry, they have chickens, ducks, and turkeys. As we now intimately know, these birds are not just for egg production... they are for eatin' too!

Here are the happy alive birds...


I made a video of Tanya killing the two turkeys that we prepared for dinner, but it's a little too gruesome to put online. But, here's a pic of Phenoix plucking one of them. She was good, a little too good for a former militant vegan if you ask me, about plucking then gutting the turkeys. Here she is, looking ever so happy to be destroying life:

Plucking their warm bodies and taking their guts out and chopping their feet and wings was totally disturbing and much more difficult than I thought it would be, but dinner was delicious:


Then, we went back to the coup to play with the ones that were still alive. Look! Ducklings are adorable (these are dinner in a few months. Yum. Heh heh.)

-Katie

Road Trippin'

Phew, we made it. Pheonix and I went on a crazy two week adventure around New Zealand. It was incredible. This:

was our car. It was a loaner from a friend of Kate and Rob's. It drove like a dream and I even took a turn behind the wheel:

It was a terrifying few hours but I tried. And I will never do it again. I swear.

We ate most of our meals by pulling over to the side of the road and throwing together some kind of edible sandwich from the options inside the cooler. It wasn't bad, but there is a limit to the number of meat-log sandwiches one can consume in a week:
We also slept most nights in the back of the car and on a few occassions we couch surfed with people (more on that in a later post).

Fortunately, we were also able to enjoy and explore our surroundings outside of the car. Here we are in front of a random waterfall on the west coast. Hooray for 10 second timers!

[As some of you make have noticed (Ariana), I am in the middle of a hair crisis. Without any good ideas of my own (suggestions are welcome) I went for the tried and true option of a do-rag (bringin' it back from my field hockey days circa 1995). An unfortunate outcome is that I look like a stupid hippie now.]

Rest assured, New Zealand is gorgeous:

We saw glaciers and fiords (which I discovered are like sounds only carved by glaciers, not rivers) and sea lions and penguins and an albatross and jungles and ruins and sunsets and everything that you would want to see on a blog, but my camera is a little busted so this is all you get.
Here is the one wildlife picture that I wrangled from my camera. We swam in this crystal clear lake for a while and when we got out we saw a HUGE black eel:

We thought it was creepy at the time, but then we found out that they bite people. With big horrible teeth. The animal kingdom hates me. No joke.

-Katie
PS - Check out the poll to the right. This choice was a very real, daily struggle for us.

What would a torturous pest look like?

This:
Sand flies make it "challenging" to enjoy life on the Western coast of New Zealand. If Pheonix so chooses she can comment on how calm and collected I've been despite the DOZENS of bites I have on my feet, ankles, legs, and other butt-like places that are exposed when peeing in the woods.
I hate sandflies and they hate me - but they are winning the war!
AAAARRRRGGGGG!
-Katie

Kiwi-an News

It's the New Year. Whoa. Let's hope 2008 continues to kick as much ass as 2007. So, I guess 2008 is the year of "keepin' it up." Ha-ay.

Lately, Pheonix (otherwise known as P.Diddy, Pids, Dids, Phx or Dune) and I have been hanging out in the small New Zealand town of Rangiora which is home to Phx's parents.

Group photo:


Kate and Rob (the 'rents) are awesome and somehow they know everyone in this town. The other day this old guy showed up at their door wanting to give me and Dids a tour of the town in his old car. Who is this guy? Eric. He's just a friend of the family. um... Rad! So, we got into his car and drove around Rangiora. He took us to his friend's house who also has old cars and we then went for a drive with him, too!

It was totally fun:


We've done some other things, too.
Like, we went to the ocean:


We visited the itty-bitty town (pop. 650!) of Oxford:


For all you landscape lovers(?), here is an example of the amazing New Zealand scenery:


Oh and get this: Kate and Rob have friends who agreed to lend us a car for two weeks to travel around the southern New Zealand island! So, we're leaving tomorrow to go on a two week adventure to see fiords (whatever they are), penguins, and more cute New Zealand towns. 2008 is already keepin' up the ass kicking that defined 2007. Sweet.

-Katie

New Zealand Decembers

This is how I spent the last few days. How's the weather in the states these days? Bahahahaha!


Kisses!
-Katie

(For the people who want the deets, the picture is of me, Pheonix, and Pheonix's Dad [Rob] jumping off a dock into Akaroa harbor.)