Another chapter in the mundane life in New Zealand ...

Petone Winter Carnival

We fought the typical Wellington crowds yesterday at the Petone Carnival. That is we ended up parking a block away from our meeting location! The hardships of living in Wellington.

At 11:00am we met our friends Andrew, Cheryl and their children Jacklyn, Rachael, and Megan for a day full of adventure. The first few hours of which were at the fair.

Petone is the far north community on Port Nicholson Harbour (wellington harbor) It took us 15 minutes to drive there from the house (including time to find parking!)

Pretty much a typical carnival, a few rides geared towards younger kids. (Dennis loved them.) Overpriced food and the ubiquitous Wellington coffee merchants. In this case I counted four traveling coffee vendors all of which made premium coffees.

The fair started at 11:00am and continued until after 7:00pm. In addition to rides, foods and other vendors there was chalk drawing, petting zoo, costume contest fireworks, sculpture and a few beach fires - more about those later.

The costume contents was coupled with a polar plunge. Yes contestants had to run down the beach into the water and go swimming. This was greeted with typical kiwi enthusiasm to dressing up with many folks just itching to go for a plunge in their costumes.

The beach sculptures were quite interesting with many teams building a wooden something or another to show case their favorite group. However with everything kiwi there is a twist. These sculptures were to be burnt just before the fireworks. Wonderful beach fires. The best sculpture by far was the driftwood guy. He had a nice collection of drift wood dogs watching him build a driftwood horse. It was a hunting theme afterall! I went up and stuck up a conversation with him. He loves building these things and goes from event to event. He had no problems seeing his creation going up in flames - says he enjoys watching the children's reaction to the fire. And you do get to see the children's reaction to the fire. In a typical kiwi fashion the burnings took place with everyone bunched up around the platforms. They burned them one at a time and we just went down the beach in a crowd. I was about 15' away from the fires myself and the kids were all lined up on the rope with their faces aglow.

After the burning the fireworks! Let me tell you they were excellent! Fifteen minutes worth all very close right off the end of the pier. They surprised everyone with a few water based explosions. A simple array of flares coming out of the water. As these were nearer, and did not go as high they had a different feel than the typical fireworks a nice touch. You can read all about them here http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0907/S00274.htm

I like the picture I took of the driftwood guy with his half finished creation. It shows Wellington in the distance quite well. Click on it go get a bigger view. And here is a link to his details in case you ever want a driftwood creation for your yard :) http://www.myspace.com/driftwoodguy

Rosetta Road

Have you ever driven the road north of Wellington? Left those harbor lights and climbed the number one?

We saw a great move! Second Hand Wedding. You must watch it. Close down the computer and go rent the movie. It is a beautiful description of family relationships with just excellent acting.

To Chris and I it did not seem overly Kiwi yet it was definitely a movie made in New Zealand with New Zealand actors. It will give you a great intro to life down here. The backdrop of the movie is Rosetta Road on the Kapati Coast. We have friends who live there and many of the scenes were familiar to us.

It left me feeling nostalgic I had seen that part of the country. I have driven the road north from wellington. This place is more and more home each day.

The Earthquake

Many of you have called e-mailed us today asking if we were okay. Thank you for your concern! To the rest of you (who I am sure were waiting for the hub-up to die down and were going to call) we are fine.

We felt the earthquake. Which is saying something as Invercargill is a at the far south end of the south island and we are on the North island. The quake was 7.8 on the Richter scale and apparently caused some mayhem down there. You can read all about the quake here ...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10584885

Tom

Nice picture

The Second Ridge-line ... for the fourth time.

We (the family) went up to the second ridge-line this afternoon. In route Chris told me that it is known as the skyline walkway around here, so I learned something new today.

Not much has changed in the past 11 months (first time I went up there was August 17th 2008 - well that is when I posted the results of my first walk) the gullies are still there, the path is still the same, the views are still amazing. Nothing has changed, that is not quite true ... I have changed.

What I distinctly remember my first time up there was how tired I was at the top of the hill. Today when we got to the top I glanced to my left at the place where I had sat down to catch my breath the first time. However I had no need to rest today, just kept on walking to one of my favorite spots up there.

