Aw Nau Brew

This is how kiwis talk. Seriously. It's hilariously true.

Parihaka (AKA Dani's Birthday Festival)

I love that we live in a place where hitch hiking can be our main mode of transportation. Yesterday we traveled 350 kilometers hitching and didn't wait longer than two minutes for a ride. True, we do live in Raglan, a hippie surf town. And true, we were traveling from the Parihaka Peace Festival. I suppose you'd have to be of extraordinarily questionable character to not catch a ride from the peace festival to the hippie surf town. We apparently looked reputable enough to get picked up at the gates of Parihaka by a van full of kind anarchists who deposited us only 40k from home.

Hitching home was the end of a great birthday weekend at Parihaka. Nelson arranged some free tickets for us in exchange for volunteering at the Permaculture New Zealand tent. Work for two hours a day giving presentations and helping in various ways, in exchange for spending the rest of our days, as my little brother would say, chillaxing amongst the music, food, and good vibes of the festival. Definitely a good way to transition from my mid-twenties to my late twenties... Ugh.

Getting immersed in the Aotearoa (New Zealand) music scene was good. We saw our local band, Native Sons, perform on the mainstage. They were great. Like always.

I found more fresh-fruit yogurt. It was great, like always.

And I had my first hangi, a traditional Maori roast cooked underground on hot rocks. It was pretty good.

I think, though the highlight of the weekend was Olmecha Supreme. Here's how they are described on their myspace page:
"olmecha supreme is afro futuristic roots music. painting sky pictures through light speed sonic fiction... it has been described as an intense surreal sound scape complete with giant robots powered on pure spiritual energy in combat for the future of our planet and life as we know it throughout the galaxy"

Um, how could they not be totally rediculously awesome. I danced my bum off. Hooray for being 27.

Inspired

Times have changed. I have found some ispiration to jump start my blogging again. Must be something good, right?

Today I went to Roll-up, a kabob and fresh ice cream stand in town. I actually don't know how I could have lived in raglan for nearly 2 months and never have frequented this fine dining establishment before.

I skipped out on the kabob (I'll save that for another post), and got a large fresh-fruit frozen yogurt. What is a fresh fruit ice cream? Well, you take plain vanilla ice cream (or yougurt), throw it in a funnel, throw some fruit on top (I chose boysenberry and banana), and then use a giant drill to blend it together and shoot it into a waffle cone. Genius.


I wish I had a photo of the ice cream blender/ potential torture device. Picture a giant plastic drill. You know in the original Sonic the hedgehog game how Dr. Evil rode on this floating drill and sonic had to bounce up and hit him without getting spiked? That's pretty much what they use.

The results are amazing. You should all come to Raglan to get a taste of it.

Back In Action

Since our camera got stolen I haven't been in much of a mood to post. Sorry. I'm still not. I will say that we had an amazing New Year's Eve which involved a parade, a circus, and live music. Nope, don't have pictures of any of it.

We are going to Hamilton later this week to our storage unit where my little old trusty Nikon point and shoot is waiting to rescue me from my camera-less life. Until then I will try to entertain you with witty prose.

Stay tuned.

Grinched

Somewhere in New Zealand someone is enjoying a slightly used Canon G9 Powershot camera, an Ibook G4, and the various other electronic bits and pieces that were with them. That someone is certainly enjoying looking at all of the pictures of Nelson and I from the last month that were not backed up. They're probably enjoying reading the last two weeks of Nelson's doctoral research (also not backed up). They're probably skyping with their friends on their new webcam as we speak.

Grrrrr....

We locked our electronics in the office at Solscape to protect them from the damp unlockable tipis. Irony is a slap in the face, isn't it? On Christmas eve someone broke into the office and stole the cash register and our electronics. Somehow Phil's nicer laptop was left untouched, sitting on top of the desk. Luckily our external hardrive was left as well, saving our backed up harddrives.

It was a crappy way to start our festivities. But, we pressed on. We had 27 (and growing) mouths to feed for Christmas dinner. So, down for a quick surf in the morning, then in the kitchen with the girls all afternoon. Here are the results of our hard work.

Then we held a Yankee Swap. I'm sure there are other names for the present stealing secret santa type game that my family plays, but since we are from New Hampshire, Yankee Swap seems appropriate.

Here is Nelson stealing Go's cinnamon soap.

And Go's expression when he figured out what was in the next present he opened.

And Go and Jake proudly displaying their Mother's Milk surf wax. A popular item in our exchange.

Well, here's to a good Christmas despite our losses (we keep trying to remind ourselves that they are just things after all). Hope everyone's Christmas was as nice as ours. And here's to hoping that someone's heart will grow three sizes in the next few days and we will get our pictures and research back.

Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

This is my first Christmas in the southern hemisphere, and maybe its just me, but it seems as though here in NZ they celebrate a bit differently. Here in Raglan the local bar, the YOT Club, held a super hero Christmas party. Here are the folks we live with at Solscape (Me, catwoman, the joker, Kill Bill, and Lara Croft). We arrived at the party in the back of Danny (the Joker)'s house truck. I can't imagine what any random tourist walking down the street must have thought when six or seven of us rolled up. You can't tell here, but my costume was simple... a cape from the op shop, black leggings, and undies on the outside.

We also recently moved out of our caboose home. We really liked our little dorm-sized room, but since we are in high-season and living at a hostel, I suppose we need to take what we can get. Our new room is about a five minute walk from the center of Solscape at the tipi retreat center. Yep, tipi. Here is our home for the next few weeks:

The downside of living in a tipi is that it can be quite damp. They were built for the great plains after all, and not for the tropics. But, it is actually gorgeous and tranquil up there and we have an outdoor kitchen and bathroom. We are going to cook Christmas dinner up there using the earth oven with all the long-termers here. No super hero costumes this time.I'm not sure if its the superheroes, tipis, or summer weather, but it definitely doesn't feel like Christmas. None of mom's cookies, no 7 fish dinner, and no time with the fam. All I want for Christmas is New Jersey!

Seeing Stars

I saw stars today. No, not the romantic, "Oh, Nelson, I see stars in your eyes" kind of stars. Think less 40's love ballad and more road-runner v. coyote, yellow and red flashing stars. I've never actually seen stars before, and I've done some pretty dumb stuff. What could've caused this kind of pain?

Was it when at about 3am Nelson sleep-punched me in the side of the head? (He had a dream that he was in a fight with his childhood best friend, Za). No, turns out sleep-punches are only bout 1/10 as strong as real punches. A couple of moans and some belly laughs and we were both asleep again.

Was it when I got skegged today in the groin? You got it. Somehow I, and my board both got turned around in a wave so that I was laying on the wrong side of the board. Bad News. The next wave came and I caught a non-flexi surf fin to, what my older sister (a lawyer with two kids) calls, the Va-Jay-Jay. Man, pubic bones are sensitive. I thought I might pass out it hurt so much.

Sleep punching and a powerful skegging... Sorry Nelson, no loving for the foreseeable future.