A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree

I was very fortunate to be able to spend Christmas Eve with a wonderful family who Sarah used to baby-sit for. It was a very traditional (for anywhere) family-style Christmas with heaps of food and kids running around everywhere. Of course the meal was a barbecue that reminded me more of the Fourth of July, but I was happy to trade the roast turkey and egg nog for grilled steaks and New Zealand wine.

This family has a tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve, and before some unsuspecting uncle dons the Santa suit to hand them out, the kids perform Christmas carols. The adults sing along, so when "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was put on the list, I quickly tried to remember what comes after seven swans a-swimming. But I was quickly saved by not knowing any of the words--this was the Kiwi version.

12 Piupiu swinging
11 Haka lessons
10 Juicy fish heads
9 Sacks of pipi
8 Plants of puha
7 Eels a-swimming
6 Poi a-twirling
5 Big fat pigs
4 Huhu grubs
3 Flax kites
2 Kumara
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

Then the kids performed the haka (the non-throat-slitting one) and Santa came. I'm sure this is just me speaking as a tourist who can't resist cute little kids, but I love New Zealand Christmas!

A Merry Kiwi Christmas

As I mentioned in my last post, Christmas here is a litle different than at home. It still doesn't feel like Christmas to me because 70 degree weather and talk of barbecues on the beach just don't align with the snow, ugly sweaters, and roast dinners (or Indian food) that are part of my holiday frame of reference. Still, the Kiwis have very much adoped the British holiday traditions (BTW, figgy pudding does not look at all like the picture I had in my head), while definitely making it their own. Below, a small taste of how Auckland celebrates:

Despite my general disdain for most of the decorating decisions on Franklin Road, there were a few I thought were cute--and very Kiwi.

Even the Sky Tower got in on the action:

On Queen Street, in the heart of Auckland's central business district, you can't miss this gigantic, totally creepy Santa statue. Seeing him in person is even more disturbing because during the day he is rigged to wink and make a "come here" motion with his finger. At night when he is not moving, his eyelid has usually stopped in a frightening half-closed position that makes him look like he is on heavy drugs.

New Zealand has its own "Chrismas tree," the pohutukawa. It earned its nickname because it blooms beautiful red flowers at Christmastime. The city is covered with them. Again, it's hard to feel Christmasy in the middle of springtime flowers (the freesia, birds of paradise, and heaps of others are in full bloom as well), but it's a nice change from gray skies and leafless trees.

Here, the pohutakawa in use (okay, actually it's bottlebrush, but it's still red and pretty) as my team's entry in our office Christmas tree decorating competition. I'm not sure how we lost because ours was totally the best. However, I'll concede that it's a little easier for us, Maori Health, to represent our directorate in tree form than for, say, Disability Services. I'd say the National Screening Program deserved their second place prize; it must have required some serious creativity to design their (slightly creepy) tree covered in pictures of breastfeeding babies. Anyway, in case you didn't figure it out, "Meri Kirihimete" means"Merry Christmas" in Te Reo Maori.

Auckland Christmas Aesthetics

Last week Sarah invited me to do some Christmas light viewing. Not having seen a single house with Christmas lights, I was a little confused. But she assured me that there are a few neighbourhoods where everyone puts up lights, and then all of Auckland goes to check them out.

We headed over to Franklin Avenue in Ponsonby, and the first difference to Christmas light viewing in America was that we had to wait until about 8:30 or so, and even then it was still a little too light out to see things properly. I definitely do not miss Michigan winters where it gets dark at 5pm. The second difference was that viewing was not done from inside a heated car. Since it’s spring/summer here and the weather is beautiful, we got out of the car and walked. It was a big party on the street, complete with carolers singing about the frosty weather and jolly holly. I was surprised at the age diversity represented. Of course there were little kids (who were all thrilled to be up past their bedtime), but also a surprising amount of teenagers, young couples, and others who didn't look like the Spirit of Christmas types.

