MOULD

My summer clothes have grown MOULD.

Mould. How gross can you get? What is WRONG with this country?!?!

It's been bad enough that, for the past 7 months, I've had to limit myself to outfits suitable for sustained (indoor!) exposure to 15C. A damp 15C. I'm a central-heating-phile Canadian... how many friggin outfits like that do you think I own?!?! Maybe 10?

So, much to the disgust of my fashion sense, I've been wearing and rewearing (and rewearing) these ten outfits. FOR SEVEN MONTHS. I look like a homeless fashion victim. My workmates must think I'm living out of a backpack.

But that's ok. Because warmer weather is coming, and maybe one day -- one day -- I'll be able to once again express myself through my beloved clothing. My beloved, painstakingly-chosen, often expensive, and absolutely integral-to-my-sanity clothing. They plead to me, "Karla... Karla... when are you going to wear us again? You havent forgotten about us, have you? We love you!"... to which I, with a heart full of sadness, must say "Soon, soon. The weather is warming, and soon we can be together again."

Today, it was finally a bit warmer. Not warm enough for summer clothes, mind you, but I just couldnt take waiting any longer. I don't care, I'll just be cold. My poor clothes...

So I gleefully pull out all my summer clothes, only to see... green spots? Brown fuzz?! What the -- ?!?!!?

New Zealand's shoddy infrastructure has violated my beloved clothing. My inner sanctum is covered in MOULD. THIS IS NOT OK.

So now, I get to spend my weekend lovingly resuscitating (hand-washing) my beauties. As if I didnt already have enough to do. Mould... what is WRONG with this country?!?!!?

Canada in 45 minutes

I got to my desk yesterday morning and found a very interesting email.

"Hi all,
Unfortunately we haven't got any body to give a talk for our next SM seminar.
Rather than cancelling it, I am wondering if any body who has given a talk/presentation to people outside of SMS recently and is willing to share with us.
If you are keen, please contact me by 12.00pm tomorrow (29/09/06) at x4160.
Cheers,
Nellie"

No presenter, eh? I thought back to the last seminar I attended, which was a colleague speaking of her experiences working for the Office of National Statistics for the UK. She spoke about the project breakdowns, the power structures, and even what the work environment and the building itself were like. There was so much interest, latecomers in the audience had to scavenge chairs from other conference rooms. People were jammed together to listen to this talk.

Surely, I thought, a similar talk on a Statistics Canada experience would be interesting...? Before I knew what I was doing, I talked to Nellie, and she thought it was a great idea.

Gulp.

So now I'm committed... the email notification has gotten out, and I hope there's some degree of interest. It would be embarrassing if no one showed up. :-/

And of course, it's completely impossible to describe vital Statistics Canada philosophies such as complete geographic centralization (despite the vastness of the country) and its utter devotion to bilingualism (an alien concept here), without going into some history.

Augh, History, my old nemesis... what a detested subject! And yet, fairly unavoidable. I guess I'll just leave in the parts with war, drunkenness, beaver-chasing, and burning down the White House.

...Wait, that's all of it, isn't it? ;-) Maybe history isn't so bad after all.

Anyhoo, wish me luck! D-Day is this Thursday.

Pink Ginners Prize Giving

Last night we had the team dinner, where they handed out awards for the year.

I got two! Best Foreign Player and a certificate for my 'player of the day' performance a while back.

Karla got one as well...Best Foreign Supporter. She is a totally deserving recipient of such an honor.

In short, she rocks!

Crazy, nasty politics

Some of you will be astonished that this is my first post about politics in all the time that we've had this blog. I've tried to spare Karla (and you all) from my junkie ways. But what's been happening in NZ politics has been too crazy to resist posting about it.

There's a lot of background I need to explain before the really juicy/crazy stuff. So please stick with me.

To start at the beginning, last November there was an election here. During that election, the Labour Party, led by Helen Clark, mailed out a big batch of what they call 'pledge cards'. Basically they're wallet sized cards that had the key planks of the Labour platform on them, with Helen Clark's picture on the front. These were sent out a few weeks before the election, which Labour eventually won.

