Kyra's Musings

This week was busy busy for me. I had social plans almost every single day! For those of you who know me, I’ll give you a moment to put your socks back on…

My friend Lizzie asked me to go to the temple with her on Tuesday so we drove down just the two of us. It was really nice to be able to spend some time with her one-on-one because usually we’re in a bigger group of people. It’s about 45 minutes down to the temple so it gave us lots of time to talk about stuff and grow our friendship a little. The temple was wonderful – as always – so I’m really glad I went.

This is the view from the temple. You can just barely see the ocean.

After the temple I had a date lined up, which I had just a few hours to get ready for. Kiwis are not big on celebrating Halloween, which is a shame to me as an American, so I forced my date to carve pumpkins with me to try and capture some of what I’ve been missing by not being in the States. Unfortunately, because it’s spring here the only pumpkins we could find were $50!! So we did melon carving instead. They had little pumpkins, but they weren’t really meant for carving. He got the top off on his, but it was too much work to do more than that.

It was his first time carving anything so it was pretty fun to watch. I do wish we had had pumpkins though because there’s just something about the smell and having to reach your hand in and pull the gloopy guts out that’s truly unique. Ah well, I guess that’s an experience the people of New Zealand just won’t have. I then introduced him to the Schroeder way of life and we made homemade pizza and watched a movie. It wasn’t the same as will my family, but we made it work. I feel like it was a pretty good date (except for the part where we ran into his ex at Costco…) and it was fun to do some of the American stuff I’ve been missing. Just with a little Kiwi flare!

Also they call cantaloupe rockmelon here, because it’s a melon… that looks like a rock

On Thursday I went to institute – taught by my friend Lizzie – and we talked about the blessings of temple covenants and ordinances. It was a really good lesson and a great spiritual boost mid-week. Lizzie is a really good teacher who asks very insightful questions so I’ve really enjoyed her class. And I’m not just saying that because she gave a shoutout in class to our temple trip on Tuesday.

Friday I had a meeting with two New Zealand authors Cindy (my main client) set me up with. Neither of them are in the market for a PA right now, but I was wanting to pick their brains about what authors are looking for in PAs right now so I can better train my employees. These two authors have been friends for a long time and both of them love to chat so we were at the cafe for an hour and a half! One thing I’ll never get tired of being here is the accents, and not just the Kiwi ones. One of the authors had a Kiwi accent but the other was from Germany and she sounded very German. I never really heard a lot of different accents living in Colorado, Utah, and Montana so I absolutely love it!

My outdoorsy adventure this week happened on Saturday. My off day was Tuesday because I had multiple things going on, which meant I had to work on Saturday. But after my hours were finished, I went to Eskdale Reserve, which was only about a 20 minute drive. It wasn’t anything crazy, just some walking trails through shrubbery, but it was quite pretty. I sit a lot since I work on a computer so I’m working on being more intentional with movement and getting outside. There are so many pretty places here, but a lot of them I need to plan more time for so I haven’t gotten around to them yet. I’m grateful there are a couple little places like Eskdale Reserve that aren’t too far and still give the sense of being away from the noise and craziness of the city.

The last picture is something they have here in every forested walking area. You have to spray your shoes, scrub them on the brush, then step on the grate to rinse them again. It helps to keep invasive organisms away from trees. They take keeping the environment safe really seriously here, which is pretty cool.

To finish off this week, here’s a picture of the bay near where I live. In the mornings, you can often find the secondary school rowing teams on the water and people fishing off the pier. There’s also a ferry that will take you to the North Shore.

I missed writing last week, but now all of you that still came back this week will be rewarded. You get to hear about 2 weeks of New Zealand stuff!

First things first, I got a car! I went to a dealership called Turners and left with a little black Honda Fit. Honda Fits honestly look pretty derpy so he has been dubbed Bernard (said the way Megamind pronounces it).

