Heading South for the Holidays

We finally got out of Auckland on Wednesday; we'd planned to leave Monday, but kept putting off leaving because of the rain. Heard the forecast was for sun in the South Island by Christmas Eve, so off we went and here we are. Spent a couple days near New Plymouth (hiking Mt.Egmont to the snow line - I got my white Christmas after all), then drove south to Cape Palliser, where we surprised a seal colony almost as much as they surprised us. The only ferry crossing we could get was at 3:00 am Boxing Day, so after our encounter with the seals we drove to Wellington, where we had Christmas dinner at an Indian restaurant, then spent the evening in the ferry terminal parking lot. We got a few hours sleep in the car until an attendant woke us at 1:00 am so we could get our boarding passes. We arrived in Picton at 6:15 am, tired but happy to be there. Two hours later we were in Kaikoura, found a campground just south of town, and slept until mid-afternoon. Woke to blue skies and warm sunshine, so it was all worthwhile.

Cheers,
Sandie

La Maunia Le Kirisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou

For the past couple weeks it's been about 5C below normal - in the 60's instead of the 70's. It started to warm up again this week, but there's been so much rain that today's editorial cartoon featured a TV set that said "This Week in NZ" on a screen that was leaking a puddle onto the floor. Today was "a bit squally" - typical kiwi understatement for the off-and-on torrential rain that alternated with blue-sky-and-sunshine EVERY 15 MINUTES ALL DAY LONG. At one point there was enough hail on the balcony to make me hum "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."

And it does look like Christmas, sort of. Several buidlings downtown are flooded with green and red lights at night, shopping malls are packed and the streets and stores are loaded with Xmas decorations. But to my pagan spirit it doesn't really feel like Xmas: the days are getting longer and the sun doesn't set until around 9:30 pm. Last weekend, courtesy of CocaCola, there was a huge (100,000 people!) Xmas party in the Domain. There were carnival rides, food booths, a concert followed by fireworks, and everyone seemed to be wearing flashing-light Santa hats. The atmosphere was a bit like 4th of July, but with Xmas carols.

While getting used to new traditions, it's been fun to hear new Christmas music, too. Radio Hauraki is my new favorite station; it's mostly classic album rock - heavy on English bands - but they've been throwing in a few seasonal ditties also. The best so far was an all-male chorus singing (to the tune of "Winter Wonderland") a song I'd never heard before: "Walkin' Round in Women's Underwear". (You can find the words at http://www.acme.com/jef/netgems/womens_underwear.html.)

Last night Ali and I went to Ponsonby's Christmas festival. (Ponsonby is a trendy neighborhood that was the center of Auckland's gay community until recently. Now it's so yuppie and mainstream that the oldest(and best-named) gay bar in town - Surrender Dorothy - is closing it's doors. End of an era.) There were clowns, balloons, and a bubble machine, the local firehouse sponsored a "sausage sizzle" and cotton candy sales, and D'Vice, a local specialty shop, was handing out their "toy" catalogue and free condoms to passersby.

Ponsonby is home to Franklin Road, where the homeowners have a Christmas light festival-cum-competition. Some people really go all out, making their houses look like Snoopy's tree in "It's A Charlie Brown Christmas." My favorite was the palm tree wrapped in red rope lights and electric coconuts (multi-colored light balls hanging amongst the palm fronds). Ali's favorite was the curvaceous, bikini-clad "Miss Claus" in flashing pink neon.

There was also a Mariachi band and a reggae band - who could conceive of a Xmas celebration without them? - and assorted strolling carolers, but the best thing by far was the Samoan gospel choir. They had gorgeous voices and you don't know what you're missing until you've heard "Hark the Herald Angels" in Samoan. They sang mostly in Samoan - a beautiful Polynesian-related language, but they also sang a few carols in English, plus a rockin' rendition of "Feliz Navidad." The finale, of course, was "La Maunia Le Kirisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou." ("We Wish You A Merry Christmas," in case your Samoan is rusty.)

