Home Sweet Home

So plans have now changed, again. It's not that we are fickle, it's just that we have now found a place where we feel pretty happy and almost like home. Rosemere Backpackers in Wellington. Yes, you have read my words correctly. We will be living in a hostel indefinitely. It's a pretty tight squeeze, I won't lie, but it's a really great place to live. It is actually very homey, and everyone is nice and interested in each others lives. It's true, we live with about 70 other people, we make our meals in a large communal kitchen and then we eat at our father's table. We didn't think we would be living at a soup kitchen until the townships in South Africa, but it turns out we get free soup for dinner on Wednesday nights. In the morning we wake up at 8:50 with just enough time to run downstairs to eat free cereal and toast, and there is nothing sweeter than eating rice krispies you didn't have to buy with milk you didn't have to carry across town from the grocery store and eat with strangers you may never see again. Every meal is interesting. We end up talking to someone new, or getting to know our new best friends better. This morning for example, we woke up at 8:50 with the intention of eating breakfast and then returning to our room to fall asleep again. As soon as we got down there, we ran into a few guys we had befriended and end up sitting at our father's table for about an hour after we finished eating just talking, laughing, telling stories about our childhoods, our countries, our friends. It seems that has been what our meals have been like, and hopefully continue to be. It feels like we are getting to have our freshman year of college all over again. Anyway, we really are happy here. We all are a bit relieved to have a "homebase", just somewhere to come back to. We actually went way across town to check out a boarding house, but it actually turned out to be more like a crack house, so we decided Rosemere was a much better option. Wellington itself is a very unique city. It is so compact. It is really unnecessary to have a car, one can easily walk anywhere in the city. There are tons of cafes, in fact there are more cafes per capital in Wellington than anywhere else in the world. It is also the most southernly capitol in the world. It’s a magical place, no really it is, we live with a magician and it is absolutely some of the best live entertainment. There’s also a queen who is so over the top that he makes Paris Hilton seem like Hulk Hogan. We also went to this really small really quiet and what I'm assuming to be a jazz/night club to hear some music that a guy at our backpackers suggested. We go. The performers were three very young, very eclectic, very tall and skinny white guys that played what I understood to be "progressive" sounds. It was instrumental at first and actually quite beautiful, one played the guitar, one the bongo drums, and the last a violin that he played like a guitar. It sounded very new age, very "yogaish", and really meditative and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, the vocals began and it basically sounded ridiculous. I was trying so hard not to start giggling and disrespect the performers, but oh my. He sounded like an oppressed animal crying for its freedom, to the point that Fred and Mary K and I all just stared at each other wide eyed trying to figure out where we were, in Wellington, NZ or in a Bhuddist monastery in Tibet. We climbed Mt. Victoria the other day which is supposed to be a nice walk but turned out to be some intense hike that we were seriously out of breath at the end; we climbed it with this friend at the backpackers who turned out to be a little monkey jumping around to the top, but the view was so beautiful. You can see for miles, city, mountains, clear water, white sandy beaches! The beaches here are so surprisingly clean and clear seeing that they belong to such a busy and crowded city!
On another note, my family may be the only ones that find this of any interest, but as we were walking yesterday across town to the beach, I noticed a Cedar tree painted on a window and the word "Habibe". I quickly got closer to see it and found a restaurant serving "authentic Lebanese cuisine". I remembered what my mom and aunt said about how much I was going to miss their food, and they are right by the way, and what my Dad said about trying to find a Lebanese community (which I was hoping would cook food for me) and decided to go in and ask them if they are hiring. Turns out, they were, and he asked me to come on Tuesday for a trial period to see if I like working there. I hate working in restaurants, but the thought of eating real Lebanese food and not some crap kebabs that seem to be sold everywhere in NZ was alluring to me. And the food is authentic. The owner/cook is Lebanese and the menu is basically everything we eat at home, and it looked so appetizing. And it was. I had kafta, baba ghannoush, tabouli; it was all so good, and I think I may enjoy working there. They speak Arabic, so it’s nice to hear it and speak it so I don’t completely forget the language! Fred found a job at a Turkish restaurant she seems to like, and Mary K is still looking, she’ll find one soon, we’re sure! Until next time, friends and family, we miss you and love you!