As for the lights, I should first note that I’m bit judgemental (me? judgemental?) when it comes to Christmas displays. I prefer simple monochrome gold lights or multi-colored strings, and very little else. Specifically, I like heaps of them in trees (like on Main Street in Ann Arbor), or I like the ones in a netting configuration if they’re draped over bushes/shrubs because I love the effect when they’re covered in snow. No ropes of red or blue lights, nothing flashing, and for the love of god, absolutely nothing that comes in a box with the words “giant,” “inflatable,” or “animatronic.”

Kiwis, however, seem to like whatever they can find--and as much of it as they can find. I get the sense that the options for Christmas decorations are limited, because there wasn't a whole lot of variety. Just some people had more sets than others sets than others. Those white plastic reindeer and other pre-made displays seemed to be a new addition this year. Nothing was really out of control, at least compared to the US (house on Winsted Court, I’m talking you), but “more is more” was definitely the prevailing philosophy. Surprisingly, these were the houses that everyone, young and old, oohed and aahed over. I guess I am an American snob, because a lot of what I found tacky they pronounced “beautiful.”

Although I am making a sweeping generalisation here, I feel like the Christmas lights, both in the US and here, are to be a pretty good reflection of each country's overall approach to Christmas. At home, Christmas is overdone and blown out of proportion. It's a race for who can have the latest gadgets, the brightest lights, and the deepest credit card debt. Here Christmas seems more like a time to escape to your bach (translation: holiday cabin; pronounced “batch”). Most of the celebrations are fairly restrained, so the big displays stand out as something unique and interesting, rather than garish and tacky. I am not so much a fan of Christmas, but the Franklin Street viewing experience was actually rather heartwarming. I generally think all that “Spirit of Christmas” stuff is more or less just another marketing ploy, but it’s hard to argue when a holiday brings a community out into streets for a two-week long block party.

Morningside 4 Life!

Guess I should have added in my last post that somewhere among all the dirty flats and crazy tenants, I was able to find what I think will turn out to be a good place. It's a cute little villa ("villa"="small house") with three flatmates and a huge backyard--should be perfect for traidtional Kiwi BBQs this summer.

It's in the suburb ("suburb"="neighborhood") of Morningside. Or maybe it's in Kingsland--the suburbs here are really tiny and have questionable borders. But I'd prefer to say it's in Morningside has a much more exciting recognition factor thanks to Bro'Town. Also big on the relation-to-important-Kiwi-icons side, the house (villa?) is pretty close to Eden Park, the big rugby/cricket stadium. Eden Park has recently been the subject of much debate, as it is theoretically going to be the main stadium when New Zealand hosts the 2011 Rugby World Cup. Although I'll be long gone by then, it's highly possible that I'll get to experience the negative side effects (i.e. loud construction). But on the upside, living so close by might encourage me to go to a cricket game for some real kiwi culture. Or not.

Adventures in Flat Hunting

Finding a flat in Auckland has been considerably more difficult than it was in Wellington. In Wellington I arrived on a Saturday, looked at places on Tuesday and Wednesday, and had made arrangements for a place by Friday. Not so in Auckland. Since I arrived last Monday, my wonderful friend Sarah has driven me around almost everyday, and we’ve probably seen about 20 different places. I’m definitely spoiled for choice here … it’s just that most of the choices are, well, not so choice.

Regan’s flat was not notable one way or the other; it was more that Regan was not my ideal flatmate. He had just quit his part-time job at a video store—he didn’t think he’d have time for it anymore now that he was trying to get something going with his band. I know they’ll be successful, though, because as Regan was taking down my name, he told me that after talking to me on the phone that morning, “I wrote a song about you in the shower. But I forgot it.” I told him I’d be in touch.

Claire and Stacey were super-nice, so nice in fact that they wouldn’t stop talking and made us late for our next appointment. I now know all their likes and dislikes, from sushi to art to dinosaurs. They’re not all sunshine, though, as we learned when they were telling us about their old flatmate. “I got so mad at her,” Stacey said, “that I punched her in the face.” I wasn’t exactly disappointed the next day when I got a text saying they’d found someone else. But fear not, the text made sure to note that I was still welcome to be their friend.

