Rugby and Art Deco

Words that rarely go together.   But those are the influences that shaped our week.

Friday night found us boarding the waterfront shuttle to join 30,000 others for the U.S. vs. Australia game, which was part of the Rugby World Cup.  Though the U.S. Eagles apparently have a lot to learn about rugby, we thoroughly enjoyed the singing and the cheering and the trash-talking accompanying the event.  A number of Kiwis were cheering for the Americans too, since the Wallabies are their big rivals and their predicted opponents for the final when all is said and done.  The U.S. team did score one "try" for five points, but they were quickly overwhelmed and outclassed.  Almost against our will, we are beginning to pull for the All-Blacks.  It's contagious.

Saturday morning we headed out towards Hawke's Bay on our first trip of any length outside Wellington environs.  After passing through beautiful hills and tiny towns we were on the edge of the Manawatu Gorge in rain and deep green.  Unfortunately, the Gorge was closed due to a "slip" (landslide) and we found ourselves in kind of a "no way to get there from here" situation, befuddling our GPS, which then tried to send us all the way back to Wellington.  A bit frustrated after circling a while, we crossed a narrow one-line bridge to seek respite at the aptly- named Across the Bridge Cafe, which offered hearty vegetable soup and venison burgers and gave us time to re-think.  Found another route and finally made it into Hastings, a lovely town near the gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers and home to our friends, the Dansies, when they lived here.  At the NZ Olive Festival, held at the racetrack, we scored some locally-grown olives and lavender/rosemary soap and pondered what it might be like to take the apprentice-jockey lessons offered there.  The other apprenticeship on offer was one in fruit propagation.  Hawke's Bay is one of the areas known for winemaking but is also considered the Fruit Bowl of NZ, where most of the berries and other fruits are grown in summer.

With our purchases in tow, we drove just a little further to the coastal resort of Napier.  There was a wide beach with volcanic black sand, and we found Napier to be a treasure trove of art deco beauty.  The town was rebuilt  after a significant earthquake in the 1930's. The picture above is the esplanade.  Spring flowers were blooming, and the air smelled sweet.  We took a long walk to see what was open.  It was pre-season in a beach town, a little deserted on a cool Friday night.  We had dinner at a restaurant called Mint, and I had my first taste of paua (abalone).  One of John's co-workers had said it tasted "a little like licorice and a little like dirt," not a bad description.  But  with a few pieces in a dish of greens with bacon, I liked it pretty well.

The next morning we visited the national aquarium.  Highlights included pregnant male seahorses who looked as if they might burst with eggs and a walk through a tunnel of water with fish and sharks all around.  On offer was a chance to swim with sharks, but we declined.  Probably the real highlight for us was a chance to see the kiwi.  They are nocturnal and notoriously shy, and the ones in the exhibit were sleeping when we'd walked through. Things were a little slow first thing in the morning though, and the fellow at reception said he was going to feed them and that we could come with.  He turned down the lights and mixed up their maggot mush (He reports that the maggots taste like peanut butter.), and sure as the world, both male and female emerged and ran from bush to bush in the enclosure with their characteristic funny gait.  One of them allowed him to pet it as we watched.  Wow.

Next we shopped at Opossum World and looked at many beautiful objects we could not afford in the art deco galleries and shops.  The earthquake museum was closed, and we didn't have time to do justice to the honeybee farm or the Silky Oak Chocolate Factory, so we'll have to save that for another trip.  After our experience with the gorge, we decided to return through the Wairapa (Lord of the Rings country--high green hills rising between flat fields full of sheep and cows, with the occasional stand of evergreens) through tiny towns with unlikely names like Dannevirke (Viking signs with Norse greetings) as we watched the temperature drop from 18 to 6 degrees C.  It was pretty calm till we reached the Rimutaka Ridge with hairpin curves reminiscent of W.Va. pre-turnpike.  Yikes.

Finally, we were glad to be back "home" in Wellington, walking up a huge hill to have dinner with our new friend, Mary who has just moved back to Wellington after 45 years in the U.S. (Columbia Univ.)  Her townhouse has a commanding view of Wellington city, and she had made a pavlova (kind of a meringue cake that is the national dessert) with kiwi fruit.  A perfect ending to a weekend in New Zealand.

Around town

This is the our view of the bay at night.  Isn't it pretty?  You can see the lighted trees and the lights going up the steep hills behind them.  In this one, you can even see the moon and the side of John's face.

I still have trouble keeping my mind around what month it is, since the seasons are opposite our usual.  So September brings the beginning of spring here, but it's most like our March with crazy mixtures of winter and spring weather.  On Tuesday, for example, we had sun, then rain, then hail with ice that covered the streets, then thunder and lightning with more rain, then sun again.  Very confusing.