Trouble was, it turned out Labour used public money (their parliamentary funding that all parties are entitled to help them function in Parliament) to print and mail out the cards, rather than their own political party money, which is meant to be used for election related expenses. The Chief Electoral Officer said, 'Poor form'. The Solicitor General said, 'Poor form'. And in a leaked report, the NZ Auditor General here has said, 'Very, very poor form'.

The AG's report not only implicated Labour, though. It also implicated all the other parties: the National Party (the main opposition, basically equivalent to the Tories back home), the Greens, United Future (centre rightwing), New Zealand First (rightwing), and the Progressive Party (leftwing).

According to the leaked AG report, the Labour Party had 'misspent' about $400 000, National about $10 000 and the others at amounts somewhere in between. When the controversy broke, the National Party oh so nobly paid back the ten grand that they spent improperly. They then went on a 'pay it back' campaign in parliament and the media to try and force Labour into coughing up the cash, saying they had 'stole the election' using taxpayers' dollars.

Labour replied that the AG was wrong in his assesment, blamed the administrators of the fund for allowing them to use the money improperly, and publicly mused about changing the law to allow publicy funded election campaigns, retroactive to the previous election. After several weeks they said that they simply weren't going to pay the money back, no matter what.

All this gave National all they needed to start calling Labour corrupt, which really ticked Labour off. One of their cabinet ministers, Trevor Mallard, said that he had a bunch of dirt on National MPs and was going to reveal what he knew if they didn't cool it with the corruption talk.

This is when things got really bad. Shortly after this news broke that the leader of the National Party, Don Brash was taking some days off of his duties in Parliament to attend to 'problems in his marriage'. There were rumours that Brash had been having an affair with a very prominent business woman, and that some in his caucus had questioned him on whether the rumour were true. None of this was helped by the fact that Brash had met his current wife while still married to his first. Lots of people were wondering if Brash would survive as leader of National.

Helen Clark and Labour went on the offensive. Clark said that she was looking forward to reminding Brash about 'integrity' in their next question period. Parliament had turned really nasty by this point, and hardly anything could be said in the house without the one side shouting the other down if they were trying to speak.

So pretty ugly right? It gets uglier.

Last weekend a newspaper ran a front page lead story asking if Helen Clark's husband, Peter Davis, is gay. They had a shot of him hugging and possibly kissing another man (a close friend, apparently) at a victory party following Labour's last election win. It then came out that a National activist had written a letter to a newspaper raising questions about Peter Davis' sexuality, though it wasn't clear whether his letter was the catalyst for the barely substantiated front-page story.

Obviously the PM was furious about the report, and blamed National for planting the rumours. National has been furious about the treatment of Don Brash, and blames Labour for stirring up the rumours about his alleged affair. Right now, things seem to be just plain viscious.

The whole sordid series of events seems to be doing tons of damage to the system here. Who would ever want to step into public life if they have to put up with rumours about extra-marital affairs and the sexual preference of their spouses? Most commentators here are calling it a 'new low', and I'm inclined to agree. Even BC politics isn't this mental.

It's Official

...Dave and I have officially felt our first New Zealand earthquake. Or in my case, my first earthquake ever.

We live on a busy street that feeds into a highway, so I had just assumed it was a rather large truck passing. Dave came in, excited, and told me it definitely wasn't... apparently earthquakes feel slightly different than trucks, and anyways, no trucks go by here at ten to midnight. Makes sense.

Apparently earthquakes are very common here, and probably more than a dozen have happened in the last few months, but they have thus far been so inconsiderate as to occur in the middle of the night. For those of you who know Dave and I, it takes a lot more than a little earth-shaking to wake either of us, so we've missed them all.

But not anymore! Hooray!

Beefing up

So before Karla and I left on our holiday, I entered a raffle to support a work colleague's chorus. She and her chorus are raising funds to be in a choral competition in Las Vegas (not a topless choral competition, I was assured).

So, for five bucks in exchange for three tickets, I entered. The prize? A quarter of beef. What's a quarter of beef? Here's a quarter of beef:

Help a friend out, right? Not that a quarter of beef would ever fit inside my apartment sized fridge/freezer. I mean, that would just be a joke, right? Right. But five bucks towards a worthy cause and what are the chances, right?

