Let’s have a little chat today ok? As much as I love writing travel posts, sometimes I think it’s nice to connect to you on more of a personal level with what’s going on day-to-day in the lives of those behind Living in Another Language. I’ve been seeing a lot of new faces around these parts, as well as those who have been following along since it all began. To those who are new, I send a warm hello, and to those that aren’t, here’s to you faithfully sticking with me. :)
Shall we begin?
+You know you live in New Zealand when…the top article that appears on your newsfeed for the day is about a sea lion that somehow waddled through two sets of automatic doors and into the [saltwater] pool at a neighboring beach. The thing is, I wasn’t even that surprised over this news. Sea lions are smart, and who wouldn’t want to swim in that big beautiful pool?
+We got back from our vacation 20 days ago, and my skin is still dry and peeling. I didn’t even burn that bad (hello SPF 50), so I’m wondering what gives?
+ I’ve been a horrible blogger lately. The travel blog has kind of taken a back seat to other areas of my life, and if it weren’t for certain advertising contracts, I probably wouldn’t be posting even twice a week if I had a choice. I absolutely adore my blog (and my readers), but opening up WordPress to even try to do something productive on LIAL has taken some effort in the last few weeks.
A huge majority of that has to do with the fact that my freelance design business has been going absolutely nuts. I transfer blogs over to wordpress.org on a daily basis, and also deliver a few custom designs every week as well! In any spare moment, I’ve been working over at my design site to create a premade template and services shop, and that’s going well, but is definitely a time-suck. All that to say, I love my [almost] full time job and I’m 100% devoted to it.
+The weather has been absolutely glorious in Dunedin. I know the North Island has had summer for quite some time now (two months), but it only just arrived here a couple weeks ago. I’ve heard it starts to cool the end of February, and I’m already mourning the day. It’s averaging 75-ish degrees Fahrenheit on a sunny day and 50’s at night; perfect for wearing almost anything in your wardrobe!
+Our car stopped working. Since being expats, we’ve actually lived generally close to work so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Now that we live 20 a twenty minute drive outside of Dunedin, this causes a problem. If that wasn’t bad enough, the first mechanic we hired to look and diagnose the car’s problem, actually misdiagnosed it (twice after halfhearted attempts), and Derik ended up purchasing completely the wrong part. When we think we almost get it sorted we’re back at the beginning. Derik is actually pretty good with fixing things, and for the last four years he’s always fixed problems with our cars. This time though, we can’t seem to get it right. After working on the car this morning at 5:00am before work, we decided to try another mechanic shop. It’s currently sitting over there and we’re waiting on the edge of our seats to find out what the issue is. Hoping for the best, but can’t help feeling a bit discouraged. We’ve also had to have a rental car this past week because of our car problems (the bus route timetable does not work with Derik’s schedule), and are basically getting price-gouged per day for it because it’s ‘tourist season.’ It is frustrating, but these kind of things happen, and there’s not much more that you can do except have patience and know it’ll all be fine in the end.
+In 2013 I got LASIK surgery. I would have never thought I’d already be wearing contacts in 2015…I should be ashamed of myself. No, the LASIK didn’t ‘go bad,’ I just wanted to see what I would look like with a different eye color. I purchased a test pair (apparently there is no such thing as a ‘trial product’ here) at a discounted price, so I knew if I didn’t like them, I would’t be out a ton of money. I was actually surprised with how natural they looked and felt! It took my eyes a good 4 hours to get used to having foreign objects in them again, but that was to be expected. The weird part to me was that once I took out the contacts I could see, and two years ago when I took out my contacts I was blind as a bat. I am again so thankful I was able to get LASIK while in Korea. It was seriously one of the most life-changing things I’ve ever done (that’s what happens when your prescription was -8.75 and -7.50). Although I definitely won’t be wearing the contacts on a daily basis, I have had a lot of fun with them! 
+A 400 meter long slip-n-slide named Goliath is coming to Dunedin February 8th. You better believe we’re booking tickets! I mean, it’s not every day you get to literally slide all the way across town now is it?!
+I found my new drink of choice: a delicious fusion of Pinot Gris and Apple Cider called Pomme de Gris. I accidentally stumbled upon it at the grocery store the other day, and I couldn’t be happier! Thank you New Zealand!
+Speaking of drinking wine, we should probably get on to booking a couple winery tours this summer! I have my heart set on visiting Marlborough Winery, about an 8 hour drive north for us. Once we get our car fixed up, I guarantee we’ll be heading out for another epic weekend road trip!
Well, that’s pretty much all I have going on around here. I’m sure someone will mention something in the comments that’ll make me wish I had written about it in this weird and random post…but oh well.