New Neighbors

Posted in Baking, Life at Home by

We knew we were getting new neighbors upstairs at the start of this month, and in an effort to make them like us so they’ll be nice to our ears, I decided to make cupcakes. And let’s be honest, I’ll use any excuse I can get to make cupcakes. Our landlord informed us earlier in the summer that they’d be college students. Immediately I wished for grad students. Preferably girls. Everyone knows that girls don’t party at home if they are inclined to be partiers. Only guys don’t care what their house looks like. And grad students are always much tamer than undergrads. I was ideally hoping for a college student who was like me.

Shortly after moving in, my mom (who had come out to help me move) heard rumors from the neighbors about our house. It was confirmed when Jaz and I met a lady down the street that our house is known as “the yellow house”. Having a name is never a good thing. Apparently the previous tenants over the last 5 years or so have been quite bad. Including having open fires in the side yard, weekend long parties, and numerous police reports. When we moved in, it seems everyone was quite glad that the house was taking a turn for the better. And when the upstairs people were kicked out shortly thereafter, it seems it wasn’t just us waiting to see who the new tenants would be.

So back to the cupcakes. I decided straight off the bat that they should either be chocolate or vanilla to be the most generic. I had bought vanilla wafers to make banana cupcakes a week or so ago, but I figured that probably wouldn’t be the most popular flavor. After combing my Pinterest board, I made the unheard of decision to do a repeat. I don’t usually like to make things twice because I always have so many new ideas that I want to try. However, these cupcakes needed a redemption.

The last time I made s’mores cupcakes was for the first meeting of Jaz’s and my parents. Like most of the normal, pre-marriage milestones in a relationship, Jaz and I hit this one fairly late. It came almost a year after we were married, right before our Michigan wedding. I will use any gathering as an excuse to make new things, so I found these s’mores cupcakes that I wanted to try from Baker’s Royale.  I have no idea what happened to the cupcake batter, but I could tell before I even put it in the oven that something was wrong with it. It made nowhere near as much as it should have, and it had the consistency of brownie batter. Which is pretty much what they turned out like, dense little brownies in a cupcake wrapper. With no time to try again, I went ahead with decorating them. I burnt my finger many times toasting the frosting. (I really should buy a torch, doing these things with an average lighter is not easy!) But I thought they turned out super cute, which at least helped with the fact that the “cupcake” was totally stuck to the wrapper.

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Luckily I had made backup chocolate cookies, which were well received, and the family get-together went off without a hitch. (Minus the fact that Jaz’s family got turned around on the way to my parents and ended up taking an extra hour to arrive!) Jaz and I had come up with a game where the opposite family had to answer trivia questions about us, and everyone had many laughs over it.

From this experience though, and a few prior, I finally learned my lesson. If a Pinterest recipe calls for a basic chocolate or yellow cake recipe, I need to just use recipes that I’ve tried and enjoyed. Oftentimes I’m making something to take somewhere, and I can’t afford to try untested cake recipes when I have a lot that are fabulous in my recipe box. So for the neighbors, I found an old chocolate cake recipe and combined it with the marshmallow frosting recipe from Sweetopolita that I had used making Jaz’s birthday cake from the last post.

Saturday morning I made the cupcakes, and immediately encountered a problem with the frosting. It was too runny to pipe onto the cupcakes. It is very tasty frosting, but made more for a filling than for decoration. Even after adding at least twice as much powdered sugar, I couldn’t get it to hold up. So I abandoned the cupcakes to go out to the Hanson concert for the evening, figuring I’d deal with it later. Once I arrived home however, I discovered the new college kids had moved in (Jaz thinks it’s three boys and a girl) and were already having a party. So even after discovering that once chilled, I can pipe the marshmallow frosting, I’m debating whether the new neighbors deserve any cupcakes. We shall see. In the end though, the remade s’mores cupcakes may not be quite as cute as the originals, but are much tastier!

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Becoming a “normal” Married Couple, Part Two

Posted in Life at Home by

Jaz and I had decided that we wanted to move to Boston long before starting the visa process, so we started asking at our companies about the possibility of transferring. The first few months of the year passed by, and we were both getting a bit down about the chances of our plan working. Jaz had had his interview at the U.S. Embassy in London, and a whole slew of medical tests. He even had to go back for secondary testing since they thought he might have TB. But he finally received his visa! After all the paperwork, fees, and months upon months of waiting, he could finally legally live in the United States. The only problem was we had no idea how we’d get to Boston and where we would work!

