Tag Archives: Work

Part 8 – Work, Work, Work

Well, how the turntables. All of a sudden, the “holiday” vibe was gone, and it was almost a settled life for almost all of us. The general arrangement for this week was: Nina goes to town and does basically a full workday either at the National Libary of New Zealand (Turnbull Libary) or at Te Papa Tongarewa. Maybe a brief meetup for lunch, if I am in town, but that was it.

Number 3 got the chance to go to school. Which is mind-blowing to us, coming from Germany. He could not have hit it better, though. He got assigned to Mr. Cross` classroom of year 3 kids. First day kicked off with swim class. He was in love. Just the logistics were a bit of a challenge.

That left me and the Agent of Entropy, finding our ways. Most of the time, that meant going to Wellington as well, either to get stuff sorted (like, voting as #1 and #2 voter in NZ in that incredibly unneccessary snap election Germany had) or just to hang out.

Then, in the evening, with the kids in bed and the house settled in, I would go and get to work, usually 8pm to midnight. Sometimes, a bit longer. We knew, this whole trip could only work if we both put in serious time to work. But still, ouch. Those first few days hit me hard. Especially before I managed to make a mid-day nap a non-negociable. Working late is weird. Somehow, not helped by the 12 hour time difference, it feels like “the morning” in my mind.

Anyway – we got through this mostly alive – probably the hardest week of our entire trip in terms of work commitments. Time for some weekend fun …

The kids really warmed to Lupin and Loki, the two Golden Retrievers
Showing off the moves
Trying to lower the nervousness of going to school in a different country
She’s a cuddly monkey, isn’t she?
quite the hike down the hill
Joining in to our hosts tradition of “first day snapshots”
It’s a first but just being in the coolest little capital again made me happy
Wellington Railway Station
Out and about, she loved it
The sculpture caught her imagination
Plimmer Steps – walk down memory lane …
We managed to link up with Nina and her old friend Aaron. Shoutout! Great guy!
Even though Plimmerton is quite far out, the train connection makes up for it
no photos in the embassy, so lets take a selfy with the odd scuplture in the yard
No.3 warming up to the dogs
The benefit of having the last house before the sheep
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we tried to just have a peak, could not pass the colering table
This time, it’s all about free tours and information. Last time (over a decade ago), it was all spears and barbs on the outside
From the best chippery in Plimmerton!
linking up with mama, waiting for friends
The AoE listening to an audio book
One of the drawers kept sliding open and then something broke. It was quite rusty so we got a replacement for Timmy.
custom toping, gentle touch
and done

Day 244 – Oh gosh, it’s early…

First day of school. Well, not for us but, in solidarity, we got up at 6.15am as well to have breakfast together at 6.45am. So far so good. After a week here, this felt really early. And I was still soooooo tired.

View from the breakfast table

View from the breakfast table

So after Michael and Lina left, we exceeded in chilling. It contained napping for most of the morning, having a lazy lunch with Michael’s home-made hummus (delicious!) and then starting to look at the Lonely Planet recommendations online to get a feel for a possible route through Oman. But yeah, all in all, we didn’t do much.

When Lina and Michael appeared again around 5.40pm, they were incrediby tired, had things to do and tests to mark so we only enjoyed the Indian take-away food before everyone headed off to their laptops/kindle and did their own thing for a bit.