Upside Down & Backwards

Tanks for the Memories

2010-02-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

It is a mere matter of hours before I leave this tiny island on the very corner of the world. I am teary, anxious and in a sense, relieved. It feels like I am leaving home- New Zealand has become a part of me- as cheesy and lame as that sounds. What started as a grand adventure abroad has ended in a million tiny lessons that I can carry with me to the next one, a lifetimes worth of spiritual luggage that starts with a wide base and curls in on itself over and over again each tiny arm holding tight to wisdom until I can unfurl it upon the world. Get it, like a fern. And since my year of musings had has come full circle, this will be the last entry made on this most dear blog o' mine. It's been one hell of a time.

I have to thank Da for his advice on the Maori way, Carl for his unwavering hospitality, Stony Ridge for their unabashed love of hedonism, Kiwi for his refusal to accept what's expected, Sue for her generosity and sincerity, Vince and Andie for their beautiful family, Deb for her humor, Claire and Martin for the highlife, Tess for her cynicism and love of under appreciated pop culture, Jedi for his wide-eyed amazement, Darren for his forthrightness, Derryn for his all-around fabulousness, Genea for her verve, Todd for his ineptitude, Sally for her sass, Swampy for his irrepressible work ethic, Garth for always joking, Cory and Taren for being too damn sweet, Reagan for never giving in, Family Ties Guy for never shutting up, Hippie for his smile, Karl for his imagination and passion, Sylvia for her energy, Bev for her kindness, David for his laughter, Tom for his laconic awesomeness, Leonie for her warmth, Jeremy for his endearing silence, Maggie for her spirit and of course, Ryan and Paula for their friendship and for their love. Thank you for reading and I hope you'll continue with me on my next half-cocked and insane adventure.

The Burn

2010-01-31T15:44:00.000-08:00

A city is constructed, a city is burned to ashes...what happens in between in anyone's creation.

Kiwiburn is New Zealand's own homage to Black Rock Desert's annual Burning man festival. For three days at the end of January, outside Taupo in mangy Mangakino burners, pilgrims, hippies, weirdos, generic wasters and guilded German builders gather for the regional event. Ryan donned his giant LPG flame puffer (much to the dismay and delight of the curious), Karl constructed an achingly beautiful temple (by far the most impressive feat of the event), Kiwi built a flailing, celebrant man (that spells things with his movable arms) and Otto flew from the States to bring New Zealand his well-hung Norseman (fire spewing cocks are always welcome).

The days were spent wandering grounds, admiring art for its own sake swaying to music meant to chisel the blunt edge of sanity. Afternoons were wasted lazing under the trees while keeping rigorous worship of the Alter of the Dead Cow. Then came the nights of debaucherous laughter enveloped in warm layers of inebriation, like children of the apocalypse we sought shelter from the fallout and sturdy ground to stumble upon. The dawn heralded the drinking of craft beer out of dirty bowls and gifting whiskey kisses to eager strangers, we watched wide-eyed as enormous limbs fell from trees onto tents below prompting quick scurrying from the safety and warmth of collapsible caravans. The elements greeted us with Mount Pedro's fiery eruption, double rainbows, gales and tempests and seductive, sun-soaked evenings. The man's fire spewing copper tubing hardwired itself into our souls and the temple burned silently revealing the rain soaked moon and we were all reacquainted with that most delicate and gently undulating star-studded universe of ours.

New Zealand Enrichment Initiative- SCINZ

2010-01-26T13:36:00.000-08:00

I have been a tourist in New Zealand for eleven months now and my patience is well past the point of wearing thin and now baring my unadulterated scorn at the attractions this country has to offer. Each city comes equipped with the tourist trifecta- a church, a museum and a garden...boooooring. Every beach, every mountain and almost every river is stunning and pristine. Each area specializes in a new way to hurt, maim or otherwise kill yourself all cleverly disguised as “adventure sports”. Seriously, it gets tedious. As part of my illustrious and brilliant scheme to improve the piteous state of tourism in New Zealand I propose a series of enrichment initiatives that is guaranteed to kick start New Zealand's languid industry.

SCINZ or Seal Clubbing Institute of New Zealand will be a place to observe and appreciate the delicate poetry of the natural world and then beat the living out of it. For a humble price, you will be equipped with your own club (that's yours to keep!), from there the adventure is yours to create.

The little buggers have taken over the beaches and are begging in that shockingly obnoxious screechy yelp of theirs to be taken down. Like the seagulls we all hate, the seals have become a beach side pest that we can no longer afford to ignore.

If this seems a bit cruel or unwarranted, shall I remind thee that seal clubbing is a time honored tradition the world over. It's perfectly natural and perfectly ethical. Once you get the swing (!) of it they won't even know what hit them...but you will!

Still unsure about how you feel? Here's some reassurance directly from the mouths of our celebrity sponsors.

“If you don't got ends you won't be hittin' no SCINZ” - Big L

“I'm hitting SCINZ again [in New Zealand], rolled up another blunt, bought a Heineken”-Notorious BIG

“I hit those SCINZ for the hell of it, just for the yell I get, ooh ooh ooh for the smell of it”- That guy in Salt and Pepa's Shoop

Can you morally afford to see another seal end up like this?

The other enrichment initiatives have to do with a proper taco stand and helping the good people of New Zealand learn how to make a goddamn ice coffee.

Cindy & the Surreal South Island

2010-01-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

My best childhood friend Cindy is here to visit Katie and I for a month. With meagre savings and heads full of ideas we have set off on a whirlwind tour of the entire South Island. From the start we decided to wing it, as we have for the entirety of our trip, all the while imaging breathtaking views and dramatic landscapes. However, we did not anticipate the chronic weirdness that somehow always seems to find us.

The night Cindy arrived we headed to a backpacker's across the street from a park in Christchurch. All day long they had been setting up hay bales and telephone booth sized plastic boxes. That night, a belligerently drunk me and Cindy headed over to see what the fuss was about. As it turns out it was a peace maze (of course!). At the beginning of the maze you are handed a tiny piece of driftwood with googly eyes pasted on to guide you through your peaceful journey. By station three it becomes obvious that you are in the grasp of some crazy Christians and their idea of a profound experience. They ask you to contemplate your life and write goals (or balls) on tiny magnetic tiles, you walk through a room filled with fake plastic bread covered in fake plastic guns, then you are asked to write things that you feel stressed about and send them through a paper shredder (absolved) and watch as the word (of?) God seems to melt into the ground. I tell you, it was weird and profoundly stupid.

In Kaikoura we camped at a site that narrowly wedged us between the highway and the beach's rocky cliffs, all night we watched headlights pointed straight for us followed closely by the sound of cars whizzing by above our heads.

In Moeraki we walked among the spherical boulders strewn about the beach. Some say they are gifts from god, others say they are dinosaur eggs and some claim beacons left by Martians. There are also theories about volcanoes, but Martians and dinosaurs somehow seem more plausible when ogling giant veiny globes clumped randomly on a beach.

At Shag Point we were literally almost blown away by what must have been 200 mph winds. Cindy actually feared for her life and none of us were brave enough to step close enough to the cliffs edge to catch a glimpse of the sea lions below.

We stayed on the grounds of a burned down insane asylum and found among other things, a beautiful old building filled with rusted cars, a half finished airplane kit, about 3 years worth of discarded recycling and an antique loom covered in scrap wood and rusty metal. The owner who obviously had a fondness for collecting strange items and never ever finishing any of his innumerable projects ran such an immaculately clean and organized hostel that he scolded us for pulling up a chair to the dining room that didn't match the set.

That same guy rented us his “beach house” just outside of Dunedin at St. Clairs. As we drove up the insanely steep street we were faced with a blue box that looked remarkably like a storage container. There were no visible windows and the only clue that it was indeed a place of residence and not a dusty shed to store more of his strange crap was a power box shoddily tacked up in one corner. “It's not much to look at from the outside” he said as we wearily followed him up the steps. Once inside the square room opened up onto gorgeous sea views through century old peaked courthouse windows that he had no doubt had in storage for years before building this architectural masterpiece.

In Dunedin we toured the world famous Cadbury factory and left with visions of horrifically creepy animatronic elves planning insidious chocolaty attacks on the unsuspecting masses.

Near Bluff, the South Island's southernmost tip, we drove past fences covered in hundreds of pairs of shoes, homemade sculptures depicting bizarre, unearthly beings, nonsensical murals and experienced a taste of what it actually means to live at the ends of the earth.

In the tiny crossroad town of Haast we got to eat whitebait fritters, which are patties, literally swimming with hundreds of tiny fish.

At Franz Josef we walked to the terminal of a glacier, which seems like a fairly normal thing to do until you see that it is surrounded by rainforest and less than 15 miles from the beach. We also took a night bush walk to see glowworms, which are the bioluminiscent larva of a gnat that doesn't have a mouth.

Along the road to Greymouth we stopped at the “World's Famous Bushman's Museum” and watched a video of mentally deranged Kiwi's jumping off helicopters to fall on top of and wrestle the deer below (the birth of NZ's thriving venison industry). I also tried to buy a possum pie, but because of the “insane laws governing the meat industry” was technically not allowed to buy possum meat, I could have made a four dollar donation in exchange for a free pie, unfortunately, the bushman himself told me he hadn't caught any possums as of late.

The Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki are a scientific mystery, basically, magnificent layers of sandstone that formed in stacks only to be bored and burrowed through by unforgiving surf.

On the way to drop Cindy off at the airport a black cat darted across the car and I slammed the brakes to avoid hitting the poor thing, twenty minutes later on a windy and dangerous road, we got a flat tire. Coincidence, after the experiences of this month, me thinks not.

Wallaby Madness

2010-01-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

I thought that Wallabies only lived in Australia so imagine my delight when I learned there is also a population a few kilometres from where we spent New Year's. In 1870 Captain Thompson brought a few over from Tasmania and within a few years the population exploded, they are largely considered pests in the area since that time many people have come to hunt them. However, there is a sanctuary in the area called EnkleDooVery Korna in Waimate. The eccentric Gwen Dempster Schouten started her wallaby refuge in 1977 to house orphaned wallabies and doesn't have any aspirations of giving it up anytime soon.

She spouts out about a million rules and random facts as she shoves willow branches in your hands and releases you to feed/pet/ogle and love the wallabies at your own pace. From there you are left alone to navigate through her maze of pens housing over 60 wallabies.

They are soft like rabbits and playful like puppies. They grab the willow out of your hands and clasp it into theirs as they greedily chomp down on the leaves. The babies peek their heads and gigantic feet from the mother's pouches and some even dare to hop out and grab a leaf or two of their own. Strangely, peacocks coexist with wallabies and are seemingly extremely jealous of all the attention paid to the marsupials, one in particular kept fanning out his feathers demanding to be photographed.

After the wallaby/peacock extravaganza you get to see fuzzy bizarro-world chickens and Muffin the miniature pony with spinal bifida. At the end Gwen lets you nestle an orphaned wallaby baby in your arms and tour her house which is more like a deranged curio shop and exhibition of taxidermic wonders than a home.

Sea Life and Touristic Endeavors

2010-01-18T16:15:00.000-08:00

The South Island is a veritable cornucopia of marine wildlife, you literally can't walk onto a beach without finding mussels, cockles, paua or crabs. The further south you get the bigger the marine life, until you are almost running smack into thirty pound albatross and enormous seals. The catch is that most of the known nesting grounds are surrounded by maximum security prison-grade razor wire fences and cute little tourist centers that charge upwards of $40 for the privilege of viewing New Zealand's most stunning wildlife.
If you are ever in the area and insulted by the steep admission prices let me recommend two worthwhile things to do. Sit in the parking lots of the attraction. The penguins seem to have run of the place and many nests stretch beyond the fences keeping humans out. Albatross and other seabirds are obviously not obstructed by measly 10ft razor wire and can be viewed quite clearly from outside proper viewing grounds. The second thing to do is to ask the locals and I don't mean the woman working at the i-SITE info desk, but the Kiwi's in your campsite or at the local cafe. Many of them have spent their entire lives in the area and have a wealth of valuable tips for viewing wildlife in an intimate, natural and free setting.
It's probably the closest you will ever get to seeing these magnificent creatures outside of a zoo and I urge you to walk off the beaten track, skip the hoardes of obnoxious flash-happy tourists and seek the animals in the setting in which they were meant to be seen. Even from a distance, squinting in the last lights of day, you will not be disappointed.

2010 Rock!

2010-01-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

We decided that camping on the beach would be the best possible way to spend New Years, so we gathered a few awesome friends, picked up some booze and headed off to a cozy and extremely affordable campsite just south of Oamaru in Kakanui. The day we arrived it was unsettlingly windy and the exceedingly nice owners offered us the most sheltered spot on the grounds in our own little corner.

Immediately we were surrounded by feral children and their boisterous parents. It was a thoroughly Kiwi campsite and with no other tourists around we were immediately pegged as “the foreigners”. Right off the bat mothers offered us food. One woman had her husband cook us up paua which is a jet black blob (a seaslug of sorts) that lives in a beautiful rainbow colored shell in the ocean and tastes remarkably like conch, then we were given a heaping plateful of fresh-caught blue cod right off the grill and told that there was plenty more if we wanted. I had nearly forgotten just how damn nice and hospitable Kiwi's are.

On New Year's eve we drove to the small town of Waimate and visited Gwen at EnkleDooVery Korna where she cares for and runs a full-fledged wallaby/chicken/muffin the miniature pony house. She spurted out a long winded list of rules then set us free to pet and hand feed the wallabies until our heart's were content. Her house, if you an even still call it that looks like a deranged curio shop where petticoats hang amidst fake fly ridden food and real taxidermic wonders. She deserves her own blog post (which I will one day get around to writing).

That afternoon we set up our spots nearest the kitchen, ate a huge bbq and started the party. We talked about plans for the upcoming year and in lieu of a self-punishing resolution we wrote out lists of 50 goals that we each wanted to accomplish in the upcoming year, no matter how big or small. Midnight brought hugs and kisses from strangers and friends. Then at just after midnight we watched an amazing and outgoing 10 year old boy dance, move for move, the entirety of Lady Gaga's, Poker Face. Check, only 49 goals to go until 2011. Happy New Year everyone.

