The Cast of Characters

3:13 PM 2 Comments

English friends, Cory, and Dan at the barbie!

Laying on the beach after work. Pretty much what I do best.

Awesome art work on the side of our house.

I finally got a kiwi hairdryer so I don't blow up our outlets. Yay straight hair!

Sorry for the lack of exciting posts as of late, we sort of fell into work this week and haven't got to do anything that cool, but I still think our day to day New Zealand life is pretty neat so I'll update ya'll on that. We have met a lot of cool people this last week. On Friday our English friend Harriet had a 'barbie' at her house, which is right around the corner from ours. Everyone brought something to throw on the grill, and we hung out drinking wine and eating until the sun went down. Then we went inside and played the UK version of Cards Against Humanity, which was made even funnier by the fact that we totally don't know half of the shit the cards were talking about. I lost. Hard. We got a little bit drunk that night, but only had a 1 minute walk home, so that was a plus. I had to work Saturday morning though, and had a massive headache, so that was probably not the best decision. I was warned by our flatmates that a possible pizza party would be happening on Saturday night. I've mentioned Flair, she is the owner of the house we live in and seriously one of the coolest chicks I've ever met. She's kind of one of those superwomen, where you look at her from afar and wonder how she does everything she does and still is who she is. At first she sort of comes off as a whimsical music festival hippy, very free-spirited, constantly jamming to Beats Antique while she tends to her garden....but there is so much more to her. She's a single mother of the beautiful Ataahua, she owns and operates her own coffee shop called The Good Spot, grows tons of fruits and vegetables on our property, rock climbs several times a week, paints, plays guitar, climbs mountains, and is in general an all-around badass. I'm not sure how there are enough hours in the day to be Flair, and I really admire her drive and ambition. We had a really good chat the other night about manifesting the life you want and the power of positive thinking. We got ourselves to New Zealand on that same principle, and it sounds like that's Flair's secret weapon too. Figure out what it is you want, and focus on what you need to do to make it happen. Simple stuff. Flair is dating our other flatmate, Hugh, a Aussie surfer dude that always has a goofy huge smile on his face. They're totally cute together. Flair has more friends than anyone I've ever seen, and on Saturday night, I got off work and came home to a backyard full of amazing new faces. I'm not sure if we've mentioned this or not, but one of the really cool features of the property we live on is the brick pizza oven in the back yard. Some people have grills...we have a pizza oven, and Saturday was my first official pizza party. Apparently they throw them all the time, and everyone just shows up with one element and takes turns making pizzas until everyone is way too full. In the end everyone votes on who made the best pizza of the night. I met some really awesome people that night. After I changed out of my work clothes I grabbed a beer and strolled over to the party. I was greeted immediately by a girl in a snapback, holding a pizza at me saying "if you haven't eaten pizza with fish on it, you haven't lived." Her named is Perron, rhymes with Teryn, and she runs Wanaka kayaks. She does guided kayaking trips out on the lake, and is an Alaskan salmon fisherwoman every June and July. Talk about a fucking badass. I met a nice couple from Finland named Cybal and Michal, who invited us to come stay with them if we make our way to Dunedin. Our neighbors, Goldie and Alex, happen to own the only tattoo shop in town. They showed up that night after a Valentine's date, and Goldie was sluggin' wine straight from the bottle and telling stories about her time squatting in London. My kinda lady. She's a really neat chick who does classic poke tattoos...which sounds horrible to me, but I'm sure I'll end up getting one before we leave Wanaka. Goldie was rockin' some awesome black high heels, but was too drunk to walk in them, so she kicked them off. They were immediately intercepted by another character, 60 year old ski pro, Sarah. Sarah has traveled the world teaching telemark skiing. Telemark skiing is free-heeled skiing, and allows you to move your body more freely than traditional alpine skiing. Until Saturday, she had never tried on a pair of heels in her life, but her training as a pro-telemark skier made her a natural in them. She proceeded to dance for the next hour in those things, jumping up and down in them while she knocked back a bottle of wine. She's been coming to Wanaka since her 20's, and has said that there is no place in the world where she feels she can be herself more than here. Flair's step-mom, also a woman in her 60's whose name I didn't catch, is Sarah's long time best friend. She was making fun of her heel dance moves but totally loving watching her friend having an awesome time. Flair's step-mom decided at 50 that she wanted to become a yoga instructor, and now teaches classes at her home. She reassured me that the average Kiwi has 7 different careers in their lifetime, so my need to do and try everything is totally embraced in this country. People get me here! The pizza master running the pizza oven was one of Flair's oldest friends, Mac. This guy seriously has so much personality that I'm not sure how to describe him. He's definitely a free-spirited festival hippy too, but he's also one of those quick-witted people that always has something absolutely hilarious to say at exactly the right moment. He used to live in the little house we live in, and is thinking about moving back to Wanaka and staying in the main house for a bit. I'm crossing my fingers that he does, because he's one of those feel-good people that is just a light to be around. Myself and my new friend Jessie, also a Kiwi girl who lives in the North Island, cleaned up. We had a really good conversation over doing dishes, then she made tea for everyone as they came in and sat by the fire. The theme of the night seemed to be everyone telling me how special of a place this is that we have ended up in. It's great to hear everyone's stories about how they left Wanaka to go travel more and eventually found their way back here. The sense of community here is incredible. I've lived in several small ski towns, but none like this. Ski towns tend to be very clique-y, and I've always felt kind of on the outside of the club. In Wanaka, it's like as long as you're here, you're in. Even if we don't want to be in, our flat mates will come open up our door, sit on our couch, and coax us out of our little house to hang out with them. As long as your energy is good and you appreciate your life and where you're at, everyone here welcomes you with open arms. I can see how easy it would be to get stuck here. I started work this week at a little bar/cafe/art space called Lot 3. It is owned by a lady named Berwyn, a Kiwi who also came to Wanaka in her hayday and has decided this is where she wants to settle down. After working for one of my best friends for the last two years at Vinue, it would have been really difficult to work for anyone other than Berwyn. She reminds me of myself in the future, and I'm really lucky to have landed in her cool new little project. Tonight we have a brainstorm session at 5 to put all of our ideas onto the table to turn Lot 3 into the newest, most happening place in Wanaka. We have one thing that no one else has...good food. After being on a hunger strike for like a week, literally only eating a bite or two of things here or there, that makes me really happy. I'm going to wrap this blog up because Dan and I are combining forces on an all food one later today, complete with the premier of our "Teryn and Dan vs. New Zealand Food" episodes. We've taken to filming out new encounters with strange NZ cuisine for your entertainment purposes. I apologize for the lack of pictures, people here aren't on their cell phones nearly as much and I feel rude whipping it out all the time to take pictures. We will have more soon. Food blog incoming soon!