It’s a hybrid, which is really nice with the price of petrol here, and hopefully will be easy to sell in a year because of that. I was looking at another car as well and my friend (who went with me for moral support) pointed out that I would be lucky to get even half the price back later on. It was really nice to have someone there with me because I’ve only had experience buying a car in the US and even that was only one time (where I also brought a man for moral support). The car world is infamous for treating women like they don’t know anything and then taking advantage of that. To be fair, I don’t know much, but that doesn’t mean I should be taken advantage of. That happens a lot less when there’s another man present. It was also nice to have someone with me when I test drove too because I was pretty nervous about being on the road. He walked me through the few things they do differently here and also guided me so I didn’t have to worry about looking at Google Maps. He also made me aware that I ride the left side of the lane, although he was a little more dramatic about it than he needed to be. I feel so close to the cars on my right side since I’m not used to sitting there while driving so I start to drift over and hit the rubble strip more often than not. I’m slowly getting better though!

I’ve found that the majority of driving is exactly like in the US – other than being on the opposite side of the road – but they do round abouts in a weird way. In the US, you kinda just go and pray that no one will hit you. In NZ, almost every round about has more than one lane and you have to signal where you’re going. Your right turn signal must be on until you’re ready to exit, then you quickly flip on your left signal to show that you’re exiting the flow of traffic. Even though I now know that, my American roots run deep and I mostly just say a pray and hope no one hits me when I hit the gas.

I also learned this week that there are things called T2 and T3 lanes. I was driving to a friend’s house and noticed “T2” on the asphalt of the lane I was in. Since I didn’t want to get pulled over for something I didn’t know, I quickly got out of the lane. I asked my friend and she told me it means “transit 2”, as in there are at least 2 people in your car. I had guessed it was similar to our HOV lanes and I was right. I later learned that T3 exists too. I’ll let y’all use your brains to figure out what that means. Also like HOV lanes, they have cameras so I’m just hoping I didn’t get flagged.

Yesterday I took full advantage of having a car and went up to Shakespear Regional Park, which is on a peninsula north of Auckland. It’s a nature reserve, so lots of green everywhere, and you walk up to a view point where you get a really cool 360 view of the surrounding islands. My friend told me they have kiwis there, but since they’re nocturnal we didn’t see any. We did see these really colorful birds down by the beach though. They had bright green, red, blue, and yellow feathers and were very chatty. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because I wanted to connect with nature and not be a slave to technology so I left my phone in the car. It was quite pretty so I’ll probably go back and I’ll get some pictures then. Until that time, look it up on Google Maps and you’ll see where I’m talking about. It’s next to an area called Whangaparāoa, which is really fun to try and say.

Last Sunday, I went over to a friend’s house to watch a session of General Conference. Because of the time difference, members of the church don’t watch Conference live and instead do it the next weekend. We did games, breakfast, and then watched the Sunday morning session. They had the windows open so there was an amazing spring breeze and warm sunshine in the room and it was wonderful.

My other exciting thing these last couple of weeks was my trip to Costco! Since Costco is the land of all things giant, I couldn’t really buy anything from there while taking the bus. But after getting a car I went the first chance I got. I showed a picture a few weeks ago of the cart escalators (which I learned have magnetic strips in them that lock the carts in place) and this time I took the cart elevator – or as the Kiwis call it, the lift.

It felt super weird to take a cart onto an elevator to get into a store. A lot of the stores here use parking garages so I’ve had trouble a few times knowing how to get in. I also made a stop at the Costco petrol station and got my first tank of gas! I just about cried and then said a prayer of thanks that Bernard is a hybrid.

I don’t have much else to report for today. Just enjoy these random pictures I took and I’ll see you next week!

I love that shopping carts here are called trolleys! It sounds so posh. This knock off brand of Rice Krispies also made me laugh.

From one of my beach walks. The beaches here are so interesting because there are SO MANY shells. I’ve always felt the need to hunt for shells on the other beaches I’ve been to, but here they’re most of what makes up the sand (they get crushed by people and waves). It makes walking barefoot so much more difficult. The picture on the right is all just crushed shells.

I was at the Bishop’s house this week and this is the view from their porch.

It rains quite a lot here, but this was the first rainbow I’ve seen. If you look closely you can also see the faint outline of a double rainbow.

I love flowers so I decided this week that I’m not going to wait for a man to buy me flowers and got this gorgeous bouquet. The orange and maroon reminded me of Halloween while the pinks and whites show the spring season.

I still don’t have a set of wheels so the exploring has not begun quite yet. I don’t even have very exciting pictures from this week. I did go to my first beach (which is a little sad since I’ve been here over a month) and it was so pretty! It’s called Long Bay Beach and it’s one of the larger beach areas around Auckland. There’s a long stretch of beach that’s backed by a large area of grass with pavilions setup every so often. I bet it gets really busy in the summer. Unfortunately I totally forgot to take pictures, but I’m sure I’ll be back soon!