Glowworms

2009-12-29T03:15:00.000-08:00

Glowworms can be found throughout New Zealand, not just in Waitomo. You have a good chance at seeing them during nighttime bush walks as long as you know where to look. They don't always reside in caves, but definitely prefer to be sheltered, either by overhangs or within hollowed trees. If you have never seen or heard of glowworms, then it might interest you to know a few things.

Glowworms are not worms, they are larva.

Glowworms are the larva of an insect called a fungus gnat which looks like a very large mosquito.

They are bioluminescent creatures that hang sticky, silk threads in order to catch bugs. Their eerie green glow attracts the bugs which are then paralyzed in the glowworms strands of death. The glowworms pull up the threads to eat their prey. The hungrier a glowworm, the brighter it glows.

The adult fungus gnat has no mouth so it must mate and lay eggs before it dies of starvation.

They are extremely hard to photograph and the pictures attached do not do the little guys justice.

Christmas in Summer and Other Crazy Occurrences

2009-12-26T03:10:00.000-08:00

They say that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. I respectfully disagree. Suicides skyrocket, domestic violence soars, financial destruction wreaks havoc on the people and still they plaster on their plastic smiles and hang their cheap pathetic tinsel off the boughs of their atrocious plastic trees. The fact that Christmas is no longer really about Christ doesn't bother me nearly as much as having rampant consumerism shoved down my gagging throat. The whole idea of Christmas has taken such a dark and twisted turn, I doubt that even Tim Burton could portray the holiday more scathingly and sordidly than we present it year after depressing year.
A trip away from the cold and snow and holly jolly facade sounded like a wonderful way to spend December 25th. Imagine my surprise when nary a tacky house did I see nor a kiddie fiddling Santa did I read about nor a painful pop star rendition of “Silent Night” did I hear. Imagine a place where Christmas was less about presents and ostentatious houses and more about bbq's on the beach and camping with friends and family. My friends, that place is real, It exists. It's New Zealand.
I spent Christmas Eve preparing a gargantuan salad for Swampy's hostel while all the forty other guests busied themselves with dishes representing their own cultures. Swampy himself prepared venison, ham, chicken and wild hare. Although many people talked about home and what they would have been doing, not one unsmiling face did I see and not one embittered remark did I hear. We feasted. We had a white elephant with a ten dollar limit. We drank Jim Beam well into the night. It was simple, beautiful and perfect.
The next day we cured our hangovers with sun and surf and laughter and naps in the shade. We spent Christmas night camping on White's Bay beach, eating cold cheese sandwiches and drinking lukewarm, sun-drenched beer, blaring anti-Christmas tunes from the speakers of a campervan. At midnight we ran down to the beach and jumped in for a swim under the moonlight. We laid out in the sand and watched the Milky Way and its myriad of shooting stars.
They say that I hate Christmas, I don't, I just hate Christmas the way I've always known it not the way it could be.

'Tis the Season

2009-12-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Was...

older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

-Neil Gaiman
Smoke and Mirrors

Milford unSound Part 2 of 2

2009-11-30T02:58:00.000-08:00

Day 1
Entering the Milford Track is like stepping into another world. The ferry ride guides you through dense fog that drapes the mountains like rabbit fur coats. The air carries rich smells of decomposing plants and rain. The mountains huddle around you clinging tightly to their verdant, richly green forests. Waterfalls clamor down cliffsides into the sparkling blue water. It's a land untouched, oblivious to the impatience of the modern world, its tranquility is palpable.

The first day the walk is 1 mile to get to the first of 3 huts, you get a head start from the guided walkers (for double the price you get showers, catered meals and fancy titanium walking sticks) so you don't sully their experience with your stick-free walking and immense clumsy backpacks. The walk is completely flat and extremely well maintained. The track winds through tightly wound ferns and psychedelic mosses that blanket the ground and trees. It was during this 20 minute stroll that I got to thinking that I might just enjoy the 4 day hiking trip. However, my next thought was that I had only just completed 1/33 of the journey.

Day 2
The second day begins the slow ascent to the mountain. The walk is largely along a large stunningly clear river that twists and turns through the trees. Eventually the forest opens up into a beautiful savannah like plain. It was here that we listened to the shockingly loud gunshot rumbles of avalanches cascading down the mountains. The day ended at the base of the mountains, nestled in valley wedged between steep cliffs. Keas and wekas darted across the porch threatening to carry off shoes, backpacks or anything that they can drag off between their beaks. The end of day 2 felt really good, I had made the hike with energy to spare and watched the sunset's glow off the mountains with a glass of wine and a sleepy smile.

Day 3
Day 3 is spent arduously hiking to the top of Mackinnon pass and then perillously navigating the way back down again. White mountain flares peak through the snow, the sun sets the mountain ablaze with a shimmering sparkle. The ice and slush demands that the ground not be taken for granted. The summit is blustery and cold. Katie hands me a chocolate bar in the hopes that I won't cry. When asked what I think of the view, I callously respond that I've seen mountains before and I prefer to view them from my seat in front of the fireplace. The top of the mountain has an outhouse with arguably the best view in the world. So while I clumsily undo my many layers of clothing, I laugh, the view from the toilet is stunning.

As a result of the increasing avalance danger we are instructed to take the emergency path down the mountain. This “safe path” is actually the dried up remains of a riverbed, so the next few hours are spent treading atop smooth river worn stones. By the end of it my knees feel like they have just been icepicked by tiny midgets for the last few hours. My ankles are tired and wobbly and my legs feel like jello. Despite the cold I have been sweating and panting. I am dirty. I am tired. I am done with this walk.
After lunch and a few cigarettes we had the opportunity to take our packs off, change into sandals and take a detour to Sutherland Falls (arguably the fifth highest waterfall in the world). The thundering waterfall sprays icey mist into my face and I have to admit silently to myself that the Milford Track is exquisitely beautiful.

Day 4
Day 4 is exciting because the end is in sight. My body is sore and I am grumpy. I do not want to eat any more canned tuna and I yearn for a scaldingly hot shower. The walk out is flat and easy but at just over 10 miles it is the longest single stretch of the trip and it has to be completed before the last ferry leaves at 2pm. An hour into the hike I can feel my ankles bleeding, I don't dare take off my shoes because I know that once I do I will not put them back on. By mile 5 I pick up the pace despite my throbbing knees and smarting ankles. A swarm of sandflies gather around my face and as long as I don't stop they will not eat me alive. The end of the hike looks exactly like the beginning and I don't even bother taking out my camera. The last two miles are torturously long and never have I beamed like I did once we reached Sandfly Point. The walk had finally come to an end.

Looking back on it, I don't regret walking The Milford Track, it was absolutely incredible, it was dramatic and stunning and never have I been anywhere so blissfully undisturbed by humans. In fact, I am proud of myself for embarking on what may have been the dumbest idea I've ever had. However, the best part is that now that I have the distinction of walking the “most beautiful track in the world”, nothing will ever rival the experience so I will never again have to bother.

Milford unSound Part 1 of 2

2009-11-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

Dear reader, if you have ever met me personally then you will know that I am not the stereotypical Coloradan. I am not a hardcore nature enthusiast in any sense barring my absolute adoration of daytime porch drinking. I am a smoker, I am a drinker and if I had my way I would sleep fourteen hours a day. That being said, I am about to embark on the 33.5 mile Milford Track. Did I mention that I have to carry in all my supplies and there are no showers? Yup, this promises to be one hell of a beautiful disaster.

The week before the track I was already upset. We had spent over two hundred dollars just to have the privilege of walking around with a heap of shit attached to our backs. Why do people do this, I wondered? I cunningly fooled myself into believing that my holey New Balances and my definitively non-waterproof coat would suffice, I also held fast to the false idea that all those lunges in the vineyard would have my body prepped for grueling wilderness trekking. Yeah, no problem, piece of cake, all the while shaking my head. I was utterly fucked.

During the week prior, I made minor mention about my worries and tried my best not to break down and tell Katie that she was on her own. I actually found that the best strategy was not to think about it at all. I mean, the brochure does say that the walk is suitable for those aged 10-70+, so if grandpas can do it, so can I. All was going well until we made out stop in Te Anau, the last town before Milford Sound.

Our first stop was the Department of Conservation to pick up our tickets (yes, that's right, we had to have tickets, front row seats to the arena of suffering) the lady at the DOC told us the weather was going to be nothing but rain and snow. SNOW! Katie had never mentioned the s word and I had not conceived that we would be walking through that cold, white powdery substance sent directly from Lucifer's wings way down in the center of hell. Then in a most condescending tone she added, “you do have rain jackets, right?” And, “you aren't planning on hiking in jeans?” Excuse me lady, I am from Colorado! Demoralized and insulted we went to the outdoor equipment store since I needed to rent a backpack to carry my gear. Katie insisted that we rent waterproof pants, then she added that I should get a coat. Then to top it all off, in a manner most practical, she suggested that we rent boots as well, which of course meant that we had to buy appropriate socks.

It was here, in front of Gareth, our friendly teenage salesman that I was on the verge of bursting into tears. In fact, finding socks was the perfect excuse to walk away so that I could dry my eyes and pull my shit together. Below pretty much sums up why I was crying

$70 gas to reach the fairly inaccessible fiordlands
$110 renting equipment
$40 fancy wool water wicking socks
$65 tuna, crackers, cheese, trailmix and apples
$135 three nights of deluxe accommodation with 40 complete strangers in a barrack
$61 ferry to start of track
$30 ferry back to mainland
$53 bus back to where we parked our car
Grand Total : $564

To put it into perspective in two weeks of dreadful vineyard work I made $718. So, not only was I about to be physically pillaged, but my bank account had already been plundered. What the hell am I doing? Next stop: Painsville.

900 K's in 5 Days- A Photo Essay

2009-11-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

Day 3- Mt. Cook Glacier

Day 4- Wanaka, Lake Wanaka

Day 5- Queenstown, Lake Moke

900 K's in 5 Days- A Photo Essay

2009-11-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

DAY 1- Blenheim, Kaikoura, Akaroa

DAY 2- Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki, Mt. Cook

Green Lipped and Soaking Wet

2009-11-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

New Zealand's seafood industry is thriving and several factors contribute to its plentiful ocean bounty. The country is sparsely populated (beach fronts are often home to cows and sheep) which enables the proliferation and maturation of seafood. Also, New Zealand is a relatively new country and many pains and regulations have been put in place to ensure that the environments are fertile and the industry remains sustainable.

The combination of abundant seafood and lax daily allowances make a free meal for a backpacker just a beach away. Today we went to White's Bay (30 minutes from our hostel in Spring Creek) to collect New Zealand's famous green lipped mussels. As you approach the rocky outcropping you notice tiny black shells covering the rocks like snake scales, I can only assume those are baby mussels. Closer toward the water line is where the bigger ones reside, there are literally hundreds of thousands all wedged together, some on top of others like crusty banana bunches. Most of them are as big as your hand.

So, how hard can it be to collect some motionless shelled creatures from along the beach on a beautiful sunny day? Ha! First of all, going at low tide is imperative as mussels choose to make their homes along the most dauntingly sharp and steep rocks they can “find”. Secondly, the tiny hairs that attach themselves are more like cement than delicate fibrous strands. Thirdly, crabs and other tiny creatures inhabit the same jagged rocks and have no qualms about scuttling across your hands. Lastly, it is foolish to think that low tide is synonymous with no tide.

Equipped with sandals, a plastic bag and my cutest beach outfit I perilously wedged myself and my sandaled toes between razor sharp rocks just above tide line, bracing myself against the rocks I bent down as far as I could to reach the submerged mussels. It was then that I quickly re-acquainted myself with the crashing waves, then the rocks, then the crabs. I couldn't help thinking that just down the road I could catch myself a kilo of mussels for $2.99. Laughing, soaked and raw fingered I headed home with my mussel posse and three full bags to eat ourselves into a crustacean coma.

W(h)ine

2009-11-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

Today at work I reminisced about days way back in March when I harvested grapes for Stonyridge vineyard and my friend John called it, “a dreams job for realsville” and it was true, we took our sweet time under the shade of the mature vines and painstakingly examined each cluster of grapes in between bursts of laughter and conversation, they fed us lunch and supplied us with beer at the end of each day, a Dionysian paradise right here on earth... (cue soft focus and a gentle yet perky violin quartet) this is me recounting fond memories from “good old days” gone by. Good old days that seem increasingly unreal the more I try to focus in on them.

Blenheim, the heart of Marlborough, is the viticulture capital of New Zealand. Obscene amounts of wine pour from its valleys, each vintage supplying Kiwi's and those abroad with enough alcohol to keep them good and soused until the next. These massive estates hire out contracting services that send out their middle men to recruit the cheapest labor force possible, this is where the backpackers and Malaysians come in. Gathered by the dozens in the wee hours of the morning we are shipped to expansive vineyards to complete paradoxically simple yet backbreaking work on endless rows of plants. What appears to be the easy task of sliding a green tube-shaped bag onto a bamboo stick and over a budding plant is actually a sadistic order to hunch over into a thousand or so lunges until you can't decide whether your thighs, knees, back or calves hurt more.

Sometimes the labor is paid by the hourly minimum wage (which is currently $12.50/hour) and sometimes it is paid per plant completed either as a team or as an individual. The going rate tends to be 3-4 cents for the easier jobs, like the one listed above. Trust me, you are ecstatic if you can earn over one hundred dollars a day. It's enlightening in the sense that if you haven't engaged in habitual manual labor you can't understand what it does to your mind and body (I have only had its acrid seething taste grace my tongue), However, this is the life that millions of people toil under without ever earning enough to sufficiently care for their family. It's shocking to be a part of the dredges of this vast, bottomless abyss of an economic system we so eagerly abide.

Halloween is Fun Fun Fun!

