Travels in Kiwi-Land

Because I've been a bit remiss in documenting my kiwi adventure, I think I'll describe the first half of my trip in Haiku form:

Departure delayed
Taxi-ed around LAX
Long flight not too bad

Sprinted to Jetstar
Rainy day in Wellington
Saw museum and gardens

Wet, rainy morning
Ferry took us to more rain
Drove into sunset

...ok, this is getting a bit tiring...back to normal prose:

After the beautiful sunset over the Tasman Bay, we arrived at our first hostel, the Barn. It didn't look much like a barn, but it was comfortable, and in a very pretty area on the edge of Abel Tasman National Park. We had underestimated the amount of time it would take to drive on the windy New Zealand highways, so we didn't get to spend any time in Abel Tasman park. So, we spent the next two days driving almost the entire day before arriving in Wanaka for our WWOOF experience. The scenery was gorgeous, and I took a ton of pictures out of the window of the car, but we didn't have time to stop and enjoy it very frequently (with the exception of Pancake Rocks and Franz Josef Glacier). When we finally arrived in Wanaka, we discovered that the town is completely overrun by snowboarders at this time of year, and were lucky to grab the last room available in one of the hostels - a small shed separate from the main building, known as the "love shack". Bonnie and I have pictures to illustrate the decor of the shack - it was worth a good laugh when we arrived.

The past week, we have been WWOOFing at a farm just outside of the main town of Wanaka with a very friendly family. While we were there, we moved dirt into the raised garden beds, weeded, dug potatoes, turned over soil, chased chickens, bonded with cows, were entertained by the antics of children, discussed philosophy, psychology, and food, and nearly put on a puppet show. An excellent week. We also decided to stay an extra day so that we could go skiing midweek, and I am very glad that we did that - the conditions were great, and Bonnie and I both did quite well, and were racing each other down the slopes by the end of the day.

Now, we are in Queenstown, taking a rest day and waiting for the bad weather to pass before we head over to Milford Sound. Stay posted for more pictures!

The Austin Food Cart Adventure

In preparation for my upcoming move to Austin, I spent the last 4 days there on a mission to find a place to live. Fortunately, by the end of day 2, I found a great apartment, only ~3 miles from campus, and right next to a bus stop for the campus shuttle. So, I ended up having 2 days of spare time, and I mostly spent them driving around Austin and getting acquainted with the area.

One challenge of traveling is always finding food - I was staying in a bare-bones Motel 6 where I didn't even have a mini-fridge, so I had to find places to eat lunch and dinner every day. Because Austin is well-known for its excellent food - the options range from heart attack-inducing barbecues to farm-fresh vegan cuisine - choosing a place to eat can be a bit overwhelming. So, I decided to pick a theme so that I could narrow down my food choices: everything I ate came from a food cart or trailer. Although this might sound like a recipe for greasy, inedible food, there are actually some really excellent food carts in Austin. They tend to be run by young people who really enjoy making food, but don't have the money or the inclination to invest in a brick-and-mortar restaurant. This generally means that the food is excellent, the prices are cheap, and that their hours are a bit odd, but for a student on a budget, this is perfect. You can get an idea of the remarkable quantity and variety of these food carts at http://austinfoodcarts.com/. Here's my quick summary of each place I visited and what I ate there.  I'll put more details about each place in the picasa album:

Dinner #1: Counter Culture.
Their Specialty: Vegan food
What I ate: The jackfruit bbq sandwich, with a side of quinoa (total: $8) 

Lunch #1: La Boite Cafe 
Their Specialty: Coffee and pastries
What I ate: a sandwich with pesto, farm-fresh goat cheese and roasted red peppers; an almond croissant; the lavender lemonade (total: $11)

Dinner #2: Odd Duck Farm Fresh to Trailer.
Their specialty: Farm fresh food
What I ate: The grilled peach and heirloom tomato salad; the grilled zuchinni bread (total $7)

Lunch #2: Izzoz Tacos
Their specialty: Tacos
What I ate: 2 fried avocado tacos (total: $6)

Dinner #3: G'Raj Mahal
Their specialty: Indian food
What I ate: Makhani Biryani with vegetables (total: $9)