There was another game night this week that I went to and it was a good time. I can feel myself starting to get sick these last few days so I was pretty bushed, but it was fun to hang out with some people in the ward, even though I spent a good hour just hanging out on the couch watching people do Just Dance.

Well, that’s pretty much it for this week. I’m still on the lookout for a car and am crossing my fingers that I don’t get sick this week, but we’ll see what’s to come!

Some pretty succulents I saw on someone’s porch. The big one was the size of my face!

Over $100 worth of groceries (we’re literally living in a dystopia)

One of the many sweet car options I have here

I’m trying to bang this out really quick before I head off to a game night tonight so it might be a little chaotic. I’m also fighting off a migraine so the functioning of the brain is not all there. Let’s GO!

I’m still sans car *moment of silence* so the exploring has not picked up much. I’m more insane than y’all thought by just moving to New Zealand because I also decided now was a great time to start a business. So this week and the next few weeks are going to be pretty work heavy as I try to get things set up with that while still working full time. The sad thing about starting your own business is that no one is paying for doing so, even though you’re technically working. Once I get things up and rolling though, I’ll be able to just sit back and watch the money roll in (insert clip of my dad telling me that’s not how being a boss works). I officially registered with the state of Montana and already have one employee ready to start – shoutout to Emily! – so the big thing now is to get some clients. So if anyone knows of some authors looking for assistants, send them to Sticky Note Studios!

The logo I spend WAY too much time designing (but isn’t it so fun?!)

I did have 3 exciting things happen this week so settle in for a little story time. This first one is a little more tragic, but I’m keeping and upbeat attitude about it. I’ve been looking for a car, as you know, and I saw this guy with a good marketplace rating and a nice looking car so I set up a time to go see him. He lives down south so I hopped on a bus and took the 1 hour 45 minute journey down to him. I got to his house only to find not only nobody home, but the Facebook listing deleted and no response to my messages. I hung out for a little bit to optimistically give him time to respond, but no dice. So back 1 hour and 45 minutes home I went. Nothing quite like wasting 4 hours of your day when you have 500 things to get done. But I did get to see a different part of Auckland and got a story out of it so it’s all good.

This second one was a lot more fun, but perhaps no less tragic (for someone). A guy from the ward asked me out so we were texting a bit back and forth this week before we went out to play pool. We met 2 other people from the ward there and I had a total blast… with the 2 that weren’t my date. Those of you who my fam know that trash talking is something that’s always part of games. Honestly, if you aren’t being sassy during a game are you even having fun? We played 6 different game, switching partners every 2 rounds. I won 3 of the 6 games and was unfortunately the reason my team lost the last one (sunk the cue ball while shooting for the 8). At first it was a little awkward – those of you who know me know it can take me a minute to warm up – but soon we all loosened up and I started handing out insults like I was Oprah. The vibes were high and one of the guys and I were smack talking each other like we’d been doing it for years. Unfortunately, said guy was not my date. My date was not having good luck and lost every game, except for the one where I sunk the cue ball (which, let’s be honest, doesn’t feel like a win as the other team) and it was kinda bumming him out. We went and got some food after at an Asian food court and I had the sweetest butter chicken I’ve ever had in my life. So far, 0 for 2 for NZ Indian food. At this point you’re probably wondering where the tragedy part of this story comes in since I had such a great time. Well… I had a great time in spite of my date, not because of him. He’s really nice, but things were so awkward between the two of us and the vibes were not there. I know part of it was because he was feeling nervous – you never fully act like yourself when you’re nervous – but I had gotten the sense while we were texting that he just isn’t the one for me. That thought was only solidified during our date. If you go on a double date and you’re vibing a lot more with the other guy there then the guy that asked you out, that’s telling. Sadly, I think he felt that, but instead of reading the room and calling it a day he doubled down. Another thing those who know me will recognize, the more someone pushes the more I pull. The way to get me to absolutely not want to do something is to push me to do it. So the more he pushes for us to be a thing, the more I pull away so we are absolutely not a thing. At church today he was stuck to me like velcro, which was just so awkward. Now I need to rip this velcro apart and set him free to find a lady love that wants to be with him. Doing that is never fun so wish me luck!

