Traditional carvings

Woodworking is a common art form here, especially in traditional Maori styles that incorporate the spirals of fern heads, and stylized human forms.  Here are a couple of examples that I see every day.

Rangitoto Island

Rangitoto Island is an icon of Auckland City.  It's a perfect, cylindrical cone out in the gulf, just a 30-minute ferry ride away from the city.   It's a dormant volcano, and about four years ago we hiked to the top of it and peered into the crater.


It's one of the youngest land masses in New Zealand.   Rangitoto's birth was high drama.  700 years ago, Auckland was already a decently large city.  People also lived on the big island at the mouth of the harbour, Motu Tapu.  One day, smoke began to billow out of the ocean, and continued for years.  The eruptions piled up and piled up, until it created an island so big that it crawled up Motu Tapu's shore.  Imagine the shock the inhabitants must have felt!



BTW, the boys are feeling much better.


  

We cover our mouths when we cough

This weekend, both of our little boys were sick and miserable.   Malaise, coughing, low fevers, and all manner of drippiness.  They were both so unhappy, the poor little things.  Cuddling with Mama made it better-- Amiri wanted to be on my lap constantly, and Arram clung to me with his arms and legs like a newborn monkey with his head on my shoulder.  Basically, I was a human hot water bottle for two days.

Toward Sunday evening, they seemed to feel better and perk up a bit, stopping their moaning and even playing together a little.  We got them some fresh fruit juice from the place down the street and they loved it.

Then they got their appetites back and had a lovely dinner of toast and bananas.  Arram signed for milk.  Hopes are high for two healthy little boys tomorrow.

We were walking and we saw a fire truck parked on the street!

The jam slice

Another Kiwi dessert.  It's a thick layer of jam between two layers of dense shortbread-style cake, with a nice strawberry-flavored frosting.  It's kind of like a home-made pop tart, isn't it?  And that's EXACTLY what it tastes like.  Only better.

Funny, I was just writing about 'dichotomous emotional responses' today at work

Here's how Amiri looks at the playground.

Complete joy.

And here's how Arram looks at the playground.

No, I REFUSE to have fun on this slide.

The seesaw burns.  We hates it.

He also hated the swing, hated being held by Mama while SHE sat on the swing, and flat-out refused to even consider the merry-go-round.  

Well, in his defense, it IS hard to have a good time when a giant frog is trying to eat you.

Amiri pulled a 'Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul' moment on me

Amiri and I were cuddled up for our nightly bedtime story/talking.  He likes to talk about how he's a big boy, and Arram is a little boy.  I told him, well, son, you used to be a little boy, do you remember that? 

Yeah.  I was short then.
     Very short.  You were very little.  You wore diapers.
Because I was little.  And I sat in a stroller!
     Yes, you couldn't walk.
What happened before then?
     You were a little baby.  You didn't have any hair.
What happened before then?
     You were brand new, just born.  Tiny and crying, and drinking milk.
What happened before then?
     You were in Mama's tummy.  Before you were born.
Before that? 
     You weren't made yet.
Was I in Mama's head?  (laughing)
     No, you weren't in Mama's head.
(he thought about it for a minute...)
Was I in Mama's heart?
     Yes, Amiri, you were in Mama's heart.

    

Auckland solves our problems

We have very few problems.  And those that we do encounter have a way of getting solved for us.

For instance, we had to walk over a kilometer to get a good burger.  I know!  It took like eight minutes!  Aaaarghhh!!

And then Auckland solved that for us.  Look what opened across the street yesterday.  They're spectacular.  No more journeying for burgers... we don't even have to put on a jacket to run out for these!

And then there was the problem of crossing Hobson Street between our house and school.  We'd have to watch for cars, wait for them to go past, and then bump the stroller down the curb on one side and bump it back up the curb on the other side.  Whew!  The stress, I tell ya...

And Auckland solved that for us too.  Some construction crews turned up last month, and look what we've got now.

Notice the stripey crossing and the round orange signs.  They make cars stop and wait for us.  And also notice the ramped curbs.  I can navigate the stroller across Hobson now with just one hand.

Hey, Auckland?  I have another problem.  I don't have a million dollars and it's quite inconvenient...

New Zealand's Sequoia

In the Northland grow the Kauri forests, largely unchanged since the Jurassic.  Great big conifers with succulent leaves.  Heights of 50 meters, trunks nearly 10 meters in diameter.  2,000 years old.  Pine cones that look like they would huuuuurt...

Since each tree has such a huge volume of wood, they were in great demand for shipbuilding during the whaling days.  Now kauri pine is used for high-quality furniture and fancy decking.  Here, want to buy a slab of kauri?

But I don't want to have to come back inside

It's so sad when playtime is over.

