Rain and sun

It was a rainy week in Wellington till yesterday, which meant I stayed in a lot, baking cookies, playing the guitar, working on my writing assignment and attempting to read the collected stories of Katherine Mansfield (who was born in Wellington and could hardly wait to get to London where she wrote, mostly about life in Wellington, throughout her short and colorful life).  I did try to slip out between major storms to swim, volunteer at the hospital, eat lunch with friend Ronis in Island Bay on a particularly stormy afternoon, and to spend a day with Cynthia, a woman from the meeting, who tried to help me understand how the arms of the coastline relate to parts of town by driving me out along the coast where we stopped for some amazing chowder, then into town to poke around a second-hand shop (I'm missing the New Garden bazaar) and up to a wind farm atop one of the hills.  (If they can make wind power anywhere, it should be here.)  The first picture is a view from atop a hill near a windmill, while this one is from above the rose garden at the Wellington Botanic Garden during the sunny part of the week.

We were invited over for curry on Friday by our neighbor, Vanaja, a pathologist at Wellington Hospital and cooked for guests at our little apt. on Saturday evening.  Since Saturday was rainy, we spent a chunk of the afternoon indoors at the Maori art market in Porirua where we saw beautiful wood-carving, interesting paintings and beautiful jewelry made out of bone, paua, and NZ greenstone.  Here is a picture of John and friends from outside the market.

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, so, while we had planned to go to a movie, we had to stop by the Botanic Garden for lunch and to take in the tulips pictured here.  The other picture is of the rose garden from above.  The movie was "The Orator" and is the NZ foreign language nominee for an Oscar this year, because it is in Samoan and stars a Samoan dwarf. Beautiful scenery, interesting culture and story.

This weekend was the quarter final for the Rugby World Cup, and downtown Wellington was turned into an expanded fanzone.  Australia beat the Springboks (S. Africa), and the All-Blacks of NZ triumphed over a plucky Argentinian team here in Wellington, while France beat England and Wales beat Ireland in Auckland.  In spite of ourselves, we're getting into it, and watching games live on the Maori TV network.

New foods:  tamarillo (also called tree tomato, but different) and feijoa (tropical fruit originally from S. America but grown here and made into juice, jam, muffins, etc.)

New phrases:  "have a think"= ponder
"good as gold" = enthusiastically yes
""headless chook"= chicken with its head cut off, also used to describe Sarah Palin
"stonky chimney"= unstable after earthquake
"gobsmacked"= shocked and appalled
"gutted"= totally gobsmacked
"Yip" or "yis, yis"= yes
"flash"= fancy

So that's where we are on learning to eat and speak Kiwi.  Still enjoying ourselves for the most part, though I am struggling a little with not being home for Anna and Claire's birthday this week.  Really looking forward to some visits from home.  Keep that email coming y'all.