Walk to work with me!

Hey everyone!

Today I took some pictures on the way to work so you could see what I see every day as I walk to Oktobor Animation.

Right when I leave the apartment I see this beautiful building covered in green foliage! Its a nice sight in the morning.

Then I start walking by Albert Park and across the street I see this incredible view. I love the contrast between the green grass and palm trees and the city skyline.

Then I turn down Victoria. This is looking down Victoria. I walk clear past the sky tower and as you can tell is very down hill then back up. But its kinda fun walking through the city.

Before I start walking Victoria, if I turn around and look back toward Albert Park I see this beautiful rock sculpture that's also a fountain. Water is always drizzling down those stacked rocks.

Once I get to the end of Victoria, I turn left down Hobson. Hobson isn't pretty enough to take pictures of so I left that out. Its not bad, just a big bus station. But once you reach the end of that you're at the corner of Hobson and Wellesley and there is this really cool old church. I love the architecture of that building.

Then I turn right and start walking down Wellesley.

Haha this is a little funny... So on Wellesley there is this billboard.... yep those are naked butts. New Zealand apparently has different policies on advertising haha

Then Wellesley turns into Sale Street where I work. This is the slight left onto Sale Street, and that is a pretty nice looking wine bar. Carla and I haven't been there yet, but I'm sure we will within the year :)

Just a short way down Sale Street and I'm at work!! Oktobor Animation! Very nice building :)

This is my work!

AND today I was moved into the new office! Whooo! Before I was in kind of an alcove where the riggers work, and while they were nice people... its a lot of fun working in a room full of animators! We have been having a blast, laughing a lot, helping push each other's work, and plotting our next Nerf attack. I sit across from Nick, super funny Australian guy. So far we share the room with Katie, Christina, Mercedes, and Sushil.

And here is my desk!! I'm going to try and spruce up the area a little and there are plans to deck out the office with movie posters and possibly lava lamps haha!

Lastly, on Friday we have some pretty big people coming in from Nickelodeon, such as the president of CG and some executive producers. So we've got all of our Nick signs out as inspiration to all of us!

I hope you enjoyed!

Matt and Carla

Couple Pictures from Work

Hey Everyone!

I just thought I would do a quick post with a couple pictures from work. While its a lot of hard work and long hours... we have fun! As pictured below is our Nerf Gang! We are responsible for midday ambushes on unsuspecting victims.

One day (before my own Nerf gun purchase) I was sitting at my desk working away and all of a sudden I hear a ton of Nerf gun noise , so I look over and outside of an office door there were about 8 people all shooting the person in the office. Just another day at work :)

The picture below was taken at work but after hours. That was on Guy Fawkes Day and that is the giant box of explosives as stated in a previous post. From left to right is Tiffany, Carla, Me, Katie, Matt, Levi, and Kate.

That's it for now, I hope you enjoyed seeing a glimpse into my work life haha!

Matt and Carla

Saturday's Adventures

Hello there!

So you got to read about what we did on Friday; Im here to tell you about our fun on Saturday. We have been picking up flyers and brochures everywhere about fun things that we can do around here, since we really dont know of anything ourselves. We saw that there was this festival on Saturday called the Parnell Festival of Roses, which is in Parnell (about 20 min walk from where we are), so we hopped on a free shuttle from Downtown, and hung out here, which was right by the water, so it was absolutely beautiful. Parnell has the largest rose garden in the Southern hemisphere, so it was incredible to see the selection and diversity of the roses. There were some that were almost as big as Matt's hand (as shown below), and some bunches of roses that were not as big as our hands.

There were some of all the different colors, and as shown here, there were some super dark, that I didnt know even existed. These below were a dark plum, and there were some burnt orange (for you Justin and Gina-the colors of your wedding). I have never seen such a beautiful selection of roses. They were so amazing, and it was a lot of fun to see.

And here below, is my personal favorite rose - it was a hybrid I think. Half pink and half white! It was so crazy, and this was not just a whole bunch of these flowers. It was the only one in the pack. The rest were combos of pink, white and both colors, but this was the only half and half. They were so beautiful.

At the festival, they also had a craft faire going on, and performances too. We were hungry by the time we got there, so we decided to try and eat some lunch here. They had an "American" hot dog stand, but we have been a little skeptical about American food around here so we decided to try something completely different. Below is a picture of the stand that we ate at. It was a hingarian pastry which was deep fried bread with feta, tomato and herbs on mine and garlic and salt on Matty's. They were actually very good, and we also enjoyed a Danish milk shake with it. As you can also see, the food was very expensive (as most craft faires are), but we were impressed with our boldness in trying new foods (we're getting very good at that).

