Thanksgiving in Photos: Reverse Order

Lewis and Jamie, the Scottish boys, playing Jen's fork game.


Our Thanksgiving table.

Taking our seats.

My first ever attempt at a roasted turkey! Looks pretty swell, eh? Eh?

The ladies. (Us, Holly, Sky.)


Jony and his delicious empanadas.

One of the chocolate turkeys mom mailed me. :)

One of Jen's AMAZING apple pies.

Jamie, assisting to pick turkey bits up off the floor.

Dan was very amused by the pieces of apple peel.

TURKEY ON THE LOOSE!



And Jen was frustrated by the lack of a rolling pin. We completed the entire meal without measuring spoons, measuring cups, rolling pins, or turkey thermometers.

Happy Thanksgiving - From Liz!

Back at home, you're all probably settling down to dinners right about now; for us, we celebrated Thanksgiving last night. It's 9:30 Friday morning and I'm sitting outside in the sun and the warmth, drinking my hot cocoa and thinking about everyone back home. I just finished skyping with my household as a beautiful, rowdy whole: mom and dad, brother, grandma and grandpa, aunt kathy, andrew berry, the whole lot of applegates, aunt linda and uncle gino and olivia, ted, and assorted neighbors and cats. I miss you all so much. I have to admit - as we were saying our goodbyes, there were a few tears in my eyes.

Jen was right; it's difficult explaining to people from other countries just what Thanksgiving is all about. To them, it's just another excuse for Americans to stuff their faces. Admittedly, that's part of it. But trying to explain to our new friends why we missed our families so much yesterday, and how important it was that we all get together for a big dinner last night, was hard to do. I tried to put into words the beauty of having everyone come together, driving up out of the cold and bursting through the door with plates of pies and bowls of salads; the sweetness of waking up that morning in the warm, clean house that already smells like pumpkin and pecan pies, surrounded by your nearest and dearest. I tried to explain how no, nothing much HAPPENS - not unless you count braving the weather outside to throw around a football or frisbee or wrestle in the fallen leaves, or teaching your relatives new games, or sitting around for hours with slice after slice of pie and a big mug of coffee, talking about everything under the sun. They could, at least, get the joy of having everyone you most love gathered around one swollen table, all together for one giant feast - that, I think, is a universal, timeless joy.

So yesterday Jen and I planned and cooked and set tables and drew up name cards and tried to make everything perfect. We wanted to capture the feel and taste and sounds of home. Everyone at the hostel scrambled around and tried to help. There was a trio peeling potatoes in a line in the communal kitchen; a pair slicing apples for the pies; Jamie helping pick pieces of onion and garlic off the floor when the turkey literally shot out of the oven after only thirty minutes inside of it (shhh - we stuffed it back into its cozy roasting pan, shoved it back into the oven, and it tasted fine, honestly.) Everything seemed different though (Jony was downstairs making empanadas, Stefan was whining about things between "too American," and everyone kept asking if they should bring vodka or rum, like we were all going to get drunk at dinner) and Jen and I worried that Thanksgiving would be far, far too different than how we wanted it to be.

But dinner was finished (everything, remarkably, done on time and smelling delicious), and everyone (twelve of us) crowded around the table, and I read a Thanksgiving poem, and we went around the table giving thanks, and somehow it all came together. Sitting there, in Jack's warm apartment that smelled like sage and onion and turkey and empanadas and apfel strudel, with our new friends grinning widely all around us, it really felt like Thanksgiving. I missed my family and friends back home - all of you - with a tear-drawing vengeance, but being here was remarkable as well.

There's something about turkeys - even 8 lb, $50, dropped on the floor ones - that just brings people together, I guess.

But as Thanksgiving draws to a close for everyone back home, I just want you all to know that I'm so grateful to have you in my life, even when you're so far away from me. I miss you incredibly, and I love you so much. Eat some leftovers for me - we sure as heck don't have any.

I love you,
Liz

Happy Thanksgiving - from Jen

It’s Thanksgiving here!