Last week John played basketball in Newtown with the grey panthers, and I went out with a new friend to a lovely waterfront cafe called Maranui, where you could see airplanes land and parasailors and boats and surfers as you drank your "flat white" (latte).  On Friday we stayed at home and watched the All-Blacks (NZ national all-star rugby team) play Japan as a part of the Rugby World Cup.  Yes, the Kiwi basketball team IS called the Tall Blacks.  But really, it's all rugby all the time now with 48 international teams in the tournament.  We are enjoying the cross-cultural hospitality and trash-talking, so we've been trying to learn the difference between a maul and a ruck and have been working on our scrum in preparation for seeing the Aussie Wallabies trash the US Eagles next Friday.  We were so engrossed in Friday's game that we totally missed the small earthquake that a number of more attentive people in Wellington felt.  I looked at a website which indicated there have been 30 earthquakes (mostly imperceptible) in NZ since Sept. 5.

Saturday morning dawned sunny and fine, and we walked downtown to the post office (This is a picture of the soup kitchen across from the post office called  the Compassion Center, and I included it just because I think it is cool.), then over to the Friends Center to get our hands in the dirt by helping weed the vegetable garden.  There were still some potatoes and garlic in there, along with a withered passionfruit, but everything else had to go in preparation for spring planting.  We were rewarded for our trouble by gaining a few mandarin oranges from one of the trees.  We have noticed that there are fig and olive trees along the streets, and have heard that people pick as they go. We have already benefited from snatching a few sprigs of lavender from bushes that grow around town to make Paul's delicious honey-lavender chicken.  Still garden-inspired after the harvest, we rode the bus through Thorndon, where the average Joe can walk in and watch the mechanics of Parliament on a week day, then through the Karori hills to a plant and bird sanctuary called the Otari-Wilton Bush where we wandered around in the primeval forest (ferns, huge trees) and amongst the beds of native plants.

Here I am at the entrance to the bush walk.  Atop the entryway is the face of the Maori god who is  guardian of the forest.

 Coming back to town on the bus, we met a woman who had just moved back to Wellington after 45 years in the U.S., mostly spent working at Columbia in NY. She said she thought Wellington was a better place to grow old and encouraged us to visit "the mainland," by which she meant the South Island.  Since it was still so sunny and warm, we got an ice cream cone and did a little people-watching.  There was a naked baby running up and downthe beach and a Muslim family wearing amazingly beautiful garments, along with the usual assortment of seagulls, skateboarders, runners, and children on scooters.  Kiwis in general seem very fit.

  Later in the evening we walked down to the "fanzone" to see who was watching rugby on the big screen outdoor TV's past Hell's Pizza (their pizza combinations are all named after sins like Anger, Greed, and Lust) and the interactive NZ in film trailer where you can view clips from NZ film history.  Had dinner at a lively Malaysian restaurant called Monsoon Poon (no kidding).

Yesterday there was a carry-in at meeting, and there were interfaith visitors who had come to meeting for worship prepared to make brief presentations on their own faith communities after lunch.  Later in the afternoon, John and I decided to make a concession to rain and homesickness for hearing someone "talk Southern" by going to see "The Help."  Our new friends Michael and Ronis (Australians) came over for dinner, and we talked about movies and our national stories and struggles.  I read the newspaper avidly and find people to be generally pretty insightful and well-informed.  One Irish wag asked if the U.S. would be invading Ireland if they didn't win their rugby game with Ireland (they didn't, but they did beat the Russians).  Sigh. Some ask us questions about U.S. policy I wish we had better answers for.

