update on the visitor

So our friendly furry visitor keeps coming back. She uses the cat door at her pleasure and comes in and leaves when she feels like it. I am loving having a surprise visitor.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. We are going to see a play tomorrow night, The Christmas Carol. Then on Saturday here, we are going to have a Thanksgiving dinner with some friends and co-workers of Kits. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully as good of food as at home. Kit and I have noticed that the food here is just a little bit different. We bought taco seasoning the other day and it had cumin in it, so it tasted a bit like Indian/ Mexican fajitas. I'm sure Thanksgiving will be wonderful. On Sunday we are going to some Scottish Highland Games, and we are hoping almost everyone will be in kilts. I know if I asked Kit to wear a kilt, he probably would. I would love to see that!

until next time- Cheers!

A friendly Neighbor

We had the cutest vistor the other day. She has actually come by the house twice and loves pets. She is a very friendly cat and makes herself welcome in our house. On the first visit she stayed for about an hour, going in and out the cat door, roaming through the house and hanging outside. We thought she might become our cat, so Kit walked up to the store to ge some cat food and litter. By the time he came back, she decided to go home. We seem to have a few neighboorhood cats in our yard from time to time, but she has been the friendliest by far. Kit always has a name for each cat, and so he named her Lily. We have figured out why they love our yard so much, our garden seems to be a wonderful place for them to use the bathroom. The joy of neighboorhood cats! Well, we fell in love with her and hopefully she will come and visit soon. It fills that hole in my heart slightly, when she comes by and then makes me really miss my animals even more. I knew it would be hard to not have them, but sometimes when I wake up in the morning I forget they are not there. I know they are doing wonderful. Marcello and Tahini and settling in very well. Tahini has caught 7 moles in the Elams yard and is very proud of herself. Marcello is just hanging out and loving every minute of it.
Bosky is loving having another dog to play with at my parents house. He is getting spoiled and enjoying every minute of it. He goes on at least three walks a day and loves hanging outside. So its only us that is having a hard time with it. Oh well, at least we have friendly neighboors!

Taieri Gorge Railway

Last week Kit and I went took a train into the country. The train took us along the Taieri Gorge Railway. We saw beautiful views, a lot of farms with horses, sheep and cows. We were in this cute old fashioned train car and enjoyed the four hour ride. If you click on the picture below it will take you to the pictures we took on the train. Enjoy!

new zealand railway

The Beach and looking for Penquins!

Hi Everyone, Kit here-
Things have been good in kiwi-land. This past week has been fun and busy. Natalie and I have been getting the place all set up. We've been making trips up and down the hill to 'The Warehouse' to buy various accoutrement for the house. In addition to that Natalie and I have made a few trips exploring around Dunedin. On Thursday we made a trip out to Sandfly bay where the rare yellow-eyed penguin lives. It was beautiful with panoramic views of the ocean but with only 2 penguin sightings. We did see a few ornery sea lions. Before the beach pictures there are some from St. Clair where we stayed with some of my colleagues from Oregon.

Lots of surfers waiting in the cold cold water


Frolicking in the surf

000h, that cold!

Sandfly bay with the penguins and sea lions

Sea Lion!
Hiking out
Sandfly bay
The walk through the green rolling sheep filled pastures
The yellow stuff is gorse, the Scots brought it over because they missed it

Arooo!cheers!

Our new house

Our wonderful new house: 6 Littlebourne Rd.
Roslyn, Dunedin New Zealand 9010
(in case anyone wants to send us letters!)

We are really loving our house. The only complaint I have is no central heating and only space heaters in most of the rooms. It gets cold at night and sometimes during the day. This house would be great in 90 degree weather. But in our living room there is a heater which keeps that room nice and toasty for us.

These pictures do not do the place justice. All of the ceilings have wonderful ornate designs on them and chandelier lighting. The rooms have great views and a lot of natural lighting. Maybe I will have to have a post on views from my windows??

Here is a picture of the living room. It has working fire place but it has been blocked so we don't get a draft.

Another view

The bedroom

Bathroom, with the most wonderful tub.

Separate old fashion type of toilet

Extra bedroom. (I haven't had a chance to get bedding for it yet, but if anyone comes to visit there will be by then!)

Dining room

Third bedroom/study

kitchen

the vegetable gardens, each in it's own plot with blackberries and raspberries already growing.

The backyard

Our landlord brought us cute patio furniture today with a table and two chairs, which is perfect here.

Front door

Front walkway

And lastly Daisies. Daisies are my favorite flower and there have been so many blooming all over Dunedin. I was so happy to find some in my yard.

We hope you enjoyed the pictures of the house. Our next post will be of the beach and on Thursday we are off to see the yellowed eyed pequins. So pictures of that to come also.
Cheers!

Fun Facts about Dunedin and New Zealand

We are getting settled into our house, which we love alot. We should hopefully have internet in our house soon. Once we have internet, I will post some pictures of the house. I'm still using Kit's internet at work.
So here are some fun facts about New Zealand:

1. They don't refrigerate their eggs here but they do refrigerate their dog food! The dog food is in big rolls of food, that we aren't quite sure if they are wet food or dry food.

2. They not only drive on the left side of the road, they also walk on the left side of the side walk.

3. Pedestrians do not have the right of way unless at stop light when the walk light is on. We have made this mistake more than once, the cars will not stop for you!

4. You don't need to tip anyone, bartenders, servers, taxi drivers. I always feel guilty not tipping.

5. Beers cost as much as some dinners!

6. The water is so cold almost everyone wears wetsuits in the ocean.

7. They rarely say thank you- they say cheers!

8. Sandals are called Jandals: Swimsuits are called Togs.

9. Cookies are called biscuits

10. The trunk of your car is a boot!

11. tires are spelled with a Y. Tyres

12. Dunedin was based after Edinburgh Scotland, the street names and locations are exactly the same as there.

13. The houses do not have central heating or insulation, which makes for a very cold house. We have a lot of space heaters in our house.

14. The University of Otago's school year is from March until November, with no breaks. They then have a summer break from November until March.

15. Cereal names and other food you would find in the US is different. Like Rice Crispy's are called Rice Bubbles.

If you have any questions about New Zealand that you would like to know, please leave us a comment below. You can always comment as anonymous and then sign your name to it. Cheers for now!

new home

We found a great home that we are renting for a year. It is a fully furnished 3 bedroom house with a cute backyard. We move in Friday! We will need to get internet hooked up and right now the only internet we have is at Kit's work. So we will be on a bit of a hiatus until next week. We will check emails but probably no blogs or facebook.

Next post: Pictures of the new house and fun facts about New Zealand!

See you soon

Natalie and Kit