May 2nd-11th, 2008Written by : Jose Paez / Yvonne Bennett-Paez
First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Jose Paez. My wife is Yvonne Bennett. We’re the folks who flew out to New Zealand to witness Susan & Brian’s wedding. I think it was the last night of our trip when Susan & Brian asked us to write the New Zealand portion of their blog. Ah yes, it’s all coming back to me…..
It was May 10th late in the evening, say 1 AM . We’re in Auckland . Just the four of us, and yeah, we’ve had a few drinks, we’re a little “liquored up” and okay, okay, I’m hungry for some donuts…some Dunkin’ Donuts to be exact. And that’s exactly what I did. I went and bought a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts at 1AM in downtown Auckland .
We had just finished our dinner at a Mediterranean spot that served Lebanese nachos (say what?), incredibly small portions of naan (bread), and nope they couldn’t sit us inside although there were plenty of tables. But who cares, it was our last night in New Zealand baby! I splurge and buy a $38 dollar bottle of Pinot Noir. Woh! Did I spend that much?!?! “Did I do that?” (That’s Erkel.) We love Susan and Brian, or “Su-Bri” as we often referred to them during our trip. That’s a lie. We never called them that. And so now you know that I will make things up during this blog, but I’ll always let you know when I’m doing so. Capiche?
Before our nice meal, ironically enough, Brian was brave enough to smoke a cigar with me. I’d smuggled…err…brought the cigars from the US , as a manly man way to celebrate his matrimony. One thing about the cigars was that they were at least 3 years old. I kept them in a box in my garage. But hey, I really like Brian, so I pulled out all the stops. When I first bit into my cigar a whole big chunk of it broke off into my mouth…it literally disintegrated. Still smokable! And that’s what we did. We walked a few blocks puffing away on our cigars, choking, spitting, coughing, cursing, feeling nauseas, doing god knows what kind of irreparable damage to our lungs, but all the while we’re smiling.
Hours before I brought out the cigars, while we were in our hotel room, I had mentioned to Yvonne the following words…“This has been a great trip. Don’t ya think?” Yvonne slapped me in the face and kicked my shins. That didn’t happen. She said, “Yes my love-god. I agree wholeheartedly.” We then reminisced about just how quickly our trip had gone by.
It all started on May 2nd, when Yvonne and I boarded a plane in Los Angeles . I was happy because the airline was Quantas, and I recalled from the movie Rainman, that Quantas airlines had the fewest crashes than any other airline. No need for the Xananx on this trip. Plus, each head rest has it’s own video screen with literally tons of entertainment options. I watched 3 films on a 12 hour flight. Awesome. One word of advice though, the vegetarian option on these flights should always remain an option, as in a last option. Whew…that was rough.
We landed in Auckland at 4 AM on Sunday May 4th. Say what? You heard right. Yvonne and I flew into the future. Back in the US it was still Saturday. We lost a day with the flight. But it’s all good (3 movies in 12 hours!!). At the airport, we exchanged some cash, got some coffee or a “Long Black.” We also got a nice little piece of cake to share. We watched TV in the airport, and saw a Maori actor from the movie “Samoan Wedding.” Haven’t seen that flick? Nextflix it, baby.
We took another plane to Christchurch (which is in the South Island ). There, for the first time in over a year, we saw Susan and Brian! Unbelievable. There they were. We’d heard about their incredible journey, we’d seen the photos, watched the videos, talked to them on skype, but to actually see them…too cool.
Seriously, it was really a cool experience getting picked up at the airport by Susan and Brian. Our first experience of New Zealand suburbs, Brian driving on the right side, and very well I may add. He only got us into 5 “near misses” in the 10 minute drive to our hotel. Just kidding Brian.
We got to our hotel which was called Hotel SO, which is about as hip (and small) as you can get. Think Ikea furniture, Euro chic fashion, all set up in the most efficient use of space we’ve ever seen. Parts of it were like a scene out of Sleeper. I was looking for the “orb.”
We had breakfast at an ultra hip sorta spot. The food was delicious. But more than that, it was really cool to hang with Susan and Brian and hear about their trip. It’s really hard to imagine doing all the things they’ve done. They’re like me heroes or something.
The rest of the day we spent driving around, getting a glimpse of beautiful landscapes, tons of sheep, and really really fit looking people. At night, we got all “dolled up” to celebrate bachelor and bachelorette night! Wooo hooo! Party!!! Yeah! Except, there was no one in town. Literally. We went to a bar, and we were the only people in there. Who cares. We had a few drinks, laughed, and hey, they had a small jazz trio playing a cover of “Song 2” from Blur.
