New Zealand Part 3: Wellington

Part 1 and 2 are here and here.

Our first stop on the North Island was the capital city of Wellington.

Getting off the ship, we had to dodge the cruise photographers who were eager to take our photo with a homeless teenager in a pageboy wig. "What are you?" we asked. The vagrant looked at us with an expression that may have either said, "Are you people slow?" or "I hate my life," or some combination of both, and informed that he was, in fact, a hobbit.

Ah, of course - Wellington is home of Peter Jackson and LOTR territory. We found many opportunities to buy grotesque hobbit-inspired paraphernalia in Wellington, which we valiantly managed to resist for the entirety of the day.

Our first stop in Wellington was Te Papa, the national museum. We stopped at the information desk to get our bearings, and an unbelievably personable young gent told us what to see and where. An Australian woman from the cruise found her way into the conversation, and when our museum friend suggested that we go to level 6, she was delighted and said, "WHERE?!?"

"Seeex," our friend said. The Australian howled. She knew perfectly well what he meant, but it was her national duty to give the Kiwi a hard time. "Taking the piss" is a favorite Australian pastime, rivaled only by making fun of New Zealand.

This would be a good place for me to take a side trip to talk about the fabulously charming Kiwi accent. Before coming to Australia, I would not have been able to tell the difference between New Zealand and Australian accents, which seems absurd to me now. The Kiwi accent is completely unique. Australians like to joke about Kiwis ordering "fush and chups" (fish and chips). I had no problem understanding the accent, but did have to rescue Partner-in-Crime a couple of times - like when we were in a bottle shop and the hostess suggested we try a "bleeend" (sounds like "bleed" with an "n"). After she repeated it twice, I could tell P-i-C was lost, and I had to translate "blend." I was in love with the accent and wanted to talk like a Kiwi for the entire trip, and a week or two once we got home.

Here's a skit from a comedy show that will show you exactly what I'm talking about - just a beeet of fun.

Back on the track - Wellington, and Te Papa ... Once we figured out where to go ("up the leeeft to seeex"), we spent a couple hours touring the museum. I spent the most time with the Maori exhibit and a large section on phases of immigration to New Zealand. P-i-C's interest was caught by a section about the complexities of the treaty that was signed between the Europeans and the Maori people.

The exhibit that has stayed in my mind the most is a room that was designed as a modern day interpretation of a Maori meeting house. It was so clever and beautiful.

After Te Papa, we wandered off in search of a free Wi-fi signal to check emails, and ended up setting ourselves up on a lawn not far from Wellington's many Occupiers.

Finishing our occupation, our next destination was the old-fashioned cable car that takes you up a scenic route, ending at the Botanical Garden. Nothing in the world was going to keep the 12-year old boy inside P-i-C off that cable car, and I too found it a charming way to travel. At the end, we were rewarded with the best view of the city we could ask for.

From the Botanical Gardens, we were on a mission. We wanted to make it to the Parliament for the last tour of the day we could take before having to head back to the ship. If we walked briskly, we figured that we could just make it. Thankfully, the fastest route was through the gardens, and from what I could see at lightening speed, they were quite amazing. I made P-i-C stop ever so briefly and begrudgingly so that I could take one photo of the rose garden but it did no justice, so I have no photographic evidence.

Racing to the front entrance of the government executive building (AKA "The Beehive," AKA "possibly the ugliest building I've ever seen"), we learned that the tour was booked out. The security guards reluctantly let us, along with about half a dozen other dejected cruisers, into the foyer to peruse the gift shop, and some kindly volunteers showed us a DVD about the history of the building. Frankly, I would have been happier wandering the Botanical Garden at a leisurely pace, but the downside of cruising is how little time you have to cram your adventures into.

We took a long walk back, passing the old government building, which is the largest wooden building in the Southern Hemisphere. 

I liked it from this angle, which I thought was very New Zealand: Maori meets European:

I got a good laugh on the bus back to the cruise ship. We were docked next to the stadium where the All Blacks rugby team plays, and our driver had fun razzing the Aussies about New Zealand's recent world championship. Not having a dog in that fight, I enjoyed seeing the Kiwis get one up on Australia, for a change. 

Our time in Wellington was quite short, but I feel we managed a nice sampler. Over the next few days, we had a few more stops on the North Island to complete our tour. More adventures to come. Mercifully, no more hobbits.

