1st week in review (by Ashley)

1st week is about done and it's been really fun! Got moved into our lodging and started work training. It's quite an international place...we work with people from all over and a few of the girls I work with in ticket checking are from Finland, Chile, France and 2 or 3 from NZ. I've been placed as assistant supervisor over ticket checkers, and I'll be supervisor when our manager's day's off :-) Moving up in the world! Ticket checkers are part of lift operations and the "lifties" as they're called. That's what Daniel is when he's not de-icing. You should really YouTube "deicing at Whakapapa" to see what that entails...it's some crazy sh*t!! All the lifties had yesterday off while the de-icers and ticket checkers did individual training. All ticket checkers are girls (for the obvious reasons that they're nice, have more patience and people are less likely to be confrontational with a girl if there's a problem with their ticket--ie: they get caught with someone elses pass). Well, since we finished training early and the de-icers had a full day planned, we had to wait for all them to get done before getting a bus down the mountain....so we all got the task of digging out the load and unload ramp for the main lift that's opening tomorrow. We had about 2 feet of snow and ice to dig down through to get to the unload platform and then started on the load ramp...but, unfortunately, these small girls aren't the most experienced with snow/ice shoveling and using pick axes and all. It was quite comical at times, made my heart race at times when I caught them doing some kinda dangerous stuff like swinging the pick axes WAY too close to eachothers heads, but we finally got a lot done and today I'm sore!! As a bonus during the season for each person we catch that results in them getting their ticket pulled (like using a copy, fake, someone else's for instance) we get a $50 bonus. Not bad eh?

Finally today we've got the day off and they've organized a bus for us to go to Taupo(the nearest large town) so we can go shopping and go to the bank and post office and set up our tax numbers so we can get paid. For all of you who laughed at me for bringing my French Press coffee maker will be happy to know it's me who's got the last laugh now! I can only take so much of the instant coffee until I crave a good home brewed cup in the morning. We have good coffee up on the mountain, but when we're getting up at 6am every day, a nice hot cup will be so nice. Please, anyone, feel free to send Peet's! ;-)

The past week has been absolutely beautiful up here, sunny and clear, but the clouds came in yesterday and it started raining last night. Not sure if it's snowing up on the top, hopefully it is since they ski field starts a good 2000 feet higher in elevation than us. We need some good dump days to get the season going. And, since we have Sunday and Monday off, we want to get some early season boarding in and get our "sea legs" back!

For a time reference for everyone, it's now 8:30am Friday here, and 1:30pm in CA Thursday (3:30pm Central Thursday) For those of you with Facebook, I've posted pictures online from our last weeks in the States and our 1st week down here. This link should also work for everyone: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2265130&id=6406809&ref=share WARNING: There ARE party pics in this album--view with care ;-)

Finally made it!

After what felt like a week solid of traveling we finally made it to New Zealand and our final “home” on Mt. Ruapehu! Our journey started Wednesday night at 11:30pm when we took off from LAX on the HUGE Qantas A380 airbus...a full 2 story plane! Inside it felt normal until you started thinking about the fact that there was an entire level above you! Ashley took a little journey around and walked up the stairs once in the back to take a look but didn't see much. 15.5 hours is a looong flight. Even with the great personal entertainment systems at each seat and the extra leg room and wider seats, there just isn't a way to sleep comfortable (or, in Ashley's case, at all). We both watched 4 different movies each and a few tv shows and played some video games. It was really strange for it to never get light until right before we landed. We were basically running away from the sun the entire flight and it finally caught up in Australia! We had a 8 hour lay-over in Melbourne, and after the run-around of having one bag make it through to baggage claim and finding out the other 2 (supposedly) were checked all the way through, we headed to downtown Melbourne city and walked around for a few hours. It's a large business city with many different 'precincts, city sub-sections, of different nationalities and personalities. We enjoyed walking around a sampling food from all over the world and were surprised to find out that the area has a large Asian population. Guess that makes sense since Asia is so close.