2009-10-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

Halloween is by far my favorite holiday of the year. I would give up Thanksgiving and Christmas for biannual Halloween (as a compromise I would be satisfied if we stepped up our Mardi Gras shenanigans). Unfortunately, I am accustomed to meeting people who do not share my level of enthusiasm for the celebration (I know you feel my pain Rae Rae) but I was extremely disheartened to hear that no one else in the world (looking at you Germany) really cares about Halloween at all. We Americans allied with some awesome Brits to introduce Halloween proper to the rest of Swampy's.

Oh, I was a tree.

Eels Up Inside Ya, Findin' an Entrance Where They Can

2009-10-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

New Zealand rivers are swimming (punny!) with slithery, near blind, toothy eels. The stuff of nightmares endemic to an otherwise gentle country. I have always thought of eels as blood-thirsty, murderous demon creature of the deep (no thanks to the Princess Bride) but I also know that unagi is absolutely heavenly, so you can imagine my contradicting emotions while I was getting ready for some good old-fashioned night eel fishing.

Angling aficionados need not apply to this rather rudimentary endeavor. Eels are not clever, they can't see and they eat nearly anything (including cat food). Basically, you need meat (rotten is fine), a hook and some line. Almost comically, plop goes the bait and out comes a writhing, angry eel.

The hard part is getting them off the hook, they are incredibly slippery and strong, they curl around your hand like a lubed up snake. After battling to get the hook out of their mouth my friend Bene recommends sticking a knife through their skull to crush their tiny brain, but be aware that they don't stop moving. THAT is the stuff of nightmares. The next morning, after a night in the fridge in a plastic bag their headless bodies were still quivering. Again, badass Bene took up the grunt work and gutted and filleted them for us.

So, if you dare, I recommend either smoking the eels or frying them up in butter then baking them in garlic, lemon and butter until their skins are crispy. The result is an exquisite flaky, tender fish-like meat with no lingering fishy aftertaste.

South Island Shenanigans

2009-10-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

On a clear day you can actually see the South Island from Wellington but the ferry has to navigate through fiords so the journey takes nearly three hours. The day we left the ocean was calm and sparkly as we slowly passed through its massive blue green waters, its sea fresh mist left salty promises on my smiling lips. Jagged kelly green mountains speckled with prickly pines and bright yellow bushes waved us toward them with massive slate arms. Oh to be away from that dreary city of gusts and drizzle!

Once off the ferry we raced through the snakelike overpass pulling over at each lookout, our cameras in hand eager to snap up everything like rabid Japanese tourists. The air smelled alive; bitter and sweet and lingering, dizzying and lovely.

We drove the Queen Charlotte Drive from Picton to Nelson and made our first night in a hostel that smelled strangely like my grandma's house. The weathered, friendly-eyed owner gave us a twin for the cheaper dorm price because he didn't want us to have to stay with a “bunch of blokes”. That night, as I watched the stars from my bed my mind ran rampant with verdant imagination. It feels like the start of an entirely new journey.

Chronicles of Wellington

2009-10-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

We bid adieu to you, fair city by the sea and if you ever find yourself in Wellington, here is what I recommend you do and do not do.

Top 10+ Free/Nearly Free Things to Do

1.Wednesday BBQ at Cambridge Hotel on Cambridge Tce.- Come by six, buy a beer and receive a voucher for free BBQ.
2.BATS Theatre on Cambridge Tce.- Email staff saying that you would like to volunteer to sell concessions and in exchange see the play that night for free.

3.Te Papa & Museum of Wellington- Be sure to check out their special events/temporary exhibits.
4.Free Sausages- Every Friday from 10pm to Midnight near Vivian and Cuba (by school of Architecture & Design) sometimes you have to listen to the god spiel but usually it's bearable.
5.J.J Murphy's on Cuba St.- Rocks $5 Breakfast until noon on the weekends.
6.City Park flying fox swings- Up the hill on Brooklyn Rd. Free + dangerous = good fun.
7.Sunday Markets- Excellent, fresh, produce for wicked cheap. One market is alongside Te Papa on the waterfront, the other market is in a parking lot at the corner of Vivian & Victoria
8.Botanic Gardens- Flowers alongside the historic cemetery. Free
9.All-u-can-eat pizza- Mondays from six at Hell on Bond St. $12.
10.Free internet with the purchase of any beverage at Mon Ami on Bond St.
11.Spend the day reading magazines/books or napping in the spacious and awesome public library.
12.Grab a beer at Southern Cross and enjoy the garden patio for free.
13.Get a free newspaper at Te Papa.

Top 10 Most Overrated in Wellington

1.The zoo. It's cute and small and not worth $18.
2.Drinking on Courteney Place- Wellington's weekend meat market.
3.The Cable Car off Lambton Quay- You spend the majority of the ride under the highway's overpass or in a tunnel, “scenic” it is not.
4.Reading Cinemas on Courteney Pl.- Don't bother when you can go to the historical Embassy or Paramount theatres.
5.Pizza King on Taranaki St.- I feel fairly certain that they just warm up frozen pizza.
6.Matterhorn- It's pricey and pretentious.
7.The weather- It's rainy, it's windy, it's cold and after a few months it's depressing.
8.The Kumara- By far, the worst bar in Wellington, unless you like sticky floors and tweens.
9.Shopping on Lambton Quay- The most expensive rent in all of New Zealand leads to the most expensive shopping in all of New Zealand.
10.The Bungee swing on Taranaki- Lame and verifiably unsafe.

Top 10 Strange & Lovely Things in Wellington

1.Carlucci's Land at 64 Owhiro Bay Pde, Island Bay, - A bizarre, abstract metal sculpture garden located just outside the city.
2.Cuba St. on a weekend night. Grab a coffee at Midnight Espresso and watch the kids let their freak flags fly.
3.Check out the ominous metal tri-pod sculpture on Kent Tce & Courteney Place.
4.Alice's Bar on Forresters Lane- take a trip down the rabbit hole and definitely try the Lobster's Quadrille.
5.Karaoke Night at The Fringe on Cuba St.- dirty, grungy, completely absurd and awesome.
6.Lodge in the City at corner of Vivian & Taranaki come by and meet the craziest in Wellington.
7.Welcome Takeaways on Vivian- Literally a hole in the wall that's open arbitrarily. Greasy, cheap and delicious.
8.New & Used Bookstores all over the city- Find heaps of beautifully strange books.
9.Take a drive around the eerie abandoned army barracks that are now part of Weta Studios.
10.Do the Lord of the Rings Tour of Hobittown- If you are into that sort of thing.

Top 10 Must Do in Wellington

1.Te Papa on Wellington's waterfront.

2.Sweet Mother's Kitchen near corner of Kent Tce, & Courteney Pl.- Two words: Breakfast Burritos.
3.Cuba St. Coffee Shops- Cute, independent, quirky and cool. (Midnight Espresso, Espressoholic and Offbeat Cafe are my personal favorites).

4.Parliament Tour on Molesworth then drinking at Backbencher's afterwards- Your chance to rub shoulder's with government officials, or at least their scary busts bolted to the bar's walls.
5.Civic Square Art Gallery in Civic Square near the library.
6.Grab a $10 jug at the Kiwi Pub.
7.See a play.
8.Take a drive up the hills around Wellington and take in the lovely little seaside city.
9.Red Rocks- Seals!
10.World of Wearable Art- An absolutely spectacular fusion of art, performance and magic.

Fun Location Fact Friday

2009-10-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Take a deep breath...

And say this three times fast

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu

which means

“The Brow of a Hill Where Tamatea, the Man with the Big Knees, Who Slid, Climbed, and Swallowed Mountains, Known as Land Eater, Played his Flute to His Brother.”

Got a nice ring, doesn't it?

Fun Fauna Fact Friday

2009-10-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

Squid and octopi are some of the coolest animals on earth, so today's Fun Fauna Fact Friday is a special one. The reasons that I find squid so fascinating is that they are incredibly smart and curious, often mirroring the observation habits of the divers that study them. They are incredibly adaptable to their environments- Humboldt squid nearer to the shore (quite a precarious place for a squid) have been found to be extremely violent but when seen further out to sea they are calm and playful. They are mysterious and elusive which adds to their allure. They can eat whales and sharks which is, admit it, completely badass for a “mere mollusk”. They are beautiful and strange.

Wellington's Te Papa museum is home to the only colossal squid display in existence and she is a pretty incredible lady. They caught the wee colossal squid somewhere in the Ross Sea in February of 2007. Because they are rare and hard to preserve, we don’t really know how big they get, but, keep in mind that squid’s lower rostral beaks as long as 49 millimetres have been found in sperm whale stomachs. The female squid on display at the museum only measures 42.5, so they can be significantly larger in size.

Now the fun facts:

-Their eyeballs are the size of soccer balls (which is the largest of any known animal) these allow them to see at amazingly deep depths in the ocean.

-Primarily, they shoot out their two largest tentacles to catch prey. Each tentacle is equipped with razor sharp hooks that rotate 360 degrees. The more the prey struggles to get away the further in the hooks get.

-Squid are very dainty eaters, politeness aside; they must take small mouthfuls since their narrow throats pass right through their brain, so too big of a bite would cause brain damage (you can't make this stuff up)

On this particular colossal squid, the large round body (mantle) is so enormous that were you to fry her up you would have calamari rings the size of truck tires and keep in mind she is just a baby.

WOW

2009-10-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

What is so endlessly intriguing about the beauty of the human body is its versatility. From lithe, graceful dancers bathed in shadow and light to larger-than-life Boteroesque balls laboriously waddling down the street, the body comes in a myriad of shapes and sizes yet they are all considered the human body. Furthermore, they can be twisted and bended and molded into fantastic shapes until nothing vaguely human remains. Our bodies are chameleonic works of art. Couture and costumery adorn our already artful forms in order to exploit the flexibility of the human body and expand the boundaries between human and non, between anthropomorphism and shape shifting, in essence, it plays on our bodies natural metamorphic abilities and propels it even further.

Nowhere have I seen this better showcased than at Montana's annual World of Wearableart. Every year artists from all around the world create absolutely stunning pieces using any and every material you can imagine to fully transform the models into something that redefines the corporeal and marries it to the realm of the imaginary. If I sound melodramatic, it's because the show is incredible and deserves its due amount of sappy praise. WOW (yes, apparently to make the anagram WOW they made wearableart one word, although I find nothing wrong with WOWA. Better yet, World of Wearable Zany Art, WOWZA. Zany is probably too low-brow for the people that make fancy wine, but the non-word wearableart annoys me.)

Upon walking into the event you are sucked into a Hensonesque carnival of friendly, technicolor monsters, effeminate, silver living statues, masked carnival ladies hunched over, head askew, pecking around like birds, acrobats and dancers sporadically turning each other upside down in front of thousands of other wild-eyed spectators like yourself. You watch as elderly folks with twinkles in their eyes, enthusiastically embrace each other as they timidly ask the purple and green monster to have a picture with him, there is nothing more endearing. The stage is empty save for a small four piece band all in top hats with red ribbons playing that classic French circus music I do not know the name of. The seats are mostly empty this early but a few well dressed young couples have already taken their seats. Then, as if prompted by remote, they flip over the seats, doing handstands and pirouettes on chairs, only to uniformly sit down again as though nothing happened.

Then the music slows to silence the lights dim to darkness and the show begins. A boy is running through a forest that comes to life. Sunflower girls skip around the stage, bushes in suits manifest from the ground like soldiers in battle. Praying mantis' and caterpillars slink around the white, sinewy dandelion seed pods ambling in the foreground. You remember the dump lady with the house on her back from labyrinth? Yeah, she's there too. From there the costumes get increasingly more elaborate, the categories more hazily defined until each costume seems to exist solidly in its own universe amidst the others twirling around in theirs. There are Geigeresque aliens outfitted in cold, sleek white fabrics. There are southern belles dressed entirely in spindled copper wires, one in meticulously carved wood. There are warriors, cars, emotions, furniture and those that do not resemble anything.

The stage is constantly in flux. There are the costumes themselves parading in large, loosely defined bands and there are the performers, men dressed in black ball gowns spinning on ropes hung from the ceiling, superheroines battling Superman's dopplegangers, enormous wooden puppets slowly traipsing around the stage, singers, comedians, dragqueens and bodybuilders. At one point everything is illuminated by black light and disembodied faces dance with jellyfish while blinking eyes curiously zig-zag around the stage, rainbows flutter in the wind and join together to form a butterfly.

It's hard to describe what I saw and felt and it's hard to convey the scope of the show without rambling on, I felt like a kid, like the universe of all my strange childhood imaginings bubbled back up to the surface of me and brimmed over in excitement. I guess, for the sake of brevity at the expense of inaccurate comparisons, if Fashion Week knocked up Cirque du Soleil, their baby could only hope to be this spectacular.

*I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't thank Mark and Allison who made this possible for Katie and I. Thank you. *

Fun Fauna Fact Friday

2009-10-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

I must say I never much cared for pelicans because I thought they were nothing but massive sea birds that harass you at the beach (think psycho seagulls on steroids) but I must admit that they are pretty spectacular. I will now attempt to prove this by throwing numbers at you, dear reader. The one pictured above is an Australian pelican and fossil records dates that they have been around for over 40 million years. Their wing span can be as long as 2.5 metres (8.2 Feet). Their crazy huge bills can carry 13 litres (3.4 gallons) of water and they have been known to fly at an altitude of 3000 metres (1.86 miles). So yeah, they are impressive, in spite of the fact that they steal your sandwiches.

Ka Mate Ka Mate! Ka Ora Ka Ora!

2009-10-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

The culmination of great exaggerations, creative additions and a cool, confident interview landed me a sweet gig bartending at Wellington's Westpac Stadium. My first night was the All Black's rugby match. The arena was entirely sold out, the alcohol induced enthusiasm had the city abuzz all morning, Lambton Quay looked like the Queen's funeral procession. The All Blacks had switched on the breakers and set the city alight. I was a sloppy combination of anxiety and fear. No one has ever paid me to pour them a beer. I have no idea how to make a Manhattan. I couldn't begin to tell you the difference between a Syrah and a Shiraz. Dressed in All Black I bravely faced the onslaught.

Before the match begins, the entire team takes the field to perform the Maori war dance Haka. Ka mate, ka mate! Their eyes widen in anger and their faces twist and distort into frightening masks. In unison, their enormous legs crash down to the earth. They prepare for the imminent battle. Tongues flare amidst bellows. Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra! Hands fiercely descend upon mammoth thighs and chests obliterating the space in between.

