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.

Making a life: food and friends

Kia Ora, friends.  A Maori greeting, in case you didn't guess.

It's been more a week about making a life here than one about being a tourist.  John continues to go out and about with staff from mental health, visiting patients in suburbs and outlying communities.  I began volunteering at the hospital, connecting ICU visitors with staff and ultimately with the loved ones they are coming to visit.  It was a little different kind of role than the one I am used to, but it was ok to be there and try to be of help.  I think I've only made one person mad so far, a nurse who came in and posted a "leave on 24/7" note on a light switch I had inadvertently turned off.

We have heat again, which is a significant improvement.   The weather has improved too.  Bright sun and cold wind are parts of every day.  At some point, it gets cloudy too.  Seems much like San Francisco. I remember a famous quotation about SF's weather, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," and I wonder if it will ever be warm enough here to wear the three summer outfits I brought in addition to the three winter ones.

Those of you who know me well know that my social needs are high.  It's been very odd to know no one, and it's been nice to have a few social contacts this week.  Thursday night we had dinner at a restaurant called "The Hop Garden," to help say goodbye to one of the drs. who is leaving.  Friday night we ate Indian food on Cuba Street, a very happening place with shops and restaurants where the youth culture is strong and our more geriatric walking was skirted by skateboards and tattooed walkers in short skirts.

 Saturday we Skyped with the Walter-Fromsons, including Kathryn, and talked to Claire on the phone and did a little baking.  I made cookies with something called "Choc Bits."  After baking, we decided to walk up the very steep stairway down the street to take a walk on the southern walkway of the town belt.  The trail wound  about a mile and a half thru the woods with beautiful views of the harbor here and there, mostly UP to the Mt. Victoria lookout, where you could see the whole landscape--several bays and the city in the midst.  Lovely and worth it, I think.  After making our way up, we felt pretty good about ourselves, but pride goeth before a fall, and we lost the track somewhere on the way down and ended up winding around and meandering back the long way thru town.  No real harm done.  Just sore muscles in the aftermath.

 Saturday night we went to the meetinghouse for a soup supper and game night, hosted by the Australian family who are Resident Friends at the Friends Center here.  Apparently, Quakers everywhere have a similar low-key sense of what is fun.

Today we went back to meeting and to the market.  Then we spent some time at Te Papa, the national museum, looking at art.  Maori art is characterized by elaborate carving.  There are totem gateways for houses and meetinghouses and posts and prows for elaborately carved wakas (large canoes for many rowers).  Also beautiful ornaments carved from greenstone--looks like jade or malachite but is much harder and was even used to carve chisels.  Much black, white and red in the visual art, much like the first peoples used in the Pacific Northwest, which makes sense if you consider the link to Pacific Islander heritage.

 After worrying about  you and the earthquake and hurricane back home, we were homesick to hear someone "talk American," so we went to the lovely Embassy Theater to watch Don Cheadle in "The Guard."  Pretty fun.

Common phrases in NZ:  "mmm"--very expressive and can mean almost anything like "prego" in Italian,
"have a think".  Vowels very different--fish like terakihi ?, all "frish and noice"  (fresh and nice); someone who has died is "deed".  Food:  fabulous citrus (lemons with a slight tangerine note, the best oranges I've ever tasted),  purple sweet potatoes called kumara, weird little red yams, fruits we've never seen that are kind of tropical like feijoa and tamarillos, great fish and chips with garlic salt and lemon pepper, fascination with beetroot, lots of lamb, kind of weird desserts--Ex. the ice cream choices today at the theater were plum/creme fraiche, honey/fig, and hokey pokey (NZ toffee).  New Zealanders are very serious about coffee, with the regular choice being a "flat white" (latte, yum, often served with a silver fern--the nat'l symbol--imprinted in the foam).  No such thing as pickle relish.  No dryer sheets.  Not so many varieties of everything.  Many kinds of chutney.  The best butter.  Serious about jam.

Unfortunately, I left the camera at home when we were on our long trek, but here is a picture of the Quaker meetinghouse, with the Friends Center attached.  As I listen to Friends' concerns about making a place in their society that is fair to all and concerns about peace and social and economic justice,  I realize that these  concerns are a part of my home wherever I am in the world.

Photos and false starts

Of course, I did not take this picture.  Saturday we went to a photography show with the winners of the International Photo Journalists awards for 2010.  Most news is not good news, of course, and the pictures showed a lot of suffering and mayhem, but I think they did create a response of compassion, so I guess that's the point.  The winning photo is this one of a beautiful young Muslim woman who had been disfigured by men who felt she was behaving disrespectfully; they had cut off her nose and ears, but she is dressed beautifully, and you can still see her beauty--very disturbing, provoking both outrage and sadness.