The next day was the big day. The wedding day. So cool. Yvonne and I are really lucky to be here with Susan and Brian. This is too cool. Who gets to get married in New Zealand ?
Yvonne and I got married in Reseda, Ca. Reseda is just like Christchurch , except it has zero free-roaming sheep. Also, Reseda had more Mexicans than all of New Zealand combined. So there.
The wedding ceremony was short and sweet. Susan looked beautiful and Brian looked sharp. We played paparazzi. We also got teary eyed and choked up. Oh yeah, and Brian’s sister was on the phone listening to the whole thing! That was cool.
We drove to the botanical gardens and took more photos. I’m saying, Yvonne and I could start a business! Tell us what exotic country you’d like to get married in, will fly out there and take pictures of you, and then you can give us some food or something.
You know what else is cool about Susan and Brian? They’ve got great smiles. All their pictures look terrific. Serious.
We had an unbelievably tasty dinner at a very cool restaurant. Lucky us. We appreciated every moment there. By the end of the evening, we were wiped out. What a day though.
Tuesday in Christchurch , and we’re hitting the road. We drive through Arthur’s Pass, we see more and more and more stunning landscapes. New Zealand is really pretty. Here’s a list of things we did (in no particular order):
·Checked out a possible hotel that looked like the kind of place teenagers go in the summer before they get killed by Jason or Michael Myers.
·Saw kiwi’s (the birds) in Otorahunga (say it like it’s spelled…now you’re speaking New Zealandese).
·Ate great food everywhere. Highlight: Free hot chocolate pudding cake with Vanilla ice cream…..ooohh dat wuz good.
·Wine tasting in Nelson!
·Ferry ride from Picton to Wellington ! No one got sea sick, although Brian had a pounding headache and I was nervous our boat would sink at some point.
·I went to the oldest music store in New Zealand and bought 2 cds: The Mint Chicks, and Johnny Devlin.·Lord of the Rings Tour in Wellington . Peter Jackson=GOD in Welly-Wood. Cool tour, learned a lot, took pics of my friends wearing “Elf” ears.
·Ate pizza at Hell’s Pizza. Dude, pizza was good.
·Got lured into hotel because they offered a free dinner. Dinner included one tiny bite size samosas, 3 french fries, and a napkin. Dang.
·Stayed at the Crellow House, run by an elderly woman named Pam. She made us eggs and biscuits. She was sweet.
·Went to the 3rd best pastry shop in all of New Zealand . We know it’s the 3rd best because it said so on the front.
·Met a woman in a shop in Picton, who said Picton was stress free! “Any stress that you feel is your own stress.”
·Ate mountain lion. That’s a lie.
·Went to Museum in Wellington . Pretty cool, nice set up, a lot to see in one day.
·Had tons of conversations while Brian drove, ate too many skittles and fiber cookies.
·Stayed in a hotel that had a trampoline, that Yvonne jumped on.
·Ended up in Auckland , smoked cigars, ate dunkin’ donuts.
Well, there you go. The long awaited “Jose/Yvonne write Susan and Brian’s New Zealand Blog Entry (a month after the trip).” Sorry for the delay.
We had an amazing time. Thanks for the wonderful experience and congrats again to
Mr. & Mrs. Trunk!
Love,
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Last Updated ( Monday, 23 June 2008 )
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Sunday, May 11, 2008Written by: Brian
Good Bye New Zealand, Hello Fiji,
We did some amazing things over the last week from getting married, to going on a Lord of the Rings tour, to seeing the infamous Kiwi bird. Unfortunately we have not been able to blog our awesome adventures and now we are heading to Fiji for our honeymoon.
Don't despair though, we have a plan in place. Our friends Jose and Yvonne were able to come visit us for the week and we have volunteered them to blog our week long adventure that will take the four of us from Christchurch to Auckland. Thanks Jose and Yvonne!
We have 12 days in Fiji, which we are still planning out, before we arrive home in Los Angles on Saturday, May 24 at 1:00.
Please stay tuned as we will still be updating blogs when we return home with our Fijian adventures.
We are leaving on June 16 for a month long trip across the USA. We saw the world now it is time to see our home.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2008Written by: Susan
After surviving 12 days of rain in Australia, we were ready (and hoping) for nicer weather in New Zealand. We flew into Christchurch and one (of many) interesting things about New Zealand is that the country is so small from east to west that we started our initial descent into Christchurch which is on the east coast of the country on the west coast. The mountains were stark and jagged, like razors rising out of the ground and trying to pierce the bright blue sky. After passing over the mountains, the scenery became flat and filled with green farmlands filled with sheep that stretched until the ocean.