I was told to hold the wine with the label facing outwards but it wouldn't have been read anyway since the weight of the bottle did nothing to lessen the shaking of my hands. The crowd impatiently flashed V.I.P. Cards to accompany their sixteen drink orders. Nostrils flared and eyes bulged as they leaned in closer, speaking loudly and methodically. Hordes of angry faces staring me down.

The Maori are a warrior tribe. The All Black's are corporate-sponsored warriors. They fight their battles in evenly split halves under stadium lights. Their weapons are hands and arms and legs and torsos. It's war played for an audience but the carnage is real. The fans are desperate for blood. I am armed with nothing but a smile against the encroaching, ravenous masses. The war is on. Ka ora! Ka ora!

Fun Fauna Fact Friday

2009-09-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Australian fruit bat belongs to a family of old world bats known as megabats (batass!) and have also been referred to as the flying fox probably because they are huge. Some (like those pictured above) can reach 40 cm (16 inches) in length and attain a wingspan of 150 cm (5 feet).

They feed on fruit, pollen, and flowers, often aiding in the dispersion of seeds throughout the ecosystem. They are not yet listed as endangered but because of the the destruction of their native habitat they risk dwindling populations.

Despite their popular portrayal as haunted house dwelling, disease carrying mini-monsters they are quite shy, clean and very rarely spread disease to human populations. Plus, just look at 'em, I think that they are adorable.

Fun Fauna Fact Friday

2009-09-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

The red panda- sometimes called the firefox or the lesser panda (which is pretty offensive to the red pandas given the fact that they are infinitely superior to their useless yet celebrated cousins) are related to both giant pandas and raccoons but currently occupy a family all their own- the ailuridae.

Unfortunately, the red panda is endangered as a result of vast deforestation in their native China, Myanmar and Burma, but unlike the Giant Panda, they make babies and eat things other than bamboo. So, not only are they better suited for survival they are obscenely adorable, like living stuffed animals.

Happy Fathers' Day

2009-09-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

This last Sunday in New Zealand was Fathers' Day which is a few months later than Fathers' Day in the States. So I decided to do a little research to find out why they fall on different dates

My original thought was that because fathers generally don't care about Fathers' Day each country just picked their own arbitrary day to celebrate because all the other countries were doing it.

I wasn't too far off, "It took many years to make the holiday official. In spite of support from the YWCA, the YMCA and churches, it ran the risk of disappearing from the calendar. Where Mother's Day was met with enthusiasm, Father's Day was met with laughter. The holiday was gathering attention slowly, but for the wrong reasons. It was the target of much satire, parody and derision, including jokes from the local newspaper Spokesman-Review. Many people saw it as just the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions like "Grandparents' Day", "Professional Secretaries' Day", etc., all the way down to "National Clean Your Desk Day."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_day

*I was going to post a humiliating picture of my own dad dancing at his wedding reception because it's hilarious. Then I decided it was a really mean thing to do on Fathers' Day. I love him far too much.

Hodge Podge Lodge

2009-09-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

*Photo is of a gleefully terrified me and inventor of the now one trillion dollar laser cannon!
Also, the outside of the place in case you ever want to come by and visit

On and off for the last few months we have been living at Wellington's Lodge in the City. At first glance it's rundown, dark, sketchy and dirty- or in euphemistic terms- it has character and history. The rooms are small and sterile, for flair ours has a tiny faded picture of a waterfall bolted upside down to the wall and yellowing curtains with what appears to be some sort of Native American pastel nightmare patterned on them.

In the beginning it seems like your run of the mill hostel, but once you stay a bit longer you start to notice that it is anything but. The boarders are mostly Kiwi's who have run into some sort of trouble, there are a lot of drunks, people on the dole, people on bail and single mothers with kids; they are, by and large, people with shit to deal with and not your usual bright-eyed travelers from abroad.

There is a third floor which is always locked and inaccessible from the other floors. Does that also mean that they can't get out? My mind goes a flutter with the possibilities, I quite like the mystery.

I like to call it a halfway house of sorts. In my time here, I have often conversed with a man who can carry a conversation equally well with me or the sliding glass door. A man who is in close contact with the Prime Minister, John Key, and is developing a $100,000,000 laser cannon. What is a laser cannon, you ask, does it shoot laser cannonballs, maybe aimed at laser pirates, I'm still not sure? Also, upon meeting you he will kindly offer to file down your teeth, then he will show you how all his teeth are all precisely uniform then he will launch in to a grandiose speech about his idea for a flying car that can get you from Wellington to NYC in 30 minutes. Amazingly he has attracted a posse of like-minded folks, Katie's dubbed them the “little people with big ideas” crew. There is the unknown boarder in 218 who plays nothing but 90's power ballads/R&B very loudly, very early in the morning. There is the silent weathered old man who never speaks to anyone but is always lurking around the lounge drinking coffee. There is the girl who sometimes dons a headscarf and other times skimpy mini-skirts and halter tops. There is the 18 year old girl who can't seem to get her dress to stay on properly and likes to vacuum her room at least 5 times a week. The list goes on...

And as crazy and weird a place it is, I find myself strangely attracted to it, it's beginning to feel like home.

Beervana and Frugal Enlightenment

2009-09-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had the pleasure of volunteering at Wellington's annual celebration of all things brew at Beervana. We got to pour ourselves foamy microbrews between serving customers (how can you honestly recommend a beer without having tried it?), bump shoulders with some of the premier brewers throughout New Zealand and learn which chocolate to pair with which beer (my personal favorite was a dark, black pepper, strawberry chocolate with a mellow oatmeal stout). Awesomely enough, America was solely represented by Colorado's own homage to Hunter S. Thompson- Flying Dog. The next day, we got in free of charge and experienced 15 different breweries from the other side of the tap. None of this would have happened unless we had volunteered.

We are poor but unwilling to miss out on all that Wellington has to offer which puts us in a seemingly impossible situation. Fortunately, to solve this problem requires just a little extra legwork and some free time (of which we have heaps). I highly recommend it if you are in a similar situation. Keep an eye out for upcoming events that look interesting and then contact them saying you would like to volunteer your time in exchange for free admission. Most people are happy to have you help and you get to do fun things without spending a dime. It's a win-win.

FACT OF THE DAY
There are technically only two types of beers- ales and lagers. This is determined by which direction the yeast goes once it's gorged itself on sugar. In ales the yeast floats to the top, in lagers the yeast sinks to the bottom. All the other “types” of beers- stout, porter, pilsener etc. are either indicating a certain style of brewing or a marketing ploy to get you to try something novel.

Lord, won't you send me a sign?

2009-08-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

The chaos of our lives is diffuse with symbols directing us toward specific paths of thinking. These very snaky, wormlike squiggles splattered across the page help make-up words, which are themselves symbols. And then the words, which signify something separate from themselves (or not) can take on a plethora of other meanings and the whole thing gets very complicated and convoluted. In the simplest sense, signs concisely tell us what to do and oftentimes what not to do. No Parking. 50% Off. Poison Do Not Eat. Stay On Track. Ladies. Gentlemen. Continue Reading.

So I didn't quite know how to segue in to describing just how many more signs tourists have to pay attention to than non-tourists, since everyone's daily life is chock-full of pictograms and hieroglyphs and various other forms of communication to decipher. I guess, we are all in the same boat, just some of us are in a boat with signs that tell us we are on the symbol boat and that there will be snacks.

There have been funny signs- “no boozin' in the kitchen”. There have been sad signs- “stolen Camera- please give back the memory card to room 433, no questions asked” and some of been downright disgusting “ladies, please do not leave used sanitary products on the floor”

It can be exhausting to plod your way through endless series of commands given to you on white, shiny aluminium tablets bolted to poles; it's irksome to collect stacks of “Hostel Regulations” and “Wwoofer Rules” pamphlets. It's that same phenomenon of saying something over and over again until that something is strange and alien, repetition to the point of meaninglessness.

But alas, once in a while an unexpected reprieve comes along and makes you eager to read the next sign.

The other sign in the display said, that if we paid the zoo, we could feed the giraffe, I guess, it may still die that way too? But zoo keeper didn't endorse that sign, only the “Close Encounters” did so I am unclear about it.

Saddest sign monkey ever. Sadly, he looks to be in better shape than some of the real chimps housed at the zoo (yikes)

I seen it!

Thanks Wellington Zoo

America

2009-08-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

“I am an American tourist, and am thus ex officio large, fleshy, red, loud, coarse, condescending, self-absorbed, spoiled, appearance-conscious, ashamed, despairing and greedy: the world's only known species of bovine carnivore” David Foster Wallace from A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

Tomorrow marks the half-anniversary of my time in New Zealand, an occasion I am using to discuss my unavoidable Americaness. In fact, I find that when most people want to know my nationality they ask if I am Canadian (I believe this is because Canadians are deeply offended at being mistaken for Americans, while Americans just evoke a haughty laugh when they are incorrectly pegged for Canooks). The moment that I reveal my true identity it's as though a bright neon sign flashes above my head and it says, “American whipping girl: free shots for all”.

When people ask me about life in America, at first it appears to be a earnest inquiry into my thoughts, but usually it's just a polite segue into their long-winded lecture about why and how much they dislike America. I don't (usually) don my oversize stars and stripes tracksuit in public yet people continually make me feel like my being American is a spectacle. Let me clarify, people accuse me of being American, like they want me to apologize for having been born there, that I am somehow to blame for what they perceive America and its citizens to be. I feel like they want me to humiliate myself with some jesterial (apparently not a real word, but such a good fake word that I am staking claim on it) song and dance in order to justify their righteousness. Before I have a chance to reason through the mess of implications people hurl at me, I am defending and usually professing some degree of remorse on behalf of both myself and the U.S.A., then, once I have had time to comprehend what is actually being said, it's too late, I am irritated, annoyed and angry for having been so easily guilted into defending my nationality.

The fact is, if I was just a little calmer under pressure I could respond to these attacks with the poise and caustic wit that's always just a little too delayed. Maybe if I was a little more “American” I would just say, “fuck you, what you think you know about America amounts to nothing more than what media decides to show you, you xenophobic fuckwit”(1) . You are probably wondering where, if anywhere, this rambling his headed.

I am not ashamed of being American nor am I ashamed of America, but most of the time I am not particularly proud either. My identity is not reliant on being American, inextricably connected, sure, but so are the facts that I am also white, a woman and an atheist; these things inform my identity but are not paramount. Never will you see me attempting to indoctrinate anyone into being more American (or more like me for that matter) and I only (half-jokingly) discourage it and if that is a cop-out, so be it. I am not vapid reality tv stars, I am not McDonald's, I am not Barack Obama and I am not a twisted, cynical, shallow, hyperreal American, I am Kristen Fraley born and raised in the U.S.A, do you still want to get to know me? Or in other words, “quit hatin'”.

(1)-In honor of DFW. Here is a good contemporary example of what I mean, The NZ Capital's paper, The Dominion Post, recently covered Obama's ceremonial awarding of the Medal of Freedom to Joseph Medicine Crow. A hugely symbolic acknowledgment of the large role Native American's played in WWII. The picture shows Obama tangled up in the feathered headdress of Joseph, his face a near grimace, desperately trying to avoid sneezing. Obviously, the big joke (as uttered in the picture’s caption) was Obama trying not to sneeze, never bothering to mention what the ceremony or medal were about until much later, although I can’t prove that because the Dominion “online” is owned by Stuff.co.nz and archives their information in such a radically different way (or not at all), that I actually can not get to the article, you just have to trust me.

I Went to New Zealand and All My Mom Got Was a Lousy Frankenfoot

2009-08-19T01:01:00.001-07:00

This has nothing to do with New Zealand per se, it is merely evidence of just how badass my mother is (now enhanced with several moveable titanium parts!)

I could insert some lame joke about how efficient the American health care system is and if my mom were in NZ she would still be waiting to see a doctor...or I could use the screw(s)as a device to undermine the TSA's over-the-top security measures (the various protests arising from keeping alloyed mothers away from their children) but really, why detract from the absolutely frightening x-ray? I mean, look at it! I believe one of her little piggies was described as "pulverized" by the head surgeon.

I love you mom no matter what percent of your body, is technically not really, you.

Because I Never Miss an Opportunity to Share

2009-08-18T00:59:00.001-07:00

It was at exactly 12:13 a.m. on Friday the fifteenth of August when I realized that for 25 years I had misunderstood the lyrics to "Home on the Range".

Before the aforementioned moment, I always thought it meant this:

"where seldom is heard, a discouraging word"

as in, life on the range is downright discouraging because 'seldom anything happens', 'seldom are people happy here, or 'suicide, seldom have I heard a better idea professed aloud on the range'. I always pictured weathered farmers muttering these types of things to the old horse they were about to shoot between the eyes.

Apparently, it was meant more like this:

"where seldom is heard a discouraging word"

as in life on the range is one void of discouraging words.

Although that is probably because life on the range is probably void of words in general, discouraging or not, which makes it seem like a pretty miserable place. So maybe, I had it right all along?

Winter Blues

2009-08-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

Winter is a notoriously bad season for me, whether it's a case of the SAD or just nature's way of telling me to hibernate. I despise the bitter chill in the air and I resent the sun for spending more time in the other half of the world; however, New Zealand has gone above and beyond to fan my burning hatred of winter into a raging, destructive wild fire.

Firstly, they celebrate mid-winter Christmas. Santa, this is an outrage! You are clearly contracted to give presents to every good boy and girl in the world on one day a year, not two. A snarky “Ho ho ho” better have been the only sound from your lips when Kiwi's came up such an obscene request. True, they don't have Santa's parading the streets, forcing small hysterical children on to their laps or tacky decorations or gigantic pushy BUY ME NOW sales or any of the irritating hooha associated with the holiday's, but come on, embrace the fact you are outside in the summer sun barbequing and camping at the beach during Christmas.

