mammoth update!

Currently in Catherine's (the bone marrow transplant co-ordinator at Wellington Hospital) car on the way to a nurse education programme dinner meeting in Palmerston North, which is about 2 hours north of Wellington... so I thought I would bring the netbook and write a blog entry to use the time better :D check me!

I've not updated for a while have I – bad Roz! Am only just over the jetlag (it hung around for a while without my realising, manifesting in an insanely strong desire to go to bed at 9pm and waking up at 5am; most out of character), plus settling in has been a full time job...

Last Friday, after our coffee & cake, Cat, Tess and I returned to the hostel and slobbed about a bit before having some more nibbles (no room for a full dinner!) Then we went out on a bar crawl of Courtenay Place, as detailed in Catherine's blog; I don't have much to add to her account of the night, apart from TWO trips to Burger King (once for me and Tess, then back again for Cat on the way home!!! oops) and my vicious hangover the next morning, due to heavily mixing drinks. It's not my fault! I was bought a G&T!!

On Saturday we all got up fairly late and I had the restorative egg on toast. Then it was off to explore more of Welly despite the rain – we started off by buying our tickets for the rugby that night, then going up in the cable car (a Wellington institution) to the Botanic Gardens – unfortuntaly it was just too wet to walk around these, so we ended up going to Kelburn (a pretty suburb of Wellington up on the hillside) for....err..... more coffee and cake. Back down in Wellington, we headed to Te Papa to see the colossal squid and experience the earthquake simulator. The earthquake veterans Cat and Tess can vouch for its accuracy!

Then we had just enough time to put on a gazillion layers of warm clothing and gulp down some yummy spag bol before heading off to the rugby. It was rather wet so we came over all English and sat under our flowery Cath Kidston brollies. Not being a sports player or follower of any description, I had difficulty following the match and spent my time asking Cat (the rugby fanatic) annoying questions like, “What's the difference between a scrum and a ruck?”, “Why isn't this more like Quidditch?”, “Which way are we playing?” and “What colour are we?” I believe that by “we” I meant Wellington Hurricanes, having formed a loyal attachment to the city in 7 days!!

Unfortunately they lost so I decided I liked the Crusaders better.

After the match we squelched out and got on the first bus back to the hostel, where we went for hot showers and then retired to the comfy sofas with hot water bottles and laptops, and later mint hot chocolate (thanks Tess!)

On Sunday the girls had to leave early to get their ferry to Picton and bus to Nelson where their new placement is – I failed to wake up in time to see them off (no surprises there!) but we'd said goodbye the night before. After breakfast Paula (an Irish girl who is staying in Wellington for a week before taking up a graphic design job in Queenstown) and I went off to my favourite activity – the Wellington city market! This is a lovely artisan food market held every Sunday in Chaffers Dock, down by the harbour. Next to it is a fruit and veg market with cheaper-than-Grianger prices.... Didn't really go there this Sunday because it was raining good and proper, so being under cover was the main priority! This led us to take shelter in Te Papa again; I went round the rest of the museum, while Paula and her friend Caroline went to a comedy gig upstairs. There are some really good bits: an exhibition about the young refugees coming to New Zealand which had me tearing up like a hormonal fool, and a lot on NZ history of immigration and their part in the world wars. Met up with the Irish again downstairs and toddled off to Ernesto's (which rapidly becoming my second favourite cafe in Wellington, after Meow). There we had some rather delicious food – my bean chilli with chicken and chorizo was exactly what a rather rain-soaked Roz needed :)

I returned to the hostel to bake banana & white choc muffins – a culinary challenge, as the kitchen is mainly used for the heating of pasta and various sauces in jars. I located enough implements though, and within an hour had these:

winning me much admiration from the pasta-eating boys.

Two of these muffins havc been my breakfast on Monday and Tuesday, washed down with a coffee from Brooklyn Bakery (a bakery and coffee shop on my way to work). The others have been distributed among hostel inhabitants! Who says you can't buy friends with cake??

Monday:

Ward round – good now I know who the patients are and why they're in – there's 3 in isoltion because of stem cell transplants (for various things: mainly acute myeloid leukaemia, and one paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria) and marrow meeting which was about as fun as anything involving microscopes can be.

Monday afternoon I was naughty and sacked off – went for some lovely pad Thai at a restaurant round the corner from my hostel, then Paula and I went for a walk around Wellington which unsuprisingly culminated in Ernesto's again, with THIS cake for me....I actually couldn't finish it and had to save some for later!