New Zealand Cruise Part 2: The South Island

If you missed it and are interested, part one of the few posts I'm doing on our New Zealand cruise is here. 

After being on the boat for a few days, we finally got to touch land in Dunedin, South Island. Dunedin was a Scottish settlement, with a name derived from Edinburgh ("eden on the hill"), and still retains strong ties to its heritage. We didn't plan anything in the way of excursions for Dunedin, so we just had a nice wander around for the afternoon.

One of the more memorable spots in Dunedin is the train station, with its lavish design and art deco architecture. We weren't going anywhere, but it was fun to look around. A teenager with a bagpipe played outside for coins to complete the Scottish atmosphere.

In town, there was an active "Occupy" movement happening (the first of many we saw in NZ), nestled between ladies selling kiwi bird embroidered tea towels in the open air market on one side and the requisite statue of Robbie Burns on the other.

No self-respecting Scottish town would be without.

We had a wander through a couple of formidable chapels in town, one of which featured a gift shop whose inhabitants included the most frightening steel-eyed replica of a fire-and-brimstone sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God preacher keeping watch over, I suppose, potential pilferers. I let him keep his thimbles and tea cosies, and made a brisk retreat. We found a nicer welcome at the pretty Catholic church on the hill, where we chatted up a grandmotherly volunteer who let us know she was far from a native to Dunedin, having only lived there for 40 years or so. She told us all about the architecture, and offered us a pamphlet in any language we desired. We also took a wander through the hip little art gallery, situated in a former shopping mall.

Had we been more organized, perhaps we would have tried Dunedin's most famous tourist attraction - the world's steepest street, which you can walk up and receive a certificate of achievement at the top. I have a stubborn penchant for things that seem hard to do, so it is something I'll have to put on the list for a return trip.

Just as we were preparing to board the bus that would take us back to the cruise ship, we noticed some ruckus in the distance, which turned out to be a parade for the local university graduation. All of the graduates paraded proudly through town in their gowns, led by a band of bagpipers. It was our lucky day.

Our ship was docked just outside Dunedin at the little town of Port Chalmers. We had a little bit of time for a look around, which turned out to be well worth it. There was a gorgeous church on a hill whose steeple loomed high above all else in town, beckoning tourists to take a look inside. A chatty volunteer, well into his 80s, told us in great detail about life in Port Chalmers, where he had resided his entire life. He still lived on the same plot of land on which he was born. He instructed us to walk further up the hill to the rhododendron garden with an excellent lookout. Indeed, the view was something out of a fairy tale, though I became particularly intrigued by the garden's namesake - Lady Constance Thorne, who presided over Port Chalmers as mayoress for something on the order of 30 years (if memory serves correctly). "She must have been quite a character," I suggested to Partner-in-Crime, and my suspicions were further piqued when we entered the tiny, crowded maritime museum whose collection included a throne with a sign that said only the Governor General was allowed to sit in it - with one exception - the mayoress during the dates of Lady Chalmers (benevolent?) reign. I set off to Google her when we returned, but to no avail. Apparently there is one thing Google doesn't know, and Lady Chalmers continues to loom large as a mystery in my mind.

The next day, we docked at the little French village of Akaroa. Normally, the cruise would stop in Christchurch, but post-earthquake, the city is still too devastated to accept cruise ships. Akaroa is about 75 km south. It revels in its identity as a French settlement, though P-i-C took suspicious note that there were seemingly few French speakers around, and those that were speaking French had the look of a backpacker about them.

The scenery was beautiful, though we arrived on a particularly damp, cold and windy day. If I went back, I would book one of the "swimming with the dolphins" cruises, as there is a particular breed of small dolphins endemic to that area, and I overheard fellow cruise goers raving about the experience.

We stayed (relatively) dry on land, however, just looking around town. There was a strip of tourist shops and restaurants. Some of the buildings were of an interesting old style of architecture, and I did notice that there were a few buildings with signs in the windows that they had been deemed unsafe after the earthquake.

We took a somewhat steep hike up a hill, following the signs for the French cemetery. When we arrived, the "French cemetery" was nothing more than one plaque commemorating all the headstones that had apparently worn away with time. I was a smidge cranky, as I do hate walking up hills for no reason.

More wandering brought us to the town's pretty lighthouse. 

