New Zealand at last!

So after all this traveling in the tropics. After the heat and mosquitoes and salty showers and sleepless nights, I was REALLY looking forward to a night in Aukland in a quiet western hotel with fresh water to drink from the tap and a shower with decent water pressure.

We arrived on the main Tongan island at about 4:45 in the afternoon, and went into town to meet up with Joleen, Megan, and Kevin. Gen had hoped to shop in their main marketplace, but it had shut down by the time we got there. I had a small world moment seeing Tero on the street, and we had a delightfully delicious meal at the "French Cafe and Internet"place, where I did a bunch of blog catching up, and then off to the airport for our 10:30 PM departure to Aukland.

Our taxi driver was a wealth of information. He explained that about 75,000 Tongans still lived in Tonga, and that most tongans actually resided in the USA -- they could make better money, have a higher standard of living and better support their extended family on tonga itself. He kept pointing out these quite nice houses as we drove into town, owned by Tongans who resided in Salt Lake, or San Francisco, or Los Angeles, or New York, etc. Apparently quite a few of them even serve in the US military and fought in Iraq, etc. A regular tour on the ride into town.

Anyway, we arrived in Aukland at 1:20 AM. I was unable to sleep on the airplane (as usual with my back being the way it is, I just cant get comfortable unless I get fully prone -- hard to do in economy class.) But the Aukland airport is a breeze to get through. i was thru imigration, customs, and in my hotel room by 2:00 AM! Hooray, sleep until 10, then some breakfast, re-packing, a long shower, some internet, and meet Gen at the airport for our 2PM flight to Christchurch, but . . .

I couldn't sleep. . . . It was too peaceful, too quiet, too cold! At 3 Am i gave up and took some meds to make me sleep. Unfortunately I had nightmares all night long, and woke up well before 10AM to the maids knocking on the doors across the hall with their cheerful warning of "good morning!" to any would-be occupant. I try to get back to sleep, but alas, no go.

Since I had got so little sleep and had taken drugs the night before I was sort of in a dazed stupor, as I stumbled thru all my morning tasks. I couldnt get the internet to work right, I needed to check in on banks, credit cards, etc, to make sure that everything was working smoothly while i was away. The CC sites wouldn't register on the hotel's computers due to "security protocols." And i had asked the desk at the hotel to make sure that I was on the 12:30 shuttle to the airport just to make sure that I made the flight, only to find that I somehow missed the 12:30 shuttle. The hotel people assured me that the 1 PM shuttle will still be plenty of time to get on the flight to Christchurch and they were right, after all I already had my eticket.

However, at the airport, Gen was not waiting where we had agreed to meet (she had stayed with the Antarticans where she had left her bags, just as I stayed at the hotel were I had left my bags). Luckily the airport was fantastically designed to avoid queues. All i had to do was scan my eticket, get my bag tags, put them on the baggage belt, and off to the gate. However, when i went to pay, my credit card wouldn't go thru. The super polite Air New Zealand attendant, said, "that's strange it never does that. Try it again." After a few attempts, I was like, "öh Jeez, here I go again." About then, Gen showed up and got her bag onto the belt just fine and dandy, just like it is supposed to work, while I was paying the extra baggage fee at the counter and getting my bags onto the belt. We went thru security incredibly smoothly, and within a few more minutes were at the gate waiting with plenty of time before the plane was to depart. (Note to all US airports and airport designers: copy Aukland's plan, it is truly convenience via airport design.)

So we made it to Christchurch without incident, and started researching camper vans vs a car and staying in hotels. Many visitors to New Zealand travel around in Camper Vans and pay a small fee to use the common rooms of a Campervan Park or Backpackers (the NZ term for a hostel). The Camper vans we enquired about were a bit more expensive than Genevieve had heard, and cars were also pricing out kind of high -- although both were cheap by american standards, given the exchange rate of .625ish. After getting a ride to one of the companies by this delightful woman, Trudy (In fact all the people in New Zealand that I have met so far are genuinely nice. They seem to truly want to help you, and are genuinely warm people.), we caught a bus into the city centre and found ourselves a lovely place to stay called "Livingspace. We checked some email, I sent Gabe from Aspen who is supposed to be in New Zealand this november an email shout, I further researching the campervan options, and Gen checked in with her Antartican friends.

