Wrapping up in Christchurch and on to Auckland

I wound down the year with a conference in Wellington, which was great as always. It focuses on the cultural heritage sector and exciting innovations in the digital space, but also has critical and introspective looks at where improvements are needed and how to foster more diversity. We hit up the waffle shack hole-in-the-wall place like last year, which has overpriced but good sugar-laden waffles with toppings.

We also visited Zealandia, the predator-free wildlife preserve that has lots of native birds and other wildlife and that is probably my favorite spot in Wellington. It rained on us for the first third of the hike around, but after that it cleared up and was a pleasant experience. We found weta in some of the 'weta hotels', a big tuatara lizard, takahe, cormorants (shags), and other birds which don't photograph well since they're so skittish and I've already taken so many photos of them that I didn't feel I needed more.

We found a very hipster pizza place for dinner on the last night which had quite good pizza with a good crust.

Back in Christchurch, I ate out a lot as I met up with people to say goodbye. I also did some baking to use up American ingredients and since there were some holiday parties that I had an excuse to make stuff for. One of my mature students gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers - the first I've gotten as a tutor - and it was so special and a much-needed reminder that there are always a few who are worth all the effort of teaching. I will miss the relationships that you can really only have as a teacher coming into contact with so many new and diverse people in the classroom, but I won't miss all of the downsides. There are always other opportunities for education outside of the traditional bureaucracy though.

loaded fries at Little High Eatery

Jenga-style French toast at Sun Dog Diner

free cinnamon roll given out at Sun Dog Diner

lovely smelling and looking flowers

Peanut butter chip cookie bars

 I went on a visit with a friend to the Canterbury Museum. I have to say, their 'Squawkzilla' exhibit wasn't that great. The main attraction didn't even have good signage or explanations - a missed opportunity. There was a find-the-Santa game for kids though that was entertaining.

massive penguins - a bit intimidating actually

Squawkzilla - apparently an ancestor of the modern-day kea bird

Santa hanging out with a Kiwi

I had a good dual Christmas - made a full Christmas lunch for two new American friends traveling through the city, and then helped prepare Christmas dinner for my friend and her American relatives visiting for the holidays at their AirBnb place overlooking the estuary and ocean. It was a beautiful location and we had fun eating and talking and playing some card games.

My cat loves wrapping paper

Then the next day, Boxing Day, it was time for the big move up to Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand, where my partner landed a good job earlier this year. It's a chance for a fresh start for the new year for me and the opportunity to take a break from the rat race and work on my entrepreneurial ideas and book writing. That's the plan anyway. It was a very stressful day loading everything up (I had already spent hours packing and organizing everything to fit in the small trailer we rented based on the measurements I had for it), but we managed to fit almost everything in except my bike and office chair, and we headed out of the city at 3pm. Loading a vehicle is a great relationship test, I think, as it is high-stress conditions with a time limit and your nerves can become frayed very quickly as you get exhausted and struggle to Tetris your stuff into a confined area. The next day, we took the ferry from Picton to Wellington with our cat, and it was thankfully a very smooth and uneventful journey. We hit bad holiday traffic out of Wellington which delayed us several hours, but otherwise the trip went alright. I was so glad to have holiday leftovers to eat for dinner for the following week.

departing Picton

Ferry with pet on board! They have to be left in the vehicle for the 3.5-hour journey.

Safely arrived in Auckland; unloading is much easier and faster

Roughly sketched, the route traveled on Highway 1 and ferry from Christchurch to Auckland

Our new place is located in what is known as the North Shore area of Auckland. To get to it from the central city [where the word Auckland is on the map below], you have to cross the Harbor Bridge [located just above the 'c' in the word Auckland] (or go the long way around on another route) or take a ferry from Devonport [which is on the peninsula at the bottom right corner of the highlighted section]. As North Shore has grown, the Harbor Bridge has gotten more crowded, so they have had to add more lanes in the past few decades.

The main differences from Christchurch that I know about thus far are:

• more crowded: Christchurch has a population of around 350,000, while Auckland has over 1.6 million people
• warmer but more humid: Auckland is situated at a higher latitude, but is also surrounded by water and on a narrower strip of land, so it can feel tropical (I've only been here a short time, but it has felt like Hawaii on several days)
• more expensive: It is one of the most expensive cities in terms of rent prices and housing prices. The median house price is $885,000, which is way out of range for first-time buyers. Our place is a third the size of the original house we rented in Christchurch and doesn't have a real kitchen. It just has a space between the bathroom and living room with a fridge, some counter space, and a small sink with a toaster oven, microwave, and hot plate burner. It's not ideal for food preparation, but it's doable for now. Grocery store prices seem to be a little more but not terribly so, and gas prices are about 20 cents higher, based on what we saw on the road trip up here.

The upside is that there is a lot more to do, and it's a part of the country we haven't explored much, so there's a whole new backyard to check out. Northlands (north past Auckland) is a place we've heard a lot about and want to check out soon.