After wearing ourselves out walking for about 4 hours we went back to the airport only to find out our flight had been rescheduled to leave an hour later than planned. By now, we had been up for almost 2 days and were just ready to get here and sleep! The 3 and a half hour flight to Auckland was a bit cramped, but at least Qantas has really good food, and free wine (on both flights)! So we were able to survive. Making it through immigration was a breeze for Daniel since we had our visas already processed, but didn't think about the fact that Ashley got a new Passport a month ago and her visa was processed on the old one...oops! Right then and there we found out how nice New Zealanders are, everyone was so smiley and friendly and took care of processing the visa quickly and we went right through after maybe a 10 minute delay....just to find our bags the last lonely bags on the carrousel but Ashley's snowboard nowhere in sight. In our traveling the past few years we've found it's never a good sign when the baggage assistance people know your name! They were waiting for us to tell her the snowboard hadn't even left LA with us! I guess it sat there for about 10 hours before hoping a flight straight here and arrived sometime Saturday morning and was delivered to the hotel while we were out exploring Auckland Good thing is that we didn't have to deal with carrying it on the shuttle to the hotel at 1am :-D

Finally, we got out to explore Auckland and hit up the Vodafone store and purchased a local prepaid SIM card and get a local number. So our phones are now officially off. Daniel's for good, and Ashley's number is on hold until December 20th when we get back. Our new number is +64211750191 and, for probably $5 a minute, you can call us all you want!! jk, ok so we won't expect many calls, it costs us about $.50/min so we'll call when we can. We'll also try and update this blog as often as possible with photos and video, just depends on how much this internet actually ends up costing. We have wireless here at the staff lodging and it's costs $.10 per MB of usage...whatever that really adds up to!

Sunday morning, bright and early (well, DARK and early—before the sun was us) we boarded the train south for our 7 hour journey to National Park. It took longer than normal because of a small engine fire and a lot of track work...nothing serious right?! lol! Our new boss picked us up and the train station and drove us about 15km to the staff lodging in Whakapapa Village, our "home" for the next 4 months! We've started to meet the other staff and they come from all over the world. Quite a few Americans actually, others from Australia and New Zealand obviously and from other places such as France, Germany, England, and even Latvia (shout out to all the Lennon's out there!) We were taken up to the mountain today and got our uniforms issued, got our bearings, bought a few last winter clothes supplies and came back down to chill at “home”. Daniel bought some new snowboard boots and a used board so he's all set to go! Work starts bright and early Tuesday with our induction and training and the ski field opens Saturday! Time to get back to the working world! http://www.mtruapehu.com/

It's finally Monday afternoon here...I think it's Sunday night back in the states...the date and time here is still a strange concept. We left Wednesday night, arrived in Melbourne about 15 hours later FRIDAY morning, and got to our hotel about midnight Saturday morning. To calculate our time here, just subtract 5 hours from CA time, or 7 hours from Central time...but then ADD a day. It's 3:15pm Monday here, and about 9:15pm/11:15pm Sunday back home. Start thinking too long about the time warp and you'll go crazy! we finally both got dual time zone watches so we don't have to keep converting time. Ashley set her second time for PST and Daniel set his for CST...we'll never NOT be confused with that now!

Hope you all keep in touch with us and keep us updated on summer life back in the Northern Hemisphere...we're off to enjoy a snowy winter!!

Pre-NZ travel timeline...our final weeks in the US

So many flights and travel arrangements to remember!

*Monday June 8: Delta TLH-ATL-SFO 5:30a-10:30a...Spend monday night in SLO (Courtyard)...one last hurrah with the college peeps! (While also prepping house to hand off to a property management company for new renters)

*Tuesday 6/9: Return to Nor-Cal by way of a night in San Jose with Mom.

*Wednesday 6/10: A night with family in Berkeley.

*Thursday 6/11: P-Town for a night... a nice relaxing day of getting out stuff done, packed, stored and ready to go.

*Friday 6/12: A night with family in Santa Rosa...who's down for a tri-tip BBQ? Need I even ask!?

*Saturday 6/13: Day in San Francisco and pick up Jess from airport in the evnening for a night of city fun (Union Sq Marriott)

*Sunday 6/14: fly to So. Cal. Virgin America 12:45p-2:15p...BBQ in Huntington Beach--can't wait to see everyone!!!!! (Residence Inn HB/Fountain Valley)

*Monday 6/15: Beach day...finally back to the great Southern California beaches...no more hot sticky days at FL shadeless beaches with their sugar power sand that sticks to everything and blows everywhere in the slightest winds of a sneeze! (not a fan, can you tell?!)

*Tuesday 6/16: A night with family in Buena Park

*Wednesday 6/17: Our LAST day in the states!! ...can someone say ride to airport?

We leave Wednesday night from LAX for a 15.5 hour flight to Melbourne at 11:30pm...how do we fill that one last day? Suggestions welcome :-D

Tminus two weeks and counting

Off to New Zealand we go! 2 weeks from today we'll be stepping on the Qantas A380 from LAX-MEL. After a day in Melbourne we'll board our flight to Auckland and then finally arrive in New Zealand. After a weekend in Auckland we'll take the train down to National Park where we'll somehow make it to Whakapapa Village (read: hitchhike) and our home for the next 5 months. Can't wait to get there and keep you all posted on our journies!