We also got some kettle corn and this sweet candy that is very similar to sour licorice, but it is filled with some other sort of sweet in it. Very interesting but really pretty good. :) All in all, it was a fun time at the festival, but the weather was funny that day. We would be really warm, then we would walk ten feet, and we would be really cold, and it didnt matter if we were in the shade or the sun, the weather was constantly changing. We are learning that we just need to take a jacket everywhere we go, no matter what.

After the festival, we headed over to the Auckland Museum, which is also in Parnell, but not close enough to walk to, so we caught the Link Bus over there, and still had to walk a little bit. It is called the Auckland War Memorial Museum, and it is HUGE!!! It is three stories and we were there 1.5 hours, and still didnt get to see it all (they closed so we had to leave). We absolutely loved it and we want to go back again so we can see the rest.

The first level is filled with Maori historical artifacts, such as this house that Maori's built a long time ago, which we were allowed to walk into, as long as we took our shoes off (Maori tradition). They also have a Maori cultural performance that is done at certain times of the day, which we missed because we went too late. We want to return to see that as well.

The second level of the museum is full of natural history of New Zealand, which included plant life, animal and bug life, and even dinosaur bones, as you can see here. This was Matt's favorite part because he (well neither of us) had never seen real dinosaur bones before. It was a lot of fun to see all this. The second level was definitely our favorite part by far.

They had tons of dead animals and bugs that were preserved and stuffed, but they also had some live animals and bugs, such as water life (fish, crab and eel), and others such as this gecko below, and live weta bugs (a HUGE cricket type bug), and even spiders (YUK!!!). But it really was fun to see the different types of bugs and animals that they have here.

Here below is a dead weta bug, but they did have some that were alive. We didnt put it up here on the blog, but we did get a picture of a weta bug that was almost the size of Matt's palm! Whoa. They make me creepy-crawley just thinking about them!

And last, but not least from the museum, the infamous Kiwi bird. This is a stuffed bird (we didnt get to see any live here), but which is the national bird who doesnt fly and sleeps all day. HAHA. They actually get pretty big here, but we havent gotten to see one yet, of course, since we are in the city :). But, this coming up weekend, we are going to try to go to the Auckland Zoo, where we will get to see all these animals actually alive! We are super excited to be able to do this. We will have to show you what we see there!

So, lastly, I went to visit Matt for lunch today, and I was walking back to the apartment when I looked at the Sky Tower... I know you guys have seen this picture before, but today when I looked at it, it had a Christmas tree, and something hanging below it...

As I got closer to it, I saw that it was a CAR hanging below the Christmas tree! Not a painting of a car, but an actual car! How in the world did they get it up there, I have no idea... Very crazy and I thought I would share it with you. We have seen a ton of Christmas decorations and advertisements around lately, and we have been wondering why they are putting them up so early, when we realized that New Zealand does not celebrate Thanksgiving (sad), but so Christmas is the next holiday here... Very different... but we are excited to get a small Xmas tree and some NZ ornaments for our first Xmas as a married couple :)

Love you all!

Carla and Matty

Guy Fawkes Day!

Kia Ora!

That's how we say "hi" down here! Haha So Carla and I are having a lot of fun in the new place. There's still some tough days where we are really missing home and still getting use to how different everything is.

That's why we decided to make our first home cooked meal something familiar... Spaghetti! And it was actually very good!
Then last Friday a bunch of animators from work invited Carla and I to Japanese food after work. Now if any of you know me, I'm a very picky eater, so I was nervous! BUT we figured why not! Lets give it a try! And we were very pleasantly surprised! The food was great and the company was ever better. It was so nice for Carla and I to get out and socialize. And the animators from work are amazing people, and they were cracking us up. A truly great time!

Now I bet you're wondering why I titled this post something so random like "Guy Fawkes Day". Well, that is a holiday here and quite a funny one at that. In the 1600's there was a man by the name of Guy Fawkes and he tried to blow up the Parliament with gunpowder giving his plan the famous name of "the Gunpowder Plot". And he failed. So basically, New Zealand celebrates his failure haha! Funny huh!? In a strange way this is like the USA's July 4th because its celebrated with fireworks.