We decided to brave another hill to see if we'd have more interesting results at the Anglican cemetery. It was much more what I had in mind, with many headstones from almost as early as the town had been settled. Many of the lost were noted to be sailors and fisherman, and too many children, as a reminder of how hard life in those early days must have been. There were some interesting graves covered in the native papua shell, which were quite beautiful.

I saw one of my favorite signs in Akaroa ...

... like Australians, New Zealanders clearly have that attitude where you face your tragedies head on with a dry sense of humor. I admire that.

After Akaroa, we were headed to the North Island. We hardly scratched the surface of the picturesque South Island, but the beautiful thing about cruises is that you get a taste of what you'd like to go back to see more of. I am definitely up for seeing a lot more of the South Island.

New Zealand: The First Installment

Since arriving in Australia, I have been enchanted with tales of others' travels to New Zealand. No one talks about visiting New Zealand without awe and overwhelm. I have been told over and over that you "have to pick an island" (North or South) and to "plan a minimum of two weeks to even begin to scratch the surface."

And now it is with my own sense of stupefaction that I have managed to put off for two months writing about our trip to New Zealand. Every time I consider packing this trip into one, or even two posts, I feel a little like I am setting off on my own authorial journey to Middle Earth and I stop before I begin.

So, bear with me as I run amok, and ramble over a handful of posts about our two-week cruise. A few blog-bites is my only hope of getting it out.

After our last cruise to the South Pacific, I wrote a bit about Partner-in-Crime and my attitude towards cruising. The cruise lifestyle is not interesting to me, per se, except as a comfortable, convenient, and affordable way to see more cities than we likely could manage on our own. So, I won't get into much about the boat experience, except to say that we cruised this time with Royal Caribbean, a new entrant into the Australian cruising market, and it was exceptional. In addition to the lovely ship and staff, may I just mention that there was American bacon (which I ate at literally every breakfast) and an actual ice machine. I did revel in all the little touches of home that I found on an American cruise ship.

Our cruise had 8 ports of call ... well actually 9 because the first port was Sydney. We got on the ship on a Sunday, but did not depart until Monday night. Friends were texting us to tell us they were waving to us from their ferries into work, and I used my first "port day" to run home and pick up an extra sweatshirt and take a yoga class. The port officer seemed disappointed when he asked cheerily how I'd spent my day in Sydney, and I, in my American accent, informed in that I'd been to the gym.

On the way out, my friend Mimi sent me this photo she took for me of our ship leaving the Harbour. P-i-C and I were eating nachos and drinking margaritas in the Mexican restaurant, as we hit the seas.

Our first port wasn't really a port to us and, actually, our second port wasn't a port, either. First "stop" was a cruise through Fjordland National Park, and this day turned out to be one of my favorites, and decidedly the most beautiful. 

Very early in the morning, we reached Milford Sound, which is at the Southern tip of the South Island. It was cloudy and cold when we arrived on deck, but enough of the towering mountains were peeking through as we slowly cruised deeper into the fjord that we were suitably humbled. The crew provided hot chocolate, and P-i-C and I wandered the boat, trying to take in the experience from every angle.

First views of Milford Sound

The longer we were there, the clearer the sky got, until we were resting in the arms of a shocking blue abyss of sky and water, surrounded by mountains that reached to the heavens. A feature of Milford Sound is its waterfalls and, since it had been raining, they were particularly fervent. Stirling Falls meets the sea at a point in the fjord that is a drop-off so steep that the cruise ship can - and did - inch within a couple feet of the falls. I snagged a spot up front and went wild with my camera. 

Stirling Falls, from a distance

...closer...

...closer still...

...closest!

I really like this shot, below, at Milford Sound because it gives a sense of perspective. We were there at the same time as this other cruise ship, the Volendam. I saw it docked in Sydney Harbour the other day, and it is as big as any any cruise liner you're likely to see. Here, it looks a bit like a toy in comparison to the mountains.

For the rest of the day, we toured two more sounds - Dusky and Doubtful (great names). The sun was painfully bright and it was cold and windy, but we could not have asked for better views. I feel so lucky because most of the remainder of our trip was rainy and dreadful weather - this is one part of NZ I feel lucky to have seen in the sunlight.

There is not much more that I can tell you that the pictures won't reveal, so I'll leave you with a few of my favorite shots from the rest of the day. 

