Hello fellow friends and family, I am reporting from Wellington, New Zealand and this is my first time writing in a blog. Obviously, i am not my fathers daughter. :) We arrived in New Zealand almost 2 months ago although it doesnt seem that long. We had an amazing trip around the south island and now we are comfortably settled in our beautiful house in Wellington. I started Wellington Girls College two weeks ago and i am really enjoying it. I have made some really good friends and everyone is really nice. My two best friends so far are Catie and Lucija. This friday is Athletics Day and we are dressing up as crayons :) cheers, Katie the Kiwi
Since I know my mom won't consider my tremendously long post about New Zealand electrical outlets as fulfilling my duties to keep her posted about the important things (read: her grandchildren), I offer her (and you) some pictures of the Wellington Botanic Gardens.
We've lived in cities with gardens, zoos, etc before and we've always visited and been impressed and such, but Wellington's Botanic Gardens is something special. Perhaps just because we take Alison there almost every day, these gardens feel more "ours" than pretty much anywhere in Wellington (save our house).
And these gardens are impressive: huge and quite beautiful. The land was set aside for this purpose in 1868, which is particularly amazing considering that Wellington was settled by Europeans in 1840. They have beautiful flowers (of course), but also a fantastic playground, duck pond, treehouse-based visitors' center, and even a cable car that takes you from the top of the gardens (with a fantastic view of the city) down to the quays. I think my favorite part of it all are all the paths that wind through the garden, with nooks & crannies just waiting to be explored. At this point, most of my "exploring" has been limited to the path that takes us from the main gate to the playground, but I'm hoping for more time to explore on my own. Maybe when I take up jogging again.*
In the meantime, a few snapshots to sate your appetite, Mom:
I am only very vaguely aware that there are 10 more hours of the Bush presidency.
Every day I think that we’ve gotten to the most beautiful spot we will hit. Today we arrived in Milford Sound. It is like the Pacific Northwest on steroids. It is foggy (as I think it almost always is), and when we look upwards, we can’t see how high the mountains are around us. We are at ocean level, and the mountains go straight up. It’s unbelievably pretty. There are waterfalls everywhere, down the rock faces of the mountains. Everything is green. It smells like the Olympic Peninsula. We arrived at dinnertime, and have just settled into our bunks this evening (we’re staying in a hostel, which is a fun change). Tomorrow we will go on a cruise around the sound, and I’ll be able to give a fuller report.
It’s been days since we’ve done any entries. Dug got sick about five days ago, and he got really, really sick. The sickest I think I’ve ever seen him. His fever spiked at 103.5 while we were staying in Christchurch. He had chills for several days, and developed a terrible rash two days ago. He’s also had a terrible cough, and it seemed to be getting worse. We took him to urgent care in Dunedin, where they told him he had a virus and prescribed aspirin. Yesterday was the first day he seemed to be improving, and it seems to be going in that direction now (though he has no voice today). He finally has energy, and seems to be enjoying the views. It was a really rough few days, with him feeling so awful and me doing most of the handling of everything else. There is a lot of caretaking to do while travelling, not just figuring out food and daily activities, but also emotion management, as the girls are starting to feel quite homesick (I’m hoping it will subside somewhat when school starts and they both develop friendships). Ali has been a handful, developing a healthy two year old personality by asserting herself quite vocally and forcefully. She’s also been keeping us thoroughly entertained, so we’re glad to have brought her along.
We loved Dunedin, and I kept thinking how glad I am that Ruth (Dug’s mom) is visiting and taking a week there. It is a lovely city, lots of old architecture, and a very Scottish feel (we got to go to Scotland for three days without actually having to go to Scotland itself in the middle of the winter).
Yesterday we ventured out from the city to the Otago Peninsula, which I think is my vote for the most beautiful place we’ve yet been. It is hilly, sheepy, and is surrounded by a coastline on which we were able to observe albatross (the world’s largest species, with a 10 meter wingspan, I think—will have to fact check that one before publishing), seals, and yellow-eyed penguins (the rarest species, and we saw them from feet away at a penguin conservation site). To see the penguins, we walked a ways, and it was an absolutely lovely walk. We saw a lot of seals, including one that started on the beach and waddled its way into the water (nifty only because most of the seals we’ve seen thus far don’t seem to do much moving at all, and the movement is generally just to flop themselves to another side for sunning).
With Dug sick, the girls and I found a nearby restaurant that we liked, and had three of our meals there. It felt like an English pub. They delivered the girls desserts with little New Zealand flags and those funny little umbrellas you get in drinks. Ali loved it. I also did shopping excursions with each of the girls. Meg’s Christmas present to me was a sweater, and there was a lovely sweater store on the main square (main octagon, really). I went in three times before finally deciding to purchase the sweater that I fell in love with (it was outrageously expensive). The store owner was delighted to tell me all about the different kinds of wool used in NZ, and to advocate for the use of possum (she seemed to feel the need to defend it, which I imagine is common with the American audience). Stores here have funny opening hours: with her, I asked when she would be open the following morning, and she said 9:30. When I arrived the next morning a little after 10, she said that she was glad to see me and that she had gotten herself out the door that morning with a reminder that she had told me 9:30 (seemed to me that she opens whenever she arrives). Many stores and restaurants say “open 11 a.m. until late,” which doesn’t seem particularly informative. Perhaps it just means that they close whenever the last person leaves.
