A Week of Rain :(

   This week has been rather mundane, but it feels nice to relax (somewhat!) after spending last week in Auckland. Upon my arrival back ‘home’ on Sunday, I found a letter in the mailbox. How exciting! It’s always so nice to get mail. This letter was from Memere, and it was so sweet. I really love being pen pals with Memere :)

   Tuesday night, a friend and I went to this place called the Bhakti Lounge, which is a really interesting place. They have yoga classes, meditation, yummy vegetarian and vegan food, spiritual teachings, and other neat stuff. Alice and I went on Tuesday for yoga and dinner, which was amazing! The whole vibe of the place is really relaxed, and I felt at ease as soon as I walked in. We got ready for the class, and then were led in a yoga practice by one of the volunteers that works there as an instructor. It felt so good, and the coolest part is that we did headstands! And I did it! Up against a wall of course.. Anways, yoga felt great and I worked up an appetite for the delicious dinner we had waiting for us after. I can’t tell you exactly what we had, but it was a big mix of veggies and it tasted wonderful. We had pumpkin pie for dessert too! I’m sold. I’m going to the Bhakti Lounge every week.

   Thursday night, I went to a dinner party at a friend’s house. So much fun! The house was decorated so cute, we drank sangria, and we ate awesome homemade food. I love the amount of good food I’ve been eating lately. And I don’t feel guilty at all because it’s (mostly) all good for you.. right?

Alice's house, all decorated!

   Other than that, my week has been pretty average. Lots of rain, but that’s typical for Wellington. I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between the US and here, because it seems to come up in conversation a lot. Here’s a short list of some major differences that I encounter very often:

1    1) Weight. It’s in milliliters and kilograms instead of pounds and ounces. It makes following recipes and buying stuff at the grocery confusing!

     2) Distance. I can never remember how many kilometers in a mile, or how many miles in a kilometer, however it goes. I have no sense of how far away things are here!

     3) Gas prices. Here, they’re in litres instead of gallons. A typical price is like $2.20. Seems good right? Nope. That’s like $8.30 a gallon, I think. Also, they call it petrol here.

     4) Temperature. They measure in Celsius. When I first arrived here, the average was around 20° C, which is 68° F. Now, it’s closer to 15° C, which is only 59° F. Brr!

     5) Area. This doesn’t come up too much, but when it does I’m absolutely clueless. Hectares are the norm instead of acres, and I have no concept of the difference.

     6) Writing the date. They write day/month/year, instead of month/day/year. Sometimes when I read that the date is 3/5/13, I think it’s March 5^th, not May 3^rd.

      ^{7) Money. It's totally different here. They have different bills, no pennies, and $2 coins. Weird.}

I'm rich!!!

The biggest coin is $2, and the smallest is 10¢.