Learning in Place of Working

As we go about our days, usually filled with working, eating, and sleeping, we forget to adventure, learn new things, have fun, laugh at ourselves. This first week of fine woodworking school has been absolutely wonderful. Hand and shoulders hurt from hours of polishing plane blades, knife blades, getting the actual water stones ready for more polishing, by polishing. This is then followed by hours getting used to using the plane. 

"Bevel to the waste!" Torkle (our lovely instructor) reminds us with a thick Kiwi accent. This is not a sentence I had heard before this week. I learned all about the make-up of metals, the difference of wood depending on where the tree grew up. This is only after 2 days of class! Just the thought of everything I will learn these next 8 weeks makes me excited. Our brains have a much better time when we learn something new each day.
Here's some photos of my new classroomhome and my very first workbench.

My Workbench! Even comes with a toolbox for all my collected items.

Karen working away in the classroom

Additional workroom

Working away at my wood puzzle

Polishing room

Sunday before class started was a perfect time to get more comfortable with driving on the left side and also a little exploring. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

On Pepin Island looking back at the trails that are currently closed due to minisheep

MJ bought me a selfie stick! Heyyyyy! Me on Rabbit Island on a chilly morning.

Vineyard going out to Rabbit Island

Rabbit Island, pretty much have the place to myself!

Little town of Mapua, right on the water, little breweries and restaurants and amazing art stores/galleries.

Golden Bear Brewery, closed because I get up to early!

Motueka

What will you learn today? Off to class!

Discovering Nelson

Day 3 in Nelson: walked. Walked a lot. Up and over hills, through different neighborhoods, through town and many shops. 

 Went back to the church on top of the hill and gave myself a little tour. Beautiful inside. even with the hundreds of churches I have been in, I still love the stain glass, the massive organs, the religious mystery they all seem to possess. I always see if those little doors in corners or down secluded hallways, going into secret rooms, really open. I wait until no one is looking to check, but alas they and the mysteries within are always locked away. Next time. 

Selfie in the history museum 

After visiting the history museum, I went back to the beach yay! 

View from my sand dune

Tree on the trail to the beach

Tested of a few cars...have to be careful of odometer mischief (winding back 100,000 km), non-working items (the car), and such. Managed to find a decent car pretty quick. I am now the proud owner of a Nissan Lucino. I promptly gave my new friend a name, The Trusty Steed, and we were off! Now to learn to drive on the other side, the wrong side, the left side. 

The Trusty Steed

 The Trusty Steed and I decided to head out of town and visit the Center for Fine Woodworking, about 13 kilometers outside of Nelson The school is amazing, the instructors are amazing, I felt like it was Christmas and New Years all wrapped up into one knowing I would be a student in just a few short days. Turns out none of the other 6 students are from Nelson. Almost everyone is international, and I am hoping close to my age and want to be friends. I met one student named Leon from Brazil, and hear there is one other lady from Singapore. Can't wait!

Sheep outside the woodworking center

Pretty flower awwww

                                       

Sheep! Bahhhh!

Goal 1: Phone, achieved! New SIM card with NZ phone number. Boom done.

Goal 2: Car, achieved! Car bought and learning how to drive when everything is opposite. Boom, halfway done.

New Zealand

After 4 flights, 20 hours in the air, 11 layover hours, and 2 books later, I finally made it to Nelson, New Zealand!

My first layover in Seattle, had brunch with my lovely friend Shakira!

Last flight from Auckland to Nelson

View of Nelson 

 I found a home a few months ago (check out The Beach House, Nelson on facebook) and Angie, one of my hosts, picked me and my large bags up from the airport. We had a little tour of the house with her husband George, then set off for downtown. Grocery shopping turned out to be cheaper then AK! The house is wonderful, as Angie and George have been remodeling for the last five years. They have three extra rooms, two of which are rented out to other travels, a few ladies from Vietnam who are nice, and young guy from Germany who I haven't met yet. The house has lots of windows and doors that are kept open so you can hear the birds and feel the breeze. They have a medium sized dog named Coma, because he sleeps all day, and lots of chickens.

The Chickens :)

The Beach House

Downtown is pretty, lots of little shops and cafes to sit and watch people. We went to the center where there is a large church at the top of many stairs and had a long dark with a little milk (coffee with some cream) and chatted about the town.

View from the top of one of the hills, lighthouse is to the right and the long beach I live by is to the left 

Took a little nap, then ventured to the beach. BEAUTIFUL! I'm going back today. 

Goals for the rest of the week: 

1) Figure out how to use my cell phone with a NZ plan on a supposedly unlocked iphone. 

2) Buy a car...already have my eye on a few I'll be testing out this weekend. Wish me luck!

More stories to come, for now here are some beach photos!

Cheers!
Christina 

Adventures on the Coast of The Olympic Peninsula

Hearing rumors of 80° weather in Washington spurred ticket purchases and we were off! Fantasia picked me up from the airport with the car rented and REI purchases in the backseat. I donned my new tan from a quick Texas vacation to visit family, along new shades, having lost mine after too many trips on the golf cart to the drive up margarita stand on the beach. Life is hard.

Quick drive, ferry ride wind blowing in our hair, and another couple hour drive to the trail head. Tented up on the side of the road hidden in the woods. Awoke early to the warm sunshine to start a long hiking day. Three miles to the coast, quick and easy. Another 6-7 to our campsite, not so quick and easy...the sun scorched all non-covered skin and we wobbled our way over all types of surfaces. Sandy beaches to slippery sm-med sized rocks, to large boulders, to climbing over hillsides (which included ropes to get up and down) when the tides trapped us from going around points. Finally made it to the end of a beautiful stretch of beach, perfect campsite, with only a slight chance of the high tide getting us. Mountain house dinners taste amazing when you've hiked 8 hrs, and we watched the sunset from luxurious sleeping pad camp chairs. Too tired to drink whiskey.