The sweet ambience we got in the private room (the only table they had left available)

That might’ve been a little TMI about my dating life, but I’m writing this blog mostly for myself to look back on later so oh well. The last big thing was the Ward temple trip. I carpooled down with 3 other people in the ward (well, technically 2 people in the ward and one random guy visiting from Australia who somehow knows people here…) and had a blast. People split up a little at the temple to do their own thing and then we headed over to the institute building afterward for a little bit. There were some snacks and games set up, but people mostly were just chatting. I didn’t get home until after 11pm because the temple is 45 minutes south, but it was so worth it. I’ve been so grateful for all the people who have been willing to give me rides so I can make it to the ward activities!

Auckland temple (you can see some people from my ward there on the right lol)

Well, I’m off to the game night with my girl Keisha so that’s it for this week! Enjoy these random NZ things I got some pics of!

1. The bridge you go over to get to the North Shore
2. The CHRISTMAS decorations already out… why?

1. The awesome cart escalators at Costco to get to the parking garage
2. Free fruit for kids you can find in any Woolworths (Woolys as I’ve learned the locals call it)

1. Funky little bars you have to push through to get inside grocery stores
2. Waiting for a bus on my way home from church today (in my knee length dress while the wind was 24 mph and it was pouring)

1. A cute little walkway so you still know where you’re going when the sidewalk ends (I think in the States there’s more of a “go with God” attitude when there’s no sidewalk)
2. A funky tree I pass on the way to the bus stop. I don’t know what’s happening here… maybe the tree was cold.

1. A main street on the west side. It looks like just a fun little square people can walk around in, but cars actually drive through here. Learned that the hard way.
2. A pretty little wooded area right next to Costco

This last week was pretty exciting! And by exciting I mean I spent two days moving, outfitting, and setting stuff up for my new apartment. I live in a place called Hobsonville and the first thing my mom said she thought of was “Hobbitville”, which is slightly better than Zack’s thought of “Hobosville”. Thus the name of my wifi was born. I want to give a big shoutout to Kmart, who has provided 95% of the things I’ve needed. I’m usually a big thrift shopper, but NZ doesn’t have the best non-clothing in their thrift stores (known as “op shops”) so I had to look elsewhere. I would usually turn to Walmart, but alas that isn’t an option here. But then I saw Kmart, like a shining beacon in the sky, and I now have low budget, kinda janky, beautiful apartment accessories. I’m really picky about having things match so I picked a color from my 3 Kmart options (beige, blue, and green) and now from here on out have to find all green apartment stuff. It makes finding things like blankets and rugs both easier and harder. On the one hand, I only have to look for one color. On the other hand, I can only look for one color. Curse the ’tism I’ve been touched with!

This is my apartment! But take away everything except the couch… and make it a little dirtier with a sagging middle. I used the listing pictures because my place looks a little sad right now. Once it’s all dressed up, though, I’ll show you my version!

I spent over 2 hours trying to get my wifi hooked up – which included a distress call to my personal IT department (aka my dad) – before realizing that I was supposed to let the company know when I got my modem so they could turn my service on. It also hasn’t been confirmed yet that I’m set up with the electricity company (I still have power though…) and I tried to get into my mailbox today, but the code that worked 4 days ago no longer opens it. So I wouldn’t say everything’s peachy keen just yet, but it’s getting there. Trying to outfit an apartment while being limited to what I can carry and bring on a bus has been a little tricky and put a bee in my bonnet, so that’s going to be this week’s project! The best place to get a good priced car here is Facebook Marketplace so wish me luck and safety.

With all the figuring stuff out for my apartment I didn’t have much time to do anything too fun. My big outing was last Sunday when I went to the Bishop’s house for dinner. He and his wife are empty nesters so they invite a handful of people from the ward over for dinner most Sundays. This really sweet woman from the ward, Eden, offered to drive me since the Bishop lives north of the city and I couldn’t take a bus there. She was the chauffeur for several of us women going and I had a blast getting to know them a little better. There were about 10 people invited total and it was fun to chat and play games in a more intimate setting. At one point in the evening, the Bishop’s wife casually said “oh look, the dolphins are jumping in the bay again” like it was a normal everyday occurrence. For a girl that’s lived in land-locked states her whole life that’s a crazy thing to say! It really is different living over here.

