Sharing Shires Without Sheering Sheep.

     Well we are settling well here. We are living in a suburb of Dunedin, Ravensbourne, which is honestly just as cool as the name. Looking out our kitchen and living room we have wonderful views of the harbor and the peninsula on the other side. We have a spacious 3 bedrooms which means I can dominate the smallest of these for my guitar room / mini recording studio. This brings much joy. The other bedroom will be for family and friends who decide that we're cool enough to fly to the most beautiful country in the world to visit.

     I began work last week, and had my first Sunday teaching the kids this morning! So far, all is well in KiwiLand. The youthgroup went wonderfully, and I am up to 4 and 1/2 students teaching guitar, 2 and 1/2 of which are in the youthgroup. We finally broke out the cameras and went for a drive, but the lighting was not up to our high standards, and neither of us were overly pleased with the results, though this is not for a lack of scenery. Our best results have been pictures of our cat, Atlas, who we just got last week. It makes things feel much more "homey" when there is a cute furry thing meandering about. Alas, I tire of typing. Until next time, or when I show Lisa how to get on here,
Cheers mate.

Residential Recap

     Sorry for the lack of updates for a time here, due to a of lack of structure in our current lives, blogging has sunk low in the priorities list. We are in Dunedin, New Zealand, home to the world's steepest street, and roughly 20 sheep per person. We have found a home which we are very excited to move into on friday, which is not only fully furnished right down to the cutlery, towels, and a piano, but also a very roomy 3 bedrooms with a view. We have no complaints!
    We are now looking for a car, being as my Youth Pastor job starts sunday, and my guitar teaching job starts monday, we are running short on time. We are staying with Richard and Fran Dawson. Richard is the pastor at our church, and they have been wonderful hosts, driving us about and helping us figure out how things work here! Well..off to bed we go. Goodbye bored souls.

Retired From Flying For A While!!!

Well the bottom line is that we have finally arrived at our destination!! It has taken me (Aaron) 3 years, a wedding, and getting stuck in too many airports to get here, but me and Lisa couldn't be happier! We got in last night and Rachael (Who I've known for years) and Fiona (Her Roommate) have been showing us around town and have been absolutely wonderful!!! They are letting us stay with them at their house because most of their "flatmates" are off on vacation which is a HUGE blessing!! So today we ran around the town to get  a feel for it and are in the process of getting fancy phones! What tomorrow holds, noone knows!!! Thats not true. I know. We're gonna go look at houses!! We really hope to find something we can call home very quickly so we can start settling in!!! I'll write again later!

Logorrhea

Well, Through the last few days we've partially climbed a large hill/mountain through large amounts of snow, driven through many a ger district (gers are their tent houses, making ger districts the poor districts) and searched for a number of religious locations, all in the name of good photography. Though many of our trips didn't end as intended due to the size of mountains and the broken 4 wheel drive, we've had a blast and gotten some good pics in the process!! We've got one more full day here, which will involve a lot of packing, and hanging with mom and dad. Monday we're off to the big New Zealand!! next on the list? find a house that we like and can afford! We don't usually have the greatest of luck, so the next week or two WILL be interesting!!

For those who want more pictures cause you're tired of reading, here are me and Lisa's flickr pages!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/theartofaaron/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29989318@N02/

Further Frivolous Frolics.

   Today we traversed to the Natural History Museum, mostly because they have dinosaur bones, which apparently are practically as common as camels in the gobi...gold star for Mongolia.
   We then jaunted down to a buddhist temple partially for the experience, mostly for the pictures (which I am in the process of going through). There were two sects of buddhism represented in the temple complex we visited, the red and the yellow, and it was truely sad to see the fear the red sect lived in. Most pictures, statues, and wall hangings portrayed people being killed by these deities, with gore in abundance, and entrails strewn about. Not something I would want to be the guiding factor in my life.
   Next we went to a traditional mongolian show, which was also ended by a shamanistic/buddhist dance with many of the characters portrayed in the temple, which was quite spiritually disturbing.
   Despite my moderately depressing description, we had a wonderful day, and enjoyed hanging out with my parents. Keep keeping on!