Casinos, Canterbury Cream, Cupcakes and Colossal Squid

Hi friends! It's now six weeks since I left for good ol' Auckers - which means it's only another 10 and a half months to go 'til I'm back in Blighty. Wow, how time flies...

Anysnooch, since I'm off to Tonga at the end of the week, I thought I better update y'all, and I concluded that rather than boring you with the ins-and-outs of everyday life I'd entertain you with tales of my weekend adventures.

(Still, you should know that things are chugging along satisfactorily: classes are interesting, essays are getting done, band is fun, the weather is getting better, friends are being hung out with and Tim Tams are being all too regularly consumed. The only bad thing I suppose is that one of my good friends, Jessie, went back to America this weekend, which was sad.)

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Right. Well, a few weekends ago now I decided to stay in Auckers and actually check out the city. This took me to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning - they're really big on FMs here, but none that I've seen so far have anything on Edinburgh's. Although, they are good at honey out here, and I found the blackcurrant honey particularly tasty. Asides that, friends Manuel, Jessie and I stocked up on picnic stuff and then hopped a ferry for half an hour to Devonport, a suburb in Auckland.

I can't say that I thought Devonport was up to much, but a little hill amongst the beautiful wooden beam, pastel-coloured million-dollar houses did offer a good view of Auckland, its sails and beaches, and it was a lovely sunny day, perfect for wandering. After lunch in Devonport we returned to mainland Auckland, as it were, and went to the most amazing chocolate cafe in the nice-shops-and-restaurants area, Parnell (another suburb), where we ate chocolate fondue (see left) until we felt sick. Excellent.

That evening I met up with friend Ben and we (finally) went up Skytower. A little lesson about towers with views people. If you live in a fairly low-lying city where the only interesting thing is a large pointy tower offering views of the otherwise dull city landscape, don't go up that tower expecting interesting views of the aforementioned city. Particularly if it's night, and a lot of that city is hills and park areas without lights. Hmm.

Still, I was glad to have been in Skytower, and perhaps more excitingly Ben and I discovered we were old enough to go in to the casino on the way down. We had absolutely no idea what we were doing, but nonetheless managed to win $12 (£4.50) on the slot machines. Awesome! That's like a free beer each!

Lastly, super early on Sunday I got up and went with Jamie and Amanda up Mt Eden (Auckland's Arthur's Seat, but with a crater and a car park at the top) in time for sunrise. Except we missed sunrise because we decided to get pie and coffee instead. But it was cool anyway, and Amanda had made a super tasty crumble, which we ate sitting in Jamie's super cool van on top of the hill, admiring the view (better with Skytower in it, obv).

***

The weekend after that I ditched the tramping club in favour or friends Mark, Lindsey, Jessie and new acquaintance Andrea to go to Coromandel (awkwardly where the tramping club were going...) We had a totally brilliant time, laughing and eating our way up the coast and back again from Friday to Sunday evening.

The weekend was characterised by a constant search for casette tapes in the partially-post-apocalyptic, mostly closed, small town convenience stores we passed through, as Mark had hired a car (dubbed Penny and far too small for her 5 passengers) with a tape player, but we had nothing to play (and the radio in NZ, when you can receive any signal, is godawful). So instead we sung all the way to Coromandel (3 hours). Oh joy. Thank god Jessie knew all 9 verses to American Pie...

En route we stopped for 'legendary' mussel fritters - not a foodstuff that should be frittered, friends - and arrived to find a lovely log cabin-style hostel completely empty except for our party. Hurrah! So we had tea, Tim Tams and became obsessed with completing a 500-piece puzzle of Bond Street at Christmas, well in to the wee hours.

The following morning we ate an enormous full English breakfast (masterminded by yours truly, of course) before going out to explore the nearby beach and coastline. The weather was chilly, grey and windy but it didn't rain during the day and the view - when it wasn't hidden behind fog - looked dramatic and thus awesome, particularly Cathedral Cove (no Jesus statues or stained glass, but we did see a dead blue penguin).

But the real reason we'd come to Coromandel was for Hot Water Beach, where you dig a hole in the sand and it fills with hot water. This only happens at low tide, however, so we decided first to go at 8pm - how amazing would it be to sit in a pool of hot water in the pitch black? Amazing, yes, if in the pitch black (no one had remember to bring a torch, and the car headlights merely created eerie silhouettes) you can find the right (part of the) beach without being slammed against rocks by the incoming tide. After two attempts of digging in cold sand to find cold water, we gave up, and semi-naked in swimming costumes damp from the pelting rain, we returned home for reliably hot showers and a tasty chicken curry made by Jessie. Oh, and more Tim Tams, slammed not in tea this time but in NZ's cheap version of Bailey's, Canterbury Cream. Oh yes.