So after 11 months of daily walks to and from the Ministry of Health, that is 2 kilometers one way including up a 200 meter hill evening, has put me in good (relatively) shape. Not a bad outcome after my first year in New Zealand.

Got to love those hills!

Here we are at the top over looking one beautiful valley or another ...

Temptation

For just over two months I have been on the wagon, I fell off yesterday. While I was at the local shell station waiting to hire a trailer to take our old lounge set to the dump I was faced with an assortment of candy bars. None of them interested me until I saw the peanut slabs.

Peanuts slabs you ask? Words cannot do them justice. Just amazing chocolate that is used to hold together peanuts.

I was introduced to these wonderful confections my first month in New Zealand. Someone dropped one on my desk at work I took one bite and was lost. The chocolate melts in your mouth, the peanuts are roasted to a turn, and together it is heaven.

I promptly went out and purchased another, and another and another. Soon I started hiding 1/2 kilo bars in my desk, at home and in my briefcase. I was hooked. It got better after I gave up my office at MoH, I was only able to hide bars at home. I told Chris about my problem and she graciously volunteered to help me kick the habit. So whenever she found a peanut slab around the house she would thoughtfully eat it for me.

After Chris had some success finding the peanut slabs she redoubled her search efforts and soon I could not keep them in the house. Chris would find them as quickly as I hid them and they would be gone! I went through withdraw symptoms and soon found that the disappointment of loosing my peanut slabs overcame my desire to eat them. So I hid less and less (for some reason Chris did not seem very happy at this turn of events) and soon they started to fade from memory.

Then yesterday I saw them again. The emotions came flooding back and I purchased one as I picked up the trailer. Ate it quickly and picked up another when I dropped off the trailer. I write this blog entry in hopes that telling the world about my problem will somehow give me the strength to not go to the store today.

http://www.whittakers.co.nz/beantobar.aspx

Please count to five ...

Said the police officer in Porirua over the weekend.

I was driving home Sunday evening from a friends house in Kapiti and ran into a police road block. They simply shut down one lane of the two lane road and funneled everyone through officer friendly with a breathalyzer. It was quick, painless and scary.

Scary you ask? It reminded me of my time in Zambia. Where a simple drive between towns was invariably met with a road block. Frequently those road blocks were supported by 50mm machine guns. The questions were slightly different, in Zambia they checked drivers license, vehicle registration, and for xpats their passports.

However the similarities were startling.

Photo Booth

Now that I have a Mac Dennis is in love with the camera. He has taken to asking about Photo Booth every day. This is some of his workmanship over the past week...

"You have people over here that love you."

Those were the final words from a friend who called me just now (9:55pm Saturday evening.) The friend, Tristan, is my son's soccer coach.

He noticed that the past two weeks on the field I have not been myself. (Yes - That would mean the loudest person on the sideline. Cheering for all the kids in-between cheers for my son.)

He is well aware of the pain and joy of this move to New Zealand has been for the family. And we talked about options for work. He suggested that I check out sydney when I am there next month on holiday.

Then the conversation turned to our visa status (very good) and Tristan said something really touching. He said that he would hate to see us go (natural thing to say) but then he went on to say that they (Amber his wife) consider us one of their close friends and he does not want to see us go.

Three Days in the village

After 14 months in New Zealand my last day at the Ministry of Health was this last Tuesday. As the project I was working on came was coming to an end I chose to get going on my new life. I was sent off in an appropriate Kiwi manner with little fan faire during the day, and much beer during the evening.

This contrasts with my experience at Accenture where I was told at 10:00am that I would be leaving by noon. Then I was all but escorted out the door. Here in MoH I had plenty of time to arrange my affairs before I left.

Then after I left Accenture the only time I saw anyone who I had been working with was by prior arrangement. Here in Wellington I have run into quite a few people with whom I use to work. The list is fairly long actually.

Just today Frank called to me across Lampton Quay and we spoke for 15 minutes. There have been quite a bit more chance encounters as I go about my business here in Wellington.

This place is a village. I truly love it.