Jam-packed

Let's see, it's hard to know where to begin to keep you caught up on our adventures.  Early in the week, we had found a pick-up basketball game for John, including some grey panthers of both genders.  All of New Zealand is abuzz with the beginning of the Rugby World Cup. (This picture is from S. Africa Day--one of the cultural festivals associated with the World Cup.) Add our plans to celebrate my birthday and the strong, mixed emotions that come with the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11, and you have a jam-packed, multi-layered week.
Since I am still recovering, I think I will offer this blogspot to guest-blogger, John:
"The weekend had a variety of goodies for us. Friday night was a going-away for one of the nurses, Tim, a sad occasion for me as he has been my principal guide to the city and region. We went to a cafe where I had slow-cooked pork belly atop mashed potatoes, yum. Saturday was the local time zone Sept. 10 so we celebrated the blessed day (Judy’s birthday) with a pancake breakfast, then headed downtown for Rugby World Cup events including a South Africa carnival with various food tents (we didn't) and live Soweto-style music (we did). After an hour of juju beats and booty shaking we went into the City Gallery and saw the second half of Oceania, this was a fine arts display, mainly from 1980-present but with a few wooden goddesses and other outstanding native artifacts from before 1900 also. One small striking goddess (fertility, I expect) from Tonga with an inscription indicating the chief had hung the goddess in 1737 following the tribe's conversion to Christianity.  Some of the modern art dealt with nuclear testing in the Pacific islands--Bikini atoll, etc.--including a long percussion piece (3,2,1) on video by a trio (From Scratch) done in 1986, eerie. Awareness risen, we moved on to the Downstage Theater for a performance of "On the upside-down of the world", a one-woman play based on the memoir ("Our Maoris") of Mary Ann Martin, wife of the first chief justice in New Zealand, and her years in NZ, changing from a NZ-naive newlywed into a disillusioned middle-aged woman forced to return to England after her husband was relieved of his post after advocating for Maori rights (esp. land rights). Remarkable performance, 90 minutes of acting. Exhausted, we crawled home and revived just enough to eat cauliflower-cheese pasta. Sunday we were out early so Judy could join the 9:30 pre-meeting singing group and I could go down and get vegetables at the market. After meeting we has a nice tomato soup with pesto at Strawberry Fare, followed by a concert by the Wellington Vector Orchestra, equivalent of the GBO Symphony, at a very downtown nice venue, the Michael Fowler Hall. The concert started with a rushed and uninspired Beethoven 5th, but improved with the Mozart Piano Cto #24, mainly because the soloist (Deidre Irons--chair of piano at Victoria Univ.)--took control. Wonderful. The final and keynote piece was John Adams 9/11 piece "On the Transmigration of Souls" (composed 2002) for orchestra, separate adult and children choirs, and tape. Wow. The piece starts out with a child's voice reciting names of 9/11 victims, and the voice is on/off, adult/child, at intervals throughout the 20 min. piece. "Harrowing" said Judy, and I agree.  (Judy:  We had thought Sept. 11 would be a hard day to be in a different country and were thrilled when the hospital volunteer office offered tickets to this concert.  It was very moving, although as we heard the names of the American dead from 9/11, I also kept wondering how long it would have taken to read the names of Iraqi, Afghan, American and other dead who have died in the wake of this terrible event.  I guess we would have been there for days if someone had tried to read them all.)

We went home after a trip through the gathering rugby throngs, highlighted by the Wales fans, one with an outstanding dragon hat, and had a brief rest before going to dinner with Michael and Ronis, the Aussie couple who are the hosts of the Quaker B&B next to the meeting house. We swapped focused life stories and had a nice meal before coming home for lights out.

The spring has officially begun (Sept 1) which means it's been warmer but also wetter and much windier. Welcome to NZ!'

P.S.  (Judy here).  Thanks to many of you for the very fine birthday greetings.  I talked to all of the girls and to Paul, who was Skyping from his observation post at the desert station of the UT telescope.  Got some lovely flowers.  Also a hat and gloves made of the merino/possum mix favored for knit things here.  I know what you're thinking, but their possums are not exactly like ours--they have long, soft fluffy brown fur and faces kind of like lemurs.  Our friend Ronis came thru with a banana birthday cake complete with candles, so I go into a new year feeling well-feted and grateful.

Seeing the sights

I may have more pictures than text this week.  The first is in honor of the World of Wearable Art festival (known affectionately as WOW).  We could not afford tickets to any of the shows, but like all of Wellington, we marveled at the pictures in the news.  The winner this year was made all of leather and looked like a horse; there was also a person dressed up as a length of spine with many vertebrae, and a fabulous dragonfish of layers and layers of Chinese silk.  To celebrate the festival, many mannequins in windows were elaborately dressed.  This statue of a naked swimmer jumping into the harbor was even fitted with a crocheted swimsuit, beanie and goggles.

This weekend we drove out to the Hutt Valley, where some of the LOTR (Lord of the Rings) scenes took place.  We had been told not to expect too much, but we thought parts of it were pretty lovely and enjoyed a wonderful Italian restaurant right off Petone wharf.  Also in Petone, we visited a funky little contemporary art museum called the Dowse which had, among other things, crocheted jellyfish and this display of wind chimes which made interesting music in the ever-present wind and looked beautiful against the blue, blue sky.  Visited the Settlers Museum, commemorating mostly tragic encounters between white European settlers and the Maori and walked out on the wharf for a view of Soames Island to soothe ourselves afterward.

Sunday we went to the upscale market at Chaffers Dock for a crepe before meeting (lemon/almond for me and ham, cheese, basil for John).  Later we went to an exhibit at Te Papa and ran into the Australian couple we are getting to know as we were eating ice cream on the waterfront, which is one of the things we do best.

Meeting a couple of women friends for coffee is on my agenda this week.  We plan to go to a play next weekend and have tickets to watch the USA vs. Australia in the Rugby World Cup (John bought tickets before we knew the US had recently lost to England 87-8--ouch!) in coming days.   I keep wishing for some of you to visit and go exploring with me.  We are having a good time, but it would be more fun if you were here too.