Also in Dunedin we saw two girls playing bagpipes/drums and doing Scottish dancing. Ali and I stayed to watch for about an hour. It’s unclear to me why bagpipes get such a bum rap, yet so many people seem to romanticize them at the same time. Someone want to explain that one to me?
January 14, 2009 (actually, February 16, 2009, as I am writing this a bit after the fact…) Kaikoura Sara
This is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The ocean is to one side, the mountains to the other. For much of the drive down, there was almost no land between the ocean and the rise of the mountains (enough room for a road, but no one seemed to live along there). Kaikoura is the first plateau (not the correct geographical term—big flat space) we’ve seen. We are staying in the Donegal House Bed and Breakfast, which is run by a big Irish family, and has an Irish pub/restaurant attached. We have two separate rooms, as we will several times throughout our journey, and Katie and Meg have settled happily into theirs. The rooms all exit onto a long porch, which leads out onto lovely gardens and a duck pond.
While in Kaikoura, we did whale watching (Dug with Katie, and me with Meg later in the day), and went out to Kean Point to see the seal colony. The abundance of marine life here is astonishing. We also went to a lavender farm, which is another reminder of the pacific northwest for us. Purple is a wonderful color.
I could easily see this being a regular vacation spot for us if we lived in the same hemisphere.
It is indescribably beautiful here. I don’t generally buy into the “it’s paradise” shtick, but it is, and we are here. I love the beach and the ocean, and this particular beach/ocean is qualitatively different from the others I have been to (Nantucket, Florida, Mexico). It’s quiet, breezy, palm trees and sand everywhere, birds singing, water as clear as glass, and people who love children (especially Ali-sized ones) everywhere. Ali now says “bula!” (hello/welcome/cheers) to people walking by. Meg thinks perhaps we should spend our sabbatical right here.
We have had a really stressful few weeks leading up to being here, and I think both Dug and I (and to a lesser degree the girls) are slowly letting go of the stress. The beauty of this island is pushing the stress away, and by the time we head to Wellington in three days, I think we’ll be ready for another round of decisions to be made, details to attend to.
I have been surprised at all the reminders of Australia (and perhaps New Zealand; we aren’t yet well enough educated to tell the difference) there are here. Most people we meet are from Sydney, and Australian accents abound. I keep seeing things that remind me of my time there—the massive vats of tomato sauce (like ketchup, but a bit thinner and slightly less sweet, and I LOVE it), the chewy candy, and meat pies. It’s funny how tangible the food memories are. I was expecting reminders in New Zealand, and it’s fun to get them a bit early. I really like this part of the world.
The word of the day yesterday was (according to Ali) that “we all have butts.” The declaration was made in response to a story being told (you don’t need to know the story), and was repeated many times throughout the day. It seems a good reminder for us all.
I still have a bit of organizing/planning to do for our South Island trip, so will sign off.
Ah, travel. A special time when you can meet new people, sample their food, see how they live, learn about their culture, and look for those special little rarely noticed customs that let you think to yourself, "Well, that's a stupid way of doing things." We're going to be in New Zealand for about six months, and during that time I've decided it would be a service to you, dear reader, and the international community at large, if we were to compare and contrast various aspects of the Kiwi life with those of the good ole US of A in our newest blog feature:
US vs. NZ: the Good, the Bad, and the Sweet As
In each of our featured posts, we'll cover a specific aspect of Kiwi culture or life and compare it with the same aspect back in the states. Then we'll decide whose is better. Because if someone doesn't win, what's the point?
For our first US vs NZ post, let's talk electrical outlets. (I can already feel your excitement.) Seeing as how I spent a good part of our first days here trying to figure out how to get our various computers, iPods and whatnot plugged in, it was one of the first things I noticed. The shot I took this morning is of a standard outlet in our house; and as far as I can tell, it's the norm. Single outlets are all like this; double outlets are the same, but with two sets of switches/holes stacked atop each other. As you can see, the top two holes slant together, meaning that you can't turn an ungrounded plug upside down, as you can in the states. This could be annoying, but it's far superior to those US plugs with one side bigger than the other. The real difference, of course, is the switch. As far as I've seen, every outlet has its own switch. When the switch is on (as shown), the outlet is hot; when it's off, the outlet is dead. Pretty straightforward. As you can imagine, this generally means that people leave the switch on all the time, and there certainly have been times when we've been worried that the appliance is dead, only to discover that the outlet was off. So there are probably those kiwis who just think it's an inconvenience. But I can't imagine that this doesn't in some small way both reduce electrical accidents and save energy. It may seem silly, but pressing that switch is a lot easer than unplugging your laptop or figuring out how to turn the TV OFF instead of going into STANDBY mode. Converter bricks and standby modes consume a lot of wasted energy, and a concerted effort to switch off the outlet would likely mean a big step towards a greener America... if we had a switch in every outlet like the Kiwis do, which we don't and never will... so never mind.
