Momo and Beaz Down Under

The habour bridge in Sydney
Laurie really got into the posing like statues

in the Botanic Gardens

The opera house
Biking around Sydney, and the Oprah set

in the background. Laurie was super excited about Oprah
At the Jack Johnson concert
Exploring the Australian bush, Three Sisters in background
Mom embracing hiking in the Aussie bush

Kayaking in Sydney
Beachbound in Sydney
Mom frolicking with sheep. This never gets old

Beach strolling and more rock collecting on

the Kapiti Coast, NZ
Sunset in Martinborough
The river we were supposed to canoe down

but the rain made the level too dangerous.

Laurie put those stripes on of her own volition...

Mom double-fisting in Lake Ferry,

vacation location to the stars (and us)
Spent about 2 hours watching these guys

They do not smell good
We were so inspired that we took posing

like statues to a whole new level. Note seal

in background that we are trying to embody
Mom loves rocks, she found some

green ones on this beach

Finally found some unpenned sheep!!!
The NZed Christmas Tree, the pohutakawa

and Merry Xmas to me with a shopping day with Mom
Learning all about sheep shearing at the Wool Shed
Mom getting a taste of Wellington wind,

skirts worn at your own risk
Ahhh Wellington, finally a visitor that

I can share all of the wonders of it with
Xmas present exchange - learning Italian (thanks Ulix!)
Mom got a new umbrella, I think all the

rain got to her and she became obsessed with this

umbrella, so I made her dreams come true and got it for her
Finally got a greenstone, thanks Mom! This one signifies

safe travel over water - I'm gonna need it
And Laurie got a greenstone too, three stones (her fav)!
Laurie crossing over from the Old World to the New,

in the Wellington Botanic Gardens. She tried to come

back through and I made her go back so she could stay

in the New World (ultimately I may be to blame for her travel

delay getting home)

Laurie's visit was a whirlwind. First, I'm not sure how many of you (almost 30somethings) have spent two uninterrupted weeks with your parents recently, but add to that dynamic visiting two countries and the holidays and lets just say it was full of a lot of unexpected surprises, most namely how much we learned about each other. Here's a few highlights from our Mother/Daughter Down Under adventure below:

-Weather: I knew that before we arrived in Sydney they had had torrential rains and flooding, so I was hopeful that they would clear before our arrival. The day before Laurie arrived, I read the weather report in Sydney and it predicted rain for everyday that we were there (damn Australians) and then low and behold it was sunny and hot and perfect everyday we were there (sneaky Australians). Well those Aussies are clever, I'll give them that, trying to garner my Mom's favor by having better weather than NZed. My one visitor to come in actual summer, and we arrived in New Zealand to torrential rain and wind for approx 6 days straight. I kept saying, "It was so hot and sunny in November"....I'm pretty sure this wasn't helping. Well Santa trumped the Aussies and brought NZed some sun and warmth for the last four days of my Mom's visit - so there

-Activities: As I had mentioned in my previous post, Laurie had put in a request for a lot of hiking, biking, kayaking - and I aim to please so that was all on the agenda. I think Laurie still fancies herself a 17 year old boy, and it was quickly apparent that the aggressive activity schedule I had planned might be a bit much, especially combined with jetlag. Here's a few of our activity highlights:

-In Sydney, we took a bike tour with a company that Patty and Mike had recommended from their honeymoon. It's basically one older dude who's just getting started - he also aims to please = perfect combo. Laurie and I share a love of mornings, and we requested an early morning bike tour for 2 hours instead of the sunset or the full day (4 hours), and he obliged and met us at 8am with shiny neon green helmets awaiting us. About an hour and a half in, we had only gone a bit around the Rocks, and over the Harbour Bridge and I nudged Laurie and said, "If you really only want this to be two hours you're going to have to say something to him". Ended up, Laurie and I were on those bikes for 8 hours and saw basically all of Sydney, including a coffee break in Hyde Park, seafood kabobs at the fish market, and even a photo with the Oprah set (gasp). Needless to say, this tour ended with Laurie in bed for a nap, which she quickly had to rouse herself from.....We found out on the bike tour that Jack Johnson was playing a concert in one of the parks that night but tickets were hard to come by, well good ol Graeme our bike tour guru scoured us tix. Should be said that Laurie once told me that a great Mother's Day gift would be for us to see Jack Johnson together - well Mother's Day came early this year. The concert was culminated with a pedicab home, that I got the number of the guy while passing him on the street earlier in the day to see if he would pick us up after the concert. Oh how I love pedicabs...While we were zooming home in style, the rest of the concert dwellers were queued up for a taxi for forever

-Hiking: The Blue Mountains are only 2 hours from Sydney via train and you immediately feel a world away. The bush is much different than that in NZed and we went on what we thought was a nice little 50 min jaunt through waterfalls and awesome views, which actually became us lost and about 2 hours of a lot of hills = Laurie ready for our jaunt to be finished. Funny how the Aussie version of hiking times is actually doubled where NZed is halved.

