It was one of our coworkers, Larisa, birthday so we all packed into 3 cars and drove back to Oamaru, the closets civilization, to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D (yeah we were living large). The theater in Oamaru is so strange it looks like a tiny convenience store on the outside but then you walk through a tiny hallway to where the theaters were and the theaters are huge, they even have couches! For never having seen the cartoon version of the movie it was all very exciting to me. However our little chef, Felix, who works 6:30 in the mornings, fell asleep in the theater, just too much excitement. Most of our time is pretty boring because it just consists of working at the café or going to the pub because that is all there is in Omarama.
Larisa clearly didn't get the memo that Jo and I were going for the punk look in our 3d glasses.
But on one of our days off we went to Tekapo, which is apparently part of the dark sky reserve. We stayed the night on a campground in Fairlie because it was close to a library and we actually kind of have to start looking things up for our Asia trip. Long story short we spent about 4 hours in the library and looked up exactly 2 things about our trip, that’s what we like to call middle children planning! The campground in Fairlie was stunning. It was also the day that NZ got it’s first snow dusting on the mountains, which made Kiwis a little nervous because they shouldn’t have snow this early. I think it was just so cold and rainy from the cyclone though (oh yeah there was a huge storm on the North Island, luckily we just got all the rain from it).
We drove back to Tekapo to see the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Sheepdog monument. For some reason these two things are main attractions, there were so many people and tour buses it was crazy. Next stop Astro Café, which was an hour or so hike up a mountain. We didn’t know it was going to be that long of a hike or that strenuous of a hike so we stupidly hiked in jeans and belts…never hike in a belt…ever. We finally made it to the top and to the café where I ended up getting a free drink; we still don’t understand how that happened.
See grams made it to a church, happy?
The bench is position so you look up at the sky...getting on the bench it the tricky part.
We got back to Omarama to start another long week of work but it was made shorter by the kids (Lara and Stephan) coming to visit. They had been working on jobs in Gore apparently really shitty jobs too. But we hadn’t seen them in a month so it was great reuniting. We also got a new member to the house, Henry. Henry is Maddie’s cat that is useless at catching mice or being a real cat but is great at being a puppy. We have all fallen in love with little Henry! At the end of the week we decided to have an American style BBQ! We felt invited everyone from work over to have some burgers and dogs while playing the most American music we could find!
Our next adventure was to Wanaka. Maddie, Maggie, Felix and I all piled in a car for the hour drive but not before we picked up a Canadian hitchhiker, Dylan. He was a super nice Canadian, as they all are! However he did realize that I should have an accent coming from North Carolina, but ha jokes on him I never travel with my accent, going to school in Boston has taught me better! We dropped Dylan in Wanaka to find his friend and we picked up so really good BBQ chicken pizza!
More worky work then on Thursday we all packed into Maddie’s car to hit up Oamaru to get ears pierced! Yep we made an 8pm appointment to get ears pierced like all the cool kids do! While there we went to warehouse to buy more blankets and to pick up groceries! We had to prepare for Maggie’s birthday, which she couldn’t wait for (Maggie hates celebrating her birthday)! We stopped by the Gibson’s on the way back home as we always do! Maddie’s parents, the Gibson’s are literal saints; they just gave us 3 wool blankets! On Friday we drove Paggie Waggie to Kurow to get her a check up (you are welcome mother), she passed with flying colors. Scott the mechanic was just a prince he didn’t over charge us and gave his honest opinion on our ties and break pads and didn’t try to rip us off like so many other mechanics have tried to do. While she was at her check up Mags and I of course went to farmlands, we wish we could live inside a farmlands it’s so magical!
we found the good marshmellows!
END NOTES
Happy Easter, from the baby of the Parisians
Perks of living with a chef
Lauren Graham’s Talking as Fast as I Can is another really great read
We have almost convinced everyone at the café to get a popsocket!! We should really be getting a commission here!
It was Maggie's 24th birthday this morning (April 22nd,) so of course I set our alarm to the only birthday song that matters, the Stevie Wonder birthday song!