On our first full day here, we couldn't help but check out the newly-opened Taco Bell. I actually hadn't ever tried a gordita in the U.S. but it was good here and had that Taco Bell taste. I normally get crunchy tacos, but the one here had some kind of smoked flavor and didn't taste as similar, so I wouldn't get it again. The frozen margarita machine wasn't warmed up yet when we went so they weren't selling those, but it was a fun experience and I'd go back. They only have mild and fiery hot sauce though, no hot, which is what I like. I had the last slice of my yummy pumpkin cheesecake and that was the end of the holiday food and eating out times.

We rang in the New Year at a little park overlooking downtown, where they shot off fireworks from a few different locations.

Here's a view from the same park in the daytime. This is the view from the North Shore. You can see part of Rangitoto Island on the left, the skyscrapers of Takapuna in the middle-left, and the skyscrapers of downtown Auckland on the right.

Here's to a good year and interesting experiences in a new city, and new places to blog about!

Celebrating New Year with Driver's Licenses

We rung in the New Year in Hagley Park again -- couldn't help but notice that the same band was playing the same songs as last year. I enjoyed them, but I can see how people that go there every year might want a little change sometimes.

Since you're supposed to get a New Zealand driver's license once you've been here for a year and we hadn't yet...we finally went in to AA to submit applications. Of course, I read the instructions and had everything photocopied and ready, and then the clerk tells me that my U.S. license has to be at least two years old to avoid retaking the driving test. Did it say that on the form? Nope. So I had to come back the next day with my expired U.S. license to prove it was older than two years. In the U.S., no one even wants to see any ID that's expired. Good news is that other than that, it was easy, the licenses arrived in the mail within five days, and they're good for ten years. Now we don't have to lug our passports around if we need to prove our age.

Our Chinese friends nicely invited us out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, and I decided to learn how to use chopsticks finally. It wasn't too bad once I got the hang of it -- I had to keep a death grip on the lower stick to manage. Interestingly, the restaurant served the water warm, which apparently is a common practice. We had a nice evening talking about food and life.

Otherwise, I am plugging away at the first chapter of my thesis, finally. The "summer" has been mostly cool so far, with a few scattered days of warmth. Our pepper plants are still hardly more than a couple inches high, but the rest of the garden is taking off, though the hail storm has destroyed the spinach beyond hope I think. It stays light out until late in the evening, which distorts one's sense of time.

pretty sunset -- after 9:00pm here!

my first homegrown raspberry!!

the broccoli is actually growing this year

Happy New Year 2015

Happy 2015! I hope to explore lots of New Zealand this year.

The package from my family arrived with a much-welcomed array of goods. There was a veritable bounty of shelf medications like allergy medicine, cold/flu liquid tablets, motion sickness pills, and pain relief pills which would have been a fortune here or not available. This would have been enough on its own, but there were also some Christmas gifts and food from home which we enjoyed.

We also received our IRD numbers from the government so they can take out taxes. Yay. If there's anything to be excited about here, it is that one of my favorite numbers is the last two digits.

I made a goal of finishing all six Dune books before the year ended, and so I wrapped up the sixth book on December 30th, just in time. Reading them all together in a short time period meant that I could notice changes in style, character development, themes, and other things which was nice. Now comes the harder part of synthesizing all of my observations into the PhD proposal. Basically, I have to outline what my argument will be and what each chapter of the paper will focus on. I also have to provide a literature review, meaning an analysis of what has been written about the topic so far and what I think I will do to improve upon current research.

I also just finished 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) yesterday. It was not what I was expecting and seems a bit out-dated now that we have so much more information about our solar system than we did then. There were virtually no women in it, and it got really weird at the end. I continue to be surprised by how different the short classics are from Dune. The lack of world-building is so apparent, and the intent and goals of the writers seem to be very different.

We had a nice New Year's Eve with a live music concert in the central park sponsored by the city council. There were country, rock/funk, and Celtic bands who provided good music and energy to ring in the new year. There is an interesting tradition of having the "archwizard of Canterbury" cast a spell for the new year. He seems to be an equivalent to our old Father Time. There was also a sweet fireworks show right above our heads - the closest I've ever been to fireworks. Debris was even raining down on our heads!

D's jalapeno plant on the porch finally has some peppers ripening red. It has been fun to watch them grow and hopefully they are worth the wait.

We took a day trip to Akaroa, which is about 90 minutes south of Christchurch. It was a nice drive and a cute town, although it was overrun by tourists from the docked Princess Cruises ship. It was quite hot out, so we had a packed lunch in the shade and checked out the farmer's and craft markets. We also visited the Barrys Bay Cheese factory which still makes cheese the old-fashioned way. We watched workers spiking big cheese rounds with long metal sticks which will leave air holes and create the blue veins in blue cheese. D bought some 6-year aged cheddar cheese and garlic cheese. Both are good, and the aged cheddar is super intense!

strange "field" of trees on a bare hillside