Before I sign off and add some pictures (which is the truly fun part of this whole thing), I have to talk about the food here. While I was doing a crap ton of research on NZ, I looked up what kind of food they have here and learned it’s mostly British influenced. I’m not gonna lie, that didn’t inspire much confidence. Now that I’m here and have tried some of the food, I can report that… it is exactly as I feared. Now, I acknowledge that I haven’t tried everything and my sample size so far includes 2 home cooked meals and 3 restaurants, but that honestly should be enough for me to have eaten something with flavor by now. I’m not sure the kiwi people have heard of spices. And that’s surprising in Auckland because I’ve seen a variety of ethnic people, many of whom come from countries know for their flavorful food. I mentioned this to my parents and my mom said I need to be careful if I invite anyone over for dinner because I could over-spice them. I also had my friend Alex asked if this is the result of living somewhere that doesn’t have Mexico as a neighbour. Well I say let the masses come and I’ll show them what real flavor is! I haven’t been brave enough to try Maori food yet so maybe that’s where all the flavor on this island is. I’ll report back if that’s the case.

I also had to add this. I ordered a Dominos pizza (with no need to tip the delivery guy, thank you NZ!) and this is what came… for the size large. The plate next to it is a small side plate. I thought I’d be eating pizza for several meals, but it turned out to just be two. I kinda miss overweight America…

I just have to mention one more kiwian weirdness before I kick off the picture portion of this post. Like many non-American countries, NZ doesn’t refrigerate eggs. Seeing the aisle with eggs in it at the store was second in weirdness only to putting my eggs in a kitchen drawer instead of the fridge. I know that they’re fine, but it’s messing with my head enough that I’m still kinda nervous to eat them… but at $10/dozen I’d better get over that fast!

Here’s more fun with buses! Several of the bus stations have multiple platforms and some require you to cross a bridge over the highway. Also, it’s kinda fun to sit in the little bus stop box while waiting.

I really wish you could have a 360 view of me in this first picture because I’m on a tiny little square of pavement in the middle of a highway intersection. There’s nothing like tyring to be more active by walking and then seeing your life flash before your eyes.

This second picture is what the bus closest to my apartment looks like. 90s acid trip or tons of fun? You decide!

This is the view from my apartment balcony.

And this is the view of my balcony from my apartment. I feel like a true kiwi now!

And these are just some pictures from me walking around town: At an op shop in Chinatown, the Hobsonville main street on my way back from the grocery store, ducks at a park nearby, and some fun spiky flowers in someone’s lawn.

This weekly update is going to be short and sweet. Not much has really happened yet in my adventure because I’ve been sick for the past 5 days. So this week was a lot of sitting in bed working and resting. I did have to move Airbnbs (because I don’t yet have an apartment) and I ended up in a cute little studio. I was really excited because there’s a washer and I had almost reached the end of my clean clothes stash. Something interesting about New Zealand is that a lot of places have washers, but no dryers. It’s pretty common to have your clothes on a drying rack or line. There was a drying rack provided so I washed my clothes and gave it a try. I then realized the only problem with this Airbnb: it is incredibly humid here. It’s right next to a little forested area and fairly close to the beach so some strange combination of the two has condensation dripping down the door and windows. I don’t know if anyone has tried to air dry clothes in an incredibly humid space, but it doesn’t go that well. Auckland is definitely more humid than I’m used to in general, but this little pocket is especially bad. I still have clothes hanging up behind me as I write this and I washed everything on Wednesday. I’ve taken to blow drying my clothes for the day every morning before putting them on (still slightly damp). It’s definitely been an experience that I hope never to repeat. And it’s the most exciting thing that happened this week.

Fingers are crossed and prayers said that I’ll be in my apartment by Wednesday this week and be able to start truly getting settled. Here’s a picture of right outside my Airbnb door right now. Despite my problems with the humidity, it’s still so pretty here.

Well. I did it. I finally did it. I finally lost my mind. That’s the only possible explanation for me moving halfway around the world “just because”. But you know what? Losing my mind feels pretty good.

