Connectionz

Meeting the Prime Minister reminded me of one of the differences between New Zealand and America: New Zealand is such a small country that meeting someone famous is entirely possible. I've noticed two consequences of this: Kiwis think that a typical American knows famous people (they don't). And Americans don't think a typical Kiwi would know any famous people (they do). Here's some examples:

On my first day teaching in New Zealand, the students asked me:
1. Do you know 50 Cent? (no.)
2. Do you know the guys from American Chopper? (no.)
3. Do you know any wrestlers from WWF? (no.)
As you can see, I was disappointing to them right from the start.
But they honestly thought that because I'm American, it's entirely possible that I would know someone famous in America. I don't. (It's quite disturbing to discover who they think is famous in America, or which famous Americans they hoped I knew - but that's a different issue)

New Zealand is so small that when there's a national disaster that affects a few hundred people - like the ferry Wahine that sunk on its way to Wellington - odds are good that the average Kiwi knew someone who was involved. A neighbour's son, a colleague, or a relative, for example. Since I rode the Wellington ferry a few weeks ago, wrote about it in the blog, and read a book about it, I have been bringing up the Wahine disaster in conversations and have discovered that my colleague's husband was on the same ferry boat a few weeks before it sank AND a science teacher at my school was on the ferry as it sank and helped save people. As an American, I find it amazing to find connections so close! But it's not amazing to Kiwis.

I recently went to hear an author speak about a biography she'd written of Sir Edmund Hilary, the New Zealander who was the first man to conquer Mt. Everest, more than 50 years ago. She explained the difficulties she encountered because her subject was a national icon, practically a saint, and still very much alive. She asked how many people in the audience had met "Ed." Out of 150 people in the room, about 25 raised their hands. I was astounded! If you were at an author event in America and asked how many people had ever met Muhammed Ali, I can't imagine you'd get a single hand.

Well, now that I'm living in this small country, I think I should go out and meet some more famous people. I've already met the Prime Minister. Who else should I seek out? An All-Black Rugby star? (Hmm. They're quite good-looking) The latest winner in New Zealand's Dancing With the Stars? (No. Too tabloid) How about Sir Ed? He lives in Auckland. His wife and daughter both attended my school, and he gave a painting of Mount Everest to the school in their honour after they were killed in a plane crash. That painting hangs in the library. Yes, I think I'd like to meet Edmund Hillary next. After all, it's not impossible to meet a national treasure in this country.

Road Trip, Day 2

It's April 8th, which is Austin's birthday. He'll be 27. Wow. But since it's only yesterday in the States, I'll call him tomorrow on his birthday. Got that?

Today we would be taking a ferry from the North Island to the South Island, which would take about 3 hours. We knew we would have to wake up early to get to the ferry on time, and last night we were worried about getting lost and missing the boat. We seem to have a propensity for that sort of Adventure. So we scouted out the ferry terminal location while we were driving around last night during our Adventure. Not surprisingly, we took a wrong turn and missed it, but we did see where it was and we did see where we should have turned. So this morning when we drove there, we did it right! No Adventures. Hurray! Oddly, we also got stopped at a police checkpoint, looking for drunk drivers ... at 7:00 in the morning!

This morning as I was getting dressed, I made an unfortunate discovery: I had forgotten to bring a hairbrush. Honestly, I must be getting Alzheimers. The last time I had forgotten to pack a brush was when I flew to America for my dad's funeral, but at least I had a good excuse that time. This time I was just plain dumb. I would have borrowed a brush from Erica but she doesn't brush her hair; it's really curly and she finger-dries it. Curt and Nolan don't use combs or brushes or anything. So I was pretty much S.O.L for the time being. Not to mention the fact that Nolan would now have 2 things to tease me about - forgetting shoes and forgetting a hairbrush. I've been making this WAY too easy for him to make fun of me.

Meanwhile, it was a sunshiney day and a beautiful sailing from the North Island to the South Island. Actually, the Cook Strait could be a treacherous crossing at times. There was a famous ferry that sunk about 40 years ago and 51 people died. It's not exactly the Titanic, but nonetheless it is New Zealand's great maritime disaster (#4 Son would like it; he was obsessed with the Titanic for years). I tried not to think about the capsized "Wahine" as I looked out at the innocent blue water sparkling in the morning sun.

On the ferry, we'd scored 2 nice soft couches and since we had 3 hours to kill, we decided to play a game of Scrabble. I ended up winning which is a little unusual but not totally surprising. However Curt came in 4th place out of 4 people and that's NEVER happened. Perhaps he's getting Alzheimers now, too. After Scrabble, Curt, Nolan, and Erica wanted to play Hearts. But Nolan and Erica had forgotten to bring the deck of cards. Hah. I'm not the only one who forgets things. Anyway, Curt bought a deck of genuine InterIslander Ferry cards so they could play Hearts. Strangely, there seemed to be a marked card and it was - of all things - the Queen of Spades. Anyway, Erica led for 90% of the game, then lost dramatically at the end to Curt. I think he was trying to reestablish his gaming superiority after being Buck-Naked-Last in Scrabble earlier.

