Is this for real?

Sorry for a bit of a lull since the last post. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last two weeks so I don’t really even know where to start. It's a long one! 

On April 27^th I hopped back on a plane after being in Colombo for all of ten days to head to Wellington, New Zealand. On the way I had a six hour layover in Hong Kong where I got to eat some of my favourite Chinese foods – congee (rice porridge) and sticky rice wrap. Yum!

Rainy day in Wellington.

Anyhow, about 26 hours after taking off from Colombo, I finally landed in Wellington and was picked up along with Carla (CGC Director of International Programs) by Richard, CGF Zeus-pert and Wellington native. Catch all those acronyms? Upon checking in, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we were staying in Wellington for just one night. The next day, the CSOs with Carla and Richard were to depart for Martinborough about 45 minutes outside of Wellington.

Atop the Rimutaka Range

Grocery stop in Featherston

Fast forward to the next day and as we drive through the countryside on our way to Martinborough, we were all in awe of the jaw-dropping scenery that was passing by. Rolling lush green hills, cows and sheep openly grazing, winding rivers, and fall colours (and golf courses!) made for an extremely enjoyable ride and left me pining to golf. We paused for a quick stop atop the Rimutaka Range. The six CSOs Wendy (Uganda), Natalie (Falkland Island), Paddye (Seychelles), Ella (Tonga), Duane (Samoa), myself, and Richard stopped in Featherston for groceries after we divided up who will cook what meals, before getting to our accommodations for the weekend.

Well, we were just blown away when we rolled up to the house we were staying in. “Is this for real? This is where were staying?” followed by gasps of disbelief could be heard among us. We had arrived at a house in the middle of a peaceful vineyard where not a car could be heard. Birds chirping, leaves rustling and crisp fresh country air; I was elated!  One evening we went out to look at the stars and I have never seen stars like that night before (I sound like such a big city girl). SOOOO many stars ... and you could see the milky way! I guess when I’ve gone camping in BC I’ve just never been far away from the city enough!

CSP Team 3 NZ prepping dinner!

We spent the next three days here doing more training and self-reflection. We shared with each other our first experiences in our host countries, talked about some of the challenges we might face and how we might solve them, did a draft work plan with both personal and work goals, and discussed how we might support each other. We watched the Royal Wedding (or tried to, most of us went to bed before it was over), cooked, ate, chatted and overall became a connected well-oiled CSP Team 3 machine!

Following these 3 lovely days in the countryside, it was time to get serious about Zeus. So remember when I wrote about this and called a database? Well, it is and so much more. I am so excited about it! It takes Games Management to a whole other level ... I’m blown away by what it can do and the potential it has for any NOC/CGA that uses it. So this is the program that I will be working on all year with NOC SL along with a few other things. Anyways, training was intense and we covered SO much in those 5 days but it was such a great learning experience. A shout out to NZOC for being such lovely hosts (we got to train in their Olympic Museum which itself is amazing).

I think this is the first place in the world I could say that I would consider living here as it really reminded me of BC, other than the wind! Wellington even comes with Vancouver type rain! But with no central heating ... that’s my only doubt. Snowboarding is only 3 – 4 hours away (not as convenient as the North Shore, but accessible), mountain biking 30 minutes away, and probably a whole lot more I didn’t get a chance to discover. Not only that, Wellington is just such a down to earth city ... not too big, not too small, and no attitude. Don’t worry ... it’ll take a longer visit for me to be convinced to try living there. I was talking to the a physiotherapist whom I saw there and is originally from Ottawa and she mentioned a major downside is not having health care like in Canada. But, NZ is definitely somewhere I am going to HAVE to visit again.

Heading back to Colombo I had close to a 9 hour layover in Hong Kong which was great. I escaped the confines of Hong Kong Airport and go to visit with family! Also quickly was able to pick up a pair of cheap Birkenstocks and replace my cellular headphone/mic as they seemed to have disappeared from my hotel room (Yes, I’m suspicious). Thanks to my aunt for taking care of me and my uncle for such a lovely lunch!

Fast forward to this past week where I’ve been “playing” on Zeus and updating all the notes that I had written during the 5 days of training (24 pages of them) and it’s been a long and slow process. Trying to format and keep format and wording consistent has been a challenge as I was a little all over the place when I was writing the notes during training. NOC SL has been great and they are such amazing go-getters that we’re already going to start training staff on Zeus starting next week. I’ll be presenting to them what Zeus can do and what I so far have gathered what they want it to do for them ... from there once we define who needs what roles in the system I’ll start to work with the first group of individuals to use it for the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Games in Isle of Man . We’ll also soon be getting set to get organized for the 1^st ever South Asian Beach Games to be hosted in Hambantota, Sri Lanka who also has a bid in for the 2018 Commonwealth Games .