Liz and I are up early, starting to do all of the baking for the big dinner tonight and planning. In the true spirit of Thanksgiving, our guest list keeps getting bigger and bigger. This is all nice, BUT WE’RE NOT GOING TO HAVE ENOUGH FOOD! (Well, we will. Liz and I just need to run out and get a few more cans of corn, more green beans, more potatoes, more….shoot. More everything, actually!) And as I was making the pie dough this morning (without measuring cups and measuring spoons – ah!!!), I kept thinking of everyone back home.

Here, everyone we hang out with is not from the U.S. And in the past few weeks, while inviting people to our meal, we’ve been explaining the history of Thanksgiving and the importance of sitting around the table with good family and friends.

And so, while making the pies, I kept thinking of this and the importance of friends and family and laughing and telling jokes and making jabs and doing the MOUNTAINS of dishes afterwards and watching cousins step on the scales before and after dinner and eating ridiculous amounts of food that are actually cold because by the time EVERYONE has prayed it’s about 20 minutes later and playing the fork game and trying to beat your uncles at euchre while eating your third helping of pie that you realized halfway in is shoot, probably the gluten/soybean/corn free pie and pretending to MAYBE care about the football game that's on tv that the Lions are probably losing again anyways and crap, how is Uncle Tony STILL eating, and HOW in the WORLD do we ALWAYS bring so much more regular kielbasa than smoked kielbasa, and oh man, people are still doing the dishes?! 

Oh, crap. Now I’m like, super emotional.

ANYWAYS. Back at home, you kind of take the big family for granted. 

So I hope everyone back home truly appreciates Thanksgiving (your tomorrow!). It’s super cheesy saying that you don’t really appreciate something until you don’t have it, but it’s true. It really is.

I hope you all know how much you mean to me.

GIANT HUGS – ALL AROUND,

jen

A Brief Photo Update

When rolling down the giant umbrellas at the Swiss Cafe, the handle got loose and whacked poor Jen in the chin. She now has a nasty bruise that is, awesomely enough, kind of shaped like New Zealand.

Here I am, enjoying a cider on the deck at New Zealand's oldest hotel and bar.

Jen on the shore at Russell, looking out over the Bay.

These are the falls in Whangarei that Jen and I both visited recently (albeit on separate occasions.)


And here is Jen and I with Fio, before going out on Fio's last night in New Zealand. She's now back in Peru, and we miss that happy, bubbly part of the Centabay Family very much.

Russell, Turkeys, and Immer Turmoil

I haven’t said anything about this on here yet, but I have some problems with life here in New Zealand, and a lot of days I’m not very happy. It’s very difficult for me to not have some kind of challenging, productive work, whether it’s a job or just classes I’m taking. Waitressing and cleaning don’t require any of the skills or knowledge I picked up while earning my degree, and I have little or no accomplishments here to celebrate or feel proud of. I’m not contributing or taxing myself – and without a car, and little money and free time, even simple adventures require immense planning. I just feel a bit selfish and lazy. To make it worse, most of the people I’m surrounded by are perpetual traveler types who seem to think money exists only to turn into booze; they’re all people who make fun of me if I bring up something that I find fascinating (and they find overly academic. )

It’s all pushed me into a restless, antsy, rather depressed state of mind, and I’m still considering coming back to the States early, to begin again a job or education where I’m using my brain and in some way contributing to the world. I’ve certainly learned that I’d be a horrible perpetual traveler. I still don’t know what my plans will be – if I’ll come back early or stick it out here – but of course I’ll keep our awesome readers posted. : )

None of this is to say that I don’t have some amazing times here,

or that I don’t love our “Centabay Family,” or that I’m not learning about myself and life by coming here, because of all of that is true. For example, yesterday Jen and I had an expedition to quaint and picturesque Russell, on the other side of the Bay, (the site of New Zealand’s original capital) where we explored the country’s first church and had a beer at the oldest hotel, which proudly holds liquor license numero uno.

We are also currently planning our Thanksgiving. We want everything to be perfect, as we’re inviting our entire hostel family to dinner, and none of them have ever experienced a Thanksgiving before. This, we’re discovering, is a very expensive endeavor. I don’t even want to tell you how much we spent at the supermarket today. Good news, though: our boss Kelly at the Swiss Café has found us a 10 lb turkey! Wish the two vegetarians good luck with roasting it…tips are appreciated.