By the end of March when I went back to England for my second Easter in a row, things were not looking up. I had been told that if I wanted to transfer, there was only a place for me in Connecticut, and Jaz still hadn’t heard about his company, but it was sounding more and more like they didn’t have any openings in his position. To make me feel better, Jaz made me a flow chart of all our possible choices. What can I say, I like a plan! We were well onto the “stormy” side of the flow chart, but by the time I came home, we had decided on our course of action.

Immediately after I got home, things rapidly fell into place. Our original plan ended up working out much to our surprise. The branch of my company in Boston suddenly had a place for me, and they were ready for me to start immediately! Jaz had started applying for new jobs, and quickly had three companies serious about hiring him. So I suddenly had one month to pack up my apartment, find a new apartment in Boston and move across country! On top of this, I was working quite a bit of overtime at work, so I had no time to travel to Boston to see any apartments. Luckily I had a few friends in the Boston area that helped me narrow down our location choices so I didn’t end up in the ghetto, and I had lots of friends and family that chipped in to help me pack. Needless to say, it was a stressful time. My mom drove out to Boston with me to help me settle in, so it didn’t seem as much like I was leaving. We had a bit of drama with the moving truck, but I was finally all unpacked in Boston and starting in a new office!

Less than a week later, Jaz received an offer to start as soon as possible! Once he gave his month’s notice, he finally booked his one way ticket to Boston. After that, it was a rush for me to finish unpacking all my boxes to make our new apartment look homey! The day of his flight, it was hard to even believe it was real, and of course, I followed the flight all day online :). I got to the airport super early, but I ended up having to wait almost an hour after the last person on Jaz’s flight appeared because of all the immigration paperwork. I was starting to get worried they were going to keep him! It turned out they took him aside and he had to wait in a room for officials to fill out more paperwork for his arrival. It took so long, an airport worker was taking Jaz’s bags off the carousel when he was done! But eventually he came out the arrivals door, and we finally got to start the beginning of our life as a married couple that lives together.

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Becoming a “normal” Married Couple, Part One

Posted in Baking, Life at Home by

Many people these days begin living with their future spouse before they get married, the rest move in together after their wedding day. For Jaz and I though, that day was a year and a half after we got married. Those of you that have read this blog in the past probably know that we got married in Sydney as part of our three month trip. After travelling New Zealand for a month together, we had to say goodbye at the Auckland airport. Needless to say, the tears were worse than at any other time we had previously had to say bye. And they didn’t really stop. I cried for well over a month after getting home. (Thank you to the few friends and my mom who had to deal with me!) We quickly settled back into our routine, although our few times a week phone calls turned into every day talks.

As soon as I got home, I started the marriage visa process, an ordeal that began with the U.S. Post Office. Our marriage license had gotten lost from Sydney, and it took me over a month to replace it. After finally having proof we got married, we could file the paperwork! I never imagined what immigrants go through, or how long and intrusive the visa process can be. Luckily we had found an immigration lawyer, conveniently located 6 floors below my office, who was a huge help in filing. All I had to do was provide the necessary documents. Letters from family and friends proving our relationship was real, pictures of the two of us together, 3 years of my past tax returns to prove I could support Jaz should he not have a job, a police report from England showing Jaz had no record, and the list goes on. We were told this process would take around 10 months, but possibly up to a year.

Our rule of visiting every 3 months was still in place, and I went to England for Easter. Since I had only met Jaz’s family briefly on my first trip to England, it was great to be able to spend time just hanging out and getting to know everyone. I brought all my Easter traditions with me as well. Jaz said he’d never dyed eggs, so we did that. Everyone was a bit grossed out by blowing out the eggs, but they turned out very pretty. I made Jaz an Easter basket, filled it, and hid it once I got there. I requested he make me a basket as well before I arrived, but I think he was a little surprised by how all out I went. I did get my chocolate fix though, so he got points for that, as well as pointers for later!

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I also started what became a bit of a tradition for me. I brought baking supplies to make chocolate cupcakes. It is very exciting for me anytime I have a larger audience than just me, and perhaps my dad, to try out new, pretty recipes! These are the cute “carrot” cupcakes I made, which were served to rave reviews.

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Next up on our visit schedule was actually a trip we’d started planning over a year prior. Jaz managed to get us tickets to two Olympic events! So in August, I went back to England and we got to see an afternoon of beach volleyball (my choice), and a whole day of tennis at Wimbledon (Jaz’s choice). We also had a side excursion to Budapest for a few days, which I’d asked Jaz to plan to round out the number of tables I wanted at our Michigan wedding :). On top of that, I made Jaz a belated monstrosity of a birthday cake, so we had quite a busy week.