Secondly, denying the fact that the winter is cold will not keep you warm. Excluding very new houses, most Kiwi homes have no discernible insulation. Not even in the South Island, I am told, where it gets very, very cold. They are also largely without central heating or double-paned windows. Instead, condensation collects like rainwater atop window sills and scary flammable space heaters are scattered throughout common areas. This poses a whole new set of problems, of which North and South magazine claim kill more people here than in Siberia. Also, fireplaces and space heaters in lieu of proper insulation directly contradict the Kiwi's haughty belief that they are “eco-friendly” and better than the rest of us.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize the fact that it is retarded to get ice off your windshield with water from a garden hose and amazingly silly to wear tiny shorts (this applies to both men and women) when the wind chill renders the air a frosty thirty degrees.

-photos stolen from the pranksters pictured

72 Hours in Auckland...

2009-08-08T02:46:00.000-07:00

...can change a lot.

Our dear, lovely and devastatingly gorgeous expat posse Amberly and Mike are being forced out of the country, despite pouring all their overseas income into New Zealand, the bureaucracy has made up its mind(s) and wants them out (your loss New Zealand *vigorous fist shake*), so Katie and I went up to chill in AKL one last time.

I haven't been very subtle in expressing my disdain for Auckland, often mentioning that it's the worst place in New Zealand. The major things I dislike about Auckland are as follows.

-Architecturally it's a garish mess of poorly designed and ugly multi-colored coated glass buildings (which is wholly understood given the time period these atrocities were constructed, in any case, it feels disjointed and cheap)
-It's too vast, much the way that L.A. is vast, the roads are horrendous but you have no other choice but to use them.
-People that live in Auckland, think that they are the shit because they live in Auckland (just like neo-Brooklynites) I want to slap the shit out of all of them.

That being said I would like to offer my apologies to the city of Auckland and those residents of said city I may have offended. My last 72 hours in Auckland have changed my mind entirely. It's an airy and pretty, walking friendly, culturally diverse city. Things stay open twenty-four hours, people are out and about every night, there is graffiti and hookers and crazies and dealers on the streets. It's big and bright and lovely.

Maybe it's just that warm ethereal feeling I get whenever I am within arms reach of Amberly (the one where I can't stop gushing about life and believing that the world is a good place), or maybe I just got over the arrogance I felt at having moved to a country who's population is less than half of New York City's or maybe, just maybe, Auckland really is a nice place.

*photos gracelessly stolen from Katie and Miss Amberly Jane*

The French Way

2009-07-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

Mathias, my roommate, came home from work a few days ago looking pretty perturbed, when I asked him what was wrong he related this story to me. He had been talking to some coworkers about his manager and the manager had caught wind of Mathias' vitriolic declarations and called him into his office. Mathias, in earnest, told him that he had indeed said all those things, and added that he thought he was a horrible manager and a fucking asshole to boot. Mathias was not fired, in fact, he will probably get more hours.

This is not the first time Mathias has been rewarded for actions that the rest of us would be canned for doing.

At his last job at a kiwi packhouse, his boss impolitely demanded that he work harder. Mathias, “who will not be treated like a dog”, responded by working at a comically slow pace. The supervisor was livid and close to firing Mathias. In front of everyone Mathias calmly explained that the employees were human beings and should be treated as such. He succeeded not only in keeping his job but also humiliating his supervisor in the process.

In Waiheke he was picking olives, which involved using a tiny plastic rake to comb the olives onto a parachute lying on the ground. Mathias likes to smoke and since the parachute is highly flammable, his boss insisted that he step away from work and smoke off to the side. The boss was not wholly pleased that Mathias took ten smoke breaks an hour, but he was not fired for it either.

Each time I express my utter surprise at his shenanigans he gives me a wink and a smile and says, “it's the French way”.

Nouvelle Zélande

2009-07-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we agreed to move into a flat a stone's throw from Welly Stadium for a few weeks with some friendly French boys we met along our travels. It's a nice reprieve from the chaotic and sometimes hostile hostel environment, it's also cheaper, which is sweet. However, instead of the multi-lingual chorus I hear in hostels, my life has become inundated with incomprehensible French chatter, music, movies and jokes.

Fortunately, I do not need a dictionary to translate the language of gastronomy.

It is Katie and I and four Frogs, three of whom are chefs and the other always manages to bring home delicious food from the boutique hotel in which he works. Additionally, anything I cook, “is not the French taste”, thus absolving me of future culinary duties.

If you will notice in the photo above there are shuttered windows in all of the bedrooms thus negating one of the principle function of walls- to provide privacy and muffle sounds. “fucking stupid Kiwi architects”, is often muttered around our flat. Tip toes and tiny flashlights become essential during the night, so as not to disturb anyone sleeping.

Tangaroa God of the Sea

2009-07-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

dir. Carey Carter feat. Tiki Taane 2008

This music video was screened at the Matariki Traveling Film Programme at Te Papa on July 2nd, 2009. Thankfully, someone posted it on youtube. It kicks ass

Comfy, Cosy and Almost Dead Broke in Wellywood

2009-07-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

Before arriving in Wellington, I had often heard it described as the San Francisco of New Zealand, so I was pretty keen on spending the winter here, wrapped up in Welly's whirlwind of city streets, darting back and forth between pubs, theatres, museums and cafes. Coincidentally, this was also the first time on our trip that I had dared imagine our future, sprinkling my naïve Mary Tyler Moore hopes over this condensed seaside town. Obviously, I'm employing the use of foreshadow to transition into our acute feelings of rejection and disappointment.

To begin with I was possessed by a thoroughly evil strain of strep, that left me feverish, pained and laid out for nearly a week. After having recovered completely, I set my sights on finding gainful employment. I like to think I handle rejection well, I just think back to my arduous three month job search last year in New York City, smoking over a pack a day in a small, stuffy apartment, waiting to hear back from the innumerable jobs that overwhelmingly never sent a response. The first week wasn't so bad, I bravely handed over dozens of my embellished CV with a smile, but as time went on the phone remained silent and I began to get a bit despondent.

I went with a multi-tiered strategy for the job search, start with ideal jobs (sassy bartender, sexy bookseller, adorable barista etc.) and work my way down. I lament, that if things don't turn around quickly, I will have to swallow this pride of mine, walk into McDonald's (Macker's as they lovingly refer to it here) and acquiesce to working in a place I normally avoid like the plague.

In effect, I don't much feel like expounding on the wonderful things we have done here and although I am trying to remain “Absolutely Positively Wellington”, I feel that in any relationship there must be a give and take. I'm trying to love you Wellington, why are you making it so hard?

However, I would be remiss if I didn't offer thanks to Te Papa for quality free entertainment, Border's Books for giving me 15 hours a week and Mon Ami for their complimentary internet and delicious coffee. Cheers!

Dexter O Dexter

2009-07-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

Shivers ran down my spine, my body tensed and I was probably blushing, the cacophonous bar was suddenly silenced, its music faded to muddled, muffled tones, patrons laid their glasses to rest, the lights seemed to dim as the mounted televisions in their brightly glowing glory bathed the faces of the masses in swathes of red as Dexter triumphantly filled the screen, fantastically naughty, fearsome Dexter Morgan has finally arrived in New Zealand.
For months I have been enduring wretched and extremely outdated American shows, now I can confidently say that my suffering is not in vain. Seriously, they just aired Rock of Love 2 and I Love New York 2, they regularly show The Big Bang Theory and the long since cancelled game show, Identity...please someone shoot me. New Zealand's underwhelming four channels are usually showing endless games of Cricket or some such and such Rugby tournament but during the brief intervals between sporting sessions they love to put on the worst of the worst in American television and it makes me want to cry. But alas there is hope down that long cathode ray tube of darkness and its name is Dexter

And it's absolutely true what they say, he DOES put the laughter in slaughter AND the fun in funeral.
Power saw to the people!

Outrageous Fortune Drinking Game

2009-07-08T18:09:00.001-07:00

Guaranteed to get ya drunk

1 swig every time Pascalle makes her sad wounded deer face

1 swig every time the camera gratuitously focuses on Cheree's gigantic, often oiled, tits

2 swigs every time Cheryl and Wayne engage in a lover's quarrel

3 swigs every time Loretta screams at someone, take an extra one if she also angrily closes her laptop

Go drink for drink with grandpa (every time he drinks, you drink)

1 shot every time Munter and Van light up

This game is only intended for serious drinkers and not recommended for those with a tendency to vomit, pass out or cry after recklessly binge drinking

Kiwi As, Bro

2009-07-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

My favorite Kiwi expressions, I'm sure a few are heavily influenced by the British, but never having been outside of Heathrow, I will happily (and ignorantly) give all the credit to the Kiwis

Sweet as
Example: Bro, wearing really short shorts and gumboots is sweet as.

Heaps
Example: Nah, I don't have any booze, but I have heaps of weed.

Keen
Example: I'm keen to spend the entire night recklessly drinking.

Good on ya
Example: You kicked that bratty kid in the face, good on ya.

Kia ora bro (Maori)
Example: Kia ora bro, what the hell have you been up to?

Ka kite ano (Maori)
Example: I hope to see you again soon, ka kite ano.

No worries, mate
Example: No worries mate. I never much cared for that crap car anyway.

Muntered
Example: Oh man, last night I was so fucking muntered I totally forgot I gave that creepy dude my number

Sweet fuck all
Example: I have a university degree and sweet fuck all to show for it

Stink
Example: That new Terminator with Christian Bale is a stink movie, eh?

Eh
Example: The east coast is awesome, eh?
Note: declarative statements are not favored by the Kiwis, instead they choose to disguise their opinions as questions, or throw in the “eh” to voice support for whatever you may have just said.

R.I.P. M.J.

2009-06-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

You have basically rocked my world, well, for my entire life, I watched Thriller on MTV as a toddler, played your tapes over and over and over as a kid and I still play you on my iPod. Wherever I am, when you come on, you can guarantee that I will be dancing.

Matariki

2009-06-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Matariki literally means the ‘eyes of god’ (mata ariki) or ‘little eyes’ (mata riki) and refers to the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, constellation which reappears in New Zealand very low in the north-eastern sky just at the tail of the Milky Way in the last days of May or in early June. The reemergence of the stars indicate the next year's harvest. If the stars are brisk and clear, the season will be plentiful, if they are dull and blurry it will be sparse. However, there is no specific, set date to celebrate Matariki, depending on the iwi, some celebrate it as soon as the stars are spotted, while others wait until the rising of the next full moon, or alternatively the dawn of the next new moon (June 24th).
The myths of Matariki vary greatly depending on the iwi, Some say that when Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother were separated by their offspring, the god of the winds, Tāwhirimātea, became angry, tearing out his eyes and hurling them into the heavens. Others say Matariki is the mother star surrounded by her six daughters, Tupu-ā-nuku, Tupu-ā-rangi, Waitī, Waitā, Waipuna-ā-rangi and Ururangi.
One account explains that Matariki and her daughters appear in the end of May to assist the sun, Te Rā, whose winter journey from the north has left him weakened, this obviously coincides with the winter solstice and the slow ascent into longer days. Since the new year occurs at the start of winter, it is commonly a time of reflection and planning for the new year, as well as a time to appreciate the past.
To date, Matariki is not a recognized holiday in New Zealand (which is pretty fucked) but in 2001 the Maori Language Commission teamed up with the Ministry of Education and the Museum of New Zealand to highlight the importance of Matariki as an integral part of Maori language regeneration.

Napier Wit

2009-06-21T16:19:00.000-07:00

Napier has been described as the city with “two souls” because, in a way, it is two cities. The first Napier was a quaint seaside Victorian town that was destroyed on February 3, 1931 when a massive earthquake (7.8 on the old scale) and subsequent fire razed the town. The city lay in absolute ruins. The people decided not to reconstruct their beloved town as it had been but to redesign a stronger and more modern city that would rise like a phoenix from the ash of old. The second Napier was completed just two years after the quake. The resurrected city enthusiastically embraces art deco and downtown unfolds before you beautifully symbolic, geometric and bold.
It's a little too yuppie for my taste but almost redeems itself with its quirky cafes and independently owned art galleries. After we filled our eyes and minds with art we headed over to the museum to learn about the town's history, we visited NZ's National Aquarium and watched a very flirty diver feed the sharks and stingrays, we sampled some decadent chocolate at the local factory, strolled through the dilapidated old cemetery, walked through the town's multi-tiered botanic gardens, took a “scary” night tour through the old prison (the one part I didn't like was being locked alone in a cold and pitch black cell) and finally kicked our feet up at the beach-side hot pools. A delicious winter day in a charming anachronistic city.