Well the joke's on me my friends. A lovely woman named Liz left a message this morning while Karla and were still away to let me know that I've won "a huge amount of meat" after being one of the names drawn in the raffle. I have the honor of travelling out to a factory in Petone to claim my prize some time this week.

The question is: what the heck am I going to do with all this beef? There is NO WAY it's going to be able to stay here. Can I rent freezer space? Another thought might be a 'beef party', where we give away free meat after making people enter silly competitions.

Please, any other thoughts? I'm in a fix here, since it is now clear that no good deed goes unpunished.

Help!

Coromandel shout out

Really quick post to say Karla and I have been holidaying in the Coramandel peninsula, near-ish to Auckland. Very pretty and rural with lots of seascapes and mountains. Even thermal springs right on a beach! The only downside is rain rain rain rain rain.

We had a beautiful first day but since then it's chucked it down. We're still having fun though! Tonight we're in Thames, and tomorrow we're back to Auckland for our flight home. Will have lots of pics to share once we get back to Wellington. Karla has been taking some fantastic shots (and I even have a good few in there too). Talk soon!

A Very Good Week

This has been a very good week. Work's been very busy, but it's nice -- the days go by quickly, and it's a welcome change of pace to the still-only-learning mode. My project proposal has gotten approved for funding for the coming year, so work will start on that next week. That will be very exciting to get started on... writing the definitive set of standards and guidelines for Editing & Imputation for all Statistics New Zealand is such a great opportunity to be involved in, let alone leading!!!

More tangibly, however, several other events have made this week especially good. For one, humanity has once again survived SkyNet day (Aug 29... and if you get this reference, you're a nerd too!) ;-) Today, Sept 1, is officially New Zealands' first day of spring, and the weather's been incredible. Bright sunshine, a mellow, dry wind, and a balmy 15C collectively do wonders for the human spirit. You can even see, on the busy streets, people actually smiling and wearing bright colours -- the latter being especially surprising for Wellington, the official capital of black.

Another neat thing about Sept 1 is that it is now exactly 1 year until the wedding. Somehow, it seems realer now. (Naturally, that's a good thing, except for that nagging feeling that I shouldn't be procrastinating as much now!) ;-) Dave, being the romantic gentleman that he is, began the celebrations for our "-1st Wedding Anniversary" by showing up at my work with red roses. He's so great. In another hour, we're getting dolled up to continue the festivities at a fancy restaurant, Logan Brown.

And, as if that wasn't enough reasons to be happy about Sept 1, there's one more... it's the effective date of the PROMOTION I snagged!!!! ^_^ I had kept my application, endorsement procedure, interviews, etc. more or less quiet so as to avoid jinxing anything... but yesterday afternoon I was told that I got it, and with good supporting feedback to boot!

What this means for the job is that I'll be doing essentially the same job, but with more responsibility, more autonomy, and higher expectations with respect to leadership, initiative, involvement and overall job performance and quality. Apparently there's also a bump up in pay, too, but I did this mostly to stretch professionally... and something tells me I definitely will be, soon!

Surprise!

So not many of you will know that this past week, we had a visitor: one Wayne Helgason, father of the lovely Karla.

After busting through customs with some possibly illicit Canadian beef (just kidding--it was totally legit--sort of), Wayne met Karla for her birthday at one of her favorite Wellington eateries: Crazy Horse Steakhouse.

All of this was part of a devious plan concocted by the aforementioned Wayne Helgason and yours truly. See, Karla had no idea her Dad was coming to visit.

Here's how the whole plot unfolded...

1. Wayne has been making plans to come to New Zealand for quite a while now. Almost every time we chatted on the phone, I'd hear: "Looks like things are coming together for my little trip...". This put me in a tough position --I couldn't tell Karla what was going on. But then it's kinda fun to pull a fast one on the one you love , isn't it?
   
   
2. As the day approached and the exact scheduling became clear, I had to make sure of that she didn't decide she wanted to go to Fiji or Australia or somewhere far away to celebrate her birthday. Occasionally she would send me 'hot deals' emails from Air New Zealand about warm, fun, faraway places she wanted to visit. I countered with: "I am deciding what will happen for your birthday. Plans are already advancing. Leave it to me, Missy." Happily, I think she liked my manly decisiveness rather than second guessing my intentions. Crisis averted, in any event.
   
