Pass me the Hokey Pokey

An evening that I get home from work before midnight prompts a new blog. Hooray!

(By the way, I have a job and I moved to Queenstown. )

No Surprise There

Well, we all know it was only a matter of time before I joined a gym. (Today marks day 5 of being in Queenstown.)

I had not planned on it, at least not really, but because I have taken up the No Carb Left Behind diet*, if I didn’t join a gym, I would definitely come back weighing 20 pounds more than when I left.

*as it was joked that Liz did in Eat, Pray, Love. And yes, if you’re wondering, it began with a blog title and now, I am suddenly copying her life. Not creepy at all.

Speaking of—I think I’ve found the best gelato place in the world, though I suppose I would need to go to Italy to verify that first. (By the way, going to Italy to eat their food, particularly their pasta, pizza, and gelato, has now been added to my list of life goals—not SEEING Italy, mind you, but eating there.) The place is called Lick, and it’s in the heart of Queenstown. Every single flavor is tempting, full of charm and beauty and mouth-watering goodness. I decided to go with Hokey Pokey, a local favorite. It’s vanilla cream with honeycomb candy crips, and it tastes like Heaven in a cup. I’m pretty sure a light shone down on me amid a chorus of Hallelujahs when I had my first spoonful.

Anyway, the gym. I wanted to look into it because the Body Pump and Body Step classes I take at home originated in New Zealand—this is the home of Le Milles fitness training! I walked into a class today and it was like walking into my home gym, except the instructor was—get this—Scottish.

Relax, the instructor was a “she,” but I was beside myself with joy listening to her accent—and here in NZ, they take Le Milles classes seriously. There is CONSTANT instruction, so she talked through the entire class. I also stayed for her RPM class (it’s a spin class, on the bikes) and I must note two things.

The first is I’ve never seen legs move so fast before. She belongs in the Tour de France or something, and she pushed me to move my legs faster than I thought was possible (without, of course, bumping all over the saddle). I am aware that I will not be able to walk tomorrow.

The second is that she still managed to talk through the entire RPM class. I couldn’t have said hello in one breath and she’s narrating a whole mountain scene for us. Kudos, Nicola.

I lied, there’s a third thing. The stationary bikes here actually have gears, as in, the dial you use to adjust resistance clicks for each gear. So when the instructor says, “Add a gear,” that actually means something; you click it once to the right. It’s not just, turn the dial until you feel like stopping, which for me might mean a quarter turn or a 1/64^th turn.

So yes, I am the lame person who joins a gym on a working holiday.

Phone Dilemma Solved

I invested $33 in the old school Samsung phone that looks like a toy you give to a toddler (if toddlers in this day and age have cell-phone shaped toys), if for no other reason than it could probably double as a teething device. It’s cheap, it’s light, and it doesn’t do anything other than make phone calls and text people.

WAIT. Not true. You can program it to make fake calls. For instance, say you’re having a bad date and need to be bailed out. You can press a button or text a weird number or do something (clearly, I have not set up this feature yet), and it will start to ring as though you are getting a call. Then you can pretend it’s an emergency and leave.

Seven months of having the iPhone, and I just realized you can install an app to do the same thing. But come on—install an app? This plastic, sad phone can do it without added software. Apple, I’m disappointed.

ANYway, It’s been 10 days since I’ve charged it, I’ve never turned it off, and it still has 25% battery life. Long live the cheap phone!

Now I can offer to meet up with people and not panic if something goes wrong. Of course, I forget to check it for messages, so my friends often have a 10-hour lag time before I respond to their texts. It’s like I’m a grandparent or something.

Das Brot

One of my supervisors is from Germany, and evidently after my experience on the train in Australia, I felt brave enough to speak German for her when she asked me to. I told her (auf Deutsch):

“My name is Jenny; I am 35 (crap! No, 25!). And once upon a time, there was a farmer. He was poor, but he had a pretty daughter. One day, he went to see the King. The end.”

She told me I have a cute German accent (score!) and she was impressed with my vocabulary.

Later, I pointed out to Jork (her husband, and a chef at the restaurant), as I ate the bread he gave me, that it was, indeed bread. “Das Brot.” Then I said, “Sehr gut.” (very good) He nodded slowly. “Oh! Es schmeckt gut. Richtig?” (it tastes good. Right?)

He said Richtig.

Who would have thought, 10 years after learning German, I find use for it in New Zealand?