Bomb campsite

Sunset #1

 Perusing the maps, deciding how long he's going to make me hike tomorrow.

Beaches for days!

Day two started after sleeping in until 9, then having a leisurely breakfast.  Tide was on the rise, and we greeted many a fellow hiker from our breakfast, those who had set alarms to hike early around certain points before the sea gods sent the high tides to block the way. 

Another 10 mile day further south. Memories from the last time I had hiked this coast were rudely intercepted by the amount of trash littering the rocks. Boots, laundry baskets, crates with Japanese writing, endless amounts of unwanted goods now filtered into memories of long beautiful beaches.

After hiking up and over one point, the around the point trail being hidden by the ocean, we had a long lunch and spotted a small, furry baby seal pup sunning himself on the beach. Fantasia immediately wanted to make friends, but after a few warning nips, we left the seal to his sunny nap and continued on to find the next camp spot. 

Campsite #2 was found in the trees, a shady spot much appreciated after baking in the hot sun all day. A dip in the warm ocean water washed away the sweat and dirt from the day, replacing it with a salty ocean cleanliness. We basked in the sunshine until dinner, then read and played cards, Fantasia winning every game while watching the sunset. We decided we might want to get up a bit earlier the next day to hit the ever alluring low tide, and not have to rope ourselves up and over land masses. 

View from the tent

Enjoying my camp chair after a swim

Fantasia finding critters

Sunsets that never get old

Campsite #3 in the trees. We had some campers just down the beach, but after finding a hidden camp spot, we barely noticed our neighbors. Took a nap, then had a sunset dinner followed by a few games of Rummy, all of which Fantasia won. Again. Looking pretty tan by now.

Woke early knowing we had a long day ahead of us. And by long, I mean almost 15 miles. The first 10 were nice and sunny and we felt pretty good in our boots. We made it back to the trail head we hiked out on that lead back to Ozette, now we needed to hike the 3 miles to the second trail head along the coast, followed by at least another mile (if we were lucky) to the camp site. Being 4th of July weekend, LOTS of people had hiked the 3 miles out to the coast and were bbqing, napping, and playing in the water. Many smiling faces and hellos, although I preferred the small deer, crabs, otters, seals, and squirrels that has accompanied us so far on the trip. I wasn't yet ready to make small talk with other campers. 

When I felt like my feet were about to fall off, we make it to our camp site. Beautiful two mile long beach, free of ocean current trash. We immediately went for a much needed dip. Beautiful shallow, clear blue water for about a half mile into the water, with slow soft waves lapping at our blistered feet. We swam and played in the waves until our hearts content, and our stomachs growled in anticipation of a delicious Mountain House Lasagna. Sunset was again enjoyed, this time with some whiskey we had saved for the last couple days (or were too tired to want any on the previous days). Life is good. Except that Fancy Pants Fantasia kept winning all the card games. I may or may not have had a little fit this evening when I almost, oh so close, won my first Rummy win, for him to snatch it out from beneath me at the last second, with a devious cackle.

We stayed at this campsite for two nights, with a short day (finally) in between. This day was supposed to be another 9 miler, but the high tide beat us, and when we couldn't find the trail immediately I chose to turn back and enjoy the day reading, napping and swimming. WIN!

The last morning we woke early, before 6 am, for the 6 mile hike out to sadly drive back to Seattle and fly home. 

The first of the arches

The last sunset

Hiking out 

All in all the trip was fantastic. Great companion (even with the card games ha!), great trails and adventures, great weather, great sunsets, great relaxation. A delay of ferry travel from the 4th of July holiday rush gave us an unexpected day in Seattle, spend walking around town, visiting the brewery's and generally relaxing.

There is always a sense of sadness when these trips are over, a realization and reminder of what is important in these short lives of ours.

Favorite picture of us from our first Adventure away from AK

I'm in a local grocery store paying for a few items and the cashier asks me if i'd like a receipt, which I did, and said yes. Then he asked me if I wanted a date. The kind you eat? The kind where dinner is involved with mostly awkward conversation where you're attempting to care about some childhood story this guy is telling you, which may or may not end in someone running away? I wanted one, and not the other. This is a 50% success rate people. I back up slowly, shifty eyes and all, and out the door without responding. Which is when I realized it. I'm always going to be slightly awkward, even now that I made it to thirty years of age.
Thirty. 30. Three-Zero.  Hot Damn I finally made it to the promised land, my birthday month! (We get a month now, right?) And so far it has been a great new year of life, starting with a slumber party. An actual slumber party complete with good friends, champagne, and breakfast in sleeping bag bed the following morning. Also included in the last 6 days: brewing of a ginger hefeweizen beer, hiking to the top of a mountain with some amazing, witty ladies, dinner of freshly caught king salmon and halibut, bonding time at the Triangle with some of my favorite people, a new adventure movie, a new puzzle (!), and many meals of spicy curry. It's possible the reminder that a slight amount of awkwardness in life makes it interesting, or maybe it's the whole giving less shits as I get older. In any case, I'm finding more humor in it than the adverse.

Pretty Ladies on top of a Mountain 

Birthday Roomies in Fur Coats