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In case these visits seem one-sided, our lawyer had warned us that it might be difficult for Jaz to visit the U.S. while going through the visa process. The airport people could think he was trying to skip the waiting process, he could miss a request for information that would hold up the whole thing, etc. So back to England for me in October! We scheduled this visit over my birthday, and Jaz surprised me with a day trip to Brussels! It was moments like these that made me feel sometimes like we were on The Bachelor. All our times together were marked by big adventures and seemingly extravagant dates, with not much time actually spent in each others company.

Jaz received approval on the first part of the visa status in August, which meant all he had left was the interview portion. We were told that once you’re past the first step, you’re not going to get denied, so we breathed a sigh of relief after this. But it also meant we had to make a big decision. Although we both loved our wedding in Australia, we went into it knowing that we wanted to be able to celebrate at home with our families as well. The big question was whether Jaz’s visa would be wrapped up in time for him to come to the U.S. and have our one-year anniversary “wedding”. We ultimately decided that it’d be better for us in the long run (although not in the moment emotionally) for Jaz to be able to transfer, which wouldn’t be possible till May of 2013. Which meant our second wedding was just another visit, but luckily Jaz didn’t have any problems entering the country.

This all led to lots of stress for me (some of it self-imposed, I am addicted to Pinterest), planning a wedding and work was going crazy all at the same time. All of it was worth it though when Jaz arrived in December. He immediately got put to work on the leftover projects, and we wrapped things up in time to enjoy Christmas. It was exciting for the families to meet for the first time, and we were both thrilled to be able to share our marriage with our close friends and family.

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Dropping Jaz off at the airport this time did not seem as bad, the end seemed to be quickly approaching, and we both had to get to work to accomplish that plan.

Saying Goodbye

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Covering our whole last week in New Zealand is a bit of a challenge in one post, but I wanted to wrap up our journey at the same time as we are leaving. This is another joint post, although mostly written by Jaz, the beginning and ending is written by Jill.

Leaving the glaciers, we had an uncharacteristically busy day, stopping in Punakaiki, with its pancake rocks and blowhole, on our way up the West Coast. The history and story of the geological formation of these rocks is very long and interesting but I don’t feel like boring you (for once), I’ll just leave it at: they’re really big, there are loads of them, they look cool and their pancake like layers continue to defy scientific explanation. The blowhole bit comes into it because at high tide, these massive rock structures channel and amplify the waves coming in from the sea, resulting in impressively violent displays of water displacement. It looks (and sounds) badass. We walked around this scenic coastal area for about an hour, making sure to take in all of the cliffs and different types of blowholes. I’d seen some of this type of thing in Australia so it wasn’t completely new but never had it been as impressive it was here.

Driving a little out of our way, we stopped in Ngakawau, a nice little town that plays host to the Charming Creek Walkway, one of New Zealand’s most un-touristed scenic walks. The Charming Creek Walkway was (sorry, can’t help myself), charming. The word that perfectly describes it is in the name of the walk itself. The path takes about 2 hours to complete and runs along a disused railway line. Nature has been allowed to take it back and rivers, forests, caves, cliffs and waterfalls (one of them impressively large) can all be seen or passed through on the trek. There are a few suspension bridges that form the route too, it’s all so quaint and… Charming. The sign posted route ends (but the train tracks continue) at an old mill. The mill has long since ceased all operations but various parts of it, all heavily rusted, can be seen by a shelter built in its place. Signs within document the history of the mill and what was produced there. It was a pleasant little diversion but it won’t be topping any lists of New Zealand’s best activities.

After a couple more stops on the West Coast, we made our second ferry crossing, leaving the South Island behind to say hello to the North Island again.

Taupo – A day in which we did only one activity but it was certainly a day to remember. This was the day. The day Jill and I had decided we would jump out of an airplane! I’m not sure how to begin explaining it because jumping out of an airplane is a singular experience. Nothing I’ve ever done has been like it and I already know that nothing I do in the future will compare to it.

Anticipation of what we were about to do began building without warning. I was completely fine during our briefing on the ground and through all of our preparations. It was even ok when I first got sight of the plane that would be taking us up but from almost the second I got in, the realisation dawned on me. This was for real. Jill and I were getting into a plane that there was only one way out of and it was a LONG way down. 15,000 feet was almost too high up to comprehend but it but became unpleasantly clear when we were about to jump out. We saw during the painful (for me at least, Jill was completely fine right up until she jumped) 20 minute flight up that the scenery was stunning but during those first few seconds it was impossible to appreciate it. The altitude required we be given oxygen on the way up but it did nothing to quell my nervousness.