   
3. The next thing I had to contend with was Karla's announced intention to take the day off around her birthday. Originally, it was the actual day of her birthday, August 14th, which fell on a Monday. "No problem," I thought. "She'll just have the day to hang out with her Dad." But then things changed. "I have so many meetings on my birthday!" said Karla, about a week out. "I think I'll take the Friday off instead." This posed a problem, since Wayne was scheduled to arrive on the Friday, and we'd already decided we wanted to suprise her at the restaurant. The last thing we wanted was for them run into each other at the house before the restaurant surprise--that'd just be no fun at all. Cunningly, I'd already made plans to send her to a spa on the day she wanted to take off, so I had a perfect excuse to get her out of the house on the Friday her Dad arrived. Crisis averted, yet again (am I good or what?).
   
   
4. With plans in place to have Karla occupied and out of the house on the day Wayne arrived, I now had to secure the cooperation of the restaurant to make the ruse complete. What Wayne and I had talked about was to get him dressed as a waiter, and then bring out the water/bread etc at which point Karla would see him and be super excited. As it turns out, my friend and workmate Alisa is great friends with the owner of Crazyhorse, and she arranged for us to all sit down and talk about "the vision" Wayne and I had concoted. Luckily, John was more than pleased to help out, and we spoke to his manager, Rebecca, who was also really keen. I also had a brainwave: what if Wayne could bring in some Canadian steak? Would they be willing to grill it for us? Karla loves and misses her Canadian beef, so I thought this would be a nice finishing touch on top of everything else. John said they'd be happy to, which was really great. All this took place while Karla thought I was at rugby practice, so I had to make sure that I looked properly dishevelled when I came in while also being fully dressed. I told her I had been 'out for beers,' which was true. It's just that the beers had happened at Crazyhorse, no more than a block from our house.
   
   
5. Having set all the pieces up, the rest of the time before Wayne's arrival was spent trying not to knock them over. Honestly, keeping myself from letting the plan slip was the hardest part of this whole thing. It was the mundane thoughts and conversations that were the really dangerous ones. Looking at our liquor cabinet one day, I mused out loud: "Geez, I'm going to have to pick up some rum." Karla looked at me funny: "Why? You hardly ever drink rum. You're a beer guy." This is true, so I made some lame excuse about missing the rum slurpees that me and the boys at 222 Gladstone used to drink over the summer. Luckily, she seemed to accept this. But I didn't end up picking up the rum since I knew she'd be wondering what I was up to. Aside from this little episode, there were a tonne of times I wanted to say, "When your Dad is here..." but managed to bite my tongue. Phew.
   
   
6. Finally the day arrived. I hadn't told Karla anything about what was happening to her that day, insisting everything would be a surprise (which made her sort of nervous, I think). So I arranged breakfast and a little card for her that gave her instructions about where and when she was supposed to be, and when I was going to pick her up. I'd also borrowed Alisa's car (she's so nice!) so that I could pick up Wayne from the airport.
   
   
7. The airport took a little time, since Wayne had to do some fast talking to get the Canada prime ribeye steaks through (yumm..). New Zealand customs is notorioulsy tight about plant and animal products. But the regulations were on his side, so he managed to make it through with steaks intact. We then went on our way home, got cleaned up and headed to Crazyhorse. After catching up with Rebecca and the chef, Carlos, I went and got Karla from the spa, while Wayne made all the final preparations at the restaurant.
   
   
8. Karla looked radiant when I picked her up. She looked happy, relaxed and (as usual--I am such a lucky man) drop dead gorgeous. There was a sudden rainstorm that nearly soaked us, but we managed to get a cab to the restaurant without too much trouble.
   
   
9. So we arrived. The manager, Rebecca, called Karla by name, which worried Karla: "Do I know her?" she whispered to me nervously. They seated us at a table near a window, with Karla facing away from the door where Wayne would emerge. We'd also hidden a video camera that Wayne had brought under the pillow where I was sitting. After Rebecca had told us that our waiter, Wayne, would be out to tell us about the specials, I pulled out the camera and started filming.
   
