Corromandel and the New Job

I have still failed to post some pictures of our house, but I am waiting until it gets more set up. My job is going well and I have really enjoyed making new friends with all of my coworkers. There are a lot of tourists as well that come through so it is fun to meet people. The other day I had two table of Texans in a row!

Christmas was an absolute blast. We had a traditional xmas feast at our house and had some friends over to help us eat the mass amounts of food my flatmate made. The Christmas decorations really made it feel like Christmas (despite the fact that its hot and sunny out). I was especially proud of my bottle tree (not all of the bottles are mine!). We wrapped the day off by watching Love Actually.

There were a good number of presents too until we quickly unwrapped those!

Our turkey came out a bit smaller than we expected. Good thing the ham was HUGE and there was no shortage of food.

Our German friends brought a gingerbread house complete with Hansel and Gretel!

A few days after Christmas, my friends Tony and David came to visit me all the way from the US! Unfortunately I have had to work so much that I haven't gotten to spend much time with them, but I was able to get a few days off to go on a road trip to explore the Coromandel with them. It was absolutely beautiful and we had a great time. The first day we went to Hot Water Beach. You can dig your own "pool" in the sand and the water is hot (some even scalding) so you can sit in your own little hot tub on the beach. The next day we embraced the overcast day and went to explore Karangahake gorge where they had done gold mining in the past. We went through all the tunnels and enjoyed a number of swing bridges. Everyone came out completely exhausted and quite sunburned, but very happy.

Hot water beach. It was a bit busy being the holidays!

Cathedral Cove

We made it to Coromandel township just in time for sunset

Karangahake Gorge

They headed off for another adventure for a few days and I spent NYE working until 11pm. It was actually a lot of fun since the restaurant turned into a nightclub and then all the staff stuck around and celebrated midnight together. I didn't appreciate having to work ANOTHER 11 hour shift the next day, but hey at least it was time and a half.

I managed to lose my phone in the cab home NYE and our internet crashed the day before, so I started 2013 without any technology which was interesting. It took a few days to get everything back (still working on the phone) but all is well now. Everyone starts back to working in the next few weeks so I will start the job hunt again more seriously. In the meantime I'm still sitting around enjoying life.