She got an email received in her inbox 45 minutes before saying that the people just coming off the ice and the people just going on the ice were all meeting at "the Bog" (see pictures!), an Irish Pub about 3 blocks from our hotel. So off we go and sure enough, in a short three block walk, the cry goes up, "Oh my god, Genevieve!"and a happy, happy reunion of ice people is underway.

So I have been in the tropics, right? But DAMN it is cold here in New Zealand! I was expecting it to be like Coloradoish in May, but it is more like Crested Butte in April! It has snowed and hailed on us in Christchurch.

ASIDE -- FAST FORWARD A COUPLE OF DAYS -- I found out today that this is not typical weather for this time of year. We got gas at a cafe/gas station and the lady there (perhaps she is in her forties) countered my question of "when does it get warm?" with, "what i want to know is when will it finally stop raining?"

She said that when she was a little girl it was hot from September thru March, but now it has been staying wetter and colder during the spring and summer months. That info jives with what I researched on the web which indicated that it should be warmer here now, and it jives with what Gen told me as she warned me that it could still be quite cold in NZ in November, unfortunately, Gen has been right. -- END ASIDE.

At any rate, we had quite a fun night with the horde of 12 or so people from the ice, including Andre who those in CB may remember from Gen's pig roast party some years back (or was it 4th of July?). Anyway he was the guy roasting antelope. There was also Jen, Mahesh and Leslie (?), "grantees"or scientists (also known as beekers, and fucking scientists by the support people) and the rest of the folks were support: Andre a fire fighter, John a garbage collector, Joe the plumber (literally her name is Joe!). We had a lovely Thai meal (quite authentic, even gave me the runs for a day), and decided to watch the US election returns the next day at the Bog.

Over dinner, I had a grand time talking with the scientists about their climate change research (for unlike Gen, Joleen, Megan and Kevin) all of these Antarticans were willing to talk about experiences on the ice. Jen was the scientist and Leslie and Mahesh are her graduate student helpers. Seems the ozone hole is still quite a big problem.

Mahesh was a very interesting person, an Indian national getting his doctorate at U Wyoming. I had a great time talking with him about India, the US and cultural differences/changes in both the East and the West. He told me that in India, even in just the time he has been studying in the US, that changes there are HUGE. That the country is in rapid westernization mode, and that in the two years between visits he couldnt believe the changes. Sounded a lot like my observations of Bangkok ... east being replaced with west. For Mahesh it was the change in the cinema: movies used to be interesting, and there were "classes" of tickets, from nicer air conditioned spaces to the cheap seats. The last time he was in India (he can only afford to travel back home once every two years), all the movies were replaced with western style multi-screen complexes, no more cheap seats it was all western priced, which meant Indian expensive.

The next morning found a rainy COLD morning, that broke into a beautiful sunny day and I took many a nice picture (see picasa!) of the city centre. Now Christchurch is a nice city, and I am duly impressed with the NZers and this city. The cathedral square is quiet and it is the center of town -- traffic is routed to keep it quiet. The City has a population of 350,000, and offers many cultural activities. A wonderful arts center, ballet, symphony, an incredible botanical garden, etc. Plus it is a city, meaning it is compact, has tall buildings, sophisticated restaurants, is easy to get around. You can walk it and find everything you need within the city centre, including grocery stores. There is chess in the Cathedral square, people were reading shakespeare to whomever wanted to listen in the square, also musicians playing in the square, etc., there are wonderful parks everywhere, the river is landscaped and a nice place to hang out at lunchtime, so forth and so on. It is also an international city. In the day i spent going around buying a (cheap) wool hat, wool scarf, wool socks, wool gloves (etc -- did i mention that it is cold?) I heard Japanese, Arabic, Hindu, Thai, German, French, Russian, some Scandanavian language (or two), Chinese (i think), among other languages being spoken by folks in the city on this one day. To say that i am impressed by the quality of this small city is an understatement. Can you picture an American city of this size that boasts the same cultural amenities, with an equivalent international flair? Sure as shit aint Corpus Christi (same relative size) -- no offense to you Corpus Christians!