   
10. The next thing we heard was, "Where are those Canadians?" in a booming voice from the back of the restaurant. Karla turned around, already dazed and confused by the appearance of the video camera, to see Wayne strolling towards her. It was a magic. She was so surprised and so happy to see her Dad. She'd even said, just a few days before, how much she was missing her parents and family. I still haven't been able to wipe the smile off my face from helping to give her such a good birthday. The "best ever", according to the lady herself.

Anyway, that's enough from me for now. I'll try and find a way to post the video of the surprise with a little help from Wayne, and provide a few more details of the week. Will be back again soon!

Ok, yes, I'm kinda getting into this...

My favourite website for checking current times around the world also offers a customizeable countdown tool.

I always swore I wouldn't be one of those brides-to-be who could talk of nothing but wedding planning... but who'd have thought the topic was actually so interesting.... ^_^

Winter Gardening

Maybe it's my Canadian Prairie blood, but there's something downright peculiar about plants growing, and even blooming, in winter.

After spending the remainder of our summer tweaking the garden out back, it is finally starting to take shape. I'm glad I followed the advice of the saleslady in getting some "winter-flowering" plants -- "Winter flowering!" my inner voice had retorted, "Pull the other one, eh?". But sure enough, midwinter is here and the white native jasmine is a monster, and a happily blooming one at that. It definitely brightens up the garden.

There's also this wild, purple weed that is in bloom, and it is terribly cute. The picture just doesnt do it justice... it's this lovely light purple colour with darker purple around the edges. And yet, it's a weed here! (Note, that cute weed is NOT the same cute weed marked in my garden... that one is an autumn-flowering hot pink daisy that can and will grow anywhere, but still responds favourably to being removed from one area to another.)

Other than that, the garden picture speaks for itself... except for, perhaps, the zombified herb garden. We buy potted herbs, and watch them die slowly and horribly on our sunny kitchen windowsill despite our best efforts to pamper them. When the plant death-rattles start, we put them out of their misery by burying them in the backyard. Then, lo and behold, they come back, livelier than ever! The oregano and chives are doing well, but we're still waiting on the basil to rise from its grave. Hooray, undead seasonings!

As it turns out...

...apparently Dave, Brian, Nathalie and I were on TV during the All Blacks game. How cool is that? I guess good seats do pay off, eh? ;-)

View from the Cheap Seats

Yesterday, Dave and I headed to the All Blacks test match with Brian and Nathalie. We were very excited to see the match, as this was the only game the All Blacks would be playing in Wellington for the entire year, and nothing really beats seeing such a cool event live. As could be expected, obtaining tickets took some doing -- Dave and Brian had to co-ordinate efforts on the morning of the tickets' availability. Dave stood in line whilst Brian attempted to connect to the ticket office online. In the end, their efforts were rewarded and they were able to purchase four tickets to the coveted event. The tickets sold out rather soon thereafter, which is especially impressive given that the stadium seats 40,000 people!

The weather was fairly co-operative -- no rain, but pretty cold once night fell. The no-rain part was key, however, as part of the reason why our seats were cheap was that they were "uncovered". But no matter... as a true child of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, I know how to dress to the elements. ;-) All the same, it was nice to only deal with a bit of cold air, rather than winter-Wellington in all its fury.

We arrive, and to our great surprise, our seats are right on the pitch, next to the try zone! Better yet, the direction was even ideal, as we got to see the Haka (LIVE!) performed facing us. It was even more powerful in person, and the leftover smoke from the national-anthem fireworks lent a rather eerie effect to the spectacle. What a great way to start, though! The crowd went totally wild.

The South Africa Springboks did fairly well, scoring the first try. That was way on the other end of the field, though... but that means that when the All Blacks score their arguably inevitable first try, it would be RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! So, in the very last minute of the first half, the All Blacks finally came through for that try, and got it handily. The picture is here... how cool is that, to be so close? I can't believe these are the cheap seats!