We stayed in Christchurch for 4 nights in order to apply for our marriage license as well as scope out a few places for dinner and a place to say our vows (which will be the Christchurch Botanical Gardens). The colors right now are so beautiful as it’s fall here and the leaves are vibrant golds, reds, and yellows. The hotel we stayed in was the ultimate luxe traveler hotel – Hotel So in case you ever need a place to stay in Christchurch. It’s not grungy like most backpacker places but it’s also not as swanky or impersonal as most upscale hotels. It’s perfect for travelers like us who are just looking for a good, clean bed, nice hot shower, and wifi. Plus they have full kitchen, sauna and the best part…..flat screen television!....so we were in heaven for a couple of days.
Our friends, Yvonne and Jose, will be joining us back in Christchurch in a week so that gave us the opportunity to explore the southern part of the south island before they got here. We took off for Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook. We were greeted with the warmest weather we’ve had since Hong Kong and welcomed the sun. It was a beautiful day and the first time we’d really been out on the open road since South Africa. Everybody falls in love with New Zealand and we can definitely see why. The scenery is stunning with jagged mountains surrounded by icy blue lakes and trees with gold leaves blowing everywhere. The roads are well maintained – something we now notice after all the dodgy roads we’ve been on – and offered some of the best scenery around.
We were lucky enough to arrive at Mt. Cook while there was still daylight and get some good pictures of the mountains while walking around. Unfortunately, accommodations are slim (unless you’ve got a lot of money) and the Hermitage Hotel at $600 a room was WAY out of our price range. So we had to drive back down to the town of Twizel (pronounced Twy – zel, not like twizzler which is what I called the town when I tried to make reservations and confused the lady on the other end). We stayed at this farmhouse that was converted into 3 rooms, 1 bathroom and a shared kitchen. It was like living in a house. We liked it because it was cheap and it had heat. Unfortunately the only restaurants in town wanted to charge us $15 for a hamburger and $30 for main courses. We don’t mind forking out the money for a nice meal here and there, but this town was the deadest of dead towns and you could tell that everything was directed towards the tourists. Instead we stopped at the “barely any groceries” grocery store and bought some cheese for grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.
Today, we decided against going back to Mt. Cook, which was our original plan, since the mountain wasn’t visible and it looked like storm clouds were rolling in. Instead, we charged on to Queenstown. We wove our way through mountains, rivers, fields, and vineyards on our 3 hour drive further south. We didn’t realize that there were a lot of wineries located right outside of Queenstown and so we decided to stop at one that had a “Cheesery” sign.
Cheese always makes us stop and it was time for lunch anyways. Of course, there happened to be a winery next door so we went there first and did a sampling of 4 of their wines for $5. We weren’t too overwhelmed with any of them so we decided to just head over to the cheese shop. The cheese was amazing. Probably the best cheese we’ve had since Paris. We weren’t really expecting it to be anything more than some Havarti and Cheddar as that was all we had gotten at the last cheesery we stopped in near Christchurch. They had an amazing selection of goat cheese, pecorino, gruyere, and our favorite, the blue. It was so good that we bought a couple bricks of it, some fresh bread, chorizo and had ourselves a picnic right there. We hadn’t bought any wine but decided to go back and buy another sampler to go along with our cheese bread and it was amazing how much both the taste of the wine and cheese tasted. We were floating on cloud nine when we left the winery for Queenstown.
I’m starting to run out of adjectives to describe the scenery here in New Zealand without sounding like a broken record. Queenstown though deserves to be recognized as a town with stunning scenery. It sits at the edge of a lake and the mountains seems to soar straight out of the lake up towards the sky. It’s really beautiful. Queenstown is known for its offering of adrenaline rushing, extreme sports. Everything from skydiving, to bungy jumping, to hangliding, and many more activities that I’ve never even heard of. Unfortunately, we think they’ll be out of our price range this time around. A simple boat ride costs a $100 and to do anything cool would cost us closer to $200 a person. Since we’ve decided to take a cross country trip once we get back home, we’ve had to make some sacrifices.
There are still some pretty cool free things to do here although unfortunately the rain has decided to follow us today. We were lucky enough to get a break in the weather later in the afternoon and went for a drive down to the town of Glenorchy. Again, just to sound like a broken record, the scenery is everything you imagine New Zealand to be and looks exactly like all the photos. Just stunning.
Tomorrow we’re off to Milford Sound!!
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 11 May 2008 )
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New Zealand 