Nashi Nashi

A few little thoughts here: 1) I won't be posting so much in the near future, cuz I am moving to a campground out on the edge of town that is only $55 a week, as opposed to $126 at the backpackers I was at (although I'll definitely miss the complimentary muffins and wonderful staff). I will not miss the woman who was snoring in my room last night, however. I am a big dork and I put in my earplugs to muffle the snoring, forgetting that I was on the top bunk, so just using my watch alarm. If any of you have watch alarms (the Timex Ironman, to be specific, but I bet they're all pretty similar), you know how quiet they are. Yeah. Can't hear that through ear plugs. I woke up an hour later than I'd meant to, but luckily still had enough time to move everything out of my room and get some breakfast to eat in the car on the way to work. It was harried though, let me tell you! I was runnin' like a whirlwind all over that hostel! 2) As I pick my nashis, I think you all the time Val. "What's the name of Nate's cabin again? Nashi Nashi?" You won't live that one down. Or "huff huff," our famous Minnesota saying. 3) Speaking of Nashis, I am in love with the brown ones. Walking through the rows of brown nashi trees is like a wonderland for me. I think they are some of the most beautiful fruits I have ever seen (and you all know how much I love my fruit, so that is high praise! Although I wouldn't put them quite as high on the taste ratings of favorites. They're good, but not in my top category). But anyway, let me just tell you why I love them so much. They are about the size of big (Braeburn) apples, but rounder. They have the most wonderful curves across their bodies, which are colored in varying intensities of golden brown, and sprinkled with pale golden spots scattered across them like the stars. When I look at them perched there in the trees, I feel like a magical hen came along during the night and lovingly nestled each of her eggs into the dark green leaves of the nashi trees so that they might bask in the moonlight and the cool dewiness of the dawn. They wait there for us to find them with their dusting of stars to remind us of the beauty of the night and everything around us. Maybe thats a bit fanciful of me, but I couldn't get the image out of my head as I searched through the trees for each beautiful, prefect, brown nashi. Except when I was laughing about Val's Nashi Nashi question, of course! 4) My picking crew is excellent. We all have a good time together during the day, despite our hard work. We have Pete, the guy in charge of the operation, Helen, who leads our crew, Richard, who's done this a lot and knows whats up (all of those guys are from here in New Zealand. Then we have me, Hiromi (a girl from Japan), Fritz (a guy from Austria) and Alex (a guy from France). Its a good group. The 4 of us travellers carpool each day (well, starting today!) and had a fun disco dance party on the way home, including... THE CARWASH! Yes, I did the dance, although the car hampered the sideways leaps a bit. Alex has an old Toyota hatchback, so its not big enough to be leaping around like I'd like to. 5) I was telling people today that I'd gone down for a walk near Mapua on the Ruby Bay beach and Helen and Richard commented that they thought there used to be a Nudist beach down there... Yup! I can attest to that one. They told me its only part time now though, since the new management has changed it a bit to only be for nudists during March. Lucky me. I've had a request for photos from my Mapua Leisure Colony experience, but I regret to tell anyone else who is wondering that no, I did not take photos. :) 6) I just thought I should let you all know that I'm aware that the moral yesterday wasn't actually a moral, but it sounded good, so I used it anyway! 7) My new favorite thing to do when I meet Israelis is not to tell them my name right away, as this always affords much amusement later since they all have EXACTLY the same reaction. We'll be talking for a while and eventually we get around to doing names. I tell them my name and the conversation has two possible routes: First one goes something like this: "Ilana? That's a Jewish name.... Are you Jewish?" Or the second possibility: "Ilana? Oh.... Are you Jewish?" I guess the long pause is what it takes to register that we've been talking for this long and I haven't mentioned the fact that half of my family is Jewish. Its much more fun this way though! 8 - and final) I am on the Ned Flanders computer today. That's it. Okilly dokilly, its time to go-killy! Sorry... that was soooooo bad!!!!