Welcome!

Welcome to the travel blog of Andrew and Emily, where we describe our vacations abroad. First, a little explanation of the title. HobNobs are chocolate-covered oat cookies that I constantly carried/consumed during my semester in London ten years ago. In New Zealand, I rediscovered them and was fiendishly eating or seeking them much to Emily's amusement and chagrin. Thus, HobNobs simultaneously conjure the comforting feelings of a mother's embrace and the heart-pounding thrill of nascent teen love--or some such nonsense. I think they are delicious; Emily calls me Piggy Piggy when I eat more than three, which was all the time; they sound funny. Works for me. The way this will work is that I will write, Emily will edit, sometimes adding remarks in the text, we'll pick some pictures, and then post. Welcome to the blog!

We started this blog to cover our New Zealand trip, our second international trip together if you count Vancouver as international, which one of us does and one of us does not. New Zealand is a beautiful, friendly country. While there, we sauntered through city gardens, rode a river through glow worm caves, soaked in hot spring water, tasted wines, tried to swim with dolphins, traversed a volcano, strolled along disappearing beaches, ascended a glacier, cruised a fiord, and sampled the fare of New Zealand. In this and following posts, we'll talk about our experiences and share a small fraction of the 1,000+ pictures we took. Even though we were running around for three weeks, we still didn't see all the country had to offer and would return to explore some more.

From what we did see, I was reminded of simpler times when common sense, one lane bridges, and haircuts with rat tails were more common than liability waivers, eight lane freeways, and iPhones. Of course, this days-of-old feeling may have been heightened by the 2004 Nissan Sunny without cruise control we drove (even my 1989 Integra had cruise control) or the 90s hits we commonly heard on the radio (but who doesn't love a little Hootie and the Blowfish or Del Amitri?). Whatever the reason, we had a great time and would recommend a trip to NZ to anybody who enjoys great vistas and friendly people.

Thanks for joining us and enjoy the following posts and pics!