Would You Rather Be Deaf or Blind?

Our housemate/coworker Jonny, the goofy and vivacious Argentian, is currently reading a Spanish novel about a world in which everyone goes blind, which provoked a debate during cleaning this morning about which sense would suck the most to lose. Specifically, Jen and Jonny went around asking everyone which they would rather be, blind or deaf, with everyone answering deaf except for Jen.*

Jonny decided an experiment was in order. One day, we’d all go blindfolded; the next day, everyone would block their ears. So today, as the last load of laundry dinged its end, when all of the beds were made, the bathrooms cleaned, the kitchen mopped, Jen gathered up a collection of scarves from our room and we all tied them around our heads. We were suddenly a room of the blind.

It lasted an hour (at least for Jen and I it did, as we were the last ones to hang on.) Folding the last load of laundry and hanging it out on the line became a fascinatingly difficult task. I felt wildly triumphant when I got my first clothespin on. Afterwards we all managed, slowly, and feeling the handrail, to make our way up the stairs and into the office for coffee time, where Jack informed us that someone needed to go for biscuits.

“I’ll go!” Jonny said.

“I’ll come,” Lewis added, “But we need a guide.”

“Yeah, Holly, you’re not blindfolded, right?” I asked. “Come with us and we’ll all go.”

So Holly, laughing, led Jonny, Lewis, and I out of the office, down the stairs, down the long driveway, and through town to the grocery store. The task was made more difficult by the fact that Holly, a Peruvian and native Spanish speaker, had her lefts and rights confused, so that she would yell, “Lewis! Left!” and he’d plow head first into the wall of a building he’d been getting close to. But eventually, slightly bruised, we made it to Four Square, the closest mini supermarket. Deciding that the clumsy train we’d been traveling in would be dangerous to the shelf displays, Holly left Jonny, Lewis, and I in a shy huddle near the door. “Stay here,” she said firmly, and we heard her footsteps walking away.

It’s amazing how timid you feel when you can’t see anything. We stayed very still, nervously waving our arms about at any nearby sound. Already things seemed louder than usual; the world had become a sea of scents and sounds. We could smell the bakery next door, the perfume of every woman in the store.

Finally Holly came back. “I have the biscuits,” she proclaimed. “Ready to go?”

“Let’s try to find our way out by ourselves,” Jonny suggested, and gamely moved away from Lewis and I. A moment later, we heard a scuffle. “Excuse me,” said a deep, old man voice. Jonny slid back to the huddle. “That’s not the way,” he whispered.

“I’ll pay,” Holly said. “Just wait for me, okay?”

We made our way back eventually, running nervously across what Holly told us was the street, feeling barefoot over the grass, gingerly walking up the stairs, finding empty chairs around the coffee table. After pouring our coffees though, and scooping biscuits from the bag, we took our scarves off one by one. Jen and I were last to give in, but finally the desire to see was too much. When we pulled them down, the sunlight, even today, which is hazy and rainy, was painful and almost as blinding as the scarves had been.

“Ahhh,” we cried, holding up our hands. “It’s horrible.”

Our eyes adjusted, though, and we felt the simple delightful convenience of being able to reach exactly to whatever we wanted and look into the eyes of who we were speaking to.

Tomorrow: we’re all deaf.



*Sight and hearing are always the senses that seem the worst to lose, and the ones everyone is most afraid of lacking, but I think it’s just because they’re the ones human tend to lose more often. They seem worse because losing them seems so scarily possible. Imagine a world without being able to feel a clean silk sheet or someone’s hand in yours, or a world where everything you put in your mouth tasted like air. It would be horrible. Curiously, our English friend here, Dan, does not have a sense of smell. He’s the one who doesn’t like showers, remember, and when we go into his room we almost puke, while he finds nothing wrong with it. He was born without being able to smell. He likes spicy food and doesn’t care if he buys girl or guy deodorant or shampoo.

It's....New Zealand.