We went up to the 13th floor of this apartment building to our friends place and you could really see the whole city. It was so beautiful, and you can't really tell from the picture but there were fireworks going off EVERYWHERE! Off of rooftops, in the middle of the streets, parks... everywhere!

We had gone up to the apartment because Matt and Tiffany (two of the animators from work) had bought a BIG box of fireworks. So we grabbed that and headed down to the park. On the way we saw the Sky Tower, which is very pretty at night.

Carla liked to keep her distance from the fireworks. I don't blame her, we're not used to fireworks since they're illegal in Nevada. That's why it was strange when a cop drove right past us while holding a huge box of explosives and he just smiled!

Below is Matt holding what is humbly named "The Brick". Haha! And in the background is Kate. I think she was imitating how everyone was running after lighting the fuse. Oh and on a side note, most of the people we were with were Australians. Apparently fireworks are illegal in Australia too, so these guys were QUITE excited to be setting this off!

And there is "The Brick!" We didnt even get back home until around midnight. It was a really fun night!

We miss you guys! Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Matt and Carla

The Whole Story

Well I just thought it would be nice to tell the whole story of us being here from day one, although some people already know the story... expect this to be a long post :)

So we arrived last Friday, which was Thursday for all of you. We got a cab ride to our hotel which was very expensive and took almost all of our NZ money, and we arrived at about 8 or 9am at our hotel. We quickly found out that places here do not take travellers cheques, which was all we had after the cab ride. We found a bank over in the states that we thought would work over here, and we found out when we got here that it actually doesnt, so in the realms of money, we were striking out. We were so stressed out about this, but luckily we had a friend who came over here about a week before we did, so she was able to point us in the right direction of where to bank, and where to get cheap cell phones, so we are so thankful that she came here before we did and was able to help us out so much.

We had a very rough first couple days because of all the above stated, and then we got into our hotel, which we heard was going to be small, but we really overestimited the place and the size. We had four large suitcases, plus two pretty stuffed backpacks that we had to fit in this place that was hardly bigger than a closet! It was very very small! We had two twin beds (the hotel misplaced our reservation) and so they pushed the beds together (called a double bed over here- actually quite common), and this seemed to make the place even smaller! The bathroom, lovely as it was, was literally a closet, and the shower was not separated from the toilet, so when the floor got wet from the shower, the toilet got wet, which was fun for getting ready and trying to use the toilet later in the day; we always had to pull our pants up so they didnt get soaked. Needless to say, we were very ready to get out of there. We also had pretty bad jet lag the first couple of days; we kept feeling like we were in motion-very wierd!

We found out that things are not only different from the states, they are VERY different! Everything here is very expensive, and nothing seems to be the same. Food is very different, and even the American-seeming things are not American at all. We ate at Subway the second night, which was not good at all. They do not have yellow mustard here, just honey mustard, so my sandwich had honey mustard on it! Not a fan of that! They also do not have Ketchup (sorry Steph and Gina), its called Tomato Sauce, and it is similar to Ketchup, but definitely not the same. I also ordered fries one night (called Frites) and asked for Ranch, and the person looked at me like I was absolutely insane! So basically, all the condiments that I am used to, they do not have. Wow, this is going to take some getting used to!

Also, as pictured below, book covers and DVD covers are different here. This is Harry Potter. It looks nothing like the ones we have at home. I also mentioned that everything is expensive here... example... this Harry Potter book was I believe $45 NZ dollars, which is about $35 dollars in US, so it still doesnt compare! Crazy! I saw a collection of all the Harry Potter books in hard back for... get this... $604 NZ dollars! Wow right!!! It really takes some getting used to over here.


Here is what the police cars look like (well motorcycle) but they all look like this. All blue, yellow and green, and they all wear those bright yellow vests, and really funny looking hats. Also, if you can tell, he is driving on the opposite side of the road. I still have not gotten used to that yet. When we were in the cab to the hotel, I kept freaking out that we were going to get hit, and we are always getting confused on which side to look first when crossing the streets. We were walking around one day and Matt said, "Man why is that driver not paying attention to the road?" when we realized that it wasnt the driver, but the passenger. I wonder how long it will take us to get used to that. :)

They do have Starbucks here, as you can see, but it is also very different than ours. We get up the counter and they ask what we want, and we got a hot chocolate, a mocha, a cinnamon roll and a chocolate croissant (very healthy I know lol), and they asked us if we wanted it to "have in" or to "take away", so we said to have in, and they gave it to us in these mugs (we never get that option at home), but it also cost almost $20. Starbucks is always expensive, but we got tall drinks, so it was REALLY expensive. It is just crazy over here. It will definitely take some getting used to, especially the prices of things.