The worst thing about celebrating Christmas at the wrong solstice is that all kinds of traditional holiday activities - like staying inside to cook rich and festive foods - aren't that appealing in summer. But today's weather was "perfect" - honestly, you couldn't have paid me to go outside - for staying in, playing Christmas music CDs, and baking pepparkakor. With gingerbread smells filling the house and Vince Guaraldi playing "O Tannenbaum," it feels pretty Christmasy after all.

Cheers,
Sandie

Observations

Last week, the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was bombed, Osama's trail has officially gone cold and, in response to soldiers' complaints that they had to go dumpster diving for makeshift Humvee armor, Rummy essentially said "Too bad, so sad." And Bush launched his campaign to gut Social Security - ahem, I mean establish personal retirement investment accounts.

On the other side of the world, NZ passed the Civil Union Act (not quite gay marriage, but the next closest thing), smoking was banned in cafes, restaurants and bars (triggering a nationwide "Smoke til you Choke" party the night before), and Ahmed Zaoui was released. (Long story short: Zaoui is an Algerian refugee who the government has held for two years, without charge, as a "threat to national security." Public outrage and good lawyering got him freed from prison and into the care of an order of Franciscan monks, pending further proceedings.)

In addition to generally progressive social values, spectacular countryside, and awesome food quality (more on that to come), one of the things I really like here is New Zealander's irreverent sense of humor. It is, truly, a funny place to live:

• Ice cream cone ad: Licked, but never beaten
• Supplier at a building site: Schist Happens
• On the side of a truck: Problems getting it up? Bob can erect it! Viagra Fencing

But my favorite was this little sign in a sales person's cubicle:

I wish I was a glow worm,

A glow worm's never glum

'Cos how can you be grumpy,

When the sun shines out your bum!

Cheers,

Sandie

Watching the Roses, Smelling the Snails

It's taken me an inordinate amount of time to figure out how to get these pictures loaded, and I still can't figure out how to line up the text with them. (I know I should learn some HTML, but I can only handle so much tech-y stuff at a time. Tonight's efforts have already left my head spinning.)

Back to our main story . . .

Last week's stormy weather blew itself out Sunday night, and Monday was glorious - as you can see from the photos. About 20 minutes north of the city, there's a beautiful coastal track, which we took from Mairangi Bay to to Waiake and back - about 3 hours total. It took us past white sand beaches, native bush, and even the back gardens of some posh suburban neighborhoods. Honeysuckle, jasmine, and roses are all in full bloom, perfuming the air. The spot where the picture with me in it looked like there were black olives strewn all over the rocks. I stooped down to look more closely, and saw they were snails, moving at break neck speed - for snails.

Cheers,
Sandie

Watching the Snails Race 

Fishing Spot 

They're Not Silica - Yeah, Right 

Was Someone Complaining About the Weather? 

Soggy Time on Karangahape Road

Well, another week has flown by. Time is going by so fast it makes me wonder if Middle Earth is on a different rotation. It certainly is in a league of its own weather-wise. The wind blows so fiercely sometimes, you can almost imagine you're on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And that wind brings a fair amount of rain, too. Not all at once, mind, so you could give up your plans to go to the K'Rd Karnival - no, this weather likes to tease. (Sun showers are de riguer; today it was raining so hard one minute, it was dark and I couldn't see a thing. A moment later and the sun was shining - through the driving rain.) On the theory that whatever the weather is doing now is likely not to be what it will be doing ten minutes later, we walked through the drizzle to the Karnival in time to hear some bands and see the Parade. Unfortunately, drizzle was followed by downpour. Fortunately, we now know why all the major streets here have large awnings over the sidewalks. And even though the Karnival wasn't as big a party as I'd been expecting - K'Rd has a pretty good local reputation - given the awful conditions that steady Southwesterlies produce around here, the crowd that turned up was amazing.

The past week was taken up with continued refinements on the theme of Unpacking and Putting Things Away. In addition to finally getting our pictures hung, the main focus was my office, which no longer has boxes of office supplies, documents, knick knacks of every description, etc., strewn about. They are all sorted and nestled away in their new home. I even managed to file all the paper I've accumulated since our file cabinets went into storage six-plus months ago. The best part is that I've cleaned enough space to be able to practice yoga at home again. Which all my sore, aching muscles are telling me I have not been doing for far too long.

Cheers and Namaste,
Sandie