After waddling back to the hostel I hung out in the common room on my netbook and studying leukaemia...before making dinner with Paula and Caroline (pasta with bacon, courgettes, mushrooms, chilli, anything else we had...), drinking a very nice Carbernet Merlot, and eating more cake!

Tuesday:

Spent the day in 2 clinics – bone marrow transplants in the morning, general haematology again in the afternoon.... upon my return home via Moore Wilsons (NZ equivalent of Waitrose, really rather nice) I decided to remedy all the recent cake with a visit to the swimming pool. I went off to Freiberg Pool (on Oriental Bay) with Paula who had had the same idea! I had a lovely hour's swimming and then treated myself with a sit in the sauna for half an hour. There were loads of Indian men in there who decided to make it as hot as possible and laughed good-naturedly when I cracked and nipped out for a break.... I went back in for another 10 mins though. Cos I is well 'ard, innit.

Lobster-like from the roasting, and with that lovely heavy tired feeling you only get from swimming, I mooched contentedly back home and nommed down a baked kumara (NZ sweet potato, delicious) with hummus, goats cheese and mushrooms. And salad. Pretty healthy compared to all the cake...

Wednesday

Today I was naughty and sacked off the morning to go to the Botanic Gardens in the cable car with Paula; it was beautiful even though this is NZ winter. Lots of ducks on the duckpond, and cheeky little birds too.

After our amble around the gardens and a quick visit to the Cable Car Museum (complete with beautifully restored original cars), we headed back down into Welly to – surprise surprise – Meow! Brilliant lunch there – cranberry, cashew and potato rosti with pesto and rocket for me, and some more excellent cake (choc fudge brownie).

In general I'm starting to love Wellington; it's a very cool and quirky city, full of snake-hipped youths in drainpipe jeans and baggy t-shirts, swerving effortlessly around on skateboards (insane number of skateboards here!) Their female counterparts are all rocking the geek chic look with big glasses and cute woolly hats (it's winter over here, remember?) Cuba Street – which I have yet to explore properly – is the coolest street in the city withs loads of vintage and coffee shops. Oh and everyone – EVERYONE – drinks coffee. Most people I see in the mornings are clutching coffee cups; all the doctors in the hospital run around with coffee in one hand and stethoscopes in the other; my supervisor breaks off morning clinic to go and get coffee. I'm in heaven.... squeeliac coffee heaven.

<< I just wish this wasn't happening the day AFTER I LEAVE!!! how annoying!?

The hostel is starting to feel like home as well; I was thinking of moving (I'm a “grass might be greener” girl), but as David pointed out, it would be a waste of the muffin-bought friends to move, and if there wasn't anything wrong with this hostel I might as well stick with it. So I am. Wheee. The only con is the rather slow internet, but at least it's free.... They're a friendly bunch here. Most people are staying for a few months, getting jobs and then leaving to travel some more. My room-mate Andy has just got a job in a cafe after about a week of hunting and CV-sending and is rather pleased :)

Now I am in the car on the way to Palmerston North to this nurses' dinner I'm gatecrashing. Should be a good experience; I hope everyone is nice!

Wondering how to go about exploring the area some more – I really want to do a long weekend to Napier and Taupo, both of which are supposed to be gorgeous. Napier's about 4 hours away – I'm trying to decide whether I should rent a car and drive it (errrrk), or put up with the train/bus. I guess I could always visit them from Auckland but that's a bit of a trek....and I have other plans for Auckland! (including a visit to friends at Tauranga, the Coromandel coast, and surfing at Raglan as recommended by Georgina!)

I also want to work out how to get down to Queenstown (where I'm learning to ski, if there's any snow...) I was going to go via Christchurch, but after Tessa and Cat's grim tales of the town, I'd really rather not.... So my new plan was to head down the west coast instead, overnighting in Blenheim or Nelson (for the WINE darling. It is the Marlborough region after all). Then down maybe to Fran Josef to see the glacier/walk on it! An overnight stay there, and go on down to Milford Sound to peek at the gorgeous fjords before heading inland to Queenstown at last. No idea if that's a reasonable itinerary – it would certainly take me about 3 days....

Any thoughts peeps?

Much love to you all – Mummy – happy birthday for last saturday!

Izzy congrats on finishing exams!!! Michael – hang in there! Tim – say hi to all your Japanese friends for me; I'm really sad I can't meet them, especially the clever little boy who can play the piano!

Congratulations to all my newly-created baby doctor friends! So proud of you all :)

xxx