New Zealand Stuff

I just realised last night that even in just one month of being in the States I have almost cut out all of my New Zealandisms from everyday conversations! Mainly because the people here would not understand the Maori words haha, but also other words like "cuz", "chur", "bro", "sweet as" - things I said alll the time, now don't come out of my mouth at all! Its funny to think that things you say all the time can suddenly, easily, vanish from your vocabularly, particularly Maori phrases that I normally use like Kia Ora, tu meke, ka kite, kia kaha etc.

The one time that I do use a NZ term is when I see this plant:

I have always known it as toi toi and since I literally do not know what else to call it (I didn't even think they would have it over here!) I tell the kids that it is called toi toi. Haha. Its my one reminder of my home country!

Perhaps I will try to teach the kids some New Zealandisms. I would hate to return to New Zealand and find that I have forgotten all the Maori words that I have tried so hard to learn.

:)

Roadtrip: Deception Pass, Whidbey Island

One of the places my host family highly recommended to me was Deception Pass, a straight between two islands with a towering bridge connecting them and wooded and coastal areas to hike around. They suggested that I then drive the length of the island and take the car ferry from Clinton, a town on Whidbey Island, back to the mainland.

This is the route I took:

As you can see, the last stop is 'F' and that is where I caught the car ferry.

I loved all the little towns along the way, Mount Vernon was a sweet little town, very quaint, and they had a couple of amazing bookshops!

Cute bookshop!

Mt Vernon town

Look what I found! A Matheson building!

My zippy little car! Still thinking of an appropriate name for her.

Deception Pass has an incredible view over all these little islands! The bridge is actually made up of two bridges, they were built in 1934 and have so much charm and character. I was able to park in a little carpark right in the middle of the two bridges where you can look out at the vista, and you can walk underneath the bridge to see the other side! You can also walk over the bridge. I did all of the above!

On each side straddling the pass are national parks where you can take hikes around the different coastal areas and look out at the water and other islands. I went to both parks and did short walks around. It was great scenery and a most enjoyable walk.

I stopped for lunch along the way and drove around the different small towns, went up Mt Erie which is a wooded mountain on Fidalgo Island, went to Anacortes which is the main town on Fidalgo Island and the gateway to the San Juan Islands, also very close to Victoria, BC (Canada!) - I sense another trip coming on!

Coming home I drove down Whidbey Island, I saw a little street of shops all lit up with fairy lights! Then I boarded the ferry at Clinton and came home! It was an excellent day out, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, going on long drives is one of my all time favourite things to do. I had the radio on and I sang the whole way :) 

Glimpses of Seattle

Here are some pictures of some things I have seen recently! :)

Pioneer Square

Lovely sun streaming through in Pioneer Square

Waterfall Garden - a hidden little gem - on a random street in Pioneer Square, behind a large fence is this little piece of paradise! A roaring waterfall with fragrant plants all around! Bliss!

Interesting architecture 

My favourite place in Seattle - Pike place market!

The famous Gum wall! yes thats right, all these colours are actually pieces of gum 

A larger perspective on the gum wall! That is a lot of gum! Eeeew!

My favourite bakery!

My friend's gorgeous cats!

Sooo lovely!

My friend's flatmates practising their sword fighting in the middle of the street! Very different and very cool! 

SuperBowl Sunday

It was SuperBowl Sunday last week! My host family put on a large but relaxed party for their friends to come and watch it. There were approximately 50 people who came to the party and it was a lot of fun! I quickly learned that the famous SuperBowl is all about eating and socialising and watching the superbowl ads! Everyone brought delicious food and we munched and chatted as we vaguely watched the game. The half-time show was exciting, Madonna performed and sang some of her classic songs like Vogue and Like a Prayer, the other ladies and I sang along and had a great time!

A Bit of History

The other day I went on a tour of Underground Seattle - the tour tells the story of the historic downtown area of Seattle and how toilets and a fire made a huge impact on Seattle as we know it!

