The earth moved for us

Last night we were watching telly - nothing new there, we must be one of the most unsociable couples in Wanaka - and it suddenly occurred to me that everything was moving. It was subtle, but unmistakable. A strange thought began to occur to me...then it stepped up a notch - the curtains were swaying to and from the windows - and I realised it definitely was an earthquake. I've never experienced one before but remembered the advice we'd been given at our orientation here in NZ and grabbed Isaac - who was still oblivious - and dragged him to the doorway between our lounge and bedroom. We knelt down, giggling and in disbelief, and waited for the odd sensation to stop.

There are few reliable things in this world, but the solidity of the ground beneath our feet is - or rather should be - one of them. When the whole house and the earth beneath it begins to shake and sway, your brain finds it devilishly hard to register - I'd have wondered if I was drunk if I didn't know that I haven't had a drink since May 2008! As it turns out, this was a fairly big earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, and was the biggest one in NZ for 80 years. No one was hurt, thank goodness, and the resultant tsunami that hit the Haast coast was only a tiddler. Still, it was all very exciting, even if nothing even fell over in our house.

And in other news, the lovely Kat Von B: Queen of Beaver is in town. She's from Perth (Australia, not Scotland) and has flown over on holiday to see me and her friend Lucy, who lives not too far from us. Sadly her trip has coincided with me developing a rather nasty virus - no, not swine flu thank goodness - and I've had to bail out of our planned skiing trip today in favour of sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and eating Tim Tams. We did however manage to get out snowboarding together on Monday before I fell ill, which was great, and I was terribly relieved that we seemed to be fairly well matched with our riding abilities, with Kate being rather rusty (not having been on snow since we left Sunshine last year) and with me still being fairly gimpy.

I must admit, I had hoped that I'd pick up this snowboarding business a bit quicker - I mean, how hard can it be? But as usual, my desire for perfection is found to be lacking in the riding department. I can now get down a run without falling over, pretty much, and I've even been on blue runs. In fact, I actually prefer blue runs because the steeper it is, the easier it is for me to turn. But it still all feels rather unnatural to me and I feel like everything is harder on a board than on skis. Cat tracks for example (relatively flat and narrow) are easy as pie on skis - point them in the right direction and pole it if you slow down - but a nightmare on a board because you have to be on one edge or the other all the time and I just can't get the bloody hang of it. Isaac, who has been riding for 12-odd years, just says 'oh you don't need to be fully on an edge, just put more pressure on one side or another, and you don't have to make turns, just go straight'. Well all that is fine if you are instinctive about it, but for me, having to think about everything I do because it's not muscle memory yet, this always ends up with me a) trying to put too much pressure on an edge, losing balance and falling over, b) ending up right at the side of the run, hitting something, like a wall of snow, and falling over, c) hitting someone who's trying to pass me because I'm so slow and falling over, d) getting some speed up, panicking, trying to slow down and falling over or e) getting just too tired holding my legs in that awkward position and falling over. So falling over is still a big thing for me. And most of all, the thing that has surprised and disappointed me in all of this is that I haven't fallen in love with it yet. Everyone I know who snowboards says that it just suddenly clicks and you just love it and to be honest, it hasn't happened with me yet. I still yearn for skis and how easy and familiar it all is. I know in my heart of hearts that I didn't always feel that way about skiing - it was hard to begin with and I fell over alot - but now I feel very comfortable on skis I just wish it wasn't all so much of an effort on a board.

That said, I'm determined to continue with it, because I hate giving up at things I've decided I'm going to do. To that end, I'm delighted that Isaac's brother Reilly and his dad Imo are coming out to visit us in a week and a half. Imo has been a ski and snowboard instructor for years and is apparently keen to help me get my riding up to scratch* so that would be fabulous. Watch this space - I'll be hucking and shredding that gnar before you know it.

*actually, I only have Mary Lynn's word on that, and he might actually be going around saying 'God I hope she doesn't expect me to teach her anything, what a busman's holiday THAT would be!'

Wanna bet?

Son cuts off father's penis as a dare.

Best quote:

According to local media father and son were drinking together and at some point started to argue whether the son would dare to cut off his father’s penis. The son won the bet while the father was rushed to the surgery department of a local hospital.

"The son won the bet". Jeez.

Birthday blues

You're quite right Jenny (see comment on previous post), I have no real excuse for not blogging now. I can't blame lack of internet anymore, certainly - I suppose I've just got out of the habit. It is true however, that the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of training, working and snowboarding, so even when I have had time I must admit that the most I can do in the evenings is sit and stare at the telly like a zombie before crashing. It's pathetic. You'd think I'd never worked before!