On a lighter note, one of my favorites was of Kim Jong-Il of N. Korea, looking dubiously at his heir; it's just a moment, but you can tell by his expression he doesn't think the kid is up for it.

To continue to update you on our activities:  Saturday night we went out to dinner for our anniversary (34!) to Ortega Fish Shack.  It was good.  Restaurant food seems very expensive to us, but it's a little deceptive since Kiwi dollars are worth about $.82 U.S. and because there is no tipping.

Sunday we followed what has become our ritual of meeting, then the open air market to get a roti and buy our veggies for the week.  This week:  leeks, spinach, broccoli.  Afterwards, we took a drive around the coast.  We saw signs to watch for them, but we didn't see any little blue penguins.  Apparently, they cross the road when the come out of the sea in the evening.  We did see two cormorants, a black shag and a little shag (very funny looking, sort of like he is wearing a toupee).  Have heard but not seen the tui (their mockingbird).  Lots of flowers blooming--including calla lilies and tiny irises and pulmonaria.  Right across the street there is a very steep stairway up to a greenway that leads to the Mt. Victoria lookout.  We haven't gone that far yet, but we'll check it out before long.

Today was supposed to be my volunteer orientation at the hospital (above), but my trainer was MIA.  Turns out she had a family emergency, so I will go back tomorrow so that I can work on Thurs.  By the end of the week, I may get pretty good at riding the bus.  I did get an i.d. made and was issued a uniform which, to John's disappointment, was neither pink nor candy-striped.  Was helped looking for my bus stop by a young Malaysian student from Victoria University who is working her way thru by working as a maid at a motor lodge in Newtown across from the hospital and just next door to our old home, the Southgate.  It is fortunate that people tend to be kind and helpful since I need a lot of help. :-)

Surviving the Snow

The forecast saying "snow thru Tuesday" kept being amended as the southerlies continued.  It snowed, then rained, then snowed again.  There was also lightning! Wellingtonians had not seen snow like this since 1976, and they were excited about it, at least initially.  The snow got almost as much news coverage as rugby early in the week.   On Monday our heat pump went out, so I have spent much of the week huddled by the space heater, waiting for Hamish, the repairman. I learned a few new weather terms, including "graupel" which is something between a hailstone and a snowflake which is what was out there for the most part.  Volunteer orientation at the hospital was canceled, as our orient-er was stuck in snow somewhere.  Some of you kept me a little saner by keeping the email coming, for which I am grateful.   Finally, on Thursday, Hamish and his assistant showed up and diagnosed the problem, but the fix will require multiple steps, so I'm thinking it may be mid-week before we're back in business heat-wise.  Things are pretty laid back around here, for better and for worse.

Thursday night we headed out to the grocery store and a cafe but were not inspired to do much more, what with the wind and driving rain.  Last night, though, we braved the brisk wind to go to City Gallery to hear the Cantorus Choir sing some unearthly beautiful music by an Estonian composer named Arvo Part.    The City Gallery has an exhibit up called Oceania, with portraits and art of Pacific Islanders hung all around the walls.  The combination of the beautiful music and the art was haunting.

Fortunately, there was a little sun this morning, and this (above) was the view from a couple of steps out our front door.  We have been nesting.  Most of the really good food we've had here so far is what we have cooked at home (also true in Gso, plus that cooked by Paul and at potlucks with the usual suspects), so this week's highlights included lamb chops with curried rice and fresh spinach and cauliflower pasta.  John has baked his first loaf of bread in our convection oven, and I have managed to light the gas stove without blowing anything up (so far).  We have also been cleaning, trying to determine what is dirt and what is wear.  Got library cards and new "fly-by" cards by which we can collect points (to what end I'm uncertain). The new guitar has gotten a little use this week too.

Friday, when it stopped pouring for 15 whole minutes at a time, I went swimming at the Freyburg Pool, which is about ten minutes' walk away.  Apparently, it's been a Wellington institution for quite some time, since my fortyish neighbor tells me she remembers swimming there with her family when she was 3.  It's quite the architectural marvel too, so I'm including two views:  one of the front, which shows you the portholes which let the light in throughout and another of the view from the side which shows the glass wings that enable people who are swimming and working out to look out on the harbor.

Our lime-green Suzuki Swift has been replaced by a more tasteful and subdued but harder to spot silver one, and we set out in it this morning, determined to find our way through the hysteria-inducing roundabouts to the post office to pick up the small watercolor prints of Oriental Bay we had ordered from a local artist on TradeMe, hopefully without dying or killing any pedestrians. Success!  The plan for the rest of the day is to visit an exhibit of award-winning photos by journalists at the Museum of City and Sea and to check out the Ortega Fish Shack for an anniversary dinner (34!).  Like Doc Watson says, "I don't care how hard it rains, the clouds are gonna roll away" eventually.