Once we got back on the mainland, we drove an hour or so to a winery called Forrest Estates. The area outside Blenheim is one of New Zealand's premier wine countries, so there were wineries everywhere. I picked this winery because Nolan's middle name is Forrest, and because they had a sculpture garden and a resident artist! We sat at a patio table in the sunshine and Curt, Nolan, and Erica tasted all 15 varieties. Eventually we bought 6 bottles between us. And we walked around their property, admiring the sculptures and soaking up the surroundings. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

The Designated Driver (me) drove the next 1.5 hours along a picturesque coastal road. Nobody was carsick yet, knock on wood. We managed to stop at Ohau Point to look at a seal colony. Most of the older seals were really fat and lazy, but a few young ones were goofing around. They sure looked like they had a pretty good life laying there on the rocks, mostly sleeping away the day. I could get used to a life like that. Except for the part about getting eaten by orcas.

I drove on to our destination, Kaikoura, and found the hotel without getting lost, which is always worth mentioning. Kaikoura is a little seaside town famous for its dolphins and its crayfish. We walked around a bit, bought a hairbrush for The Forgetful One, sat on a beach, and listened to the surf. The surf sounded quite different here because it was a rocky, pebbly beach and water has a different sound when tumbling over rocks. Curt and Nolan threw rocks into the ocean and tried to skip rocks until they each threw their shoulders out. Later, we found a little seafood place to go for dinner. Mmmm. They served huge portions and we all ate too much. It was great.

After dinner we had another Adventure, scoping out tomorrow's dolphin destination. We drove all over Kaikoura before we finally found it, only a few hundred meters from our hotel. Nolan and Erica were beginning to tire of all these Adventures, I think.

Wellington

We continued our holiday journey, driving from Rotorua to Wellington at the south tip of the North Island. Petrol stations seem to be more sparsely distributed in New Zealand than in the US, so the fuel gauge needle was uncomfortably close to the red E at the end of the dial. I was also doing mental math to convert kilometres and litres to miles and gallons to predict the amount of distance we could travel before we would run out of fuel and call for roadside assistance. We finally came to a station and Megan breathed a sigh of relief. I never had any doubt.

The price of petrol does not vary by more than a few cents per litre at all of the petrol stations. There must be some kind of national collusion because competition among different brands does not seem to make a difference: about nine out of ten petrol stations sold regular gas for 141.9 cents per litre (that converts to $3.65 US per gallon).

We stopped for dinner at a restaurant along the southwest coast and had a fine meal of fish and chips. The restaurant faced the ocean surf which was stirred up in a frothy tempest resulting from a storm that had blown in that afternoon. Wellington is famous for its wind, rivaling Chicago for the frequency and intensity of windy days.

We found our hotel after a couple of circuits through the CBD. The Wellesley Club is a very ornate hotel with old fashioned decor, appointments, and high coffered ceilings. We were given the McVicar Suite which was just adjacent to the Davidson Suite, What were they thinking? Fancy hotel bathrobes were supplied, but we ignored the fancy embellishments and wet bar offerings. Who do they expect to eat one small serving of Pringles potato chips for 3 dollars? Not us!

We ate the complimentary continental breakfast in the hotel dining room, but I insisted that we stop for a flat white at a local coffee shop before we headed to the Parliament buildings.

We walked around the Beehive (that's what the new Parliament building is affectionately called) and the old Parliament Buildings and arrived at the entry just in time for a guided tour. Our tour guide spoke with an American accent but he seemed very knowledgeable about the New Zealand history and government. We toured the House Chamber and saw the Queen's throne (it's really just a red upholstered high back chair!). The Queen is still officially the Head of State but it's obviously a ceremonial vestige of another time period.
The old Parliament building had recently been upgraded for earthquake safety. We saw a short video about it and saw the actual contraptions in the basement. They're called flexible base isolators and they were my favourite part of the whole tour, The base isolation system was developed in New Zealand by a Kiwi structural engineer and they are quite proud of the technology that has been exported around the world.

After the tour, we walked across town toward the Te Papa Museum, and Megan gave me a welcome civics lesson in parliamentary government and proportional representation. I need to learn more but it was a good start. The Labour (liberal) party controls Government now (barely) and the National (conservative) party is the Opposition. There are half a dozen minor parties like the Green, Maori, and New Zealand First party, but they only have a few seats. Coalitions and alliances are formed to ensure a majority voting block and this makes for some interesting bed partners. There's a fair amount of stealth, betrayals, and back stabbing. It's Shakespearian.

The Te Papa Museum is a new building lacking architectural distinction. It doesn't seem to have any memorable form or texture from the outside, and the galleries are chopped into odd spaces with no apparent flow or order. It's not even a sculptural edifice like the Guggenheim in Bilbao which works inside and out on so many levels. The permanent collection of paintings is small (most of it is science and history-related children's exhibits, which Megan liked) and the temporary art exhibits were average. The best part was a room with a vaulting stained glass window refracting a filtered blue light on a multi-coloured, whimsical marae within.










We walked back toward the hotel, stopping to see St. Paul's Old Church (1886) which has a very attractive timber vaulted gothic roof structure. A US Marine Corps flag was inexplicably mounted in the nave prominently alongside the New Zealand and American flags. Why?








Two buildings away, we visited the National Archives and were the only visitors to walk through the exhibits which included a display under glass of the original Treaty of Waitangi (similar to the Declaration of Independence) and other original founding documents in an unguarded, dimly lit vault. There was also an exhibit about an airplane crash in Antarctica 25 years ago, killing 250 sightseers. We had no idea there were flights to Antarctica! Apparently people used to fly there and back (without landing) just to see it from the air.


A brief walk back to the hotel and another walk to an Indian restaurant with take-away curried lamb finished us off for the evening. Megan soaked her sore feet in the luxurious hotel bath after a long and tiring but very interesting day.