In the second half, the AB's dominated and won by a 20-point margin. Most of that action happened on the other side of the field, though, as they had switched sides at half-time. Now that we already had our pictures, and that victory was certain, we had more attention to look around... and see a rather familiar-looking flag on the other side of the stadium! (Follow the blue arrow.) Also of note was the stadium victuals, which were a far cry from the Corel Centre's $9 water-beer and $8 hot dogs; for a mere $5, you can get some delicious fish & chips, or a proper-sized, bottled beer. Yum! ^_^

The remainder of the evening consisted of instigating a raucous "Happy Birthday" to a complete stranger, a seat-pillow fight between Nathalie and Dave, and Dave temporarily tailing a guy wearing exactly the same raincoat. Much fun was had by all.

Test Match!

Tomorrow is a very exciting day.

Tomorrow, Karla, Brian, Nathalie and I are going to see an honest to goodness All Black's game here in Wellington. The heroic ABs will take on the South African Springboks tomorrow night at 7:30pm.

The forecast is for a pretty cold 9 degree high and 5 degree low, though the rain (and hail and wind and icy rain again) is supposed to stop tomorrow afternoon. With our uncovered seats, we'll be bundled up good. Will keep you all posted on the results!

South Larf

The other day, in my regular reads of political-type blogs like Calgary Grit and Warren Kinsella, I came across the Frog Lady who has created South Park portraits of Liberal Party leadership candidates. Par example, the estimable Joe Volpe:



Or Patrick's favorite, Hedy Fry:



All eleven of them are there, so definitely check them out if you follow politics at all. Anyway, Karla and I thought these were really funny, so we got busy creating our own portraits. So here, for your amusement, are Karla and I all South Parked out:





















You can try this yourself at the South Park Studio. More to follow, I promise. This has way too much potential. And yes, I'm looking at you Michael Kim.

Viva Italia!

Today, Dave, myself, and many, many New Zealanders woke up at 5:30 AM on a Monday to watch the finals for the World Cup. It was all worthwhile, as a drama-packed game ended with my beloved Italy taking home the Cup after a 5-3 penalty shootout. Well done!

(Now, if only someone could tell me what the hell Zidane was thinking, with that head-butt that probably cost France everything? What was THAT about?)

Trip to the Zoo!

As yesterday was the first nice day in weeks, Dave and I decided to go to the zoo.

(Note of Karma here, because the LAST nice day we had was the one I posted about earlier, where I have the laptop in the backyard. Since then, the rain had been SO bad, the MINISTRY OF DEFENCE was on alert -- apparently, several days straight of heavy winds and rain can cause serious flooding, as well as small landslides. No worries about us, though, as the most part of our rain-related distress was having to walk to work in it. On the bright side, though, Dave and I are now both able to sleep through the ruckus of winter rain, sounding much like endless handfuls of small pebbles being thrown at our windows.)

So, the moral of the story is, I'll avoid bragging about the weather in the future. ;-)

The Wellington Zoo has been a place I've been wanting to go for awhile, partly due to the great ads they have. So, I took Dave on a surprise date, and we went.

One of the neat things about going to foreign zoos is getting to see not only new animals, but often some really familiar ones, too. The first exhibit in the zoo at Rome's central park, Villa Borghese, was a gleefully familiar beast -- the Canada Goose! There weren't any Canada geese here in Wellington, there were some otters, ducks, ostriches, and even a bear. The bear, however, was a Malaysian Sun Bear, which is quite different from our bears. He was smallish, sleek-furred, very skinny, and had a tongue that was probably over a foot long! (For digging bugs out of tree-burrows, apparently.) Very weird... I had no idea there were bears so different from our big, fat, shaggy ones. ^_^

We also saw the Australian versions of both the pelican and the magpie. The pelican was, no joke, as big as Dave, and his bill can hold 13 LITRES of water at any given time. The magpie I had seen before, on a roadtrip, and had wondered whether such a gigantic bird could still be called a magpie. From beak to rump, he's easily two feet. Including the tail gets you another six inches or so. Another interesting difference is that, while both magpie species are cheeky birds, this one has a lovely call. How did we get jipped? ;-)

There were a ton of beautiful creatures to see, but not all of them in cages. Tuis -- New Zealand's national bird -- were everywhere, and we got to hear their very strange calls. (Here and here are some examples...) There were so many sounds in each call, from door-squeaks to flute ditties to video game blips and bleeps, it was hard to believe that all the sounds came from one species.