And, next up, a bit more of the striking South Island.

Doubtful Sound

Rocking the windy day attire, not missing a moment.

Doubtful Sound

Dusky Sound

Dusky Sound

Dusky Sound

Ship's wake, leaving Dusky Sound

Australian Open

This weekend, Partner-in-Crime and I took a quick flight down to Melbourne to fulfill one of the big ticket items on my Day Zero Project list - attending the Australian Open.

Though I'm not much of a tennis player, myself, I have always been around tennis. My parents both played on local leagues while I was growing up, the Grand Slams were always on in my house, and I had a dedicated love for Andre Agassi when I was in high school. P-i-C is quite a player, himself, and he used to fly to New York to see the US Open. We have developed a little tradition of going to a local pub to watch the finals of the big tournaments, since we don't have a TV. Asking him to make this trip was no hardship to his sensibilities.

We got into Melbourne early on Sunday morning, and headed straight to Rod Laver Arena via Melbourne's free Tennis Trams. As we got off, the conductor said, "all you lucky people going to the tennis get off here. Extra tickets may be left with the conductor."

We opted for ground tickets, rather than splurging on any of the fancy matches on the big courts. That was fine by me because we both just like to see good tennis, and frankly, on the smaller courts, you can get much closer to the action.

On Sunday, the arena was packed full, and it was spirit lifting to be in the atmosphere. Despite the crushing heat and relentless sun, people were in great moods. Kids and teens had faces painted with Aussie flags or tennis balls, and many people wore their preferred country's flags like capes. Aussies are vocal spectators (a hard to swallow breach, I must admit, in the tennis etiquette I learned as a kid) and rowdy blokes would break into the familiar chant of "Aussie Aussie Aussie" "Oi Oi Oi," even if no Australian player was on the court. The main tasks of the day were trying to keep some semblance of cool and avoid getting burned to crispiness. I have the utmost admiration for the players, sticking it out in that extreme heat.

One highlight of Sunday was a Legends doubles exhibition match featuring Martina Navratilova. Did any female sports figure loom larger for longer in my childhood? I cannot think of one. I got teary when she appeared on court, and even at her age, she was still the most skilled player amongst her younger colleagues, including the other Martina (Hingis).

Shade was hard to come by, and on top of the sun, P-i-C was battling the flu, so though I loved the idea of staying in the arena that night to watch Federer play the young Australian wunderkind, Bernard Tomic on the big screen in the midst of the energetic crowd, we retired to our hotel, ordered in spaghetti, and watched the match on TV. It was all we could manage, especially with a second full day of tennis ahead.

On Monday, the arena was much quieter, and we were able to park ourselves in beautiful seats in the shade for most of the day. We saw a number of good matches, including a heated women's doubles match where an unusual rule was questioned by the players so heartily that the supervising umpire had to be called to the court for consultation. That was a good soap opera!

On our way out, I noticed about a hundred ball kids gathered in the main oval. They broke out into a "flash mob" dance routine (though I use the term "flash mob" loosely, as the element of surprise is rather lost when the courtyard is full of turquoise-clad adolescents trying to look casual). Still, it was a sweet note to leave on.

Now that I'm home, I have been watching the tennis and checking the scores on my Australian Open app constantly. I feel like I became a small part of a story that I am compelled to finish.

Staying Connected

I think, sometimes, about the great fortune of being an expat in the modern era. It wasn't so far back that international phone calls were something only a Rockefeller could entertain, and really, not that long ago that correspondences sailed on a slow boat because Al Gore had not yet invented email.

I have two favorite inventions for staying connected to the U.S. The technology of both baffles my mind, and keeps me eternally grateful.

First is the Skype phone. Of course there is computer Skype, which is groovy for video calls, but I found a few limitations with computer-Skype: a lot of people at home are still intimidated by this amorphous Skype-thing and don't use it, the call-quality remains inconsistent at best, and I hate having to stay in front of my computer for long chats. I love the Skype phone because it is a regular handset and I get an American phone number. And, for me, the quality of the calls is immeasurably better. I still think that it is some kind of spell conjuring that my mom in Georgia can just dial me with a 10-digit number, as if I were in the States, and it rings to a handset. (You can get Skype calls forwarded to a smartphone, as well, but I've never made it work on my Android.). While we're on the subject of phone dates, I'll mention my favorite website, which allows you to put in two time zones, and compares times side by side. I find this so much easier than trying to do the math and trying to remember which of us is/is not in daylight savings. It's a sanity saver for me.