Shaun and his two flatmates (whose names I have chosen to forget) lived in an enormous house that I’m sure was beautiful back in the day—before there were life-sized cut-outs of naked women on the walls. Their explanation of rent and expenses was pretty straightforward: “Sometimes we have enough money to pay bills on time.” The guys also happened to be some of the most socially awkward people I’ve ever met. One of them sat in the lounge just staring at the TV, even though it wasn’t on. The other two stumbled through conversation and couldn’t seem to figure out why they had three empty rooms they couldn’t seem to rent out. Best of luck, guys.

Ricky and Greg met when Ricky tried to sell Greg some bad drugs. They’ve been best friends ever since. Ricky texted me the next day to say that they needed someone who could stay longer than I could, but added, “You’ve got my number—we should get drinks sometime.” Who knew that flat-hunting was so socially lucrative?

The best place by far, however, was Chris’ place. The easiest way to describe it—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—is that if the house and the guys were in the US, it would be a house for a slacker frat at Michigan State. The place was disgusting, and the furniture inside looked only slightly higher quality than the two or three old couches stacked on the porch (“Don’t mind our fuel. We’re burning those soon.”). The kitchen had clearly never been used or cleaned, and I’m tempted to say the same about the bathoom. “We’ve been meaning to get a shower head put on the shower,” they told us. “We can do that by the time you move in.” Probably true, because I’ll never move in, and they’ll probably never fix the shower. Not surprisingly, the only thing in even semi-good condition was the Playstation. Still, the best part came as we were walking out (“I still have to look at some other places, but I’ll let you know”), and Chris pointed to a small dirt patch by the walk: “Don’t mind the grave.” First I thought I’d heard him wrong, then I thought that maybe they’d had a dog that had died from neglect or something, but no. “We hate our old flatmate’s girlfriend, so we made a fake grave for her.”

JAFA

Well, transitioning up to Auckland has been pretty much a breeze so far. I left Wellington on Sunday morning, catching a ride with two German guys are travelling the North Island. We took a scenic route up to Turangi, a town just nestled between Lake Taupo Tongariro National Park (the home of Mt. Ngauruhoe AKA Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings). We spent the night there and then finished the trip to Auckland on Monday. Lots of good pictures and scenery along the way--all to be posted soon.

I jumped right into life in Auckland, and within a few hours of arriving on Monday I already had a job lined up (I'll be doing the same thing I was doing in Wellington, but now I'll be based in the Auckland Ministry of Health office), and had checked out four flats. I saw two more yesterday and will see two tonight and hopefully will move in somewhere this weekend.

Being up in Auckland this time is much different from when I arrived in May. Although I still don't find it to be as welcoming or pretty as Wellington, this time I am equipped with the connections and friends that allow me to settle in without too much stress. It will still take some figuring out to understand my way around (especially since I have to take the bus and/or train out to my job), but it shouldn't be too difficult. And maybe in my time here I will figure out why the rest of the country hates Aucklanders so much. Is it that Aucklanders really do think that the world revolves around them or that the rest of the country is just jealous? The jury is still out, but then again, I have only been here three days.

Random Auckland

There are so many things that Lonely Planet doesn't tell you about.

See the bird on the left? It looks like a seagull, walks like a seagull, and talks like a seagull. But it's also gigantic, so really it's like a big mutant seagull. The other white bird in this picture is a normal seagull and, as you can tell, is much smaller. Fortunately, a trip to the wildlife exhibit at Te Papa eased my fears that there is something gene-altering substance in the NZ water systems, and I learned that the gigantic seagull is actually a skua. The regular-sized seagull is just a regular seagull.


I walked into one of these mushrooms assuming it would make me double in size. When it didn't, I gave up on saving the princess.


Another ginormous bird, this time in the botanic gardens. From a distance it just looked like a duck, but upon closer inspection I think it was actually a small horse in a duck costume. That is my foot in the picture to give you some perspective on just how large this bird is. I think that the fact that I was able to get so close is a pretty good indication that this bird is aware of its size and knows that it could kill me with little effort.