-Kayaking/canoeing: We kayaked in Sydney, well mostly floated and discussed online dating with a bit of paddling here and there. I had planned a whole canoeing trip for us on the Wanganui River in NZed, where you go up and stay at a lodge that is only accessible by the river and then canoe back out. The rain was against us and the river levels too high, so instead we stayed at a romantic riverside lodge, complete with peacocks, emus, turkeys, and white stallions, played some weird marble board game that we both were skeptical of, and motorboated our way out.

Two weeks together and traveling teaches you a lot and I feel really grateful for having this opportunity while we're both still reasonably young. My Mom's visit also heralded a few new things for me -

-Finding unpenned sheep - finally!!!! And of all places they were roaming on a golf course on a lonely beach in Cape Palliser. I tried to chase them down, but sheep are quicker than you think. I did get a few unadulterated frolicks in with them though with Laurie as my very willing photographer.

-Australia - I was so ready to hate on it, but really Sydney was spectacular, both my Mom and I thought so. Maybe it was actually being in a big city again, or the number of parks, or things to do, but in a way it reminded me of being in cities (maybe NY or SF) back home. The habour is also especially awesome and the proximity of things to do and public transportation is a winning combo. I'm sorry I judged you Australia, and thanks for rolling out the red carpet for Laurie and I. I definitely want to come back, maybe for my Mom's wedding to a hot Australian

-Laurie and I while a lot alike in some ways (we love mornings, and going to bed early, and trying to tackle 8 million things in one day) we have developed a few different interests. For example, I took Laurie wine tasting to a vineyard in Martinborough and afterwards she said, "I don't really get wine tasting. It just seems like shooting the s$%^". Let's just agree to disagree on this one

-Getting reacquainted - As I mentioned I haven't lived near my Mom for over ten years and most of our time together has either been at her home base in the Roc or in SD where we used to live. I had a picture in my mind of my Mother from my childhood as I'm sure my Mom also had a picture in her head of me of some sort. It was good for us both to realize the evolution that our lives have taken and the new people we've become. For example, my Mom really knows what she likes at this point and doesn't feel the need to necessarily push the limits on certain things - ie. she is adamant about not rock climbing or scuba diving, but please bring on the kayaking and biking. Whereas I am trying to check as much off as possible

-Accommodation - One thing I've always known and loved about my Mom is her willingness for new adventures and meeting new people (see above and below, to a point!) so I figured since I am broke that I would have us stay at backpacker accommodations but obvi with our own room. I was unsure how this would go, but Laurie really took to it for the most part, other than in one place where our room had no windows and the claustraphopia started to set in. And for my part, especially in Australia we could have chosen some better places. In the Blue Mountains, I'm pretty sure many people have been murdered in the place we stayed and there was a painting in our room of a woman whose nipples had been burned off - questionable to say the least. Laurie grinned through it all and in Sydney we stayed at a place right on the beach with free boogie boards (Laurie's excitement about this was huge) and bikes. Laurie really embraced the backpacker culture by offering another woman (age 70) some of our extra food. However, Laurie felt the need to clean the kitchen to Laurie standards even though I kept telling her that it was communal and we only needed to clean up after ourselves = Laurie probably the best backpacker a lodge could find.

-Curiosity - I think my Mom should have been an explorer. She is probably the most curios person that I have ever met concerning facts, natural surroundings, people, the weather, my choice in clothing, you name it. One of my favorite illustrations of this was her ripping the leaves off a tree that she especially liked the flowers on so that she could show someone (a random botantist that we would run into?) the leaves and inquire about the tree species. This had a non-botanist end in the Sydney airport when I informed her that biosecure NZed would not appreciate her curiosity and import of foreign Aussie leaves. I also left her on her own in a little beachside town near Wellington while I worked one day and she managed to discover two Maori artisan galleries (that I never new existed) and learn more about Maori culture than the rest of my visitors combined. Yet another example, when we were taking a casual picnic down at a seal colony beach, I literally had to tear her away from the seals, she could have stayed there for hours watching each of their little personalities and smelling their awfulness

Trooperness - Laurie arrived after a 25 hour plane ride to my aggressive itinerary and criticalness (yes I need to work on this) and soon developed a cold. She was a major trooper, never complaining even though she was up coughing all night some nights, and grinding through my aggressive itinerary without a complaint. Her stamina and good will is something I will aspire to especially at her advanced (but not that advanced!) age. I have only ever seen this kind of trooperish behaviour in one other person - Laura Jack in Italy, but LJ is 30 years younger so Laurie still gets extra points in my book. She was cured by NZ (so there Aus) and even kept up her spirits/stamina on a rerouted/delayed trip back to the US. You're my health/attitude hero Laurie!!