Jill had the misfortune of being last on to the plane, which meant she was first out. I could tell she wasn’t ready. There was a camera in the corner of the plane to would take our exit photos but she completely missed it and her tandem master had to put his hand on her head to turn it towards the camera. A second later and she was gone. I didn’t even have a chance to consider what had just happened before I was being hurried to the exit. Jill had just been thrown out of a plane with a parachute that may or may not have worked. She was gone in the blink of an eye. I was sitting in the plane’s doorway with my legs dangling out. My picture had just been taken and my tandem master was strapped to my back. Before I had a chance to say or think anything, my world was turned upside down. The sudden torrent of incoming sensory data tested my brain as it struggled to make sense of what was happening. It processed what my eyes were seeing, what my ears were hearing, what my body was feeling but it took a few seconds for me to catch up. After the feeling of being a raindrop in a hurricane had passed I could truly understand what I was experiencing. The place we had chosen to jump, Taupo, New Zealand, is host to the largest lake in the southern hemisphere. As with almost everything in this country, a mountain range seems to have been included as standard. From the ground it was stunning but from the air, it took on a new found beauty. I could appreciate it from here in a way that I never could have before. The air rushed past at a deafening pace, the ground getting ever closer as I approached terminal velocity, the fastest speed at which it is possible for a human being to travel unassisted by some form of propulsion. There was a massive force bearing on my body, I had to struggle to keep my arms down against the deluge of air I passed through.

After 70 seconds of it, 70 seconds of hurtling towards the earth at no less than 200km/h, my tandem master pulled the cord. It was a sudden deceleration but nowhere near as bad as I had imagined. It became a completely different experience after that. Sort of like parasailing but better because we could go where ever we wanted. Turning the parachute to adjust trajectory, looking so sedate on the ground felt entirely different in the air. It felt more akin to a rollercoaster. I was more aware of my internal organs during these maneuvers than at any other time during the skydive. The scenery really was amazing though. Lake Taupo was an incredible sight from the air and I had several minutes to appreciate it before we had to turn back towards the landing zone. We came in fairly hot but in the end it was a very calm touchdown. One thing well and truly checked off the list, and it was a day I wouldn’t soon forget.

After that, it was on to Rotorua. Rotorua is unique in New Zealand and relatively unique in the world. Unless you plan on going to Yellowstone, Iceland or Kamchatka Russia, Rotorua is the most active geothermal area you’ll ever see. This place has a lot to offer: steaming cliffs, boiling mud, powerful geysers, hot rivers, coloured terraces, rainbow-hued pools, lakes, hot pools, redwood forests and more. The only problem is that none of this stuff is a secret. Rotorua is also known by the name RotoVegas and for good reason. The number of tourists here was ridiculous but we managed to avoid the hordes when we visited our two stops here.

The mud pools, how to describe them? Hot gas rises up from deep in the earth travelling through miles and miles of rock. The gases bring noxious fumes with them (you smell Rotorua long before you get there) and at the end of their journey, bubble up through the mud, sometimes in impressively violent displays. They collect and swirl in the air. There’s a primordial quality to it, it feels ancient. Hot, boiling mud below, with clouds of swirling gasses rising from it. The smell of sulphur was in the air. It felt as though I was looking at Earth millions of years in its past. The area was very cool, I’d never seen anything like it before.

When that was done we hit the road once more. This time we drove for an hour before reaching our destination but made a short stop on the way. It wasn’t much more than a diversion (since we didn’t swim there) but Kerosene Creek, a natural hot water spring ad waterfall, was pretty cool. At the very least I can say I’ve seen a hot water spring now. After that it was on to our second Lord of the Rings tour! The Gondor stuff in Twizel was cool but both Jill and I knew going into this one that it would be better. The woman running our tour last time had to constantly show us clips from the films to contextualise things but here it was not necessary. The untouched film sets were all still here. This WAS the shire! The hobbit holes, the tree swings, see-saws, the party tree, the lake, the pub, everything was here! It was an interesting experience walking around, seeing things from probably my favourite trilogy but even better, things that would be used in an as yet unreleased film. We knew it was the real deal when at the start of the tour, before we even did anything, we were asked to sign non disclosure agreements saying we wouldn’t discuss any of the sets or post pictures or video of them online. It was serious stuff.