So plans have now changed, again. It's not that we are fickle, it's just that we have now found a place where we feel pretty happy and almost like home. Rosemere Backpackers in Wellington. Yes, you have read my words correctly. We will be living in a hostel indefinitely. It's a pretty tight squeeze, I won't lie, but it's a really great place to live. It is actually very homey, and everyone is nice and interested in each others lives. It's true, we live with about 70 other people, we make our meals in a large communal kitchen and then we eat at our father's table. We didn't think we would be living at a soup kitchen until the townships in South Africa, but it turns out we get free soup for dinner on Wednesday nights. In the morning we wake up at 8:50 with just enough time to run downstairs to eat free cereal and toast, and there is nothing sweeter than eating rice krispies you didn't have to buy with milk you didn't have to carry across town from the grocery store and eat with strangers you may never see again. Every meal is interesting. We end up talking to someone new, or getting to know our new best friends better. This morning for example, we woke up at 8:50 with the intention of eating breakfast and then returning to our room to fall asleep again. As soon as we got down there, we ran into a few guys we had befriended and end up sitting at our father's table for about an hour after we finished eating just talking, laughing, telling stories about our childhoods, our countries, our friends. It seems that has been what our meals have been like, and hopefully continue to be. It feels like we are getting to have our freshman year of college all over again. Anyway, we really are happy here. We all are a bit relieved to have a "homebase", just somewhere to come back to. We actually went way across town to check out a boarding house, but it actually turned out to be more like a crack house, so we decided Rosemere was a much better option. Wellington itself is a very unique city. It is so compact. It is really unnecessary to have a car, one can easily walk anywhere in the city. There are tons of cafes, in fact there are more cafes per capital in Wellington than anywhere else in the world. It is also the most southernly capitol in the world. It’s a magical place, no really it is, we live with a magician and it is absolutely some of the best live entertainment. There’s also a queen who is so over the top that he makes Paris Hilton seem like Hulk Hogan. We also went to this really small really quiet and what I'm assuming to be a jazz/night club to hear some music that a guy at our backpackers suggested. We go. The performers were three very young, very eclectic, very tall and skinny white guys that played what I understood to be "progressive" sounds. It was instrumental at first and actually quite beautiful, one played the guitar, one the bongo drums, and the last a violin that he played like a guitar. It sounded very new age, very "yogaish", and really meditative and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, the vocals began and it basically sounded ridiculous. I was trying so hard not to start giggling and disrespect the performers, but oh my. He sounded like an oppressed animal crying for its freedom, to the point that Fred and Mary K and I all just stared at each other wide eyed trying to figure out where we were, in Wellington, NZ or in a Bhuddist monastery in Tibet. We climbed Mt. Victoria the other day which is supposed to be a nice walk but turned out to be some intense hike that we were seriously out of breath at the end; we climbed it with this friend at the backpackers who turned out to be a little monkey jumping around to the top, but the view was so beautiful. You can see for miles, city, mountains, clear water, white sandy beaches! The beaches here are so surprisingly clean and clear seeing that they belong to such a busy and crowded city!
On another note, my family may be the only ones that find this of any interest, but as we were walking yesterday across town to the beach, I noticed a Cedar tree painted on a window and the word "Habibe". I quickly got closer to see it and found a restaurant serving "authentic Lebanese cuisine". I remembered what my mom and aunt said about how much I was going to miss their food, and they are right by the way, and what my Dad said about trying to find a Lebanese community (which I was hoping would cook food for me) and decided to go in and ask them if they are hiring. Turns out, they were, and he asked me to come on Tuesday for a trial period to see if I like working there. I hate working in restaurants, but the thought of eating real Lebanese food and not some crap kebabs that seem to be sold everywhere in NZ was alluring to me. And the food is authentic. The owner/cook is Lebanese and the menu is basically everything we eat at home, and it looked so appetizing. And it was. I had kafta, baba ghannoush, tabouli; it was all so good, and I think I may enjoy working there. They speak Arabic, so it’s nice to hear it and speak it so I don’t completely forget the language! Fred found a job at a Turkish restaurant she seems to like, and Mary K is still looking, she’ll find one soon, we’re sure! Until next time, friends and family, we miss you and love you!