The following morning, aided by daylight and past experience, we were more successful in finding the hot water part of the beach, and despite the incoming tide doing its best to fill all holes hastily dug by the more enthusiastic members of the party (i.e. everyone but me), we did indeed enjoy some hot water (in fact, at times it's so hot it burns your feet). It was undeniably awesome.

Some home-made lemon scones later and we were back on the road heading home to Auckland via the 'legendary' (don't trust Lonely Planet's use of this word) 309 route. It involved a lot of windy, gravelly roads which upset both Mark and Penny, but did include some wonderfully terrible, rarely-visited 'points of interest' (easily recognised not by their attractions but by their big signs declaring them to be points of interest. Those signs lied). However, the route along the coast was very pretty, so that was more rewarding, and we made it back to Auckland in good time.

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The next day - I'll just add - was my birthday. I woke up in Hamilton, having made my way there after we got back from Coromandel, and spent a most enjoyable morning making chocolate cupcakes with pink icing and edible glitter with Rachel, and opening presents with JJ (still the most beautiful child in the world). Then it was back to Auckland, armed with the cupcakes, for Proto-Polynesian Linguistics. We ate the cakes and I was presented with a card, home-made by Mark, in which the greeting 'happy birthday' had been somewhat dubiously reconstructed. Aw, guys...

In the evening I had very tasty dinner with Jessie, Amanda and Steifan at a nice Middle Eastern restaurant and then a lovely gang of chums came to my flat for drinks (and Tim Tams). We were going to go out but never made it, and various people came and went and we stayed up drinking 'til 3am. It was a great birthday! (Tho obv strange not to see Mum or Dad.)

***

Last but not least, this weekend I was in NZ's capital, Wellington, with Steifan and Lindsey. On Friday I ditched Film Studies to spend a wonderful 12 hours on the Trans-Scenic Overlander train from AKL to Windy Welly (luckily not too windy whilst I was there). The train was very comfortable and only about half-full, with enormous windows and a viewing lounge in the last carriage (basically the back of the train is glass). We passed a huge range of scenery and saw an amazing sunset, Lord of the Ring's Mt Doom (all snowy), a shitload of sheep, some windfarms and a few viaducts, as well as making friends with a Canadian called Graham.

Just walking through downtown Wellington to the hostel we already felt it had a different vibe to Auckland, and took an instant liking to it. It's smaller, and the architechture is nicer, and the city is laid out better, and everyone is a lot cooler, and the scenery of the harbour is gorgeous. We had dinner in a French restaurant, bid farewell to Graham who had an early start, and went for drinks in a couple of cool bars, including one with a pretty damn good covers band.

Saturday was the most glorious sunny day, and began in a funky little cafe with a big-ass brunch of waffles with bacon, banana and maple syrup, and some strong coffee. Then we wandered through town to the harbour and on up Mt Victoria, a super steep hill (probably a volcano) with incredible views of the city. Back down that, back through the city, pausing for more tasty eats and to check out some vintage shops and buy some beers, then up a hill on the other side of town, courtesy of a short-lived but, I suppose, charming little red cable car. Despite a bit of a chill, we sat in the botanical gardens atop this hill watching another lovely sunset, before retiring to the hostel for a nap, followed by Malaysian grub, watching the end of the All Blacks vs. Wallabies match and drinking drinking drinking in the hostel bar and a club called 'Sandwiches' (worst club name ever?)

Sunday also began with an awesome brunch - long may it live in my memory (rather than on my body). In a cafe reminiscent of Edinburgh's Forest Cafe, I enjoyed a 'bacon hashstack' - two fried eggs on two homemade hash browns on two pieces of fried toast, accompanied by two fried tomatoes and a pig's worth of bacon, with home-made hollandaise sauce and salsa. SO. GOOD.

Over the road was a second-hand record store which we spent a while in, and I was excited to discover a large collection of tapes. Better late than never right? Then we went to NZ's enormous national museum, Te Papa, a beautiful building housing an impressive collection of artefacts concerning NZ's geography, history, art and culture as well as a 'colossal squid'. We only made it through two of five floors, and I hope to return and finish the rest at some point. After four hours of museum-ing tho we needed refuelling with coffee, then checked out the parliament building ('The Beehive') and had a quick dinner, before I had to scarper to the bus station for an all-night bus back to Auckland.

All in all it was a lovely, fun, laid-back weekend with good company and excellent eating (who needs more than that?) and I look forward to going back to Wellington - perhaps for Christmas, or to do an internship if I can wrangle that.

But in the mean time, I better do some work! I hope you're all well - please Facebook or email me with your news. I'd love to hear from you.