So basically Isaac & I have both started work at our respective resorts, me at Cardrona and him at Treble Cone. In many ways I think I've got the better end of the deal, because Cardi is very similar to Sunshine in many ways, so it was easier to pick up for me, whereas TC has some fairly archaic systems. The ticket windows don't have computers, they sell pre-printed tickets by hand, which turns cashing up into a nightmare. It can take up to 3 hours for them to balance! I, in related news, was promoted during my training, when myself and an Aussie girl called Lisa were asked if we could help handle the 'money room'. Basically we have a woman called Margaret - English*, ex-banker - who handles all the money coming in and out for the whole mountain 2 days a week. The other 5 is now covered by Lisa & myself. It's nice to be trusted, and it's a bit more money, but it's also longer hours and very like being in an all-day maths class, which is hardly my idea of a relaxing time. Anyway. Treble Cone has more extreme terrain, whereas Cardi is more beginner/intermediate, so we get the lion's share of the family market. Plus we're between Wanaka & Queenstown, so we get people from both towns, whereas TC is a bit of a hike if you're not in Wanaka. We both work with some great people who we've been out with a few times, so that's nice, and working at both resorts means we get to play on both mountains. It's a good thing that Isaac's at TC really, as I'm rubbish on a snowboard at the moment and probably wouldn't be able to handle its steeps! We both get the opportunity to go on ride breaks most days, though I've realised that going for an hour by myself when I'm this new at it can actually be counter-productive, because I lose my confidence very quickly, so I don't go very often.

It was my birthday last week and I was working. I only had one card to open (thanks Toni!) in the morning and I had told Isaac not to buy me anything, since we were totally broke. However, getting up at 6.15am to make porridge before work, I suddenly, and without warning, burst into tears. Isaac naturally asked me what was wrong and I genuinely had no idea, but managed to blurt out "I don't WANT to be 35!" This pretty much set the tone for the day. I cried walking to the bus. I cried on the bus. I went for a ride break - just to be able to say I'd snowboarded on my birthday - and cried at how awful I was and how terrified I was at turning ('I know I've got to turn, I've got to turn, I've GOT to turn.....NO!' Cue falling over) and when I was asked to stay late AGAIN when everyone else was going home I ran off and cried in the stationary cupboard. I got dropped off by a bus driver who was heading up near where I live but he set me down in a road I was unfamiliar with and I got lost walking home, crying the whole way. A dog I passed in a garden went completely mental when he saw this howling figure! I made it home ahead of Isaac (the one and only time I have) and turned on the computer, only to see a whole load of happy birthday messages on my facebook, which made me howl even harder. Poor Isaac came back to find me in a heap on the sofa, sobbing my heart out. He was brilliant (as ever) - he hugged me, made me tea, listened to me wail for an hour about how awful I was at snowboarding and how I couldn't turn without falling over, gave me a present of a new jar of marmite and both a bought AND a homemade card (showing stick figures of us snowboarding together) and then took me out for dinner. We went to Amigos, the local mexican restaurant, for which we had a birthday voucher for $30, and the food was nice (I had a very bloody steak) but the service was TERRIBLE. It's a family-run restaurant, and they're very friendly, but the waiter that night was the owner's 13 year-old son, who slouches up to you and says in a bored voice 'Is everything alright with your meal?', which of course means 'Mum told me to ask you if everything's alright with your meal'. It took an hour to get our food after ordering and then we sat with dirty plates for so long that I eventually had to go up to the desk and ask them to clear our table. By this time I was so tired I was looking at my coat next to me on the bench and genuinely debating putting my head down and falling asleep. We ordered churros for dessert and ate them at breakneck speed before heading home - I'd barely made it through the door before I was undressing and falling into bed. So not a good day all round, and many apologies go out to the ever-lovely Isaac who had to put up with me being such awful company. The next day I woke up feeling fine! Go figure, as the Americans would say.

The following Tuesday we both had the day off so we decided to have birthday #2. After a leisurely morning, we headed up to Cardi and spent the afternoon working on getting me over my turning phobia. I even took a demo board out, the Rossignol Diva, which has some fancy serrated edge they called Magnetraction, which I was assured was like 'cheating' at turning. Fine with me! I loved the board and want one badly. We had a very good afternoon and, though I'm still by no means elegant on a board, I finally got the hang of turning (most of the time) without being terrified. Hurray! We had a great day, with my favourite, corned beef hash, for dinner, so that is how I'll choose to remember my 35th birthday.

So all in all, work is going fine - if a bit frustrating/anti-social/exhausting for me - and we still love our little flat. We keep hearing awful stories from other people about how freezing cold their houses are, so we feel very lucky to be in one of the only warm places in Wanaka! Still, we haven't had a heating bill yet, so we might yet have a terrible shock awaiting us...

*as if I even have to say it. EVERYONE we meet is bloody English. Sometimes I feel like I'm in England, but an England where everything is a bit wrong and you can't get Pizza Express**
**my worst nightmare of an England then