Visitation (and other rights)

Greetings on-line purveyors of Joanna. It is I, the apple of her eye. Or at least what her eye saw through the camera lens with an apple. An I-apple-eye combination to be sure.
Here I am with a crazed look in my eye that says "my uterus is contracting with the speed and force more commonly associated with a wind turbine on the hill outside of Palmerston North" rather than "why did I ever agree to let Jo invade my personal space (country) for nine days?". Why? Because I loooooooved getting to see her on 'my side' of the Tasman. Oh, and also because I'm a midwifery student, ergo it's a crime if I don't mention female reproductive anatomy at least once every 3 hours. [The crazed look and the apple both disappeared soon after this was taken. Thanks for the drugs Jo!].


Since I am taking over this blog for a moment, I thought I'd bring you some bona fide Kiwi perspective on things. Only I'm mostly Canadian (with a few other continents thrown in to confuse those who make the mistake of asking "where are you from?"). Nevertheless, 10 months studying here gives me some dubious authority. And in any case, you're stuck with it for the moment.

In saying that, here is part of the port at Wellington looking simultaneously industrial, urban and sunny. What you can't see is that the wind is blowing like the dickens (a very Welly thing for it to do) and Jo and I are meandering along the banks watching the electic Wellingtonians pedal 4-man bicycles, military style. Nevertheless, we left Wellington, and after a couple 'health' (mental & otherwise) days spent in bed/eating grilled cheese sandwiches on the floor at my flat in Palmy, we headed east to the Cape - where the sun rises first in the world. When it rises. Yay rain.

This photo illustrates many wonderful things:
1) Jo has a nice armpit
2) there are cows, in addition to sheep terrorizing the road in NZ
3) NZ is very green
4) NZ is very misty & wet
5) we drive on the left
6) the term "State Highway 35" is synonymous with "will take 8 hours to drive 200km"

Part of the reason it took so long was because we stopped so very often. That and the road that was straight 0.0001% of the time. But I digress, along the way we were privy to countless intricately carved Marae (Maori meeting houses), rocky coves, bloated cat carcasses, stunning green hills, perilously itch-inducing sand flies, and the enormous sky streaking grey-blue and muted sunlight across the Pacific. If you've seen Whale Rider - that's where we were.

I'd post further, but blogspot is trying my patience unduly tonight, so I will have to leave it at that for the interim. I leave you now in Joanna's capable hands.

. . . as per usual