Other than that, we saw some wild dogs from Africa being fed. In spite of being made minorly ill, I still applaud the fact that they were fed proper carcasses, whole. We got there after they'd been working at it awhile. It had been possibly a kangaroo or a possum. It was nice to see that humans running a zoo would respect wild animals' proper, natural state of eating, but I wasn't unhappy to leave that exhibit behind.

Some animals were more cooperative than others when being photographed. The Red Panda had nothing to do with us at all (all we could get was pictures of his butt), whereas our Sun Bear friend was a downright diva. Another flirt was this green parrot, who came right up to the bars when I got close. Then again, given the "Watch out, he bites!" sign on his cage, it might not have been to say "hi". ;-) Still, he was very cute.

There were a series of riots at the chimp house (which Dave would always rush back to go see), a great view of the city, zebras, lions, tigers, baboons, giraffes, and even a rare form of Australian sheep. Dave made up funny stories about some of the animals, and even enlightened me with his interpretation of the Egyptian heiroglyphs outside of the baboon grounds -- apparently, the story is that of "The Pharoh's Sacred Underpants", to which he is pointing.

It was a great time, but my favourite part was this particular peculiar duck. After walking around for the whole day, we were almost completely ignored by the animals. (Naturally, this is what should happen... but one always dreams of having that moment between oneself and a beautiful creature...) Anyhoo, we make our way to the aquatic birds section, and walk by indifferent ibises and aloof kookaburras, then arrive at a rather large but seemingly empty cage allegedly holding the Mandarin Duck. I spot him waaaay at the back, but then become totally shocked as he barrels straight for us!!! I don't think I had ever seen a duck run before, let alone run AT me, but it was a scream. He then talked to us, posed up a storm, and followed us around a bit. What a darling.

So, totally exhausted, we ended the day with a large bowl of fries in the attatched cafe. What a great time!

Comments

Heya all! I've figured out how to set the comments page so that anyone can do it, account or no... hopefully I'll hear from a few more of you. :-)

Chocolate Fish?

I'm only just starting to get used to Kiwi slang. For instance, our own slang of "rooting for" a particular team cannot be used here, as "root" is slang for the verb-form of the f-word. And thus, saying you are rooting for the Italian footy team gives ENTIRELY the wrong message. ;-)

Another oddity is the New Zealand chocolate fish, which is a term for a generic, trivial prize for getting a task done, or figuring out a problem. It's been said in casual situations, but also in meetings and even in some courses I've taken. "A chocolate fish to the first person to figure out this complicated mathematical proof!" (Sadly, though, that proof was so scary that I would have needed a lot more incentive than even chocolate to try wrestling with it.) :-/
Indeed, there are actual chocolate fish, and whether the saying or the product came first, one can only guess. These are usually pink-marshmallow fishes covered in chocolate, and are frequently served with hot, sweet beverages of either the caffeinated or non-caffeinated variety. (And allow me to say, nobody does mochaccinos like the Kiwis! It's like mega-chocolate overload in a cup, with a faint but distinct coffee undertone.)

But all of this is background, so that I might tell you about one of Wellington's most famous cafés -- The Chocolate Fish. It is on a secluded peninsula, inhabited by incomprehensibly rich Kiwis on one side. On the other side is the hub of Wellington's film industry, where much of Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Narnia, and a number of other films were based out of. Needless to say, The Chocolate Fish gained extra panache when all those movies' stars would frequent there during filming, and even rave about it in interviews. Liv Tyler is the restaurants' most vociferous fan... personally, I'm shocked to discover that she eats at all. ;-)

Surely all this publicity and popularity has ruined what might have been originally a hip and obscure gem of New Zealand. Coupon book in hand, Dave and I set forth to find out for ourselves.