Lots of love, A x

Tim Tams, Tramping and Totally Nothing Tuesdays (a.k.a work avoidance)

Hello, hello chums.

I'm back in Hamilton this weekend. JJ is (finally) sleeping soundly and Rachel and Nick are off watching Harry Potter and the Poorly Edited Script. I should do that work I put aside for tonight, because now term is really under way and I actually have stuff to do, with deadlines and everything.

So... I think it's probably best that I write this blog instead. (I've already unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded the dishwasher, washed the pots from Rachel's fantastically delicious lamb and prune tagine [better than Morocco], wiped down various surfaces and tidied JJ's toys away. And people say I'm OCD! Ha!)

Anyway, I think the last time we spoke I was about to go off tramping? As it turned out, the tramping weekend was - brace yourselves - actually a lot of fun. I travelled up on Friday night with Jamie (who provided an excellent soundtrack), Amanda, Jessie, an American girl with whom I do Polynesian Comparative Linguistics, and Steifan, a bearded Dutch medical student. We arrived a little after most of the group due to a few wrong turns and consequently were directed towards a separate series of rooms. This transpired to be massively in our favour, as we got a room with just six bunks in it, rather than having to sleep in a line in one long room, like concentration camp prisoners/everyone else. There was also a heater and powerpoint outside the room, which we 'borrowed', thus enabling us to keep our room like a sauna the rest of the weekend.

The walk on Saturday was pretty enjoyable too. Not wanting to appear pathetic, nor wishing to push myself too much, I chose to do a 'medium' walk. I joined a group led by a kiwi girl, Jen, along with a Danish girl named Lykke and a few tramping club committee members, including captain Rion, who told me a lot about civil engineering and ferns, his girlfriend Lizzie, who was very nice and to whom I chatted to a lot about civil engineering and AUTC socials, and treasurer Richard, who instructed us a lot on civil engineering and tramping do's and dont's. It turns out a lot of people who do tramping also do civil engineering.

The walk itself involved us racing through bush (what they call forest out here, snigger) and then retracing our steps after a member of the party took a wrong turn. We also admired kauri trees (second biggest in the world after great redwoods in the US) and crossed a couple of rivers (wet feet! How upsetting!) In the morning I felt we went too fast, so you couldn't look at your surroundings as you had to focus on your feet. But after lunch - eaten perched on boulders by a river - we slowed up a bit and I could take in the sparkling blue rivers and the thin, leafless trees in the cold afternoon sunshine. We also paused to test Jen and Richard's waterproofs under a waterfall (they worked exceptionally well) and to laugh at me as I repeatedly slipped going down hill, resulting in a very muddy arse. I also learnt about scroggin - an excellent, energy-restoring combination of nuts, raisins, dried fruit, seeds, chocolate, sweets ('lollies') and whatever else takes your fancy, really.

In the evening there was a massive group meal of questionable quality, an impossible quiz (unless you were an expert in NZ history, tramping and plant diseases) and a disco in a small school-esque hall, which was decorated not unlike something you might be excited to attend if you were 12 and didn't know any members of the opposite sex. For some reason, the whole time we had to be dressed in outfits we'd fashioned out of 'rubbish' materials. Admittedly, the man wearing shorts and a t-shirt made of sacking was pretty cool, as was the girl who had unzipped her rucksack and managed to get in to it. On a different scale, my gang had spent a very enjoyable hour constructing skirts, dresses, waistcoats and accessories out of newspaper and bin liners. Jamie wore a fetching box with shoe-lace braces and a paper tie, and Amanda was a dab hand at making us all newspaper hats. That was probably the best part of the evening! Plus we all looked well hot. Obv.

On Sunday we took part in a massive tidy up of the kitchen/dining area and our rooms, before the group (probably about 60 people in total) went their separate ways. Jamie, Amanda, Jessie, Steifan and I went to Waihi beach, not too far from where we'd been staying and where Amanda's family owned a beach house. The other four all decided to swim in the sea, and the beach house's shower proved useful after that, as they all emerged blue and shivery. I remained on shore, partly on pneumonia watch, but also enjoying the particularly compact nature of the sand (I hate sand) and taking faux-arty photos of the large number of beautiful and perfect shells spread across the beach. A few other of our tramping chums crossed our path whilst we were there and we sat and ate lunch together.

The next stop was Paeroa, where New Zealand's 'famous' drink, L+P (Lemon and Paeroa), is made. Paeroa is not something you can eat, being a town, so the name is odd. Anyway, the reason you might stop there - as we did - is because of an over-sized novelty bottle of L+P perched by the road. It now has a little car park next to it, after its popularity lead to several deaths, when people stopping to take pictures of it decided to pose in the middle of road, no doubt to the annoyance of Paeroa's permanent residents, who probably sped up in order to floor these lovers of giant, novelty containers of sweet, lemony carbonated drinks.

