Happy First Day of Summer!

It's the first day of Summer here in New Zealand and it was beautiful! Sunny and warm with a cool breeze. :)

The past few weeks have been pretty busy...good busy for the most part but busy none the less. Two weekend ago Torre and I took the Overlander Train from Levin to Auckland for a long weekend trip. We love riding on trains! They are much roomier and easy to move around on than plains are and the scenery along the way was breathtaking. It is about a ten hour ride, one way, but we were delayed. The train had several cars, one for luggage, three or four for passengers, a Cafe car that had beverages, sandwiches, wraps, ice cream, meat pies, lamb shank dinners, a variety of novelties and, of course, the engine. :) The rear car had a "lounge" at the back that had bench type couch seating, a table and big windows all around to viewing the scenery and at the front of the first passenger car you could go outside on a platform and take pics while the train was moving. Twice along the way we stopped so they could change the engine from an electric engine to a diesel engine and then I think at some point back to an electric engine. The crew was really great...very friendly and attentive. The train manager served as our tour guide and gave us all kinds of historical information as we chugged along through towns, over rivers and bridges. We arrived in Auckland around 7pm, walked several blocks through down town to our hotel, The Auckland City Hotel, and then decided to go in search of some dinner and BUBBLE TEA! Ever since our friend Chris introduced Torre to Bubble Tea at a yummy vegan Thai restaurant in Boston he's been addicted! The good news...in Wellington and Auckland Bubble Tea seems to be on every corner...the bad news...none of them come close to how yummy the Boston vegan teas are. In Boston they use coconut milk, fresh fruit and tea to make them but here they use powdered milk, powder flavoring and tea. The common denominator is the "bubbles" or "pearls" which is tapioca pudding balls. :) Sunday we spent the day exploring down town, Christmas shopping for family, hunting down more Bubble Tea shops, eating Sushi and Mexican food and every so often we stopped to watch the Auckland Triathlon World Cup. We didn't even know it was going to be there. *Hey Brett! Some day we'll be rooting for you in the Auckland Triathlon World Cup!* Torre had to leave early Monday morning and head back to Levin for work on Tuesday but I stayed to go to the Acts Churches Leadership Conference at the Bruce Mason Centre on the North Shore with the other leaders from our church. The conference was Tuesday through Friday afternoon and was a really great time of praise, worship, teaching, encouragement and fellowship. Glenn Berteau from Calvary Temple Worship Center in Modesto, CA, was the key speaker. He share with us part of his "Christianity Lite" series and it was super! It's kind of funny being at a conference in Auckland, NZ, and sitting their listening to a speaker from America! As good as the conference was, I was pretty bummed that Torre wasn't there too. I left Auckland early Friday morning and took the train back to Levin. *Brace yourself for what comes next...it's a sad and tragic event.*
Just a few hours after we left Auckland we came to Hamilton for a quick break and to pick up new passengers. After leaving Hamilton we were going down the tracks through the country, surrounded by cows, when all of the sudden there were bumps, gravel flying into the windows and then the train came to a sudden stop. We all thought that someone had put rocks or something on the tracks and that was it, but shortly after we saw one of the train attendants outside checking out the situation the other train attendant came over the loud speaker announcing that someone had just committed suicide by jumping in front of our train. Yeah. Too awful for words. I can't quite explain the feeling that spread through my body at that moment. The only thing I can think to compare it to is that wonderful warm sense of safety and peace when you are in the company of a loved one only  COMPLETELY opposite. I felt a shutter of terror and sorrow shoot through me and then began to quietly sob. They were tears of grief for a man that decided life was so hopeless that the only "logical" solution was jumping in front of a train. Tears for the family and friends left behind wondering if they could've done something to stop him. Tears of remembrance from a similar scene about six years ago when a man ran in front of my truck one dark evening while Torre and I travelled home through the Arizona desert to announce our engagement to our families. The crew was extremely calm and compassionate, making sure they did everything they could to make sure everyone on the train was okay. The female attendant said that it has happened before and does happen more often then people realize. They offered a councillor to anyone who needed to talk and continued to keep us updated. Over all nobody in my train car seemed too outwardly upset by what had happened but that doesn't mean they weren't. The police and investigation units came and secured the area and the train so we were not allow to get off or move for just over two hours. After they were done clearing the scene we moved on, changed attendants and the poor engineer who saw it all happen and continued on to Wellington. Friday night and Saturday was kind of rough emotionally. I kept bursting in to tears randomly but I'm okay now...just not sure about taking the train any more. :/

This week has kept my mind off it though as there was plenty to catch up on and prepare for. We have a Pastor and his wife staying with us from the Island of Tonga today through Monday. He is one of the Equippers Pastors and is here to speak to the Youth tomorrow night and at our two Sunday services. They are a really neat couple! We are excited to have them staying with us. :)

We've also been getting ready for "Christmas in the Park", a free community wide event that will have performances, food, games, vendors, prizes and Santa arriving in a red Jeep! This is our church's first or second year overseeing the planning of this event and I am the Stage Manager so be praying it all goes smoothly!

That's all for tonight...so tired...it's 11:30pm on Thursday night. Sweet dreams. xox

Wellington

This week Torre had orientation with the NZ Locums agency in Wellington so we had the opportunity to drive south and see more of the island. Wellington is a small city on the southern coast of the North Island and feels about the size of Boston. It's a lot cooler here than in Levin and doesn't have the “small town” feel that Boston does but the views of the homes on the coast looks like what I would imagine the homes on the Greek Islands to look like. Downtown Wellington is packed with high rise offices and apartment building, a cafe on every corner and lots and lots of shopping. Turkish, Sushi and Sandwich shops are the favorites here and the Kiwis love their espresso!

A few Wellington highlights:

One night while strolling down Cuba Street we found Wasabi Sushi. It is a generally normal Sushi restaurant, except we'd never seen service provided with such a spin! The restaurant is pretty long and narrow and has a long, lean oval shaped table in the center of the room that seats about 25 people. Rolling around the top of the table is a conveyor belt filled with all different colored plates of sushi! All you do it sit down and start shopping to your hearts content! At the end of the meal the server comes over, sees how many of which colored plates you have, rings you up and you are out the door. We'll be back. :)

For those of you who have never experience the Magnum Ice Cream bar, I'm sad to say that you've been missing out. From what I can tell they've been available in other countries for years but just started making themselves known in the states recently. Get one! I know you'll love it. :) They have a promotion going right now....1 in 6 people win a FREE Magnum! We got a Honey Suckle Vanilla Magnum the other night our way back to the hotel and wouldn't you know it WE WON!!! I rarely win anything so this was a lovely surprise! Pictured is our prize. :)

Yesterday Torre finished his meetings at 2pm so we went to the Te Papa Museum on the harbor. It's a big beautiful museum that's free to the public. Torre was extremely excited to find that it's the only museum in the world to have on display a Colossal Squid! He had actually watched the documentary on this exact squid not that long ago. It was captured live on a fishing vessel, frozen to be preserved and then slowly thawed so scientist could study it until it began to break down and had to be preserved for display in the museum. A Colossal Squid's eye is the size of a soccer ball, it's tentacles have hooks on them and spin in circles and it has this giant bird like beak that it uses to grab and eat it's prey. Gross.