Another cool thing was that this whole area was still a working sheep farm. There were loads of sheep and cute little lambs everywhere. And at the end of the tour, we had a live sheep shearing demonstration (it sounds lame but it’s interesting if you’ve never seen it before). They let us bottle feed the lambs too (Jill was considerably more excited than me about this part – but they were cute :)). With the Lord of the Rings tours well and truly done all that’s left for me to do now is re-watch the films!

Our last day of major sightseeing, we went to Cathedral Cove, unquestionably New Zealand’s finest beach. Unquestionably! It packs so much into to such a small area that it’s hard not to be taken with it. It was a 45 minute walk in really hot weather to get there though so you really had to want it (the walk featured fantastic New Zeland coastal views, mind you, but you still had to want it). When we did finally get there, all hot and sweaty from the walk, we were instantly taken aback by how beautiful it was. The star of the show was the cathedral shaped cove but there were all sorts on display; really cool sea caves, a dripping waterfall, massive rocks (like Australia’s 12 apostles) but they were only a few feet from the sand so you could really appreciate them, there were even smaller rocks in the sea that you could swim out to and dive from. It was incredibly beautiful and were it not for that amazing beach in the Whitsundays (not Whitehaven but the other, unnamed one), this would surely be the nicest beach I’d ever seen.

But we weren’t done yet! After we left Cathedral Cove we went to another world beating beach, this time one that regularly appears on top ten lists of the world’s best beaches. The reason this beach appears on those lists isn’t for its beauty (though it has that too), no, this beach has a unique quality that sets it apart from every other beach on Earth. Directly beneath it, beneath the sand, there are geothermal vents that feed underground hot springs. If you come here at the right time (two hours either side of low tide) you can dig into the sand and create your own private hot pool! How cool is that? Well, I say private but there were actually hoards of people here (a place this special couldn’t have been secret for very long) but I still dug my own hot pool on a beach! Seriously, how cool is that?

There were times where my patience was tested though; we only had one shovel and digging a hole both large and deep enough for Jill and I was not easy or a quick thing to do. It was painstakingly slow and after I’d got over the initial problem of having sea water constantly flowing into my hole (something that was overcome when the sand wall around it got high enough), I had another problem when pieces of the sand wall started crumbling and being deposited into the hole they’d just come from. Their construction was sound but the water movement in the hole was continually eroding the base of the wall. It was tough. This made it all the more heartbreaking when after half an hour of digging, I had to abandon my hole and admit defeat. You see, there are only two hot springs under the beach and though I knew roughly where to dig I’d picked a bad spot to start. I stubbornly continued even after I knew I probably wouldn’t find any hot water here but in the end I had to give up. But we couldn’t come all this way and not even feel the hot water! What we ended up doing (thanks to Jill’s great idea) was extending someone else’s hole where the water had already been found. Despite my initial embarrassment at doing this, it was completely worth it. It was a very strange feeling sitting in a hole at a beach whilst bathing in near boiling water. There was cold water coming into the pool to cool it down a bit but parts of the now massive hole (a lot of other people had the same idea as us) were no-go zones because they were just too hot. It was all pretty great though. We stayed in there for maybe 10 minutes before giving someone else a go.

After leaving the Coromandel Peninsula, we headed back to Auckland to return our camper van Dinky (Jill continued to call it that despite my protests so I might as well mention it here at least once). We had a chance to explore the city, much nicer than last time since Jill wasn’t sick like she was the first time in Auckland, and get last minute shopping done before having to head to the airport early in the morning and bring our trip to an end.

I know we’ve pushed out our New Zealand blog posts rapid fire, so my apologies for not keeping everyone as up to date as we were able to in Australia. As I wait in Sydney (shockingly, my fourth time here on this trip) for my flight back to the United States, it seems like I just left home. When we first started planning the trip, it still seemed like a bit of a dream, something that would be amazing, but not really happen. It seemed like we had so much time when we first got to Australia, and through all our discoveries and adventures there, we always knew that we’d have a whole month in New Zealand afterwards to continue our journey. This last week or two in New Zealand has passed in the blink of an eye, and seemed to speed up as we got closer to leaving. In spite of that, we still saw many gorgeous sights in our last week and made many more memories to take home. At 100 km short of 5000, we certainly covered a lot of ground in New Zealand, and though I’m sure we missed a lot, I think we saw a good representation of the country. I hope that you all have enjoyed following our amazing journey as much as we’ve enjoyed sharing it with you.