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Showing posts with label new zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new zealand. Show all posts

Friday, June 21, 2013

Field Days

The transition to working full time has begun!
Last week I had the privilege to travel with my company to the Mystery Creek Field Days in Hamilton, New Zealand which was June 12-15.
The field days is the largest agricultural event in the Southern hemisphere.  This year there were over 125,000 visitors!
I enjoyed getting to know my new fellow co-workers and feeling more a part of the team over the three days.  It was a pleasure working at the company booth and interacting with the farmers customers.
View of Mt. Taranaki on flight to field days

Mystery Creek Field Days

Gorgeous day for an Ag event!
In the coming weeks I will continue learning more with my new job.  
Stay posted for more updates!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Quarryville to Quakesville

Greetings everyone!
I admit I have not been keeping up with this blog but that is about to change.  This blog has been rejuvenated.
My life has been a whirlwind lately.  In the past month I have graduated from college and moved to the other side on the world for a job that I am very excited about.  I hope to show you a glimpse of my adventures working in the dairy genetic industry in New Zealand.
It was very difficult to leave all my family and friends and not know when I might see them next.
I successfully packed my life into two suitcases (they were rather large) and two carry on items.  I left the town of Qarryville and the family dairy farm in beautiful Lancaster, Co. PA.  After over 24 hours of traveling by plane I arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand.  An area that has been devastated by earthquakes in the past.
A new chapter in my life has begun.
One of the first challenges I had to tackle was learning how to drive a manual on the left side of the road.  I have been driving an automatic on the right side of the road in America for the past seven years.  Before coming to New Zealand for this job I was not very good at driving manual, even my younger twin brothers with their permits can do it better.  It can freak you out just thinking about it.  All the traffic is going in the opposite direction, I'm sitting in the opposite seat, shifting with my left hand and doing the turn signal with my right hand and lets not forget about intersections, traffic circles and parking lots.  Driving was the biggest thing I was worried about.  Last Wednesday I could barely drive through the residential area of Lincoln, NZ.  I almost gave my coworker a heart attack on that first day of driving. 
My New Zealand work truck
Now I am proud to say that I can drive by myself through red lights and intersections and am getting better every day.  It was nerve wracking but I had to push myself to tackle this challenge.
Stay tuned for more of my adventures in New Zealand!