Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition
In which we find ourselves in another part of the world
We officially moved into the new house yesterday, only bringing the few groceries we’d accumulated at the hotel to fill up our new larder. Popcorn, raisins, Tim-Tams, crackers.
We won’t be quite as free to fill it up without a car, but still, let’s see how this looks in a couple of weeks…
Specifically, our new kitchen! We move in Friday.
… trees like they have down here. They’re all like trees I’ve seen before, but bigger, branchier.
Walking along over the weekend, we came across this scene involving a big machine ripping the front off a building (already under some kind of re/construction), and a very large contingent of emergency personnel. The scene was apparently unfolding just then, so we stopped to gawk. We saw some wisps of smoke, but it could have just been construction dust.
One of the other gawkers was a big guy in a security guard uniform, and we got to chatting. He was from South Africa, been here about 8 years. He couldn’t say enough good about NZ, what a great place to raise his boys, how honest the police are, great people all over, and so on.
Nothing dramatic happened across the street, so we took our leave and went on, smiling.
Your average Kiwi would be very happy to eat brunch in an American cafe or restaurant, and vice-versa. Eggs, toast, bacon, cheese, maybe some avocado and tomato here and there. Smoked fish on a bagel, surely!
But the “average” doesn’t totally capture Auckland these days… there’s a lot of people from a lot of places. So today we turned ourselves over to Yelp and had Malaysian laksa for brunch, way delicious. It’s a rich coconut broth with chili, chicken, noodles, some unidentifiable things, hard boiled egg, veggies, and some of that crazy Chinese sausage… yowza! Malaysian might be my new favorite Asian cuisine, even though I’ve only had it a few times.
One could argue that we switched hemispheres at exactly the wrong time of year. Just as Brattleboro was warming up and the days were long, we went to short days and “winter” all over again.
All that said, things could be worse.
Lee was formally welcomed to her new job yesterday with a pōwhiri, which is a Māori welcoming ceremony. I also got to participate.
We did a somewhat abbreviated and lower-key version of the ceremony, at least as compared to the kind of thing a tourist group might see as a “show” or might happen for groundbreaking at a big new building. Nobody dressed up in traditional clothes or brandished spears. Nonetheless, it was solemn, and very moving to be introduced to her coworkers, to be welcomed into the whānau (family/community) they work to maintain in the difficult environment of a psychiatric hospital.
There were long speeches and prayers in Māori, songs that we did our best to follow along, and the ritual greeting of hongi, where you clasp hands and touch noses. Then we got to relax and eat sandwiches, which while more “normal” to me, is also part of the ritual… a gentle return from the spiritual plane to the physical.
I imagine there is the same range of native/colonist tension here as anywhere, but at least so far it seems to me that the bell curve of sentiment is shifted toward mutual empathy, inclusion and respect. As double outsiders, navigating those cultural waters will be an exciting part of this adventure.
Lee starts working here tomorrow!!!
We spent yesterday, which was Queen’s Birthday holiday here, walking around, trying to get the lay of the land. The weather was nice, and we saw a lot of different neighborhoods.
We looked at our first apartment… great views, as advertised, but tiny! and expensive!! Three or four more today.
A nice little monument in the K Road / Upper Queen St. area. It’s known as K Road because who’s actually gonna say Karangahape in casual conversation? I mean, these are people who say “veg” instead of “veggie.”
The former Naval and Family Hotel, now a strip club.
A fantabulous magnolia tree in the Auckland Domain, which is a super nice park.
A snippet of rainbow in Parnell. We’ll be looking at housing there… was this an omen?
Seen in a window at the Auckland University of Technology.
We arrived at the hotel about 7 AM, thanks to the helpful and pleasant Mr. Kang, who himself only came here from Punjab a few years ago. He asked us why we chose to emigrate, and I answered with things like jobs, adventures, etc. He listened and nodded politely. I then said that our recent election certainly spurred us on in our thinking. At that point, he became much more animated… how could such stupid man become leader of so powerful country? He can do much much damage!!! When we asked him why he made the move, he said it was better for his children’s future. In India, he said, all politicians are about like Trump, at least in US you only have one.
We unpacked with the help of our welcome pack wine, and then set out to explore. Had a nice breakfast. You’ll hear this again: restaurant food here is pricey for sure. Here’s a few pics from our rambles.
Autumn is upon us…
Outside the Maritime Museum, this was the fastest monohull boat ever built, supposedly, in the late 1980s, the Americas Cup pride of NZ. Unfortunately, the Americans figured out that catamarans weren’t explicitly forbidden, and this boat ended up as a very slow knife at a gunfight.
The Sky Tower pops out from many vantage points. You can pay to take a (tethered) walk around that ring , and even slide down a cable, air assault style.
The harbor, or at least one part of it.
We also did a little apartment prospecting and got some basic groceries, and then it suddenly became nap time.
Our plant Itteh (so named because of an even larger one we used to own that we called “It”, combined with a Lolcat reference) has a new home in friend Humberto’s condo in the old Estey Organ factory.
But no worries, mate! In Auckland they grow outdoors!
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 