At any rate, at breakfast, Gen had learned of a place that would rent a camper van (think a VW vanagan, just smaller and made in japan) for the rates she was expecting, $29Kiwi (about US$19/day -- cheaper than the rental cars we were looking at, Although we will have other costs like finding bathrooms, paying to hook up to electricity, buying showers, or whatever, but with the cost savings, we can get a hotel every now and then for some of those issues, etc.). We gave Grant at Ascot rentals a call and reserved the van for the next day pick up. Grant just wanted to make sure we had licenses, a credit card (didnt take the number to hold it -- can you imagine?), and said he would pick us up the next AM and get us on the way.

So the van has a camp stove, a "chiller"(not quite a dorm fridge, little bit more than a cooler), a gas heater, and two little benches that make a bed in the back, me and Gen's home and transportation in one as we tour the South Island of New Zealand for the next two weeks.

So after reserving the van, off we go to watch President-Elect Barack Obama win his election at the Bog. (oh how fun it is just to say that -- sorry to all my McCain supporter friends). We watched it on the NZ news channel, which was good (and funny). The Anchor had traveled to Palin's hometown and sent a report filled with dry, english humor...think monty python covers the US election. He knocked on her neighbors door to try and get the real scoop. He made fun of the "bustling metropolis"of wassilla (sp?) (it looked like any other boring US city with strip malls and not much charm). He went to the coffee shop and ordered Sarah's regular coffee -- "Boy that's sweet! But I guess that's a good thing in a vice president." Also made a comment about how everyone else was in a very big American car at the coffee hut (as it was a drive-thru -- he had walked up to it) and that he better move before he got ran over. "Ëveryone in america drives in cars you know." They talked about the Tina Fey sketches and how this election perhaps more than any other was just made for satire. (This is the news coverage, you understand.)

Another guy, Jeremy Wells, did a story about the republican convention and he interviewed the delegation from Texas and it was all about, "dont mess with a Texas women, because she is probably packing." "what does that mean?" "Means she's carrying a gun sweetie. We love our guns in Texas, I got 12 shot guns, 8 pistols, 14 rifles," etc. One guy was a state legislature and he told the Kiwi reporter that he was going to be wearing his concealed weapon on the floor of the house as he went into session to vote on immigration issues because, "those people are scary and dangerous." Also, the legislator explained with pride to the Kiwi reporter about the "make my day law." The Kiwi guy couldn't quite get his head around, "You can just shoot anyone you like who ealks into your house?" Same kiwi reporter/satirist is doing a follow up program later this week about politics in America called "Babies, Guns, and Jesus." What a hoot!

Besides the satire, the covereage was good, if a bit overly focused on the presidential campaign. They had two really smart commentators, one the former Kiwi ambasador to the US, I never caught the other guys name or occupation, and anytime anything of interest happened in the election they switched to coverage from CNN or ABC.

At about 5:30 PM local time, the election was decided and the coverage stopped so I didnt get to see either concession or victory speeches, and it took until today (friday Nov 7) to find out that Udall won in CO and the other important local election results (THANKS DAN JONES!) Yay hap, yay paula, yay school bond.

That evening the ice people who did not ship out already got together for a victory toast of champagne and celebration dinner. I partook of the festivities as this is indeed a ground breaker (Kai a black new yorker who works for Raytheon) was beside herself about how now the race barrier has been broken, ANYONE really can be president. She was a very interesting person and I hung with her into the night as she is headed to Thailand for her post-ice vacation and I gave her a bit of a Thai primer (Sawadee Kah, Cup Coon Cah, Ka Toa Kah, Mai Pen Rai, etc) and a little bit about what to expect, how to say "sorry" (just say it in english and put your hands together in front of you -- they arent going to expect much because you are a foreigner; they are going to be super nice and polite; if you are ever in distress or need help, you will get more assistance than you probably want; dont put your feet up on a chair or anything; never spit in public; be careful about showing too much skin in public). Anyway, towards the end of the night we concluded that November 4, 2008 just may be the day that Martin Luther King's dream came true.

Anyway tomorrow (which is actually yesterday) we get our campervan and off we go to explore!

until next time

NEWO out,

Peace, Love, Obama!