-- 12/26 to 12/31/2016 --
New Zealanders love to go shopping with massive discounts on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. But I didn't spend a dime. Instead, I stayed home and worked on finalizing a publication for the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. I only had to make some small tweaks, so when I was done I went for a long urban hike through eastern Auckland. I walked to the Domain (the big city park), tried to head east, accidentally ended up back at the Domain, went east for real, found some cool mangroves, and then wound my way through hills until I came out at Mission Bay and walked myself back along the waterfront to home.
Tuesday I switched gears and spent time working on a different journal article, which still has a long way to go. I couldn't concentrate at home, so I looked up cool cafe's and coffee shops for studying, and ended up at The Shelf. It's run entirely by a staff of Koreans, and I fell in love with the hipster vibe and the DIY mochas.
Wednesday I went back to the same area of town with John and Sehui for some Korean lunch at a different restaurant where I had pork belly and squid bulgogi. Yum!
Later on, I got on a ferry across they bay to Devonport where Julie's partner Simon and his friend James picked me up off the beach in a small boat to go fishing. We tried trolling around some New Zealand Navy vessels, which seemed to be totally unguarded except for the signs warning us to stay 200 m away at all times. Trolling wasn't working out, so we anchored near a big rock where some seabirds were going at a school of small fish. James caught a big kahawai right away, but then the three of us only got small snappers that Simon wouldn't let us keep. As the sun was setting, Simon dropped me off on the end of the Devonport Wharf, and I caught a ferry back across the harbor and walked home.
Thursday I took John out to parkour again, and ended up teaching a mini-lesson for him, and a tall ship sailor who was keen to learn some basics. There were also about seven other people who showed up, including a small group from Switzerland who have been traveling the world documenting themselves doing parkour in different countries.
After the practice, I was trying to plan a trip to Hobbiton with some people on couchsurf.org who were offering rides out to Matamata. Around 10pm, the organizer asked me to check if I could get tickets online. Turns out the soonest opening was at 8 am...on Tuesday Jan 3. So we didn't end up going to Hobbiton after all.
Instead, I woke up to a call at the building's entrance from a delivery person. My Christmas presents from Jess had arrived! So I spent the morning opening those and relaxing as if it was Christmas morning all over again.
In the evening, the flat went out to meet our friend Steven and his flatmate Jacob for Korean Karaoke in the city. It turns out that bot Steven and Jacob are total bosses when it comes to karaoke, with some of the best belting I've ever heard from a distance of 3 feet. They made a really hard act to follow. Apparently the manager liked having us around, because after our first hour was up he kept tacking on an extra 30 minutes for free. We decided it was time to go after the third time we got a bonus.
We were heading to another friend's flat to hang out, but we decided to stop and have some pizza. It turns out that Auckland's NY pizza chain does a much better job recreating New York pizza than any place I ever visited in Portland.
Eventually we did make it to the party flat with a couple drinks in tow, and we were stopped by a security guard who wanted to know how many people were in our party, and which room in the apartment building we were going to. Maybe he was just taking notes so that if there were complaints he'd know who to talk to? Regardless, we had a good time up in their flat talking and having a mini dance party.
And finally, it was Saturday, New Year's Eve. I spent the morning doing some more work on my journal article and then went out for a parkour jam at 2. Only when I left the flat I saw a message on Facebook from someone who was going to be 'substantially late' because he had just eaten lunch. Then, when I arrived at the meeting place, I checked Facebook again and the other group that was coming had posted that they would be at least 45 minutes late.
One hour and and one Mormon missionary later I was frustrated and ready to leave, but just as I was about to go everyone showed up. So I decided to stick around and train with them for a bit. Unfortunately we had really strange luck. We left the first spot right away because it started raining; a security guard asked us to leave the covered place we moved to; we were able to stay at the next spot for at least 45 minutes and then we moved about 200 ft and security found us immediately. Then the jam's organizer lead us to another place on the same property we'd just been kicked off of and started training again. I wasn't comfortable, so I just took a walk. By the time I got back 5 minutes later, the same guard was already there with backup who was threatening to prosecute us for trespassing. At that point I was basically done, so I just cooled down at the next spot and left the group when they were moving on.
I had been planning on trying to get across the harbour for a New Year's blues dance after party, but after the parkour debacle I was feeling too stressed out and opted to stay home. John and Sehui, who were originally planning on going to a Latin Party decided to come back to the flat with Steven, and we ended up hanging out with a plate of brie, sauteed prawns, feta and jam, toast, and chocolate until midnight. We all gathered on the balcony for an eye level view of a fireworks show that was shooting off of the Sky Tower. In the end, it was a really relaxing evening with good friends, and I was really happy going to bed at a reasonable time.
-- 12/23 to 12/25/2016 --
A New Zealand Christmas in Three Parts
1. Our Christmas weekend started off Friday night with a trip out to and Irish Pub called Muddy Farmer's. We were supposed to start at 7, but everyone else was running late, so we held off until 9 when the sun was just starting to set. It was a cool night at the end of a hot week, with patches of rain clouds drenching parts of the city for 5 minutes at a time.