Back when Seattle was first developed it was picked for its handy location - close to the sea, close to rivers - good for growing crops. However, the business part of town was basically built right on the beach, in fact, when it was high tide the water would puddle up on the street! It meant they had huge problems with their toilets because the waste couldn't easily escape, they couldn't have long drops because it would fill up with sea water! So they installed flush toilets, all hooked into one sewer pipe that headed out to sea. Anyone who built a house would simply hook up their toilet to the one sewer line - it put a lot of pressure on the pipe, and to make matters worse, the main residential part of the city was up a very steep hill, so gravity brought their sewage down that one pipe with massive speed, sending it right out to sea. The problem was that sea water was coming in the pipe from the other end as well, making the pressure so enormous that at high tides raw sewage would spurt up through the toilets in 4-10 foot geysers!!! Can you even imagine? You head in to the toilet and suddenly out of the toilet erupts this force of raw sewage! I don't dare imagine what the clean up would have been like. So anyway, there were massive problems in the emerging new Seattle because of it being built on the beach (even the Bible warns against building houses on sand haha).

You can see the water puddles on the street in this photo! Fascinating!

They tried to put the toilets up on plinths but it didn't help

Meanwhile, there were some people boiling glue on a stove, they left it too long and it caught fire, unfortunately they threw water on the fire which spread it and because of a high wind and the fact that all the shops in town were made of timber, the whole downtown burned to the ground in 12 hours! Not one person died but over 30 entire blocks of shops were destroyed. It was awful, but did have a good outcome, it meant that the town could rebuild and in the process, fix their toilet problem! The shops began building straight away, in beautiful brick and stone this time, while the city planners decided what to do. It was an ingenious idea - they needed to raise the level of the road, but since people had already rebuilt their businesses they had to work around them, so they built huge retaining walls on each side of the road, leaving room for the sidewalk and shop fronts, and filled in the roads with dirt - are you with me? do you understand? the sidewalk was still usable, but they were basically filling in the street and burying it underground. They raised the road until it was level with the second storey of every building, so the buildings made new entrances on their second floor, while the first floor became their basement. The city built sidewalks to link the buildings to the roads with stairs and ladders to get to the underground sidewalks, so people could actively shop above ground and below ground! They even put skylights in the above ground sidewalks to light the underground sidewalk, incredible! We got to see the skylights, and they still let in a lot of light today all these years later!

The sidewalk and shop fronts beneath the ground!

The street level today

The skylights in the pavement looking from above ground

The skylights from the underground sidewalk - lots of light! 

As time went on, the underground sidewalks became infested with rats (they were so bad in some places they were described as a carpet) so people closed them off and just used the street level sidewalk. This tour I took allowed us to see some of these underground sidewalks and shop fronts (some are still in use!) It was fascinating, and sometimes mind boggling to imagine how they just filled in the streets to raise the road level! I wonder what it was like for the people who were around at that time.

Beautiful brick buildings and sidewalk with no rats!

I guess toilets are pretty famous in this town! This one was on display at the tour giftshop

I love learning about fascinating history and this tour was excellent! They also talked about how Seattle downtown was just full of gambling dens and taverns and women (affectionately termed "seamstresses"). Who knew Seattle had such an interesting story to tell!

Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

The other day I was lucky enough to take the twins to the Zoo!!! I was very excited about it! We had a great time walking around and looking at the animals. The twins' favourite part was seeing the elephant being hosed down for his bath - they were so enraptured with it they were still parroting "The elephant was taking a bath!!" the next day! We had our lunch at the zoo and had so much fun they fell asleep in the car on the way home.

                                 

Bear!

A komodo dragon! First time I've ever seen one!

Just casually letting the children play and touch the komodo dragon (don't stress, its a sculpture! haha!)

Owls!! Just for you Corinne!

The children acting like owls - just for you Corinne!

Hoot hoot! 

Playing at the zoo playground

When we got home I checked the mail and, lo and behold, my social security card had arrived! It was such a thrill to see it on the official paper! Another thing sorted!

The Suburban Life

I thought I would put up some pictures of my day to day life here!

Begin work, these two loveable rouges (2/5 of the kids) take me out breakfast where they cook me pancakes

Cooking the pancakes

Stimulating breakfast conversations about politics while eating pancakes

Stunning mountain view right from the family home!

Midmorning: down to business!

Off-time: Walking around a neatby lake

Evening: Beautiful sunset, great company.

As you can see, the kids take good care of me. They cook me whatever I want, they always hang out with me, and take me out all the time, mostly to the park or the community child's gym. When we get tired we take naps. When I hurt myself they become fully qualified doctors to fix me up. They are always entertaining me with interesting stories from their lives and from their imaginations. They tuck me into bed then jump me awake again! We have great karaoke sessions in the car. When I take off my shoes they always help me to put them away. How lucky am I? :)