morning swim workout

Just the key information because I managed to delete today's photos.
Here are their photos, if you want to see the pool: http://www.theolympic.co.nz/virtualtour/

I will have to go back to the Olympic (name of the pool) and take more pictures!

Coached workouts: one hour each, beginning at 6,7,or 8.  Stay for one or two hours. Mon-Fri
50m pool
hot tub when you are done
latte after that with your mates in the adjoining cafe.

Today's workout:

Warm up: Do twice through for a total of 600 meters
100 swim
100 single arm
100IM (single arm fly due to narrow lanes)

Drill: Golf score (time + stroke count)-300m
6 x 50

Main: repeat 3 times.  First round with paddles, Second with fins, Last no toys (550m x3=1650)
50 pull
100 easy free
50 kick
100 easy free
50 sprint (30sec rest) x 2
200 active recovery, choice stroke

Rotorua

I have been contemplating hospitality and the culture surrounding it.  How many of us would have invited a stranger to our home, fed and housed them,  driven them 3 hours to another town, shared a hotel room and a weekend with them?  My kiwi host (pictured above) is the cousin of an acquaintance of mine, so to be fair, there was a prior connection, though tenuous. I am finding the kiwi welcoming and inviting.

On Friday,  I traveled by passenger  ferry to Pine Harbor, south of Auckland.  I was met by my soon-to-be-traveling companion who drove me to her home overlooking wetlands and was treated to a magnificent sunset over Auckland Harbor accompanied by a cacophony of birdsong.  Saturday morning we rose early and drove in the rain to Rotorua, stopping in Cambridge and later in Tirau to shop, only to find we were too early.  I did like these shop buildings...

We toured the site of this year's World Rowing Regatta which will be held in October in Cambridge.  We reached our destination, Rotorua, at 9:20, in time for some coffee in the heart of town.





Rotorua is one of the most volcanically active areas in NZ with daily earthquakes (usu <2 on the Richter scale), geysers, boiling mud, and the scent of sulphur suffusing the air.   We did drive out of town to Blue Lake for a hike among the native kiwi forest full of Ponga (palms) and tui birds.

While my host's son played basketball, I toured a wildlife bird sanctuary and a Maori village.  There I witnessed a Maori dance after which they insisted on getting pictures taken with the dancers.  More touristy than I would have chosen for myself, but there you have it.

The weekend passed quickly and I am back in Auckland.  Glad to be "home" and yet eager to get started in my job and my routine.

Dyschronicity

The past 48 hours belong to their own chronology.  Leaving Whidbey on the 8am ferry on Monday, I arrived in San Francisco at 2pm on the same day.  I had little sleep the night before as I had been cleaning the house, packing and did one last trip to storage Monday morning.  Goodbyes are hard and odd.  What will the future bring and how will I  be changed by my year in NZ?  All of these thoughts and emotions running through my brain contributed to the fatigue and dysequilibrium of the day.
San Francisco was hot, sunny and dry.  After arriving at Margaret's house around 3pm, I walked to Dolores Park, treated myself to an ice cream cone at Buy Rite.  Dolores Park was full of 20 something year olds, sunning, playing frisbee, drinking and enjoying the summer heat.  I found myself over heated and a little vertiginous from my lack of sleep and food.  Meeting Margaret for dinner at Lolo's was a perfect veggie feast before my longer flight to Auckland.  To my disorderd internal chronology, it should have been Tuesday.
The flight to Auckland was uneventful. I slept fitfully and only for a few hours.   My seatmate, Jordan, manages a vineyard an hour north of Auckland.  He was just returning from Sonoma where he and his wife were visiting her family.  With long dreadlocks and a casual jacket, he looked like what I imagine Morgan and his contemporaries will in another decade or so.  He invited me to visit the vineyard, which I am sure I will, perhaps with my bike. 
I arrived at 4:40 am Weds. morning in Auckland, which seemed like the right day of the week to me.  However between settling into my apartment, meeting Jacky for coffee, familiarizing myself with Auckland CBD (Central Business District), grocery shopping, going for a run, and starting to unpack, the day seemed to have stretched into Thursday.  I tried to keep active so I would not sleep and would adjust to the time zone readily. 
By all rights, today should be Friday.  It is Thursday.  I am riding the train from the Britomart station to Middlemore Hospital  for my appointment for paperwork and uniform fitting.  The train is quite noisy, rather slow, but a lovely way to avoid traffic and sightsee along the way.  Cheers to all.

Packing Chaos

My final week on Whidbey is shaping up.  So many things I will miss.  Morgan and Caleb chief among these.  Both are visiting.  Caleb will be leaving shortly for a year in Japan. Morgan back to Salt Lake.  Modern communications does help with communicating with both boys.  Their visits are somewhat infrequent, but NZ 's location in the southern hemisphere and  a distance of  15  hours in flight, emphasizes our separation.  I want to have a degree of closeness I have not had that will in some way make up for the distance.

My furniture is mostly in storage.  My days are split between packing boxes, visiting with family and friends, and working out.  Visiting, working out both outrank packing boxes, now.  I need an infusion of motivation to pack.  A visa would help.

Visa and ticket

The time crunch begins.  I did get my visa and subsequently my ticket. How is it that a week seemed like so much time, just two days ago and now it seems I am leaving so soon?  More requests to dine, or visit are coming daily and I need to pare down on the social things that I am doing.  A boundary setting lesson at its best.  This is combined with a true desire to meet with everyone, dine, kayak, hike, discuss.  I just know that I can't do it all.  Panic is another way of procrastinating.  So is blogging. Next post? Likely in the airport or in Auckland.  I will be staying in a hotel/apartment for a month while I try to get my act together.  :)

Countdown to leaving. ?11 days

So it starts, the blog that folks have asked me to write.  I am not a writer by trade or avocation.  Indeed, I usually do not share much of myself in conversation, but prefer to listen.  This, then, represents a difficult challenge: to learn the world of blogging and to share my life for the next year. 

Somehow, I have yet to come to the full realization of the decision I have made.  I do have moments of fear, exhilaration, sadness, joy, but these pass quickly.  Mostly, I have lists of things to do: boxes to pack, calls to make, and letters to write, addresses to change.  I don't really know when I am leaving.  Perhaps that lack of finality contributes to a sensation of illusion that currently envelops my thoughts around actually being in Auckland..

Waiting for the visa is the traveler's bane.  My first application was missing signatures on photos, and a few minor mistakes were made.  I should have caught them all. I have no one to blame but myself for not reviewing each entry on the physician's form before I left.  The revised application should have been received by the consulate yesterday.  Von, at the consulate, had thought it would be ten days before the visa would be back in my hands. Yet, I worry that if I buy my plane ticket now, I run the risk of paying fines to alter my plans if the visa is delayed due to further oversights.

On a different note, I hope that once I am there I can embrace the adventure. Learn daily.  Remain aware.
Kyra sent me this poem via email today.  I am reminded that I need to open the door daily to a new day, a different adventure, and to new friends and community. 

The door

Go and open the door.
    Maybe outside there's
    a tree, or a wood,
    a garden,
    or a magic city.

Go and open the door.
    Maybe a dog's rummaging.
    Maybe you'll see a face,
or an eye,
or the picture
                     of a picture.

Go and open the door.
    If there's a fog
    it will clear.

Go and open the door.
    Even if there's only
    the darkness ticking,
    even if there's only
    the hollow wind,
    even if
               nothing
                           is there,
go and open the door.

At least
there'll be
a draught.

Miroslav Holub
translated from the Czech by Ian Miller.