The other innovation of witchcraft and wizardry is the Virtual Private Network (VPN). A lot of American media is restricted in Australia, which is a real bummer when all of your friends at home are posting on Facebook about the return of 30 Rock and gushing about season 2 of Downton Abbey. For a small monthly fee, VPN subscribers have access to an American IP address, which means that one could - ehem - theoretically do things like (legally) subscribe to an online streaming movie service and, I don't know, spend the whole day in my one's pajamas watching American TV and movies that are out on DVD in the U.S., but not even released here. I mean, in theory, we could do that with a VPN. I cannot confirm or deny whether I spent the entire day today watching Parks and Recreation and listening to Pandora. If I had, I can tell you, it would have been a dream of a day.

Perhaps in the future, expats will look back to today and feel lucky that they did not live in an era before superspeed transport, allowing them to get back to the U.S. in less than an hour, but until that day, I think that we who are far away from home live in fortunate times.

Suddenly Summer

Summer is here!

Though summer may have started some time ago, according to the calendar, and I think I've been heralding false starts on this blog for some time now, this weekend was truly the beginning in my mind.

The first harbinger was yesterday's launch of the Sydney Festival. I'm sure I've expounded upon the wonders of the Sydney Festival in these pages before, but in brief, it is a momentous month long arts and culture fest with events all over the city. There's first class stuff everywhere you look. I've said it many times and will again: if there is one thing Sydney excels at, it is spectacle.

The First Night, was actually a whole day and evening of events, so Partner-in-Crime and I went into town in the early afternoon to spend the day nomadically grazing on song and dance. We heard Spanish/French songs in the art gallery, watched a string-art installation go up before our eyes, saw a roving caravan of psychedelic gypsy clowns, and witnessed a band of 80-year old Jamaican dudes rock out to "Rehab" (oh yes, that happened).

We planted ourselves on the picnic blanket in the Domain for a couple of hours to get a spot to watch the Aboriginal welcome to the festival and the singer Gurrumul open the night. We abandoned our coveted spots on the Domain lawn before the big concert started there, but we'll be spending a lot more time there over the next month.

Not us.

We took swing dance lessons in the middle of the street with a few hundred of our closest friends.

Our favorite act of the day was this old-time brass band from New Orleans (they played old time music; they were not old) called Tuba Skinny. They had the Depression-era look and feel down head to toe and heart and soul. One of the funniest things we saw was this little girl of about four who danced on the lawn right in front of them for the entire set. And man, did that kid have some expressive moves. I don't know where she learned it, but it was like she was channeling the 30's, too. The whole experience was completely in the spirit of the Festival.

Today, we took a ferry to Cockatoo Island (which I featured a bit more here) to meet some friends at an outdoor bar. There was a cool breeze, the drinks were cold, there was a DJ playing funky tunes, a steady stream of sailboats floating by, and we got to lounge on astro turf in beach chairs all day in the shadow of graffiti-ed warehouses and the Sydney Harbour. Aside from that awkward moment when I was trying to explain the Jamaican "Rehab" and managed to topple completely backwards in my chair and hit the ground (gracefully, P-i-C assures me), it could not have been hipper.

Tonight, I am relaxing with my slight sunburn and afternoon-booze induced fatigue as a perfect thunderstorm rages outside.

Yes, summer is here. I could not be more content.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

As we did last year, we celebrated the start of 2012 with fabulous friends and a feast of food and bev. Mimi and Joe have a perfect apartment for viewing the fireworks display, and Sydney seriously outdid itself this year. If there is one thing Sydney knows, it is fireworks. New Year's is like the 4th of July, my birthday, and Christmas morning all rolled into one 12 minute display.

If this sounds like too much to believe, watch the video.

Early in the evening, a stunt plane gets crazy over the Harbour.

We checked out the early fireworks (9p.m. display for kids) from the park.
Lots of families enjoying the lawn

Mimi got us sparklers to get into the spirit.

Even the kid's fireworks are awesome.

9p.m. fireworks.

Parade of boats on the Harbour. I read that there were something like 2,500 spectator boats.

The main event!

May all of our 2012s be filled with so much light and wonderment.