The only way to get there is by car, and luckily enough, we were able to borrow one from a friend of Dave's. Of the two routes to get there, we took the shorter, but far more harrowing option that involves all kinds of hairpin turns, blind corners, and sheer cliff-like drops gnawing at the sides of the road. (Next time I'll push for the lengthy but ultra-scenic around-two-bays-and-the-whole-peninsula route!) We finally arrive nearby and park, but I had underestimated the amount of walking to the address of the restaurant. Luckily, it is a beautiful walk. One one side is a secluded beach with big rocks that look more like movie props imitating what beach rocks should look like. On the other side of the one-lane road are stunning houses with well-kept gardens and expensive cars in the driveways. Apparently Peter Jackson, who is considered with all the same nearly-irrational level of awe and reverence by Kiwis as Wayne Gretzky is by Canucks, lives in this district. It's pretty obvious why. ^_^

Having only an address to work with, we had no idea what kind of building to be looking for. We did know we were getting closer upon seeing an unusual road sign, "Waiters Crossing". After chuckling a bit, we found our destination.

The Chocolate Fish is noticeable first for its colour -- the whole building is painted a vivid greenish turquoise, which contrasts with the grey winter day, and most definitely clashes with its stately neighbours.

Despite the cold day the place was still a flurry of customers, and Dave and I were lucky to get a table right away. The first thing I noticed were the chairs, which were individually hand-painted according to zany themes. Dave's favourite was the Cookie Monster chair, whereas I was particularly bemused by another seat -- the Austin Powers chair. Equal parts comic and disturbing, the backrest has a groovy ultra-60's paint job of his catchphrase, "Yeah, Baby!", while the seat itself sported a stylized caricature of Austin Powers'... face. I can just see it now... some couple on a date, getting seated, and her looking down and exclaiming,

HER: "Honey, I seem to be sitting on Austin Powers' face!"
HIM: "Better you than me!"

Yes, while there are plenty more witty responses possible, we were far too hungry to dwell on them. I went to the counter to order, as is usually done here, and dealt with an extraordinarily jovial waiter. He wanted to hear all about Canada, how we were finding NZ, whether this was our first time at The Chocolate Fish, etc, and then upon taking my coupon, slyly informed me of their lesser-known sister cafe, The Chocolate Frog, which is positively wonderful, I really should go, and did I know that there's a coupon for that in the same book? I walked away from that encounter feeling energized, overwhelmed, and with a curious need to go visit The Chocolate Frog... (I never have been able to resist shamless plugs from restauranteurs -- they almost invariably have such good taste.)

The food was delicious. Dave had some sort of Ultra-Breakfast sandwich, and I had pancakes with seasonal berry coulis. The coffee was great, and they even have little amaretti cookies to go with them. Mmmm...

Then I recognized the decor... the bright, hand-painted menu signs, local artists' works of all styles and colours, a large, stylized mirror so everyone could enjoy the view of the water, and crazy chairs scattered throughout. The Chocolate Fish is precisely the New Zealand version of The Glass Onion! (Point of info: The Glass Onion is the cafe where I worked during uni summers, from which I gained an inordinate number of fun and zany stories.) Something tells me that if Fokke and Cathie had started a restaurant here, it would have been The Chocolate Fish.
:-)

Winter

So it is nearly Canada Day, and it is winter here in New Zealand.

For most folks (including me, before we moved here), the idea of winter in the South Pacific conjures up ideas of palm trees, sunshine and pleasantly warm temperatures.

Here in New Zealand, however, winter is winter. It does not mess around. And here's the proof. Below are three shots taken of roads in the North Island just this week. It is on what's called the Desert Road, which comes from Wellington and takes you to places like
Taupo (scroll down to April 4th on this one), which Karla and I visited back in April. Honestly, it is a desert there--a sort of sagebrush grassland that looks a lot like the Okanagan back in BC.

Anyway, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Here in Wellington, things are just plain rainy rather than snowy (thank the Lord!). But New Zealanders are tough to get through all this. Remember, there is no insulation in the houses here, hardly any central heating, and power outages have been happening all around the country as a result of the bad weather.

Down on the even colder South Island, there are still a few hundred people without power. Either you've got a wood fire, or you're frozen out, basically. So there's quite a few people living in motels down there at the moment.

Not Canada cold, that's for sure. But pretty bloody cold nonetheless.

UPDATE: The NZ Herald says there are more snow storms on the way... :' (