I then drove us back to Auckland, which was a lot of fun and not as scary as expected - of course, everything's on the same side of the road here, tho the automatic nature of the car was initially a little unnerving. Back in the Big Smoke the gang and I went to see a film (it was the last day of the film festival) about a Spanish guy living in an East London squat. We then had some very tasty Japanese dinner and a few beers. It was all excellent excellent excellent - we were a great team, who had (partly) come together by coincidence but who all got on really well. Woo!

Right. Before this gets too much longer, here's a quick(-ish) summary of the rest of the week:

Monday - in an attempt to 'see' more of Auckland I spent the three hours between my lectures going round on the Link bus, which essentially travels in a circle through the main parts of town. It was quite interesting and I feel better acquainted with the city's geography. In the evening I met a band consisting of a 20 year old guy, a 30 year old woman and a 50 year old man (her dad). They were nice people but the music was a little middle-of-the-road and their cross-section of ages wasn't really what I was after.

Tuesday - I went to my first Pragmatics lecture was which was hell. I hate pragmatics as it is, and the lecturer was pretty annoying, so I left half way through (in a break, mind) to research other options. In the evening Cheery Canadian Mark and I went to a talk from Miriam Meyerhoff, sociolinguistics lecturer in Edinburgh, which was pretty interesting. Then we went to an Irish pub, where I had a massive steak, and where we joined Mark's friends for a pub quiz. We didn't win, but we're going back for more this week, I hope.

Wednesday - I was quite pleased with myself in the morning, having done a fair bit of work. I then had lunch with Steifan, which was nice (both the food and the company) and in the evening I met with another band, which I've subsequently joined. Called 'Breakdown' (what a shame the name's so emo!) they consist of three guys in their 20s playing original funky rock type stuff. They're all really good musicians and one of the guys has his own recording gear and an electric drum kit (much excitement). I played with them again yesterday and we're probably going to practice twice a week, in the hope of doing some gigs over the summer (by which I mean your winter). It's exciting. Plus it means I've met some more kiwis - yay!

Thursday - I remember Polynesian Comparative Linguistics being particularly fun. The class is a good group, even if it's mostly just Jolly Canadian Mark (he's been mocking me for referring to him as 'cheery' so I'm going to have to come up with other things) and I bantering away at each other. In the evening Jessie and I joined a bunch of tramping people for a dessert night at one of their houses. I have never eaten so much sugar. It was gooooood.

Friday - I had my first Film Studies class, which was pretty awesome, so good call me. Worth sacrificing Free Fridays for, I think (and I now have Totally Nothing Tuesdays instead.) We're doing the history of film, so were looking at the origin of films and silent films this week. I thought it was all fascinating, and I learnt a lot about how films are made too. In the afternoon I watched a Charlie Chaplin film, 'Modern Times', which was surprisingly funny and then went with Jamie, Happy Chappy Mark and his girlfriend, Lindsay, freshly arrived from Cheery Canada that morning, to see Bruno (not so good as Borat, I thought). After that we went on to a bar, where we danced to an Afro-Reggae band for a while, and Jamie and I indulged in that Scottish classic, cheesey chips.

Saturday - I hired a car and went with Jessie, Lindsay and Bouncy Boy Mark to a food show. We undoubtedly ate our weight in samples - mostly bread with a variety of sauces and dips, washed down with a selection of coffees and indeterminate wines (although we weren't exactly concerned with working out why they tasted different, it was obviously important to try everything on offer...) There was a lack of chocolate, we felt, but we did enjoy watching a cooking demonstration from a crazy kiwi chef lady, who's bright red boots matched her bright red hair. In the afternoon I went to Hamilton, which is where I started this blog...

Except now it's actually Monday, so I'll just quickly say that not a lot happened on Sunday; I did a bit more work, JJ and I spent a happy hour or two playing with clothes pegs and bubbles and reading the Gruffalo (tho only the first half seemed to be of interest) and Rachel was an excellent surrogate mother, providing washing facilities and care packages of leek and potato soup. I also met in town with Jamie and Amanda, and we had coffee and cake, as you do, at the feet of the statue of Riff Raff (we shared our cake with him too). A brief rainstorm resulted in a fantastic rainbow just before I headed back to Auckland for band practice.

So, there it is. You get the idea. Meanwhile, I'm starving. There's only so many Tim Tams (NZ's Penguin biscuit, which you can use as a straw through which to drink your tea) you can eat before you crave real food. And I know there's some soup-er soup waiting for me...

Speak soon, A x