Captain Cook's Retarded

2009-06-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

We have arrived in Gisborne, or Cook Country (as I like to call it), it is here that they worship Cook like a god. The town is chock-full of monuments and museums glorifying the relatively new deity. Personally, I'm outraged. I now present a brief exhibition of Cook's imbecilic legacy via the names of places he "discovered" (ahem, I mean) encountered:

Bay of Plenty- because the Maori gave him stuff
Bay of Poverty- because the Maori didn't give him stuff- take that Maori people!
Doubtful Bay- because the ingenious Cook said it was doubtful the winds would blow his ship out to sea
Doubtless Bay- because, "this is doubtless a bay", he said using his superior, otherworldly intelligence
Bay of Islands- because there are islands in the bay- "I seen 'em" he no doubt screamed, drooling spastically over the deck

Cape Kidnappers- because someone in his exploration party was (say it with me)...kidnapped

On top of his pathetic excuse for creativity, he was also vain and boring
Mt. Cook, the Cook River, Cook's Beach, Cook's Cove and the Cook Strait (to name a few)

Some others that I suspect, but can not confirm, were named by New Zealand's favorite mentally deficient explorer
Worser Bay...because Cook's grammar is worser than his originality
Sandfly Bay- oh wait, let me guess
Ocean Beach- you don't say
The list goes on...
Sandy Bay
Whale Bay
Paradise
Black Beach
Blue Lake
Stony Bay

Desolation Meets Serenity up New Zealand's East Coast

2009-06-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

We decided to take the long way to Gisborne by driving up the scenic (and ridiculously windy) coastal highways. We were met by brilliant sunshine, crystalline streams, majestic cliffs, idyllic beaches, feral ponies, women screaming, dense fog, a church with a bloodstained pulpit (the reverend was hanged, beheaded, then, if that weren't enough, his eyes were gouged out and eaten), rusty abandoned cars, creepy elderly mannequins and cows completely at a standstill on the highway, twice. Sans the bizarre happenings, the east coast is renowned for it's wide open spaces and small populations. We would often drive for stretches of over 60 kilometers (37.3 miles, if you wondered) and not see another human being, which is eerie on an island so small. It's also heavily Maori, namely the Ngati Porou tribe live along the coast while the Tuhoe dominate the interior. We have already seen a dozen or more Marae (elaborately carved Maori meeting houses) as well as tons of bilingual schools. The east coast is in no way a tourist draw, admittedly, we drove through entire towns before we realized we had, so I feel Katie made the right decision in leading us to this clandestine and often unexplored region. That evening we landed at the ghetto fabulous Te Araroa Holiday Park complete with rundown toilets, rusted vehicles, windows that don't close, a lady that sells fish and chips out of her caravan and many other eager and chatty permanent characters (residents).
The next morning we roused ourselves at 550am in order to be the first people on earth to see the sunrise that day. This involved a terrifying drive through the pitch-black on narrow, unguarded cliff-side dirt roads for about an hour. It was here, in the absolute middle of nowhere, that we ran into our French (or outerspace) friend Romain (another post will be dedicated solely to this strange, strange French giant) naked in his van. As the dawn neared, it became apparent to us that we weren't going to see much on account of the ominous gray skies. We sat in the car (not wanting to walk up the mountain to the lighthouse), counted down to the sunrise, of which we saw nothing and then took the dangerous track back to the highway. The day was rainy, cold and gray. We visited an Anglican church whose interior was decorated with Maori carvings, we stopped in Ruatoria, famous for it's politically active Maori population, many of whom subscribe to Rastafarian religion. (The white folks around here warned us not to linger in this “dangerous” area, but having lived alongside the Bronx for over a year, I felt I could handle it) We ate delicious, flaky and warm bacon and egg Ruatoria pies and continued on our monochromatic journey. We bypassed the longest pier in New Zealand and some famous beaches on account of the billowy fog. We drove through the wee town of Whangara and alongside Wainui beach (both featured prominently in the wonderful book/movie The Whale Rider) and arrived in Gisborne before noon.

Why I Adore Anthony

2009-06-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

He is always so adorably cheerful in the morning and he makes the best breakfast
He is an artistic genius
He can rock people's faces off and melt their brains
He intelligently challenges ideas and beliefs
He brings me whiskey when I get laid off
He unashamedly loves Taco Bell and KFC
He never complains when I made him listen to Tori Amos in the car for hours
He never gets mad when I fall asleep during the first 15 minutes of a movie
He is an excellent teacher
He doesn't mind spending 20 hours a day in bed sometimes
He is hilarious
He makes the best faces

Trivial Matters

2009-06-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

Our last night in Papamoa/Tauranga we decided to have a bit of hometown fun and try our luck at New Zealand trivia. We assembled a hodge-podge team of international elite, named them the Drunken Clams, and grabbed beers all around. I dreamily reminisced about The Squire and Trivia Dan as well as Spanky's and that trivia master who eats too many hamburgers and is never impressed with our cheeky answers as we failed to answer a single New Zealand politics/cricket/rugby question correctly. Out of 19 teams we came in an (I feel) very respectable 14th and won the drawing for a $25 bar tab.

Simply Beautiful

2009-06-07T22:04:00.000-07:00

Fall is my favorite season and in my mind autumn days burn fiery red memories and their searing yet chilling winds linger on into the winter. It was on one of these memorable yet rare fall days that we decided to climb Mount Maunganui. The Mount sits on the end of a long skinny inlet, surrounded by water on three sides. As we sluggishly climbed to the summit the warm sun competed with the icy air and crunchy leaves swirled hypnotically around the path. From the top we could see the town Mt. Maunganui, White Island, Tauranga and our home, Papamoa. It was stunning and serene. As we climbed back down we had to stop for a flock of passing sheep and once we had made it to the base we sat on the white sandy beach and ate coconut gelato. Perfect.

Unwinding Amongst the Kiwis

2009-06-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we were finally released from the fuzzy, citrusy shackles of the kiwi factory. In the last fifteen minutes of work, our bosses sent ping pong balls with cute messages written on them (“no hanky panky”, “well done” and good on ya'”) up the conveyor belts and we proceeded to pelt each other with them until the last bell of the season heralded its sweet dulcet sounds of freedom. We were giggly and elated, like children on the last day of school, as we left work that day, grateful to never again return.
That afternoon the pack house hosted a Hangi, which is a traditional Maori barbecue. A hole is dug in the ground, firewood is placed over it in a crisscross pattern and rocks are laid over the wood. The fire is lit and the wood eventually burns away, leaving steaming hot rocks. At this point wire mesh baskets filled with different types of meat, potatoes, kumara, and stuffing are lowered on to the rocks and covered with damp bedsheets (bedsheets are not wholly traditional, obviously). The entire lot is buried in the ground and left to cook for a few hours. What emerges from the earth is a smoky, earthy shmorgasboard of delicious. But before the Hangi was ready there was always the Kiwi tradition of drinking heaps of booze.
We walked into the factory which had been totally transformed for the Hangi. The entire upstairs had been cleared out and replaced by a bar made from giant wooden crates and green kiwi boxes, there were tables made from old crates placed on their side, many with a few kiwis still left in them. Our normally grumpy coworkers were laughing and drinking and smoking and dancing, donning skirts and makeup in lieu of hairnets and latex gloves. And drink we did, let me tell you, middle aged Kiwi women know how to let loose. By the end of the party I was stumbling around the fire and no doubt slurring my words as I bid my lovely coworkers goodbye showering them with hugs and well wishes.

Top Ten Beam Moments

2009-06-04T00:09:00.000-07:00

In no order whatsoever

1. Seeing Iggy Pop's 60+ year old body spasmodically writhe around the stage
2. Making the ground shake with our dancing at the Nancy
3. Drinking with the Coney Island Hot Dog eating contestants
4. Painting your face on the steps of Union Square
5. Marvelling at your mother's 10,000 Christmas decorations (my fave, the foil star)
6. Getting the boot at the Continental
7. Happy hours at Company
8. Spritejitos at Coney Island
9. Endless GChats at work
10. Being your chicken friend bagel for life

Beesin and Boozin

2009-06-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Interesting fact about bees, they are one of the few animals that get drunk willingly, hell, they love it. While I was picking grapes I found many a dead bee, their tiny little arms clutching the berry while their heads were stuck as far inside the fermented grape as they could get.

They had drank themselves to death.

Taupo the Morning to Ya!

2009-05-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Furious and wincing with pain after another endlessly long day at the pack house we raced out of Te Puke into the twilight towards Taupo for a relaxing and much deserved break from the hell that has become our existence. We raced up windy roads through fog so thick at times the only thing I could make out was my own headlights reflecting back at me, we made it there in two complete pieces in under two hours. We approached the place where Paula and Ryan were staying, an elderly folks golf resort? Yes, my lovely friends, the blissfully married couple had really outdone themselves, thankfully it was all being paid for by the kind folks at the Dargaville Library, so we forgave them this horrendous choice in accommodation. We decided it was for the best if we found our own place to stay and chose the Base Camp in Taupo's quaint pub-lined downtown. They offered us bogo voucher's on booze and we bee-lined it to the bar. Eight days without drink is a very long time for me and I happily guzzled down the fizzy amber goodness post haste. Eight or was it ten beers later, we decided to retire, since Ryan had informed us we were climbing a mountain the next day. Huzzah!
The next morning we drove up towards the Tongariro Crossing and quickly learned that Whakapapa was as far as our car, Loretta, was going to go without four-wheel drive or chains, we decided against climbing up the snowy peaks and Ryan and Paula seemed happy enough to throw snowballs at each other at the base of the mountain. Our first snow in New Zealand! We drove back down the mountain towards Orekei Korako Geothermal Park. From there we took an exciting but brief two minute ferry ride across the water to the park. We were greeted by bubbling champagne geysers, steaming pools and algal flats colored with bright reds, pinks, greens and blues. The surrealness of the landscape coupled with the pungent aroma of sulpher made you feel as though you were waking on another planet. It didn't hurt that since it is the off-season we were four of the maybe fifteen visitors in the entire park. We took the path through boiling hot mud pools, a cave with sacred waters (where if you make a wish “it is guaranteed to come true!”), a forest with crazy speckled trees and stark white cliffs which were made over time by the flowing of mineral rich waters. It was a really remarkable place and one of the many geothermal sights in the area.
Afterwards we headed home, loaded up on yummy dinner and beer at the, and I cannot stress this enough, awesome Rainbow Lodge, I totally recommend it to anyone visiting Taupo.
On Sunday we ate a hearty breakfast and bid adieu to Ryan and Paula and despite the pouring rain headed out for more sightseeing. We stopped at the eerily blue Huka Falls, we ate some exquisite ginger honey and drank some heavenly honey mead at Taupo's Bee House and headed to Craters of the Moon an understated by no less impressive showing of the earth's array of steam vents. Funny enough, there wasn't a boardwalk until fairly recently and “many people left with burns” after stepping on what the hoped was solid ground. In case you didn't know, NZ's top priority is not safety, that's the individual's responsibility. Anyway, since the day was so cold, the steam was that much more visible and vents all over the ground released massive amounts into the air, as if there were tiny little factories buried underground, a mini subterranean New Jersey, if you will. It was really awesome although it in no way resembled the moon, (no spacemen walking on me face) it was thrilling to be walking above ground that felt so alive.

Freaky, Frightening Fruit

2009-05-24T23:59:00.001-07:00

How's that for genetically modified?

It's a Small World After All

2009-05-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry that the image of Disney's disturbingly cheerful, blank-eyed animatronic multi-cultural children are firmly rooted in your mind, but Walt was right. We met this lovely woman named Sue, who graciously offered to rent us a room in her house. She invited us over for wine and a chat. As we were walking up, sketchily checking for a house number, a large van pulled up and the people inside scowled at us. Like deer in headlights we froze, having been pegged for inept voyeurs or worse, malicious home invaders. We smiled and tried to act as cool as possible under the circumstances, when who emerged from the van but our fabulous German neighbors from the holiday park. They explained that last night while they were at the house, somebody broke into their van and stole a bunch of their stuff, hence the stink eyes we got moments earlier. So what, you think, it's a small town, you are bound to run into someone. Later, as Sue was talking about her lovely friends in Gisbourne, its began to ring some bells. We had been looking into Wwoofing there with a family that sounded remarkably like the one she was describing. Turns out, they are the same, and now we have a connection and pretty much a guarantee for a free and amazing place to stay on our next leg of the journey. Admit it, it's weird. Tonight's happenings serve as a paradigm for our collective experience here. People meet you, people offer you things and introduce you to other people who can help you and so on. It's like a brilliant little club, where everyone is invited and everyone helps out, it's a bright shiny spot on the often tarnished surface of human interaction.

Factory Girl

2009-05-15T23:23:00.001-07:00

I started work in a kiwi pack house today. I grade the kiwi's. Basically, I am the front lines against the rotten and spoiled kiwi's, they get thrown down the trash shoot, the rest go on through the pack house maze to get stickered, bundled in boxes and put in cold storage, when they are mature they get packed on boats to travel around the world and fill people's mouths with happiness.
I am making this sound far too whimsical. I'm a bit delirious.
I stand on a platform, under harsh florescent lights, the conveyor belts start up at 8 am sharp, the fruit come thundering down from beyond my line of sight, I imagine an enormous kiwi avalanche. There is music blaring above me but the giant machinery that surrounding me on all other sides drowns out the melodies until all I can hear is pure skull-rattling cacophony. The frenzied noise alone makes me anxious. I stand braced, my gloved hands on the edge of the belt poised to snap up the unacceptable fruit. Shiny white PV cylinders travel down the line as they ecstatically spin one way nudging the kiwi fruit in the other direction. Your eyes want to follow the little bastards down the line but you can't, the best way to avoid becoming disoriented and dizzy is to keep your eyes moving up and down up and down up and down, never side to side. Within an hour, I feel nauseous, my head hurts and my eyes have trouble focusing. When the conveyor belt comes to a sudden stop my body immediately wants to lurch to the right and keep the movement going, I can't look back down until it starts again. I try to think of something else, but it's all I can do to stay focused on the endless deluge of imperfect fruit hurdling towards me. My eyes rapidly scan up and down, my hands quickly move from side to side, I reach for stems and leaves as I watch for all of the different types of rot and blemishes, I grab before I think, I make a decision based on the degree of damage and by the time I decide the fate of one there are more that I must judge.
Then, a few hours into it, everything seems to slow down. I can't look up from the fruit because I am scared that I will pass out, I stare at the fruit rolling down the concourse and I notice that my hands are moving slowly too. The woman next to me asks if I am ok, and I want to get off the platform and sit down, but I nod my head and breathe, afraid that any sudden movement will have me crashing to the ground. For a minute I am terrified. My brain is moving slowly, I cant decide to breathe deeper or not, I'm not even sure if I am breathing hard already, if I am really moving slowly, if everything is ok. I don't know how long this episode lasts but an alarm sounds, the belts crash to a stop and it is lunchtime. It gets easier and far less scary in the afternoon.
When I am done for the day, I remove my fashionable hairnet and take off my stained apron then I wash my hands. I still feel sick as I leave the place. My hips hurt, my back hurts, my wrists hurt and my neck hurts. My balance is off and I notice my drunken swagger as Katie and I walk through town, I feel lightheaded, I appreciate all the things in the world that aren't constantly moving.
I tried to write this when I first got home and I couldn't do it, I couldn't think of any of the right words and I had trouble forming coherent thoughts. That job is a complete and total mindfuck, thank god it's temporary.