WINNER: Score one for the Kiwis and their energy-saving outlets, whether or not they're actually used as they should be.
I've not been writing here as often as I want, and I've had some people who wanted to write comments on the posts here and couldn't and well... my answer was to move the Steen Family Journal to somewhere new. Here, that is.
If you have thoughts or suggestions or what-not, let me know: dug@pobox.com.
I know that I've mentioned this to many folks already (you among them, I imagine), but I can't help but add a post about it because it's so freakin' unbelievable to me.
On the right, you can see a few shots I took this morning of our neighbor's house. In the top photo, you can see that our fence is the dividing line between the properties and though I didn't take a shot of it, the fence ends at the inside corner of our TV room, which means that the back window of that room is also a dividing line and if we could open it (which we can't) we could crawl through onto his property. In the bottom photo, you can see how many windows of his house are visible from our bedroom window. The bottom building is a garage-like out-building, but the top windows are part of the house proper.
None of this would be worth commenting on, were it not for the fact that our neighbor is John Key, current prime minister of New Zealand.
Frankly, this blows me away. Having just come from doing political work in the states, it's seems absolutely insane. We are living quite literally a stone's throw from the leader of the country and we've not heard a peep about it from anyone in the government or security or anything. To be fair, it's not his primary residence (that's in Auckland with his family), but supposedly he spends nights here during the work week.
What's it mean? I have no idea. But the fact of it has been driving me crazy. So I offer it to you.
Those of you keeping score at home may have noticed that I've skipped the whole of our two-week south island trip. That wasn't really intentional, but due to a whole set of factors that include a virus plaguing both Sara and I (in serial, thank goodness, not parallel) I never got around to putting all the South Island photos online.
Now that we're back and things have started up around here, I figured trying to catch up by going back and posting those pics day by day (or even city by city) would only mean I'd never get around to posting the pics we're taking now and eventually I'd get so far behind that I'd end up posting our final NZ pics in between games of bridge at our retirement home. So instead of that, I'm going to use our South Island trip as a basis for my first MS Silverlight project... more on that later.
In the meantime, I offer this video, which is probably the funniest one I've ever shot. I felt a little guilty putting it on YouTube in order to post it here, but well ... not sharing this with you simply wasn't an option. Enjoy.
Unbeknown to us, our first weekend in Wellington contained a conflagration of two rather major events here: Waitangi Day and The Sevens. Waitangi Day is something like New Zealand's Fourth of July: it's a celebration of the day that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed and New Zealand was founded. It's also a bit of Columbus Day, seeing as how the treaty reads differently in English and Maori, which has unsurprisingly led to protests centered around the day itself. But it seemed to be your typical public holiday: schools out, festivals in the city, politicians speaking, corn dogs, activist booths and so on. Lots of people and a little bit crazy.
The Sevens, in contrast, are a lot crazy. They're centered around an annual international tournament of a popular variation of rugby called "sevens" because there are seven players instead of the standard fifteen. Ten years ago, Wellington was one of the first cities to host the tournament, and somebody got the idea that people should dress up in costumes for the game and/or the parties surrounding the game. And as often happens with things like this, the costuming has now almost outstripped the games.
At this point I imagine that our American friends and family may be imagining some US event that involves costuming... like Halloween maybe, or St Patrick's Day in Boston. But I gotta say that the people of Wellington were downright impressive with their commitment to A) costumes and B) partying. We spent parts of the tournament days wandering around downtown and I'd say that people in costume outnumbered those not in costume by maybe 10 to 1. Furthermore, the costuming was almost all group-based: dozens of Flash Gordons or Duff Beer guys/girls or Waldos.
As for partying: there were several reminders in the paper and around town that the downtown business district is "liquor-free". This, we decided, must not include beer, because the number of people (mostly college-age guys in this case) wandering around with beer bottles at 10am on the first day of the party was a little scary. And according to the newspaper the official downtown party was to last until 6am on Sunday.
Well, this was obviously something that we needed to part of, so on Saturday afternoon we put stuffed animals on our heads, wrote USA on our faces and ventured out. We got enough strange looks and attention to satisfy the girls and then we headed home to watch rugger on the telly. A fine day, to be sure.
ps Sara & Katie were downtown today and discovered they're also celebrating Chinese New Year this weekend. Just what hungover Wellingtonians need! Fireworks!