Ok truth be told, it feels great now, but it didn’t feel so good at first. For those of you who haven’t spent over 24 hours traveling, let me tell you something: You sweat. A lot. When you pack over 100 bodies in a flying metal cylinder, make them sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes without a/c, and then have them in the air for 11 hours it doesn’t lead to the freshest of smells. Add being stressed on top of that and you have a great recipe for smelly traveller. It wouldn’t’ve been as big of a deal if I had a cute little travel deodorant in my carry-on, but I made the decision to try a spray on deodorant right before I left. Can you guess where that bad boy was while I became the human form of Niagara Falls? Yep. Nice and snug in my checked bag. I didn’t even think about how I would smell while travelling, probably because I’ve read too many romance books. In romance books the women always smell like sunshine and flowers and the men all smell like the woods and manly sweat, which “shouldn’t smell good but somehow does” (you can find almost that exactly quote describing a man’s smell in every romance book). The only way a man would’ve enjoyed the way I smelled when I landed in Auckland is if he really loved corn nuts. I lost track of the number of times I wiped down with a damp paper towel in the bathroom (which Hannah told me is called a “whore’s bath”). Suffice it to say, my entrance into New Zealand was not the grand beginning I had pictured. But my stuff and I made it, smell and all.

This was my face after the guy told me it would be about a 30 minute walk to get to my gate at LAX.

And this was how I felt sitting on the tarmac at midnight for what felt like an eternity.

After I landed, I took an Uber for the first time ever to get to my Airbnb and I wasn’t kidnapped or murdered, so that somewhat improved the start to my life 2.0. Auckland is absolutely HUGE and it took 50 minutes to get from the airport to my Airbnb, which wasn’t even the whole city from north to south. I went to bed pretty early my first night because, you know, death by travel the day before, which meant I woke up pretty early the next morning. I was too scared to try and figure out the bus system at 7am so I decided to walk to the store and get some food.

This was the amazing view I got to see while I walked.

This was the not so amazing view I got on the way back.

And that doesn’t even show all the stairs or the hill several blocks long right after them. It also doesn’t show the man who was in front of me carrying his bike. I was very glad I was behind him so he didn’t see me struggling with my one bag of groceries.

I’ve learned North Shore is quite hilly so I’ve got to be prepared when I go out on foot. I’m breaking my body in and have sore calfs and blisters right now, but I’ll get used to it soon enough. Until I’m brave enough to try driving on the other side of the road, I have to rely on my feet and the public transport system. It’s actually quite enjoyable to be on the bus because I don’t have to worry about all the other crazy drivers out there and can just sit back and enjoy the city around me. Of course, it was hard for me to enjoy the sights very much my first few days because I was so stressed about missing my stops and making sure I got to appointments on time. But today I hardly even looked at my phone to double check the bus location and schedule! By the end of next week I’ll be a cool city girl who breezes on and off buses without a care in the world. Here are a few shots I got of my bus journey so far.

My view for a lot of my travel time

Me waiting at a bus stop near down town (where a stranger told me I had a “nice outfit, nice face, and nice everything else”)

View of the CBD when traveling south from North Shore

An artsy shot of me waiting for the bus (Hannah inspired)

Honestly, not much else has happened yet. I’ve mostly been setting up boring stuff like my cell phone plan and making appointments to see apartments. I spent almost all day yesterday out and about. I had time to kill between my first and second apartment viewings so I hung out in the Auckland CBD. I went to the Woolworth’s to get some soup to help my sore throat and then sat on a bench in Albert Park and read a book to kill time before I had to jump on my next bus. Albert Park is right by AUT (Auckland University of Technology) so I got to walk by the campus, which was kind of cool. I heard the class bells go off and it took me back to my days at BYU. It’s comforting to know that universities all over the world use the “you’d better run” bells to get students to class.

This is the pavilion in the middle of Albert Park (you can see a few buildings in the CBD behind the trees)

Hanging out in Hobsonville before one of my apartment viewings (the weather was amazing that day!)

I went to church today and met some really awesome people who I’m hoping will be featured in some of my upcoming blog posts. I know absolutely no one on this half of the hemisphere so it would be pretty nice to make some friends. One of the coolest things about church was just getting to listen to the New Zealand accent for 2 hours. Auckland is a huge melting pot of people so I really hadn’t heard much of that amazing Kiwi accent until today. So far I’ve heard a lot of Chinese, some Indian, and several European languages I couldn’t name. It could be because the locals are driving their own cars instead of busing like the rest of us.

That about wraps it up for this week. I’m really hoping to get an apartment (sorry, I mean flat) this next week so fingers crossed that I’ll have pictures of my sweet new crib in my next post!