Welcome to the Bay of Plenty, Suckas

2009-05-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Bay of Plenty you hordes of poor working holiday travelers. Work at our innumerable kiwi orchards where exploitation and poor wages are guaranteed. Stay in our overpriced hostels, or better yet, come rest your weary head at our insanely overpriced, overcrowded and unsanitary hostel, The Hairy Berry, here they will promise you a job if you stay and then never get you one. Have a passion for the extreme? Take your life into your own hands and have a ride through Te Puke where it seems that everyone is drunk and just learning how to drive. Want to keep that frown plastered on that foreign face of yours, why not call every one of the 20+ pack houses in the area and get an outright rejection from every single one? Have you had enough, do you want more? A freak hailstorm, why not?
So it's a little melodramatic, but that was our experience the first few days here. Every thing we tried turned out to be a complete failure. Then, as it always does, the sun came back out and things turned around. If you know me at all, you know that I embrace the trashy side of existence, I indulge in the cheap and poor quality, I revel in bad taste, I am smitten with the shameful and cringe worthy, I love it all. So trust me when I tell you that I love what we are doing right now.
We are living in a caravan in a trailer park. I shit you not, I live in a (cara)van down by the river (ocean) and it's fucking awesome!

Gettin' Grown

2009-05-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

We drove to Whangarei disguised as grown-ups today with Paula. We were on our way to make a potentially enormous and most definitely adult purchase, on the one hand it would greatly expand our freedom and flexibility and on the other it would drastically lessen what meager savings we brought with us. We went to Whangarei to buy a car. I was calm and collected on the drive over, Ryan supplied us with a thorough checklist, we knew what we wanted to spend and all we had to do was make it happen. Katie was a nervous wreck, worrying over all the things I was trying not to think about. Once we walked up to the dealers my heart began to race. The car was sitting there, front and center, waiting for us. Perched on its little black wheels, its coat of paint gleaming through the rain, it reminded me of an eager puppy waiting to be taken home, ok, not really, but I felt like a potential new dog owner, making the walk up to the pound, suffering equal swells of excitement and terror. We greeted the dealer and checked out the car. I pretended to know what I was doing, asking carefully worded questions about the condition of the timing belt while concentrating on the messy tangle of tubes and bolts that make up the underside of a hood, nodding casually as though I not only understood but approved of what I was seeing. We took it for a test drive without the dealer. Katie noted that it looked pretty and that it was roomy and comfortable, we also wondered if the engine was “too noisy” and if it was what the hell that meant. Obviously, we had to get our game faces on before we got back and started the dreaded haggling. Paula kindly left us to it and we walked into the dealer's office. Nervously we sat down, Katie being the appointed haggler (purely based on her background in business) began her spiel about how we knew the price was $3000 but that we were on a budget, we were traveler's and then threw in the bit about needing a new timing belt for dramatic effect. He scoffed. (dammit we had been found out) Katie said firmly, “we will give you $2500” (super baddass). “Oh well”, he said, drawing it out slowly like a used car salesman (oh wait, shit), “It's really a bargain already, how about $2700”, this being followed by an awkward and painful silence. I chimed in, “well, how about $2600, then everyone is happy” immediately wishing that we had low-balled it from the get go, “well, sounds like a deal to me” he said. We had to pick up cash since he didn't take cards, we were giddy and anxious and shaking all the way to the ATM. Let me tell you, pulling out $2600 in cash at once is a horrible feeling, your stomach sinks and your face drops as the stupid machine keeps spitting 50's at you, you slump over as you casually try to stuff them all in your wallet, your hands tremble as you force it closed. On the walk back we still couldn't believe what we were doing, but we handed over the small mountain of money, signed the papers and walked out the proud and responsible new owners of a modest and economical Honda Integra (yeah, cars are named differently here). The dealer parted with this advice, “stay to the left girls, always to the left”.

Fill Empty Space By Making Lists

2009-05-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have recently come to re-embrace my passion for making lists and I have Katie to thank for that. She makes lists for every conceivable thing that we do/plan to do/can never in a million years do...you get the idea. I used to make them compulsively when I was younger, I made them to separate the people or ideas that I liked from those I didn't, compile the things I wanted to do when I was older or the places I wanted to see, basically, I felt compelled to organize my world into well-ordered, prioritized columns. As I grew older I mostly felt that lists were too superficial because life would never be tidily arranged into singly worded columns, so excluding grocery shopping, I stopped making them altogether. I have now come around again to being pro-list (thanks in part to making a pro and con list highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of list making). In what I hope will become an ongoing series, I present my first list:

Awesome Things About New Zealand You May Have Never Heard About.

1. Toilets- most toilets in NZ come equipped with two buttons, the full and the half flush, that way you can be a more eco-friendly tinkler (also, public loos are clean and numerous)
2. Grown men in short shorts- once you overcome the desire to shriek and cover your eyes in shame it becomes unceasingly hilarious
3. L&P- Soda- “World Famous in New Zealand”
4. Feijoas- a tiny green fruit that came to NZ from either South America or heaven
5. Outrageous Fortune- a soap opera without the romance and boring shit (as well as its incredibly catchy theme song “Gutter Black”)
6. Sheep- so far I have seen day-glo pink sheep at Sheep World and I have seen a sheep drink out of a public toilet, but only after waiting until someone flushed it, because otherwise that's just unsanitary
7. Scrumpy's Cider- with a name like Scrumpy's it has to be good
8. Being Barefoot- shoes are completely and utterly optional
9. Mullets- bad bleach jobs accentuating either the business or party end optional (but avidly encouraged)
10. Cheap Car Insurance- and on top of that it's not legally required
11. Open Container A-Ok- just keep an eye out for the liquor ban signs prohibiting booze in relatively few areas
12. Lack of Dangerous Creatures- no animal will eat/maim you and there is only one spider that can hurt you
13. Flat Whites- the delicious offspring of a cappuccino and a latte
14. Fire Baths- they may not be exclusive to NZ, but they are frickin'amazing
15. The Guy Family- they keep on warmly welcoming us back and we don't understand why

Good Friends, Good Food, Good Times

2009-04-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

I haven’t much to write about since my life for the past eleven days is picking grapes, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, sleeping, and starting it over again. Tired, delirious, happy and exhausted has been the routine since Easter. However, at the risk of sounding overly sentimental and cheesy, I would like to discuss just how amazing my time at the Waiheke Island Hostel has been. I have been thrown into an absolutely brilliant cast of characters representing more than 10 countries, all from incredibly diverse backgrounds. Despite our innumerable differences we have all gotten along swimmingly. We share everything, stories, games, booze, food, rides, and laughs. We all cook for one another. I have learned to make Crepes, fish cakes and mayonnaise from the French. Sushi and dumplings from the Japanese. The list goes on and on. I have discovered that Spam and cream cheese rolls rock, as does sausage and frozen vegetables. Grape pie is delicious and if you are inclined to throw everything you have in the fridge into a giant casserole it can turn out to taste ok. I must also admit that peanut butter complements tuna. Good food, good booze, good friends, good jokes and bad translations have made every night in this place an absolute pleasure. I have sincerely enjoyed the weeks spent at the Waiheke Island Hostel and I (as well as my stomach) have become smitten with all the people that stayed there with me. Tear. I love you guys!

To Be Resurrected One Must First Be Destroyed

2009-04-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Easter is about rebirth, Jesus rising from the dead, forgiveness of sins and all that. But in the lovely country of New Zealand, it’s about absolute and total demolition. Demolished would also be apropos in describing my state that Sunday. On Easter, I too was resurrected. I was brought back from the deep, dark depths of the brain dead, I was reborn after consuming countless beers, whiskey, and boxed wine mixed with Coca Cola with some charming Westies (or Wauckies as I like to call them). Three hours of sleep later, I was dragged back to the land of the living. The only option I had was to drink through the pain, forgo sobriety entirely and keep on as I had been for the previous four days. (That’s right kids, these people have seen me at my absolute best, and still talk to me). A little worse for the wear we headed to the demolition derby. We walked up to a tiny and dusty dirt track surrounded by some netting. I laughed at the prospect of a nylon net stopping a thousand pound car barreling towards me. I plopped down on the grass and immediately grabbed a beer, bring on the destruction, I thought. Waiheke is a small island, with a permanent population of 8,000 and a large majority came out to witness the spectacle. As a warm-up they had a few races with mid-90's beaters, round and round they raced and we all placed bets on who would win. Then midway through my fourth beer they brought out the demo derby; bumper cars for adults, we cheered and hollered at the battered vehicles as they smashed gratuitously into one another. Orange dust coated everything around us as we leaned forward to get a better look. One by one they fell out of the race until it was down to two and a half. Local favorite, “Brucey” had only one functioning wheel at that point and would carefully plan when he would swing around at the two remaining cars passing him by, “Mike”, who had barely a dent on his car raced around the track carefully avoiding the other's thereby negating the entire spirit of the event, he, of course, immediately becoming the villain. “Joe” whose car looked like an advertisement for MADD, methodically planned his numerous attacks on evil “Mike”. At this point we were standing and jumping, screaming and cursing, encouraging “Joe” to annihilate “Mike”, and only on Easter, would the ultimate underdog rise, against all odds and logic, above the forces against him and reclaim the glory that he deserved...

Working Hard, Playing Harder

2009-04-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the silence on my end of the world. We picked grapes for 6 days straight and I have been drinking for well over 16 days straight which means that I have had to let some things go by the wayside, namely, this here blog and personal hygiene. But we have had the last few days off due to some stormy weather, so I've got clean clothes and time with the computer!
Tonight is Stonyridge's harvest party. They are going to use some of the old grape vines as wood for the barbeque and we will be able to drink some of the lovely wines from past vintages (which will be a nice change from box wine), all huddled around a massive fire amidst the vineyard, should be a dionysian delight.

Holla at Your Boy

2009-03-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

I would like to give a shout out to the middle-aged drunken Kiwi men that I have met on this trip. You fucking rock!

I would like to applaud you for being so unlike many of your international counterparts. There are many reasons for this, the main one being that you aren’t creepy sleezeballs. You don’t hit on young girls and you don’t make crude remarks about women. You are friendly and respectful and you are really just out to have a good time and get wasted with whoever is around. I would like to thank you for the free beers/barbeque/cigarettes and everything else you provide with absolutely no strings attached. I would like to thank you for being hilarious and incoherent without being obnoxious. You have renewed my faith in older men and it has been a pleasure getting to know you. You can also drink me under a table and in the morning you are usually awake and ready to go while I feel like crawling under a cold wet rock and dying. That at least triples how awesome you are in my book. From West Auckland to “9T Mial” Beach you have made my experiences at hostels and campgrounds a thoroughly pleasurable one and for that I owe you.

I just hope uttering this aloud doesn’t jinx my incredible luck with your kind, I have a feeling that it won’t.

Harvest Time

2009-03-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

We wake up at sunrise. The morning air is chilly. I down French-pressed coffee and smoke Dunhill cigarettes. We head to the bus. We walk up the gravel road to the vineyard. The air is cool. The sun peaks out over the hills. We get our clippers and tubs and sit down on the dewy grass. We reach for the bunches of grapes. We remove the sticky, rotten ones, sickly pink and glistening. The garnet juice pours down our hands. We pick out the hollowed ones that collapse and deflate between our fingers. We leave the raisins because they add color and sweetness to the wine. We brush the gnats out of our faces and we blow the spiders from the bunches. We inch down the rows filling tubs as we go. The air is hot and the sun hangs overhead. Sometimes the wind stops. We rinse our tacky hands. We lie in the shade devouring our sandwiches and fruit. We search behind every last leaf; we seek every grape from every vine, in every row, in every yard. We squint in the sun. We act calmly amidst the curious wasps and bees. We have one more row to go. We gather closely and fill the last tubs of the day and walk off into the sunset.

Our Lucky Day

2009-03-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Waiheke frustrated and impatient because we couldn’t find affordable accommodations and we hadn’t yet heard from Stonyridge Vineyard about when/if work would start despite the many texts and emails we had sent. Once we were there we also learned that the buses were few and far between and the entire island is a mass of hills. (I have been walking up hills since the day we arrived and it has not gotten any easier).
So we figured fuck it, we will stay at the hostel and go to Stonyridge on Friday and if work hasn’t started we can at least talk to them face to face.
We apprehensively walked up to the vineyard that morning and were greeted by Summer the winemaker. She told us that today was a fun day for the ladies that worked in the café all summer but that we were more than welcome to join in. She said that we weren’t being paid, but that we could get some free wine and get bumped to the top of the picker’s list. why not? She took us to a yard of Chardonnay vines and all these giggling girls began picking the plump and gorgeous grapes deciding on what to name this completely female-produced wine. The grapes look like autumn. They are iridescent and hold a rainbow of colors inside; they hang off the vines like tiny little soap bubbles and the sun shines through them to reveal reds, purples, greens, pinks, yellows and oranges. We filled tubs with these bunches and hauled them to the truck (or ute in Kiwi speak).
Next we broke open some champagne and dumped the bins into the de-stemmer. It’s so cool to watch a machine chomp down on grapes and spit out the stems. The grapes fell into a large cask while we sat back and drank. Once the tubs had been emptied, Summer said to take off our shoes because we were going in! Two at a time we jumped into the giant wooden vat and stomped around the grapes. They are cold and slimy, kind of like curdled quicksand, or how I imagine that would feel like. We tightly grasped the sides of the cask as we vigorously bicycled through the knee-high crop until our legs felt like jelly. All smiles, we left the vineyard with some Fallen Angel wine and promises of gainful employment.

Thanks to Summer for being the most awesome winemaker ever, and thanks to Colleen for posting the slideshow of our amazing day.
P.S. They decided to name the wine “Forbidden Fruit” since it is unspoiled by the Adams of the world.

Year of the Red Panda?

2009-03-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Red pandas bring good fortune, or at least that’s what the folks at Sky Tower’s Casino wants you to believe.

