Orana Wildlife Park, Shakespeare, and Chinese lanterns

We had our last round of visitors scheduled to come during our program, and we got the chance to go to a new place that we'd been meaning to visit before we even moved here: Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch a little ways past airport. The day we went, we had a very packed day with the park in the early afternoon, an outdoor Shakespeare play 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' in the early evening, and the Chinese Lantern Festival in the late evening.

Some highlights at the park were the lion feeding where the lions climbed onto the enclosed truck to get some scraps, some fun birds like a talkative tui and a mischievous kea, and a lot of tuatara lizards, including one that was just perfectly positioned for a close-up. The cheetahs had also recently been fed and were pacing around and looking so graceful and lean. Big cats really are so similar to domestic ones and so beautiful. The Shakespeare play included one of my former students, and it didn't rain on us so that was good. We popped over to the lantern festival and the timing was good because it was by then dark enough to see the lanterns lit up nicely and we saw lots of new ones -- it's a nice annual tradition in the park downtown.

Now we are nearing the final stretch of completing our theses, which means long hours and getting frustrated at having to go back and re-edit and re-write and cut words and add them and patch holes in arguments and all of the other work to put together an 80,000-word tome. We're not planning other travel or conferences or much of anything to be able to focus on the writing. It will be a challenge for sure.

caught this little critter with its tongue out!

my favorite NZ bird: the tui with two voiceboxes and fun warbles

the very intelligent kea

"Two Gentlemen of Verona" with a swingin' sixties theme

Another South Island Road Trip

With another round of visitors here, I completed another tour of the South Island by car. But this time, I was able to check out a new place, Stewart Island, which is below the South Island of New Zealand. The rest was comfortably familiar, and I know where my favorite spots are without needing much map assistance. It only takes a couple years to start settling in to a country of this size, it seems.
 
Before we left Christchurch for our road trip, we drove along Summit Road in the Port Hills for great views of the coastal areas. We saw hang-gliders and sheep and stopped at the farmer's market in Lyttelton, where a cheeky sign introduced them to NZ humor.

 
On the road trip heading to Stewart Island, we stopped at Moeraki Boulders and Dunedin, where the weather was very decent.

young seagull squeaking in the nests on Otago Peninsula

Railway Station

finally went inside the big church in Dunedin, very beautiful

plum crumble at hipster cafe, Morning Magpie

After Stewart Island, we drove to Queenstown and enjoyed a burger at Fergburger and ice cream at Patagonia. On the way out of town, we stopped to watch the bungy-jumpers and hit my favorite fruit stand. I got the blueberry 'real fruit ice cream' with cookies 'n cream ice cream as the base (the flavor combo worked, surprisingly!) and they tried the cherry and mixed berry with vanilla ice cream. We also snagged a bunch of 'seconds' fruit that was cheaper than the regular fruit, including apricots and cherries.

After a wonderful day in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, we headed back to Christchurch to enjoy more Whittaker's chocolate and made a pavlova (meringue-type cake) with the pre-made store base plus whipped cream and strawberries and green kiwi fruit. We also finally checked out the newly-built Margaret Mahy Playground in the evening and it was quite fun (the young adults and teens come out after the little kids have gone home, and there's a security guard on duty so it's safe).

South Island Itinerary: Port Hills and Taylor's Mistake

We had a couple sets of visitors in town recently and had a good time showing them around the city and island. By now, we've gotten into a pattern of where we take folks. The starting point for anyone visiting Christchurch (if the weather cooperates) is the Port Hills. There was a fog layer but still decent visibility. Then there was still enough daylight to swing over to the beach and cliffs of Taylor's Mistake. Even in winter, there were some nice flowers in bloom.

View of the suburb of Sumner from the Port Hills

Taylor's Mistake at sunset

Corsair Bay and Visitors

I've been busy writing and thankfully doing pretty well on the academic track: was accepted into a conference in Australia (well, two really, but I can't make the second one), received good feedback on an article submitted months ago, finished a helpful seminar for postgrad students where we learned about some of the ins and outs of academia from an insider's perspective, and am almost finished with a chapter of the thesis. I'm realizing just how little you can actually say when you have to integrate theory and support from outside the primary texts. I'm very excited about the opportunity to go to Australia again. We wanted to check out Tasmania while we were here, and now we will be able to. We're going to spend a week in Melbourne first since everyone has recommended it, and it looks like a cool place from the little I've read in the guidebook so far. Tasmania has some good wildlife spots, so I want to visit some of them despite the fact that it will be winter and likely very cold, possibly even snowing!

We checked out Corsair Bay on the other side of the Port Hills during a nice sunny weekend. Days like those where you're out enjoying the natural beauty remind me of what's nice about New Zealand.

Our car started stalling really badly while driving so we had to take it in and get something in the air line fixed. That was several hundred dollars of fun.It was out of commission for a few days, so we had our first experience taking the bus to school from our house, and it wasn't too bad, although it takes almost an hour (car takes 20 minutes). There were a lot of school kids taking it, and they would come on in big bunches and sit on their phones or chatter amongst themselves. Most wear school uniforms here, so they can't really not stand out.

We had some American visitors come over for dinner, and beforehand we drove them up to the Port Hills for some good views. It was nice to hear about what's going on in the U.S. from folks 'on the ground' and compare with some of the features in New Zealand. They also graciously brought us some supplies from back home, including D's favorite Pasta Roni and Mexican food supplies like chili powder and sauce which will be great for cooking, and we loaded them up with some delicious Whittaker's chocolate. I've got two more planned visitors in the next year and am looking forward to showing them around, too.

Someone here wanted to know about how to work for a U.S. company and deal with tax issues, and I found a helpful site that explains about 1099s for foreign contractors. Taxes are often confusing, but especially so when you're coming from a country like New Zealand where a lot of people don't even have to worry about them or file tax returns because the government handles everything (their tax code is a lot simpler).

I found out that here they have flatmates but not roommates, and that they think sharing a room with someone, even in college, is weird. Of course, it's not all like the movies they see, but it does take getting used to sharing a tight space with a stranger.