Hutt Valley and Ferry Back to Picton

On the drive from Napier to the ferry terminal in Wellington, we enountered a sign for a model railroad and cheese shop. We took the exit and traveled down a road to someone's family farm. A lady came out of the house and gave us some samples of Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese, which turned out to be award-winners at some London cheese event and were also served to Prince William and Kate and their little boy, George, when they were in New Zealand. We bought a $20 block of the full cream cheddar which was very tasty and were on our way.

In the Hutt Valley, we stopped at some Lord of the Rings sites, including the first one that has been marked -- Rivendell. They left a smaller-scale stone arch to commemorate the time spent filming there. We stood on the spot Legolas had gotten his promo photos for the movies. It was well worn!

Rivendell was set up here.

Fords of Isen

Where Gandalf and Saruman were walking in the Gardens of Isengard

After passing so many dairies which almost all have signs for CookieTime cookies, I finally looked up their company history online and discovered that the founder essentially pirated the Nestle Toll House cookie recipe from his time spent in the U.S. and marketed it to New Zealanders. This explains why one of my students asked me how I got my chocolate chip cookies to taste just like the CookieTime ones!! It's a little upsetting that people think these are a uniquely New Zealand cookie. The guy just cut the chocolate pieces into large chunks so they're "chocolate chunk". (It is hard to find actual chocolate chips here also.)

not my picture - I have yet to try one of these

The ferry was a bit rockier this time, but it made better time and arrived over half an hour early. We checked into Picton's Villa Backpackers Lodge hostel, which as promised online served us warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's hard to beat that kind of hospitality.

Last look at Wellington before boarding the ferry

Making Acquaintances

I met several new students this week, and the conversations began with my prompting, so I'm discovering how easy it can be to make acquaintances in a new place if you just put in a little bit of effort and initiative. Granted, I started the conversations knowing they were probably Americans so we had something in common, but it turned out we shared other interests as well.

After hearing one young lady discuss her love of baking, I noticed she said "cookies" instead of biscuits, so I asked her where she was from. Turns out she was from California but has lived here for many years so her accent is a combo American-New Zealander. She was already walking with another young lady, so I met her as well and she was from Britain. We all stopped and chatted for a bit about what we were studying and then some of the cultural differences we had encountered. It ended with friending on Facebook which will hopefully enable some future hang-outs.

Later in the week, I had been breezing through Dune Messiah in the student lounge at school and was getting up to go to lunch when I overheard an American couple eating lunch nearby. They were talking about the housing crisis and someone they knew who was being too picky about the neighborhood (I had to agree with them - you can't afford to be picky in this city). I decided to ask if they were Americans since they sounded friendly enough. Sure enough, they were and even better, they were from San Diego so we got nostalgic together about the good and the bad of living there. It had been getting too crowded for them so they opted for a big change. We exchanged info and they are actually living just one suburb away from us. I am proud of myself for taking some risks and glad to have been rewarded with some new acquaintances from other departments. You never know what one conversation can spark!

My meeting with my supervisors went very well. It is nice to be able to talk science fiction on an academic level with people who really know their stuff. And to get a generous chunk of time in which to so: three-hour meeting! It goes by fast when you're jumping from books to theories to movies to culture to education and so on.

weather was very strange yesterday - there was a glowing haze everywhere and then this rainbow appeared