People here seem more willing to decorate their cars for advertising than in the States, and no car is more often adorned than the Mini Cooper. 

This one from Department of Writing caught my eye, though it’s more subtle than some. 

Morning and afternoon light is extra special here for whatever reason. 

A vigorous 1hour lunchtime walk got me to the top of Mt. Eden, Auckland’s highest volcano, 196 metres. 

Yesterday I went to an event at Grid/AKL, a co-working space with all the eye-rolling hipsterisms you expect in a co-working space. Such as a cleverly capitalized and punctuated name. Sigh. 

But I did think this stairway is pretty cool. And then I thought about how the target tenant for Grid/AKL is, approximately, the grandchild of the original audience for Stairway to Heaven. In other words, if I like and understand this meme, has someone missed the mark?

Oooooooh, it makes me wonder…… is the song that timeless, or are building designers perhaps not quite as hip as they think they are?

The Tenacious is a specially outfitted sailing ship owned by the Jubilee Sailing Trust. Her mission is to bring the adventure of sailing to people of various abilities and disabilities, because how awesome is that. 

Quite a boat… wheelchair accessible, even the platforms on the mast, Braille signage, talking compasses, and so on. Very cool!

Yesterday we ventured downtown for an event called “A Day in France.” It was held in Shed 10, a repurposed warehouse on Queen’s Wharf. It was fun to see some French-themed businesses and hear a little bit of spoken French, but mostly it was just a mob of people standing in line for food like crêpes and frites. 

We ventured out onto the wharf, where – as is true the world over – there were a few guys inexplicably fishing. 

Found this neat bollard…

Then we noticed an ugly cloud coming in…

So we took refuge in a tapas place, giving us France and Spain in one day!

We saw a sign outside the Holy Trinity Cathedral advertising the KBB Music Festival this week, and the final concert was open to the public, so away we went. 

They had four categories: chamber groups and concert bands in the afternoon, and the show we saw: symphonic orchestras and jazz bands, in the evening. 

But what were we getting into?

As it turned out, these are the premier high school instrumental ensembles in the Auckland region. Generally from the fanciest private schools. They’d been in an intensive week-long festival/workshop, and this concert was the finale. Almost 4,000 kids in all over the course of the week. 

The first group up, an all-girl orchestra, launched into a Pops rendition of I Could Have Danced All Night, complete with vocalist. But the vocalist was not the teacher or some Julie Andrews wannabe mom, no indeed, it was a pair of girls much too young and small to have pipes like that. Brought tears to our eyes they were so good and so unexpected. 

From there, we went on through three more orchestras and five jazz bands. Kudos to the stage crew. 

There were some pieces that were too ambitious for the kids (sorry, Maestro Shostakovich, they sawed your Festive Overture into ribbons), but some that really worked (Sviridov’s Romance is technically simple and emotionally powerful, so an easy win, and Haydn’s Toy Symphony –complete with silly chicken whistles – had the entire audience and half the players doubled over with laughter). I expect to see Ianetta Solomon-Brown, who channeled Nina Simone for “Feeling Good,” on The Voice some day soon. However, the boy who tried to do Harry Connick Jr. won’t make it much past his fraternity talent show. 

We sat next to a music teacher who brought a group to the festival for the first time this year, but wasn’t included in the concert. We agreed at being amazed at the amount of youthful talent on the progr. He struck me as the kind of teacher you’d remember in later life, and there were a few more of those up conducting. I suppose there are lots of things that teachers aspire to, but being “that teacher” for some of the little snots must be up there. Thank you Mr. Garden, Mrs. Roshko, Mr. Coday. 

All in all, a wonderful evening, leaving us filled with equal parts good music and hope for the future. 

It turns out that the party bus doesn’t have a lot to do during school hours… 

I bet every 11-year-old kid who gets to ride this bus thinks it’s the coolest thing ever, while every mom bites back her fears and frustrations at the wrongness of it all. 

The swamp hen is a fairly common bird around here… this is the third time I’ve seen one in my daily perambulations. But, although the picture doesn’t really show it, they’re quite an amazing blue color. Yet another example of why it’s cool to switch context from time to time… the joy of discovery. Even knowing that the thing itself isn’t particularly unusual, it’s totally new to me!