I’ve decided to streamline my websites, so this is the new home of what was previously inforeignparts.net. Sadly the layout etc. didn’t survive the move, so this blog is decidedly a work in progress at the moment… Bear with me, please!
Photos & admin
It’s 7am – I managed to sleep until about 5:30, which isn’t too bad, I guess, considering the 12 hour time difference.
As always I’ll be posting my pics to Flickr, to a special set for this trip: New Zealand 2013
Right now no actual photos from NZ, because I spent most of yesterday on the bus where motion sickness makes me wary of snapping pics (not that the landscape wouldn’t have warranted it – the journey from Auckland to New Plymouth has lots of turns and bends, but is also rather stunning). This is the only one so far, taken after I finally arrived at the airport hotel:
I’ll be spending the week with my friends Denise, Ross & their four kids near New Plymouth, so I have lovely wireless access. This gave me the opportunity to find a new Twitter plugin, so we’re rid of those annoying single line posts and should get a daily digest of all my tweets instead.
I promise the next post will actually be an update about the trip! 🙂
New layout
Changed the blog layout – it felt like time. After all, it’s almost the new year… If you find it confusing or have suggestions, just let me know!
Blog problems
Doing a routine upgrade I managed to screw up something and for a while this blog was in utter chaos and I was afraid I’d have to manually re-add every single post… But then my wonderful friend Claudia went and did some nifty stuff, and it all seems to work just fine again. Such a relief!
Site update
Updated my blog – you can now look at my travel photos directly here on the site, without having to go to Flickr. A proper update will follow tomorrow, I promise. 🙂
Happy Mother’s Day!
To all you moms, and especially my own Mami (the best of them all, in my opinion *g*) – you deserve all the credit! (The lavender I got this morning in church – it smells yummy!) Also, a big birthday shout-out to my best friend Sibylle! *hugs tightly* I hope you’re having a wonderful day – I miss you! Edit: I completely missed that it’s Pentecost weekend – they didn’t even mention it in church, which I find quite strange.
In other news: It’s been a nice weekend. On Friday I went to Meredith’s birthday dinner at a nice Korean restaurant (Seoul House) with some of her work friends, and on Saturday I met up with Celia and her hubby Charles for a late breakfast (almost a tradition by now) and then a guided tour through the New Zealand Parliament (including the very British looking parliament chambers, the “Beehive” administration building and the National Library). This afternoon I went to the library and got some material for the next assignment. Also, another lovely photo taken from my window at sunset on Tuesday, before it started raining (which it has been for the last several days, on and off).
Btw, you can now get email notifications whenever I update this blog here (or by clicking the blue ‘Email’ button on the top right).
Also, if you want to keep track of my online activities (including the posts here), you can do so on this site.
Officially open
With only two weeks left until I leave, I finally managed to get the site done and the blog archives working. I’m planning to use this as a way to let those interested know how I’m doing all the way down there in New Zealand, what school is like and anything else I might feel like sharing. That might be daily posts or not, I guess it’ll depend on whether I have anything to say. But do check back – and keep in touch!
And now I should get the suitcase and backpack from the basement and see how much stuff will actually fit into them…
Moving away from LJ
With the help of these instructions I moved my travel log to my shiny new travel domain. This decision was made for two reasons: One, because of LJ’s recent problems, and two, because I’ll be in New Zealand for a year, an adventure which deserves its own domain, I thought. 🙂
However, this blog is still a Work in Progress – I’m hoping to get it ready to roll before leaving Switzerland on October 19…
Listed @ blogug.ch
Note to shirasade's LJ friends
Apparently, the MadCow cluster that
My voice has been pretty much gone since Friday night, but I had a lovely birthday party anyway. I've got some great people as friends and we had a lot of fun – ate, drank and talkedtalkedtalked about everything and nothing. It just was a bit quieter than normal… *smile* Totally worth all the work that went into preparing!
Okay, I'll catch up with yous when