So, anyway, on with the story...

We finally got some of the logistics worked out, and Sunday, we spent the day at Mission Beach (see previous post) and it reminded us how great it is going to be to live here. Matt started his job on Monday, and he had a great day. On Tuesday, he got assigned some shots that he will be working on and he really had a great day; he had a lot of fun working on those, and he did such a great job on one of his shots, that he got assigned 3 extra shots on top of the 5 he already had. It doesnt seem like a lot, but to those of you who have been around Matt long enough, know that that is a lot, and it accumulated to about a minute of work in a full episode of 11 minutes, so that is a HUGE contribution to the episode! I am so proud of him! This also helps me know that this is one reason that we are here. Matt is really meant to be working at this studio. He is going to do so great!

Here is Matty in front of his work on his first day! Isnt he so cute!?!


Tuesday night we moved into our apartment, which those pictures are below. It is still tiny, but much bigger than our hotel was, so we are very happy with it. This place is actually a hotel as well, but they are trying to move away from having hotel guests I believe and they are renting them out, so we were fortunate enough to stay here. It is very expensive (as is everything), but it was a furnished apartment, which means that we just had to buy bedding, towels and some small appliances, rather than having to buy everything, so we were pretty happy about that. We did have some hiccups with getting into the apartment, but for the most part, everything is good. We bought some picture frames and put in some pictures of family to make it feel more like an apartment than a hotel, but that also made us a bit home sick. We really miss our families, but we know that we are here for a reason. So here we are on Thursday at 3:30 and I am just waiting for Matt to get off work. He has been working long hours, about 9-10 hour days, but I know there is a lot to do at work. I just keep thinking that there is only two more days then I get him all to myself this weekend. I cant wait.


There really are some great wonders here though, and we do keep trying to look at the beauty of this place. This below is a Bird of Paradise (for you mom), which they are by Albert Park, which is just across from our apartment. Very pretty. I know we have them back home, but these are huge and just beautiful.

I know we posted earlier about the big cruise ship that we saw, but we went back down to the harbor a few days later, and saw this ship that was even bigger! Pictures just dont do it justice, but here is a picture of it. I absolutely love ships, and I love the water, so this is pretty fun for me. We ate at this restaurant one night that was right on the water and looked out on the water, and it was so pretty. I had seafood chowder, which was so amazing. It was in a bread bowl and had clams, muscles, crab, shrimp, and even had baby octipus. It was so amazingly good, and it was so comforting, that even though things are so different here, they can still be very good.

Steph, we saw this sticker in the window of a store. Im not sure what type of store it is, but we had to show you this, especially because it was right around halloween and it really reminded us of you! :)

We love you all and we miss you all very much. We are so happy to be here, but I thought I would share with you all that we have been going through. Please feel free to comment on our blog but if you cant or you just want to talk to us through email please do

Matt: matt.walker@charter.net

Carla: c.wheeler13@gmail.com

Love you guys!

Carla and Matty

Puppy Pit Bull!!!

So, I thought that pit bulls were not allowed in NZ, but we were at breakfast this morning at the same place we ate yesterday (still getting used to this food over here haha) and we saw this little puppy, who was so cute! Apparently certain breeds of pit bulls are allowed... We wanted to see if the owner would let us take a picture of it, and so we started talking to her, and she sounded American. She asked where we were from and we told her, and she said that she was also from Reno! Crazy! 1.3 million people in this town and we run into a fellow Renoian! So awesome! She has been here for four years, bc she married a Kiwi. Very cool! We exchanged contact info so we are hoping to get together with her sometime.

Thats all I have for now, just enjoying our time in NZ!

Love you all!

Carla

Mission Bay pt 2

Here's some more!

This is the view of downtown Auckland from over by the beach! So beautiful!

So you go to a park in the US, you see people playing football or baseball. You go to a park in NZ and you see people playing cricket and rugby. haha Its so cute to see the little kids learning cricket.

The water is so blue and beautiful and then the land is so lush and green!

It was our first time out of the city today, and it was so much fun. This is a beautiful country!

-The Walkers :)