About a week ago, I received a phone call from a schoolteacher who had found my purse! She found my purse in a toilet a few miles away from the carpark. All of the kids on the bus used the toilets and afterwards she checked the toilets and found my bag, thinking it was one of the kid's. No one claimed it and so she looked inside, found my empty prescription, called the Paihia pharmacy, got my address from the pharmacy, looked up the phone number for 27 Selwyn Rd, and then called the hostel! SO NICE! (But talk about lack of patient privacy!) She offered to drop off the purse at the Whangerei police office.

On Tuesday, I went down to Auckland for my appointment at the US Consulate Office Wednesday morning.  On the way, I stopped at Whangerei to pick up my purse….or so I thought.

First. Backtrack to my FIRST experience with the New Zealand police system. When we found the broken car window, popped trunk, and missing purse (and i-pods), we called the national police system and reported the crime. The report was given a national number and brief details were taken. We were then instructed to go into a local police office to give more details and to pick up a copy of the police report that we could show insurance companies, the American embassy, and whoever else was interested in the crime.

We stopped at a small police station on the way back to Paihia around 6:00pm. The lights in the building were on and there were two cars in the carpark, but no one answered our knocks on the door.

Ok. We decided to go to our good ol’ local police station in Paihia. Arriving around 7:15 pm, we found a notice on the door. “The police station is closed. In an emergency, please call the constable at xxx-xxxx. However, please do not disturb the constable because he may be at home.” (Side note: “may be” was actually spelled “maybe”. All of NZ sucks at grammar. No joke.)

I guess I don’t have much to compare to. I’ve never had to go into a police station in the US to report a crime. But for some reason, I have this idea that a police station is always open.  Is that true? Does anyone have any idea until what time most US police stations are open?

Fast forward to yesterday.

I walked in to the police station in Whangerei, explained the situation, and the man behind the desk apologized and said that the woman who had the keys to the lost and found was out to lunch.

I was a bit shocked that the keys to A PART OF THE POLICE OFFICE were OUT TO LUNCH.

Alright. No matter. I ended up going a bit out of town to the waterfalls Liz mentioned in a previous post and eating a picnic lunch there.  It was beautiful.

Right. So we returned to the police station after an hour, plenty of time for the lost and found keys to have enjoyed a cheeseburger at McDonalds.

I walked in and re-explained the situation, this time to a man who looked Japanese and whose first language was definitely not English.

He went back to the tiny lost and found pile of envelopes and letters. I watched from behind the glass, growing more frustrated, knowing that my, “rather large, burgundy, over the shoulder purse” (complete with hand gestures), was in NO WAY in the small pile of envelopes.

After about five minutes of searching, the man returned empty handed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not there.”

Obviously.

I RE-EXPLAINED what was missing.

“Oh!” The man exclaimed. “The lady with the keys for THAT lost and found is gone for the day. Come back tomorrow morning.”

“WHAT?!”

By this time, I was furious.  I had to be in Auckland, about 3 hours AWAY from Whangerei, in the morning. Also, there was also no physical way I could be back to Whangerei from my appointment in Auckland by the time the police office closed.

The police officer wrote down a phone number on a piece of paper and passed it under the glass. “Next time,” he said, “Call this number before you come in to make sure that she is here.”

After venting my frustrations to the man behind the glass, I stormed out of the police office, phone number in hand and trying really hard not to cry. I had SO been looking forward to getting my purse back, to getting back to having my little stones that I carry, the pictures I have with me, the blessed medals and cards in the pocket of my purse, the connections I have to everyone back home.  Plus, Whangerei is about an hour away from Paihia; it’s VERY hard to just travel to Whangerei when the bus only goes twice a day, I don’t own a car, and I have to clean practically every morning.  Grrrrrrrrr…..

But! Auckland was awesome. It’s definitely not the most beautiful, nor oldest city in the world…..but they have a great maritime museum! I was honestly expecting to be bored out of my SKULL, but I did learn a lot about Mauri’s culture and New Zealand’s water history.

And the US consulate appointment went by – no sweat! Everyone was very nice and helpful and I should be the owner of a new passport within a week.