-Meeting new peeps - It's always easier to meet people when you have a buddy rather than just by yourself, but Laurie has a special magnetism for meeting new peeps. We were at a bar in Dee Why (near Manly in Sydney, and yes that's how it's spelled for some reason) and I left her alone at a table for all of two minutes while I got us drinks and she was already chatting away with a gentleman (conveniently quite attractive) and even getting folks to comment on how much they liked her accent. Needless to say this encounter cemented Dee Why in my Mom's list of favorites of the trip to the point where she was taking photographs of any sign (and I mean any, like a hardware store) that said Dee Why. Or in Paekakariki Laurie was collecting business cards left and right from all the people she befriended in a 4 hour stretch of alone time. This may come full circle one day, we will see....

-Eating - In Australia we sampled the kangaroo (oddly delicious), the local fish the barramundi, and had true British scones and creme in the blue mountains. I've never been a real carb eater for breakfast and never really fancied scones, but these changed my mind. I not only felt so refined eating them, but they were filling. In NZed, we cooked a Xmas dinner of Cioppino (shoutout to Italy) for Alice's family and cranberry spinach salad (our whole meal was red and green) and cherry and apple crumble. I think this might be a new Xmas cooking tradition for us. We had Vietnamese dinner one night and Kiwi whitefish and scallops the next. We also did real well at packing in our consumption of cheese and chocolates (even visiting a chocolate factory where Laurie bought 1o bars to bring home at 11 dollars each, that's Schocingly good chocolate).

-Shopping - My Mom has always frowned on my love of shopping and even inquired as to whether I use it as a crutch when having a bad day. Now I have sadly (but successfully) given up shopping this year due to my meager stipend. I was completely shocked that of all my visitors my Mom came with a shopping agenda and even I couldn't hold her back. From an opal ring at a shop with cages and security in Sydney to chocolates and soaps and umbrellas and greenstone. Add to that all of the rocks she was "shopping" for on every beach and riverbed we came across. On her last day she told me I needed to bring a box to her hotel so she could ship stuff back to herself (this was avoided). However, I was also the willing recipient of my Mom's shopping binge where she wanted to take me to buy work clothes (since those didn't quite make it to NZed and since I'm not coming home I'm going to need something to wear in Italy). One thing I think my Mom underestimated was the price of clothing here, so sticker shock set in real quick but I made it out with probably the best pair of pants I've ever owned. Laurie's shopping was not quite complete as she really wanted to take home a beach towel, but we didn't manage to find a perfect one. Yes she lives in Rochester

I promised my sister that I would record some of the all time greats of Laurie sayings over the two weeks and here's a few that really made me laugh:

Me- Aren't you going to be hot wearing pants?

Mom - No, because I'm going to wear a shirt

Cabbie - What hotel are you going to?

Mom - Rochester, NY

Mom - Cambodia's economy must be doing pretty well cause there are a lot of Cambodians here.

Me - Oh how can you tell they're Cambodian?

Mom - I just can

Mom - We (referring to her and I talking to hot dude in Dee Why) just met in Sydney

Me - Well we didn't just meet, we've known each other for a bit

And probably my favorite part of my Mom's visit was having a visitor who had the time to just take in my real life here - meeting my advisors, and my host family, and Alice's parents, and seeing my office, touring Wellington, grocery shopping and making dinners at home. I've really enjoyed touring the country with my other visitors, but there is something also nice about just getting to show my Mom (especially) where I've called home this last year and the people that have been a part of my life and my NZed family.

Thanks Momo for our Down Under Adventure!!! It was truly amazing and interesting and intense and different (four of my Mom's favorite words) all at once. I loved every moment of it. And I can't wait till our next adventure somewhere awesome

100 days of Beall NZed style -

The simplicity of life - on my Mom's visit we really got to just embrace the nuance of what makes New Zealand awesome. Easy days with nice people, cooking meals and strolling in beautiful scenery, and you know learning about sheep shearing

Going to the beach on Xmas - After my Mom departed, I had Xmas brunch with my flatmates family, and then took myself to the beach. As I stated in a previous post, I've never been a humongous fan of Xmas, but I could really get behind it with adding the beach in

Variability of weather - some people love the seasons like my Mom. I happen to love sun and warmth more than cold other than when I'm skiing or a big snowstorm for about one day, but one thing I do really appreciate in New Zealand and especially Wellington is that you can easily experience four seasons in one day and no matter the weather report the weather can change in an instant (something about it being an island and Antarctica's proximity). This really makes you appreciate the sunny/beautiful times and take full advantage, and then you can get back to work on those rainy/dreary days

Being able to get lost in the bush on a run ten minutes from my house and come out on a beach, and at the same time live in the capital city which is totally walkable

That you can never actually get lost in NZ for more than 30 min. For one, everything is really well signed to the point of "Historic place 300 meters" and for two, the roads that there are all lead to where you want to go

The mix of the metric system and our system - I had to work in the metric system for my previous job but I never fully understood it and frankly it always intimidated me. Now I realize that it makes way more sense, I mean 100k is so much easier to calculate than 60 miles. NZed has really facilitated this unintimidating learning curve for me by combining the two. Even baking in the metric system has lost its fear factor, oh you want me to weigh that butter? I'll just eye it.