It turns out that Muddy Farmer's, an Irish bar in New Zealand, holds salsa dances every Friday night with lessons taught by an Indian. Such is Auckland in a nutshell. Our bartender, Julia, is friends with John and Sehui, so she took our order, finished her shift and then joined us for some drinks at the back away from the salsa class. By the time everyone arrived, we had most of the Pacific Rim represented at our table. We were from Kamchatka, Canada, the US, Colombia, New Zealand, Korea, and India (well that's not a Pacific country, but it's more poetic if we pretend it is). Such is Auckland.
2. On Christmas Eve I made a classic American brunch for lunch: bacon, eggs, and pancakes. There wasn't any maple syrup for our pancakes, but we managed just fine with jam.
So that part wasn't very New Zealand-y, but after lunch I got on a ferry and went across the harbour to Devonport, a neighborhood that has a charming mashup of artsy communities and landed gentry. My friend Julie from the Anthropology department picked me up from the ferry terminal and brought me to her house to play board games with her friends. We made guacamole from under-ripe avocados with an immersion blender, drank lots of eggnog, had prosecco, and Simon made a pork roast (served with ketchup and mustard on white bread) and boil up (potato, pumpkin, greens, and dough balls boiled with fat) for dinner. A very Kiwi dinner indeed.
After dark, Julie drove me back to the ferry terminal and I made my way home. A couple blocks from my house I saw a drunk trying to get the attention of a woman sitting alone at a restaurant by calling to her from outside. I loudly cleared my throat when I walked past him, thinking I would divert his attention, or let him know that he was being watched, I dunno. He immediately started following me. Calling out to me a couple times, then faking a rush at me to get my attention. I kept walking, and he was either trying to catch up and attack me, or just playing at making me feel threatened. When I got to a populated corner I turned up the street and ducked into a convenience store (to get away AND because I needed butter for a recipe). I went out cautiously but he was long gone.
I got back to my flat without any issues and found out there was a party happening. John had two Colombian friends over, and Sehui had two Korean friends over. I stayed up with them, talking, playing music videos, and drinking a couple more beers after I'd digested a bit of the boil up and eggnog. It turns out Koreans and Colombians both celebrate Christmas the same way we all celebrate New Years: by getting drunk and staying up til midnight the night before! When I went to bed at 2, there was someone in the city blowing constantly on a whistle for hours.
3. I got up early on Christmas morning, even though my body protested, to have a skype chat with Jess, and to talk to my parents on the phone as they drove from California to Oregon. It was definitely worth it, and the eggnog hangover was not as bad as I was expecting.
In between and after all the calls, I prepped and baked some sweet orange rolls (this recipe!) while listening to Christmas songs. My mom has always baked Pilsbury orange rolls for holiday mornings as long as I can remember, and I went to the super market earlier in the week to try and find something similar but they didn't have anything. So I resolved to bake my own. The recipe I found is actually a copycat of the Pilsbury rolls, and it's really easy. I love the way the dough turned out, and they ended up being way better than the one's I grew up with. Unfortunately, I haven't quite figured out my flat's oven yet. There's only room for one rack, it's 50°C (!!) too hot on the top and 50°C too cold on the bottom. I didn't have any aluminum foil, so the rolls were totally unprotected, they totally burned, and I got to try and fan smoke out of the flat with my towel for a while. Still, the bottom 3/4 of each one was excellent, and I got jacked up on the glaze I poured over them (which didn't turn out as well as the Pilsbury icing).
In the afternoon Melinda picked me up and took me to a party in Mt. Eden hosted by some archaeologists and their families. We played ball with Theo, a chubby faced 2-year old with golden locks of hair, and ate lots and lots of food. The main dishes would totally have passed for Thanksgiving dinner: turkey with gravy, green beans, salad, Mediterranean grain salad, stuffing, ham with pineapple, cranberry sauce, and asparagus. I was stuffed after one plate, and then turkey (free range from the South Island) was passed around again and I couldn't say no to a medium for more gravy.
Then there was dessert. We had two kinds of trifle: one with cream over layers of gooseberry (what Americans know as kiwi fruit), blueberries, and cake crumbles, and one that was just a giant bowl with two kinds of cream. We had pavolva again, this time with whip cream coating the whole outside evenly like icing on a cake, and with raspberries and gooseberry slices arranged on top. All was served with vanilla ice cream.
At the end of the night, our host Julie (different from the Julie I spent time with the day before!) gave me a present, which turned out to be a bag of chocolates. The Anthropology post-graduate advisor gave everyone a beer. I was handed a pail full of cream (in the form of the two trifles and the pavolva leftovers). Melinda gave me a beautiful, wood-handled wine opener shaped like a fish.
Overall, it was a great Christmas for someone who observes the holiday culturally but not religiously. For the most part, it didn't feel like Christmas to me at all. The sun should have set much earlier, and I expected much more bracing weather. People don't really decorate their homes, and a lot of people living in Auckland have vacated to their baches (a Kiwi term for a small holiday house) for the summer. But I could get used to this kind of Christmas day, and all the great feasting opportunities. The only thing I worry about is, does the Southern Hemisphere have any winter festivities, and how will I get through the winter months if there aren't any?
