North Carolina and Washington DC

After being on the road for a few weeks, it was so nice to stay put in one place for a bit more than a week; and what a place. Cape Hatteras, mostly popular with avid kite boarders and windsurfers, is essentially a huge sand bar off the coast of North Carolina. We enjoyed sand, sun, good food, great company and all in all had a kick ass time.

Attempts at skim boarding... most often resulting in me face planting into shallow water :)
Neoprene bros
Derek and Willy in a crash landing
Shark attack! ...Ok, so fine... its a dogfish.
Under the Avon Pier
An interesting couple...
Mi madre y mi padre
Dad taking in the sweet smells near the aquarium of Roanoke
Blue eyes

On the way back up towards home, a pit stop in DC allowed for us to visit the monuments. It was a speed tour, but we cruised through the most popular ones and visited the aerospace section of the Smithsonian.

Apparently, to be hired as a stewardess when commercial flights first started, they were looking for single, pleasant looking women between the ages of 21 and 28, no taller than 5'4'' and under 135lbs... interesting.
Reflection in the Vietnam War Memorial
Ben, our trusty tour guide, and Pete outside the Lincoln Memorial
Pete is convinced that he's a bigger deal than the White House... that tiny pale building in the background.


Pretty sure that Lincoln wasn't actually this big in real life
Washington monument viewed from Lincoln Memorial

Next stop: Los Angeles!

Roadtrippin' in the USA

It was decided that Pete and I were going to visit family and friends during the month we had before our departure to NZ. Funny enough, not only do his relatives live in the states, but my family is also vacationing in North Carolina.

So it goes like this: we see his mum in Portland Maine, his sister in New Haven Connecticut, his step-sister in Washington DC, his dad in Laurinburg North Carolina and my family (mom, dad, brothers, uncle, cousins, friends and dog) in Cape Hatteras. Deep breath. We're driving a lot.

Pete playing tourist in Portland

Chalk art on the pier with Johanna (Pete's sister), Yvonne (Pete's mum)

View of Portland harbor

Hanging out at Yale... No big deal.

Oh, you know, you're typical day watching a world class violinist play at Yale.
Ben (Johanna's boyfriend) practicing for an audition

Umm... so I swear we didn't learn how to country line dance in a bar in Washington... crap.

Geek extraordinaire, driving down to Laurinburg

Life's real tough on the road.

More pics to come as we continue to explore the East Coast!
xox

Queenstown on June 8th

I never thought I'd be one of "those people". By that I mean a blogger. Yes, lets just put it out there: I am now a blogger.
Now that its all clear, here is my excuse for doing it: I'm just too damn lazy to send everyone individual email reports on my everyday in NZ. As such, laziness has prevailed and this will be the main way of getting updates on me while I (*ahem) work really hard on the mountain.
I'm hoping that I'll stick to it enough to put up new stuff at least once a week. Hope you enjoy, comments are appreciated :)