It finally happened! I’ve wanted to see the Aurora Borealis for years and now I can finally say I have. My grandpa reached out to me, saying that we should be able to see them between midnight and 4pm. He even sent instructions on how to capture the lights on a smartphone camera. Hannah and I had been planning to go to bed early so that we could do a morning hike in Glacier, but our plans quickly changed. Glacier will be here all summer, but we only had a night or two to see the Aurora Borealis. They came out around 12:30 and we spent about an hour standing in the courtyard watching them. It was cool because for the 30 minutes leading up to the lights you could see the sky slowly lighten and turn green and pink. They were still pretty faint, but we were able to make out the bands of color. We mostly saw green lights, but there were faint traces of pink over the lake. They shift as you watch them so it looks like they’re dancing. I totally felt like I was in Brother Bear and the eagle spirit of my older brother was about to appear. The colors came out a lot more distinct on camera than to the naked eye, which both Hannah and I found interesting. I wonder what it is about the camera that enhances the contrast. They might’ve gotten more clear as the night went on, but we heard a loud noise in the forest and decided that the lights were cool, but not cool enough to be eaten for.

Even though I can check that off my bucket list now, I think it would be cool to see them somewhere they appear more vivid and vibrant. If I ever end up further north I’ll still be keeping my eyes pealed.

I mentioned changing jobs from the daycare to a nanny position earlier in my blog and said I would explain later. It’s later.

The idea of the nature school was really cool, but the reality was less than glamorous. There were about 18 kids shoved into the little shed and although it gave us more room being outside, spending 4 hours a day in the rain isn’t my idea of a good time. I was also obsolete and wasn’t trusted with much of anything. Instead of training me and letting my do my job, my boss and coworker occasionally explained how things went but then would do everything while I stood around. I tried to ask questions and jump in to help in anyway I could, but that just made it feel like I was training myself. It’s kind of funny because my boss didn’t want to give me access to the app they use or have me interact with the parents (they had 2 people quit from the position before they hired me) and yet the lack of trust was part of the reason I quit. I understand that they wanted to see if I would last before doing things like buying my uniform and having me make connections with the parents, but to not even give me access to the app? It was the same app I used when at Rooted and it just has each child and a place where you can log things like food, diapers, and incidents for the parents to see. I couldn’t’ve done much damage on the app even if I wanted to. I also learned that both my boss and coworker were using the nice indoor toilet at my boss’ house just down the driveway while I had to use the ghetto child port-a-potty. So it was fine for me to have to strategically plan out when to pee so no one would see me but not for them? I could go on longer, but I don’t want to just complain. To sum it all up, I felt like a high schooler with a summer job instead of a 25 year old woman who knows how to take care of kids. I’m sure that would’ve changed with time, but I only get one year in Montana and I didn’t want to spend months of it trying to win my boss’ trust so that I didn’t hate my job.

Thankfully, 3 days after I quit Rain or Shine I was hired as a nanny for a cute little one-year-old boy in Columbia Falls. It’s about a 45 minute drive to the house, but I enjoy driving and it’s a beautiful area so that doesn’t bother me. The family even offered to pay for half my drive time, which is really sweet of them. So far I’ve just done one week, but it’s been phenomenally better than my 2 weeks at Rain or Shine combined. Silas is such a cutie and I like the control nannying gives me. I follow what the parents want, but have a lot of freedom in what I can do. I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot more about Silas and our adventures together as I continue to blog. Hopefully I’ll get permission from Susan and Zach to post pictures of Silas so y’all can see how cute he is!

Curtesy of a new friend Shauna, Hannah had a fun walking trail she wanted to show us. My parents already knew about it and wasted no time in taking the wind out of her sails, but it was new to me so she still got an excited response. Because of where the house is, there isn’t anywhere to walk nearby so your options are 1) walk the driveway and get a thigh-burning workout on the way up or 2) do continuous laps around the house and see the same trees 500 times. If you want a more pleasant stroll, neither of those options are great so I’m happy to have an actual flat trail. It’s in Bigfork so there’s about a 15 minute drive to get there, but such is the way of life when you live rural. We only walked a little ways along the 2-mile trail when Hannah first showed us, but just me and Hannah went back a few days later and did all 4 miles (there and back) to get the full experience.