Getting By With A Little Help From Our Friends

2009-03-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

Once back in Auckland, Paula volunteered her sister Leonie’s house to us. However, Leonie and her 6 roommates were suffering from the stomach flu, so Amberly graciously offered up her apartment until the vomitfest stopped. Cold beer, spicy chili, The Office, laughter and lively conversation between good friends, it felt a lot like being home. Although she hates being thanked, I must show my gratitude to the most lovely and gorgeous host in Auckland!
Next we were off to Leonie’s. She lives off K’ Road which is chock full of everything you need, bars, second hand shops, cafes, clubs and prostitutes, oh my! She lives in what may be the most incredible college house that I have ever seen. It’s down a fairly obscure road with nothing but industrial buildings and a large motorcycle shop. You take the road down a block farther and nestled between Auckland’s Old Folks Ass. and an unnamed warehouse resides the unassuming flat. It’s so far from civilized life that the “Maori Queen” brings her customers down the way regularly. As you may suspect, it’s trashed as only a college house can be and super homey in all its grunginess. The huge backyard is filled with empty beer cans, overgrown grass and ratty sun chairs, it’s also completely sheltered by buildings and high tin fences. Thus making it the perfect party house. I feel I should also take this opportunity to thank Leonie for giving us free reign over her room for the three days we were there (including when we drunkenly arrived at 3am on St. Patrick’s Day).

Love & The Dead

2009-03-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

As a kid I was completely and totally obsessed with the movie Beetle Juice. I would pop it in the old Beta Max machine and watch it over and over again. Barring the adult humor I didn't understand (like the suicidal beauty queen or the suit being strung along the endless miles of bureaucratic paperwork that has overwhelmed the ever-increasing world of the deceased) I was enthralled with the characters and each of their quests for fulfillment. I remember being taken by the love between Alec Baldwin’s and Geena Davis’ characters Adam and Barbara, especially in one of the scenes nearest the end. Otho uses the handbook for the dead to resurrect the ghosts into the world of the living. They are thrust into their old wedding garments and within seconds of their crossing the void between the world of the dead and that of the living they have aged beyond recognition. I can still picture the tenderness with which Barbara helps reattach Adam’s unhinged jawbone and gingerly caresses hisface. Or the most poignant of shots, when they take in their last gazes of each other and tightly grasp each others withered, vine-like hands as they slowly crumble into dust. That to me, as a child, and even now, is the perfect symbol of love. I am a bit strange.

Rugged Northland- Part 2

2009-03-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

The next morning was rainy and we were a little pissed because we were driving to Cape Reinga the northernmost part of New Zealand, the end of the world, the point of departure for the spirits leaving the land of the living and the point at which the Tasman sea and the Pacific ocean collide. We packed up the car, stopped in a store for some yummy breakfast? pies and headed up to the edge of country. Its incredible, there is a lone tree at the departure point for the spirits and no one can explain how it survives there, precariously clinging to the jagged rocks, the ocean constantly pounding its base, breathing in the toxic and salty air. If you are standing face to face with the lighthouse and you look out to the left you can see where the Tasman and Pacific crash into one another; huge waves are conjured out of nowhere and the seas spiral around each other in such amazing patterns. Its really spectacular, and I've heard that on sunny days you can see the mixing of the blue pacific with the green of the Tasman.
From there we headed back down south. Stopped at the irrationally serene oceanside town of Opononi, and visited Jamie's old chicken friend perched at the overlook point. We drove down the windy forest road to the 2000 year old kauri tree, Tane Mahuta, stopped to see some impressively carved 45000 year old kauri trees including the store's very own bored out tree staircase, we saw basalt rock boulders, which Paula and Ryan tell me are the same rocks found in the Blackrock Desert, in some German guy's backyard, some of which he had defaced with gaudy yellow spray paint to make them look more anthropomorphic (the spiny dragon taking a bath in the river was a bit far-fetched). We made it home in time for a thoroughly yummy and partially homegrown meal cooked up by the most amazing tour guides in NZ, Ryan and Paula.

Rugged Northland- Part 1

2009-03-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

Our first road trip in New Zealand! Paula and Ryan graciously offered to drive us around and show us the best bits of Northland! On Friday morning after a delightful breakfast of fresh picked wild mushrooms, bacon, poached eggs and toast we departed for the biggest city in Northland, Whangerei. It was rainy and pretty dismal, the plains on the eastern side of the island were flooded, cows were tip-towing around the fresh marshes searching out little pads of grass. Houses along the road are built precariously on top of barrels and cinderblocks, since I suppose it floods often. The rivers along the sides of the road were swollen and the bridges barely cleared the freshly bulging waters. The sky was still gray and sullen so we decided to see Watchmen. A perfect rainy day activity.
We headed north with no particular destination in mind. The first stop was glowworm caves....closed due to flooding. A bit disheartened we continued on our journey. The skies had completely cleared and we were excited for a day filled with sunshine and good times. We drove to the much acclaimed Bay of Islands only to discover that the ocean had become incredibly muddy due to the floods runoff. We opted not to take a swim. We found an awesome lookout point on the top of a wee mountain, it was cool to see the exact points where the muddy rivers ran into the ocean.
We found another billboard for a glowworm cave AND kiwi house, since we hadn't seen any flooding this far north, we figured it would be open. The directions led us on a dirt road, that kept going and going for 20 km, we felt sure we had been had; there was nothing but abandoned farms and vacant lots of land interspersed with patches of forest. Then we found another sign attached to an electric fence. “Kiwi out Ostrich in” said the small, faded and elusive sign. What the hell does that mean? So we kept on, the dirt road transformed back into a paved road but we still hadn't the faintest idea of where we were going. Then out of nowhere we saw the turn in and ascended the road to the nocturnal house. We turned into an empty parking lot, the cafe was locked up, the tourism pamphlets were sun bleached and covered with spider webs, the entire place was deserted. A weathered, old, tattooed man drove up and offered to show us around for the low price of $10/person, but first he had to get some eel food. He returned with an ice cream container of wet cat food and we followed him down to the river. It was teeming with eels most were 2-3 feel long and slithering up the rocks mechanically opening and closing their mouths. Eels are creepy. He started throwing the cat food into the water and more and more came until there were about 20 eels slithering in the water. We pet a few (they feel just like stingrays) and watched the nearly blind clumsy creatures grab at bits of the cat food we had thrown in the water. Afterward, the man filled up a container with buggy birdseed and we went to see the saddest ostrich who ever lived. He explained that the rent on the kiwi was too much so the “Chinaman” that owned the place had gotten an ostrich instead (kiwi out ostrich in). He said that there had been two but one had died, and it looked like this one was no better off. Ryan bravely held out handfuls of birdseed for the ravenous ostrich. Afterward Ryan suggested that we tell the SPCA since it is probably the worlds most ragged and unhealthy ostrich. Next stop glowworm caves. We took a little wooden track through the forest, the signs were covered with dirt and the path was filled with plant matter that no one had bothered clearing in years. He handed us a flashlight and warned us not to put our hands along the left side of the cave because it was filled with weta's (they look like gigantic crickets) we had a good look around and discovered that it was a pre-fab cave, no doubt built by the dubious Chinaman we had heard so much about. He turned out the lights and we sat awkwardly in the dark waiting for our eyes to adjust, Katie turned to me and whispered, “this is when he kills us”. Slowly tiny little dots of glowing green lights appeared. It looked a lot like a night sky, if stars were day-glo green, the little glowworms tended to live in bunches like tiny constellations. We followed the man along the track to the kiwi house. It was damp and dark and condensation and grime had built up on the glass walls of the deserted habitat. His flashlight swung around illuminating a stuffed kiwi in another tiny display, strange and morbid, behind a slimy glass enclosure. He led us up around the track and back over the tiny river to our car. We asked if there was anywhere in the area to stay the night and he offered us a nice caravan that slept four on his property for $10/person, Paula chimed in with the polite save ,“oh thanks, but we have to get dinner first”. He said that the Chinaman's nocturnal house had been closed down for 5-6 years and that he was maintaining the property and showing around what few visitors had been lured in by the strange and enticing “kiwi out ostrich in” signs along the main road.
We headed up towards Kaitaia, which Lonely Planet describes as, “the highlight of no-ones trip to NZ” And I can honestly say if that is the worst of New Zealand, I can breathe a sigh of relief right now.
We got some deliciously fried road food and headed to the backpackers camp near 90 mile beach. Unfortunately, they were booked solid due to a 3-day fishing tournament at the beach. Irritated, we got back in the car for the thirty minute drive to “Houhora Heaven” Backpackers park. We arrived shortly before nightfall and lucky for us they had one remaining room available. For a mere $20/person ($10 US) we had a bed to sleep in that wasn't in some sketchy old man's caravan. The lady told us there were heaps of fishermen staying the night and that it would be best for us if we were friendly and got on well with them. Tired, hungry and relieved we headed to our cabin. There were indeed fishermen, very drunk fishermen, in our camp. One old man who looked like Santa on vacation, his middle aged son, two Indian gentlemen and one Maori, whose name was Da. They offered us beers and the like and regaled us with drunken nearly incoherent tales. Da said the best way to get a Maori to do anything was to say that he couldn't. As in, “you can’t drive the crane that's on the top of that 40 story building you don't have a license”, to which the Maori will inevitably respond by driving the crane he is absolutely not qualified to drive. Santa told us about a man he had seen coming out of the bush, “he was an Afganistani, no wait he was a Jew. He was an Afganistani Jew” to which his friend replied, “oh, you mean that seagull”. That's pretty much how the night went, they talked nonsense and we laughed, they offered us beers and we happily drank them. They were still going hard when we went to bed and left to fish well before we woke up, essentially, Kiwi fisherman do not fuck around.

Tanuki: An Ode, A Lament

2009-03-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

spindly harbinger of death
curled around my feet at night
lithe and poised, you sit calmly, licking your lips amidst the rain and wind
soundlessly sneaking about the yard
anything that dare cross your path will have its brains removed from its skull
and you, oh considerate feline, will drag the lifeless body inside
a neat pile of corpses
as a gift and offering
thanks for the zombie rabbits
and headless mice

When Dream Died, I Think He Draped His Cloak over New Zealand

2009-03-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

A farm sky is always very dark, as it is unsullied by the vast reaching fluorescence of large hyper-illuminated cities. A farm on the edge of the world has the advantage of being far removed from modern cities as well as largely surrounded by dark, solemn oceans which reflect but cast no real light of their own. This is where I currently find myself, truly appreciating for the first time, just how bright the moon is. Once your eyes adjust to the saturated darkness, you see that the moon (a quarter full on the night I am describing) not only reveals the forms and shapes of the landscape but also offers a sliver of depth for the ill-equipped and often unused rods in my eyes. I can distinctly make out individual trees and see fence posts up on the hillsides. Most things are visible but they are so extremely subdued that they adopt a whole new form. Greens become muted and grayed; they almost look sun-bleached. The road is no longer rocks and gravel but a slightly lighter path that curves into nothingness, the grasses with their sharp blades jutting up from the ground become hazy and blurred against the darkness of the sky. Noises become sharper and anything touching my skin is immediately exaggerated to ten times its actual size in my overwhelmed imagination. My mind races to fill-in the missing pieces and make sense of the entirely new landscape before me. Then I look up. The sky is black, an intense, velvety, endless black. A black of such alarming and profound depth that it is almost frightening. If you could touch the sky it would feel viscous and smooth and thick and soft. The stars are piercing and infinite and some of them dance and a few are pale pink, others clear blue and some are greenish or glow a bright orange. They shoot across the sky frequently and fade into the arrant night. They are decadent push pins holding up the sky (dare I say the sky is bedazzled?) The Milky Way is skim milk and seeps into the unfathomable heights of space. If you stare at one spot for long enough you can see the tiny satellites making their arduous journey across the sky. The plush night sky is immense and consuming, it’s inviting and cold, it’s utterly unbelievable.

That innocent Bible tells about the Creation. Of what- the universe? Yes, the universe. In six days! God did it. He did not call it the universe- that name is modern. His whole attention was upon this world. He constructed it in five days- and then? It took him only one day to make twenty million suns and eighty million planets! What were they for- according to his idea? To furnish light for this little toy-world.
-Satan relating to Michael and Gabriel his incredulity towards the Bible and of human being's unwavering devotion to it's writings in Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain.

First Days in New Zealand

2009-03-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

Before I left for this year-long adventure in New Zealand, people kept asking me, “aren't you nervous?” or some would say, “seriously, you are leaving tomorrow, you haven't packed yet?” The answers were always, “no, I'm not nervous, but I'm sure I will be” and “fuck off, I always pack the night before”. I never got nervous.
Thirteen hours in a plane situated 35,000 feet over the vast expanse of the Pacific, I casually pondered the odds of a successful water evacuation (pull the strings, or, if that doesn't work, manually inflate the life vest using the tubes located on either side). Thank god for 6 consecutive episodes of The Mighty Boosh or I may have taken the consideration seriously. We landed in balmy Auckland at 5am, the airport was just beginning to stir with the anxious excitement of people in transit. We had no idea where our hostel was in relation to the city, nor were we sure how to get there. I asked a cute old lady standing guard at the information desk what to do, she directed me to the airport shuttle bus to Auckland CBD (Central Business District) and we were off. I was never nervous.
We've been in NZ for two weeks now, one week in Auckland and one week outside of Dargaville, no real job leads and no where we need to be. No car to take us there and no idea what we are really in for once we leave the safe haven of these most lovely and beautiful farms along Te Maire Road. I am not nervous.
We have found some promising and not-so-promising Wwoof farms. One farm promoting themselves as heavy on chainsaw work and comedy (Mid-nineties comedian Gallagher have you relocated to NZ?). Or better yet, good old Humpy Patch, where one can make witches brew and play with animal phoo (followed by endless exclamation points). Or, our personal favorite, “we live in a unique situation, there is no electricity or roads..a torch and plenty of insect repellent will be useful...your ideas are always much appreciated”. You know in cartoons when someone has a really good idea and a light bulb goes on above their head...yep? But, there are heaps of really lovely sounding places, so I am not nervous.
Right now as I type, the wind is walloping our tin roofed house, sometimes it sounds like rubber tires are being flung at the base of the house. The rain is pelting down on the Eastern side, distorting the views from the windows, so much so that it looks like the yellow wildflowers are vigorously shaking their tiny little xanthous heads in obstinate disapproval. (Rain-stained windows make nature look angry?) The wind shakes the house as it screams through its cracks and slams its open doors and I do not feel nervous.