When I was hiking the other day I met an older gentleman on the trail and he heard my accent and asked me where I was from and where I was staying. When he found out I was in Brooklyn he suggested checking out a song called ‘Middle Class White Boy Blues’ as the singer references living in Brooklyn. I just listened to the song on SoundCloud, and it is a wonderful satirical blues song. The artist, Andrew London, seems to do a lot of swing music, I am looking forward to listening to more of his work.
New Zealand money is so beautiful. When I lived here before I liked that each different bill denomination was a different color, it made it very easy to quickly see how much cash you had. Bills are still different colors as well as different sizes, so the five dollar bill, which is the smallest denomination, is also the smallest bill. The bills now are even more colorful and have holographs in them, they are like works of art! I remember when we moved back to the US it took me a while to get used to the all the boring green bills again.
New Zealand moved to $1 and $2 coins when I was living there – I remember one friend saying that he stopped letting his kids take the change in his pockets because he suddenly had no money! It really adds up- I have almost $10 in change right now. You’d really know it if you had that much change in US$. They they no longer have 1, 2 or 5 cent pieces, though prices still often end in .99.
One of the books I brought along with me I found in a little free library – Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything – Notes On Hope. It has been a wonderful meditation resource, I am reading a chapter about every other day and I connect with so much of it. The chapter ‘Humans 101’ talked about how pretty much everyone is messed up inside and imperfect and that’s the way we should be. I’ve always loved her work, she’s so open, genuine, accepting and able to laugh at how crazy and complicated people are. The chapter entitled ‘Unplugged’ is one sentence long, “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you“. Amen, sister.
After spending time at the National Library yesterday seeing New Zealand’s founding documents, I wanted to learn more about New Zealand history so I found a podcast called History of Aotearoa New Zealand, I’ve listened to a few episodes and it’s pretty interesting and informative. Apparently it won the bronze award for Best Indie Podcast in the New Zealand Podcast Awards 2021 – I have no idea how many podcasts there are in NZ, much less indie ones, but still it got some recognition! I’m also listening to a bilingual podcast about the Māori world called Taringa. When I lived in New Zealand in the 90s there was not a big push to learn the Māori language or understand much about the culture outside of touristy events. It’s quite different now, and I am interested in getting a better understanding of te reo and tikanga Māori (Māori language and culture).
I went walking in the Tawatawa nature reserve and was behind a family with four kids all about elementary school age. As they veered off the main park to a less developed one the kids started jumping up and down like little excited puppies, it was adorable. My kids always enjoyed hiking more when we went off the beaten track, there must be something about being in wilderness that brings out the wildness in kids. Later, I had to stop to sit on a bench and eat my lunch. A woman walked by with her dogs and her black lab ran up to me very excitedly. She yelled out that he really liked sandwiches so to be careful. He was very sweet and even though he was very attentive to my sandwich, he behaved. She told me that he had really disgraced himself about a month ago when he stole lunch from a family picnicking at the local beach, turns out it was the Prime Minister, Lucinda Ardern’s family! I love that this woman called them Lucinda, Clarke and Neve, like they were close friends.
This weekend is the A Very Welly Christmas, a family oriented Christmas celebration where they block off Lambton Quay, the main shopping area and have all kinds of fun activities for the kids. There was a Snow Cannon, which was basically a huge inflatable swimming pool that the kids could run around in while someone shoveled soap bubbles in front of a fan to make it look like it was snowing! There were a variety of stages with different performers, a few ukulele groups (seems to be a big thing here), swing dancers and lots of carolers. The kids could have a chance to play netball, football (a.k.a. soccer) or rugby with some of the players from the local Wellington teams. The evening was topped off with a two hour sing-along Christmas caroling session led by Nick Tansley, a long time New Zealand entertainer who I remembered leading Carols by Candlelight 30 years ago! We sang all the classics, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, Silent Night, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Away In a Manger, Deck the Halls, etc. In New Zealand Snoopy‘s Christmas is a must sing Christmas carol, which is so interesting because I rarely hear it even on the radio at home during Christmas, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it sung at a Christmas caroling session. It’s a fun song to sing, I think it’s some thing that Americans should incorporate into their Christmas caroling tradition, especially those of us from Northern California who live only an hour drive from where Charles Schulz resided!
Even though most of the adults were bundled up because it had gotten windy and chilly, a lot of the kids were still in dresses and shorts, many of them soaked from playing in the fountains, but having a fantastic time. You could see the holiday excitement on their faces as they chased their friends around and danced to the music. Since we’re in the southern hemisphere Christmas is during the summer, so it’s a different set up from those of us in the northern hemisphere. People will often have barbecues or go to the beach on Christmas Day or Boxing Day (the day after Christmas which is also a holiday in New Zealand.)
I took a double decker bus back home, sitting up at the top in the front gives such a great view, it’s a wonderful way to see the city. I stopped in at the local dairy (convenience store, like a tightly packed 7-11) on the way back and picked up some Pineapple Lumps, one of my favorite New Zealand candies. They tasted just as yummy and chewy as I remember. I also got some ‘baby’ carrots that were the size of my hand and chips, what they call crisps here, that were made of kumara and beetroot, otherwise known as sweet potato and beets. They are called Proper Crisps, so very English!
