In the Land of the Long White Cloud…

In the Land of the Long White Cloud, any expectations can be met and dwarfed. Friends are outgoing and plentiful. Dinners grab the attention of all, and we sit and converse at mealtime as was intended. We tell each other about our day and excitedly exchange plans for the night and weekends to come. The plans morph as we try to include everyone, as do the meal plans, due to the great generous hospitality to include even the small population of Veggies. Hosts cook spaghetti often while guests bring cheap French loaves of bread, cheap New Zealand wine, and expensive hummus. We take turns hosting the dinner events and the cook never cleans. I have never eaten so healthy in my life--indulging in salads of carrots, cucumbers, and spinach leaves—not drenched in ranch, mind you, but savory light Italian dressing. Some compromise is needed in the grocery due to inflated prices of some items (e.g. beer and bananas), and less expensive items such as soups and pasta sauces. Since we all were on “the same boat” coming over, or plane in this case, we all share the lack of items a household is comprised of when a expecting guests for a dinner party; so a train of Americans wielding cutlery and plates is seen trailing down the avenues when the time to dine commences. The “looking to the right” instead of left first is becoming the norm, because it has to be, and there has yet to be an idiotic American hit.

In the Land of the Long White Cloud, there have been few sunny days that speckle the weather forecast, letting us cherish those that do pass. This past week my thighs and Phil’s shins have felt new sensations; I believe it has something to do with exercise. Nothing seems too far away, but when multiplying the traversing from my place to Phil’s, and to the store, to the Octagon, back, and again, we are left feeling it in our near atrophied American muscles. We do take advantage of the hills around us, including the steepest one known to man. Baldwin Street holds the record of the steepest street any human would dare to trek in an auto, holding strong at the steepest point at a grade of 1 in 2.86, and the entire street averaging 1 in 3.41. We journeyed to the top--weary of the intense driving Kiwis (it seems most of them are first time drivers, but this can’t be the case...?)—trying to jog the steepest part, but cutting it short after only maybe a half dozen meters. The top held a pair of water fountains and a bench for sight seeing. The sights were great and after only 20 minutes of relaxing our tired joints, a good fifteen cars buzzed up the hill keeping it in low gears as not to stall out and take the long fall in reverse. On our way down we were met by a group of youngsters that had written their names in candies and rolled them down the street in a race to see whose would actually make it and be found. Their expressions were priceless, and left our group with a similar expression after realizing: they actually live here and still get the same enjoyment out of these activities.

On another sunny day, armed with a loaf of bread, two bananas, hummus, a Snickers bar and an extraneous book, I along with North Americans, Phil, Josh, Jena, Courtney and Ashley; Hungarians, Ester, Hudie and Natasha; and a lone German, Claudia, took a trek to try to find the apex of Mount Cargill. We never quite made it there, although it was in our sights the whole time. But as any hiker (or as they call it here, tramper) would say, "it is not the finality of the journey, but the experiences on they way that hold the most significance." We thought we knew where we were going, but in actuality, we were tramping blind through, (as we later found out), in a zone of trespasser prosecution. Inside these landscapes, no view of the panorama made you feel trapped or claustrophobic. You could see the Bay, and the Sea just past that. The entire city lay beneath us, as did a hawk soaring high in the air, and yet way beneath us. Sheep were on the roads and trails and we danced around careful not to set our feet in their passings, but I still managed to get ankle deep in water somehow. We journeyed up the steep hill side--weaving in and out of farmers’ land and opening and locking the gates behind us. It was one of these gates that we exited that held a faded, barely readable, bullet-hole laden “Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted” sign. We figured it as good as time as any to exit and head back down, not materializing our final destination—saved for another sunny day.

In the Land of the Long White Cloud, the first week of school is paired with the Cadbury Chocolate Festival, with activities continuing all week long. The first of which was a Chocolate Party downtown in the Octagon. Dancers took to the stage and odd animal mascots passed out candy to wide-eyed Kiwi children with parents willing to succumb their initial harboring of negative attitudes to sugar after nightfall, for one day out of the year. For a “gold coin”, approximately .80$ US, you were allowed to dip a triad of skewered marshmallows into a fountain of messy chocolate; later we were wiping it off of each others’ faces and clothes. The Octagon, a tourist trap of commerce, but also home to festivals such as this one, and the St. Paul Cathedral, was dressed up for the night with lights in the trees and spotlights waving in the crowds. The coldness quickly was diminished by Cadbury hot chocolate or mocha lattes and portable propane heaters. Yesterday, in the center of campus, a quartet of our American friends (female only) enlisted in the next of the Cadbury series of annual activities: chocolate wrestling. The winner would go home with 52 4” x 10” bricks of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolates. The Kiwis turned out to be a tad rougher than our brethren Stateswomen, and Ashley had to settle for 3^rd place, but still went home with 13 bars of candy. The next activity is today at noon, on Baldwin St. They are going to roll 20,000 round Jaffa chocolate balls down the steepest street in the world, for some reason. I know I‘ll be there, but standing out of the way of dense bouncing candy projectiles.

The time here is something that we are continuously cherishing and would not trade for the world. The cold is becoming easier and easier to deal with and as I write this the visible breath coming out of my mouth is no longer bothersome. The clothes take longer to dry, and the expensive electricity is just something we are going to have to deal with. (There are not any carbon emissions from electric production here, nor any nuclear plants. All power is directly pulled from hydro sources, leaving the Kiwis with expensive electricity, but a clear conscious. They also have a unique view of waste disposal here, recycling is prevalent, and to toss out your garbage, you must purchase special “penguin rubbish bags” that are costly. This limits the amount of trash thrown away by any household.) I saw my first glimpse of television yesterday, and no one else here is missing it. The few times we see people are watching it is usually rugby. Speaking of rugby, we have set up a trip to Christchurch this Saturday to see the New Zealand All Blacks take on the South African rugby team. We have a good 20 people or so making our way up the coast to check out the national phenomenon. Rugby here dwarfs all other sports back in the States—maybe the popularity of basketball, baseball, and football combined. It is their way of life, and we hear it is the best way to immerse yourself in the culture, so here we go. Phil found a skateboard for me in the trash, and I’m going to use it to get down to the Jaffa race, I’m running late, I hope to hear from you all soon.

JP