A Short Rest

 I sincerely apologize for the length of silence since my last blog post. I've been extremely busy - running to and fro with the elves (I wish) - with the district nurses (doing 3 days a week), communicating with my tutor and doing coursework, working out some hiccups, catching up with family and working out some hiccups. I realize that the title is a bit deceiving. It isn't necessarily that there hasn't been anything to blog about, but in my spare time I've just been too tired to write. There will probably be weeks when there isn't a whole lot for me to write about because I obviously am here for school, so this may at times inhibit my doing anything super exciting. I don't want to write too much about my placement because I don't want to risk endangering the confidentiality I promise my patients. Most of my net several blogs will involve events from the past 2 weeks (I'm catching up on the "short" rest I've taken from my blog).

Last week was incredibly busy. I worked with the district nurses team Monday to Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I had the most wonderful opportunity to attend a workshop on the Treaty of Waitangi. This is a very important document in New Zealand history since it was an agreement made between the Crown and the Indigenous people of NZ - the Maori. The workshop explored the contents of the document (or should I say documents...), why it's important, the history of colonialism and the Maori in New Zealand, and many more things. I basically thought I was signing up for a lesson on how to solve issues between Pakeha and Maori people, but I couldn't have been more off track. What I got was so much better. I look forward to discussing this with you in the future. 

Friday I was invited to a glow worm tour in the botanical gardens (which I will discuss in a separate blog). On our way we stopped off at a memorial in Featherston which marks the place of a WWI training ground as well as a Japanese POW camp. I will make sure to post these photos on the Images page. 

After the glow worm tour, we headed over to the Cuban St. Market for a quick look around. On a number of the main shopping streets there will be a little "cove" street where there are a few more shops squeezed. These streets are not super wide (as they aren't made for vehicles), but this is  exactly where the market was located - down one of these side streets. The vendors' tents were placed up against the regular day shops' front windows, lining one or both sides of the street. It is really difficult to describe the atmosphere of the market as there were so many sounds, smells (and tastes), but my host thought it reminded her of a market in Asia (I don't necessarily disagree). The vendors offered a variety of foods from a variety of cultures and a few crafty souvenirs. Churros, falafels, Dutch waffles and custard (which were delicious), sushi, dumplings, crepes (and I'm limiting this list to food I think most people will recognize) - you could have you're pick of food from probably every continent. We walked through looking at a variety of mouth-watering food options, said, "That looks good" to some kind of pork kebab that was being grilled over a fire at a booth that said Filipino... something, and enjoyed.Of course I realized that I had no idea what was in the sauce with which they were basting the pork - could have had pine nuts, peanut oil... who knew what -  but I didn't die, so I assumed it was safe for me to eat. Try new things remember. 

At the end of another week of work, my host took me back to Wellington to visit Weta Cave, before dropping me off somewhere and telling me some basic directions to where I was wanting to head (of which all I retained was "go straight down this road") and I basically just wandered to where I was wanting to start. After seeing some other things, which again I will make a separate post for, I decided to head back to Cuba St. and maybe have a cappuccino and sit down in a cafe to fill my time before I was to meet my ride back to Masterton. On my way there, my attention was diverted from navigating where I was going by the most wonderful smell coming from a little booth making and selling fresh authentic French crepes. Best decision ever! Almost. (You think this story is about a crepe.) After several blocks, I glanced downward and received a shock as I noticed that there where crepe syrup drippings down the front of my shirt! When my crepe was handed to me it was inconveniently wrapped so that you could only eat the bit of the crepe that stuck out the top. So I decided to unwrap it so I could get at the rest to eat it while I walked back to where I was to meet my host. I should also mention that what contributed to my fright was that I had to meet my ride in about a 1/2 hour to go to the Weta Workshop tour (again - another post - sorry!). And I still needed to walk to where we were meeting. I ran to the nearest McDonald's to try to wipe the mess away, but OF COURSE we have to be "eco-friendly" and replace all paper towel dispensers with air dryers. How impractical! Normally I don't care about this kind of thing, but it was really noticeable and messy and sticky (can't look sloppy when meeting that statue of Gandalf), so I ran back up the street to a shop I had noticed had a sale on & bought a shirt for $5. Then ran back to the McDonald's to change into the shirt. The whole ordeal must have been quite a sight... especially the several blocks where I walked around looking like I had forgotten to wear my bib. It happens to the best of us. No more crepes for me!

I'm sorry that all you've basically heard is "Wellington, Wellington, Wellington..." since it's conveniently close to where I am... and I've had free rides there. But honestly, it's awesome; there's so much to see and do!