Still in Auckland

As the title says, I have not left the city yet. No luck on the job front, so I'm just killing time here until something comes up. The program I'm here with has a job recruiter who is pretty much doing all the work for me. This is great in that I don't have to do anything, but also nerve-wracking because it means that I am just sitting around waiting and wondering if there's something else I could be doing.

But because I don't have any job hunting work to do, I have been free to sightsee around the city. Auckland's got a fair amount to see and do, and this has been greatly enhanced by the fact that backpacker tour companies here run free "orientation" tours of the city. Considering that I don't have a car and the city is extremely spread out (supposedly the fourth biggest city in the world in terms of urban sprawl), this has been an awesome way to get around. Here is a small sampling of some of the things I've seen (as you can see, the blog is finally being cooperative with pictures ). Hopefully the pics will give you an idea of why I think it's so beautiful here.

Here is a beach in Devonport, the richest suburb of Auckland. With views like this, no wonder it's so expensive.




View of the Auckland city skyline from the top of Mt. Victoria, one of Auckland's 50 volcanoes. Supposedly they're all dormant. Let's hope so.

However, this is Rangitoto Island, which was formed only 600 years ago when an underwater volcano errupted in the middle of the harbour. Geologists expect that another erruption like this will happen sometime in the next 100 or so years. Maybe it's time to get out of this city.
And since we're on the topic of volcanoes, here is the crater of Mt. Eden, the biggest volcano in Auckland. According to the tour guide, some university students played a great prank by throwing some tires down in the crater and lighting them on fire in the middle of the night, so when everyone woke up in the morning there was smoke coming from the volcano. However, the truth behind this story is a little suspect considering that the tour guide said it happened seven years ago, yet when I was here nine years ago our tour guide told us the exact same story. True or not, it's still a good story.
And here is some culture for you. At the Auckland museum they have a Maori (the indigenous people) marae (meeting house) that you can walk inside. I think Maori artwork is some of the most beautiful I've ever seen.

If Auckland is considered boring, then I can't wait to get out to the rest of the country.
------------------------------------
If anyone is interested in sending me any mail (and I know you are), you can send it to the following address. It will get forwarded to me wherever I am in New Zealand:
c/o IEP
PO Box 1786
Shortland Street
Auckland
New Zealand

Kiwi Country

Well, I've made it over "the ditch" and have arrived safely in Auckland. Despite the fact that it's about 10 degrees (Farenheit) colder here than it was in Australia, I'm glad to be here. I remember falling in love with this country when I was here in '97, and as soon as I got here I felt that love again. Even the descent into Auckland was breathtaking, complete with rolling hills, crashing waves, and lush greenery. Everything is beautiful, and I love the general feel of the atmosphere. So far my favorite thing about Auckland is definitely the diversity. Walking down the street, the majority of the people are non-white, and there are countless ethnicities represented. There are tons of East Asians, a susprising number of Indians, and more Pacific Islanders than I have ever seen in my life. I'm pretty sure I've seen more Africans in my three days here than I did in my entire time in Australia. I'm definitely feeling a little more at home.

Although I of course want to see everything there is to see in New Zealand (much more feasible here than it was in Australia), I've decided that I'm going to settle down first and work for awhile. This will be good for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm pretty sick of traveling. I'm ready to unpack my bag, make some long-term friends and actually live somewhere. Second, staying in the same place for awhile is decidedly cheaper than moving around nonstop. Hopefully a steady job will help me save up some money so that by the time I am refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to travel again, I'll actually have the funds to do so. Finally, my plan coincides pretty well with the seasons. It's fall/winter here now, so working for six months or so will mean that I'll start my travels right when the weather gets warm enough for the kinds of activities I'm interested in (hiking, swimming, boating, etc.--pretty much anything that does not involve snow or cold).

My resume is out to employers, so hopefully I should hear something soon and I can start in on becoming a temporary Kiwi.