Riding the train

Renata is taking another break from updating so I thought I would talk a bit more what we have been up to. Recently, Renata began doing some contract work for Media Design School where I work. She has quite a bit of a background in a wide variety of subjects and professions and that comes in handy when there are administrative and organizational things that need to be taken care of, but no full time staff member to take care of them.


Anyway, there are three different ways we can get to work. Driving and parking (about 12 bucks a day), taking the bus (cheaper for me, because I am a teacher now, but about $4.30 each way for Renata) or the train (about $2.30 each way). No brainer, we go to Glen Innes, which is pronounced Glen Inn Ehs, instead of how I was murdering it before, which was, Glen EYEns. Everyone raises their eyebrows at my hillbilly twang, but is too nice to correct me.



Below you can see the station at Glen Innes on the left. In the middle and on the right are Britomart Station. The flying saucers on the ceiling are actually skylights with a chrome spheres to help diffuse the light. The cool thing is that one of those skylights is actually a fountain on the street above. Very cool design.



The Kiwi habit of queueing up is completely forgotten in a station. Elsewhere, people are polite and wait stoically for hours on end, just to make sure they haven't jumped in line. In the train station, chaos ensues. Actually, it's not that bad, but after the pleasantries of queueing, it seems like madness that someone would step in front of you as you enter the train.

That blue sign in the middle below, seems logical. No silly stuff when in an indoor train station. Except for that guy with the guitar, what the heck is Busking. I am assuming that means don't beg in the train station whilst playing a guitar. Either that, or you are not allowed to be King of the Bus.





Instead of walking up Queen Street from Britomart, we decided to walk up High Street. Yes, you can see it there, with the Hemp Store just in the background. I think it's Hemp as in clothing, rope and fibre rather than the medicinal variety. Further down the street I found an old friend from the '80s. "Warriors, come out to play!" Actually, I constantly hear people talking about the good old shows like the A-Team, Airwolf and Knight Rider. People here watch quite a bit of American TV.

Closer in to work, I was surprised to find a bit of Texas in a location that is the least like Texas than anywhere else I have ever been. As I turned away from the Paris Texas store, I was treated with the shopping area below these three images.

Once we got to work, it was a pretty standard day. About 10am every morning, the fire department comes roaring up Queen St. This time, I think the Burger King left the fries in too long. Nothing usually comes from the incident, they come check stuff out and then they leave.

Oh, see that guy there in the middle. What the heck is he thinking. I wouldn't say that to his face, cause he is about 8 feet tall and could kick my butt. He is standing at an ATM machine. Usually there is a camera, to record who is taking money out, just in case it's a bad guy. The poor person who has to go through these tapes is going to have a sea of plaid in the screen and nothing else.

It was an interesting day, so let us all reflect!

Kelseys Birthday Party

Yeah, I know her Birthday was in August....but we just now were able to scrape enough scratch together to make Mexican food. Seriously, how bad is it when you are saving money to make the most basic food items on the face of the planet? Kelsey had about 12 people over last Friday and quite a few of them had never had tacos before. Everyone was a bit timid at first. Making one single taco...a little beans and rice....and staring at the queso like it was alien ooze. However, they very quickly went up for seconds and thirds. You will notice that in all of the eating pictures the kids are crammed into the kitchen. I am a mean Mom. Those kids are MESSY and I am glad I restricted them too. You should of seen it after cake!

As per usual at the Porter home....rock band, dance dance and twister. Twister took everyone a while to get into...there's Marty all alone...."aw come on, someone play!" There were quite a few pictures of them laughing very dramatically like teenagers, but they were all blurry. I guess the camera doesn't do dramatic.

Below is Kelsey's first try at doing a special cake. She did a cow, of course. She really did a great job. She got a bit heavy handed doing the cow print on the sides...but it turned out very nice and tasty! (side note: I am sure Mike is having his own cow right now because I inserted a vertical picture above....yeeesh...artists.)

All of that black icing left it's mark on everyone.

I know what you are thinking. If it didn't have flowers on it, it would look just like a blow up.....it's a hammer. (there's a joke in there somewhere.)

For some reason the glasses and earrings reminded the family of Nanny. Have no idea what they are talking about.

The kids decorated themselves with glo-sticks and then went off to the beach for a couple of hours. Mike and I sat and watched the celebrity roast of Larry the Cable Guy. (or Dan)

When the kids came back they tried their hand at twister in the dark with the glo-sticks. Pretty cool.

It was a great night and the kids had a good time. A lot of laughter and it was wonderful to see Kelsey smiling a lot. It was a treat for Mike and I to see her so happy.

Kelly Tarlton's

We went to Kelly Tarlton's this weekend. Kelly's is the first underground aquarium. It's small and expensive, but what it offers is pretty cool. It's also a great thing to do on a rainy Sunday.

The first couple of pictures are supposed to be from camps in the Antarctic.

From there we went rode in a Snow Cat to go through the penguine area. We were lucky that our ride was during feeding time. It gave me a good perspective on acutally how big the King Penguines are.

If you look really close to the center picture, you will see a baby chick in the back. It's huge, but it blends in with the rocks. They have it behind a wavy glass to keep it seperated from the adults.

This is the start of the under water tunnel. You ride a walking conveyor belt (like at the big airports) while sharks and fish swim all around and above you. This was really neat and dark for pictures, but Mike did a good job. We rode this thing two and half times around. I was making sure we got our money's worth!

If you look a the first picture, Mike took this through some rocks. You can see the tunnel in the back of the picture. The third one is of a shark egg. That was cool, you could see the shark moving around inside.

Now those are big "crayfish". Marty sitting next to them gives you an idea.

A parana and a very pregnant seahorse.

It was a fun day for the Porter's. This weekend is supposed to be nice, so we are going to get out and do a day hike. Haven't decided where, but you will find out next week.