Here are your cute kid pictures for the day

Amiri swings high!

Arram looks pensive.

Ready for a career in standup

Amiri sat down next to me and leaned in close to confide a problem.  "Mama," he said, "I don't like my lion any more."  He meant that lion, his much-loved lion, the one whose fur is matted from numerous trips through the washer as a result of all the dragging-around-and-loving.  I asked Amiri why, concerned about his change of heart.  He said, "Lion tried to bite me."  I started asking questions about lionbites so I could get some idea about the imaginary world he lives in... and then he started to laugh, and yelled, 'Joke!  Amiri told Mama a joke!"

There's still love there.

People must love this logo!

Businesses that put this sticker on their products get something like 20% more sales. 

I thought it was AWESOME when I saw this tattooed on a guy's shoulder as I was walking home from the train.

These cobblestones are too bumpy for walking!

L&P

I've mentioned L&P before here, but some things bear repeating.  L for lemon (flavour), and P for Paeroa (the town with the artesian well where the naturally carbonated mineral water comes from).   (Paeroa isn't far from us, just over on the Coromandel peninsula.)  Its label asserts that, similar to some other products that are ubiquitous locally but unavailable overseas, L&P is 'World famous in New Zealand'.

We got a bottle of the kiwiana soft drink today.  Amiri drank nearly the whole thing, and now tells us, "I like L&P." 

Hokey Pokey

     5 tablespoons white sugar

     2 tablespoons golden syrup

Slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  When it foams, reduce the heat and simmer for four minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in:

     1 teaspoon of baking soda.

Then pour it all at once into a greased flat pan and let it cool.  Break it into bits-- nibble the big ones and mix the small ones into vanilla ice cream.

Recipe notes for Americans:


It must be golden syrup, not some ersatz substitute like light corn syrup.  You must go to an English specialty store to find this.  (Or, know someone in New Zealand who can send you some.)


You may be tempted to throw in a handful of salted peanuts.  Do not do this.  And do not call hokey pokey 'brittle'.  


Hokey pokey is the unofficial national ice cream flavour.   And yes, it's pretty amazing.  (Even so, I still think Mackinac Island Fudge is better, but that's our little secret.  I won't tell if you won't.)

This smile means...

'Never mind the giant eel, I see my friend coming!'

Holly joined him shortly thereafter.

How's the weather down there?

It's now officially winter.  Even so, the weather has been quite mild and pleasant.  Today was the first day that I could see my breath when I left for work.  We've all bought new coats, but I've really been warm enough with just a sweatshirt or sweater.  Kiwis tell me that there is generally about a week of really cold weather, but that's about it.

I've easily transitioned to the metric system for volume/weight/distance, but it's a little harder for me to convert temperatures to Celsius--I don't seem to have the same reference values internalised.  So I've started thinking about it this way:

5 degrees = coat weather (and about as cold as it ever gets here)
15 degrees = sweater weather
25 degrees = t-shirt weather
35 degrees = beach weather

With extra peri-peri

Amiri and I had an outing.  We held hands and walked all the way up Queen Street.  Near the library, we stopped to play by some statues.

Then we went to Nando's, the chicken place.  I had a coupon.  We were order #14 and Amiri got to carry the Fourteen Chicken to our table to wait for them to bring us our food.

Nando's serves Portuguese-style chicken:  cooked over an open flame and slathered in peri-peri sauce, orange and peppery.  I got the hot peri-peri, and Amiri got the mild.  He ate SO MUCH CHICKEN.

But we only heard a few vuvuzuelas

So we live above a bar, right? Above ten or twelve bars, to be accurate. (It’s not as shady as it sounds—these are Viaduct Harbour bars, after all, not biker bars on skid row—and instances of shenanigans out on the street below are few and far between.) They are all sports bars. Regardless of how they brand themselves the rest of the year, right now during the World Cup they bring in TVs if they have to, and they are sports bars.

Because the matches are played in South Africa, they’re on during the dead of night here. No matter, say the fans, of course we’ll go to the bar to watch soccer from 1-4 AM. And there are a lot of fans. We have been awakened nearly every night by the jubilation below. (Last night was especially noisy, as New Zealand tied with first-place Italy.) It turns out that we’re in a perfect position to do some informal census-taking regarding the relative densities of nationalities in Auckland, as estimated by the volume of the intermittent roars that accompany every exciting play. The apparent Brazilian and Mexican populations are larger than I anticipated.

So good at holding on

Matariki

Maori New Year comes in early to mid-June, when the constellation of Matariki first starts to become visible on the pre-dawn horizon.  Meaning 'little eyes' or 'God's eyes', Matariki is believed to predict the crops for the year to come.  It's traditionally celebrated for three days after the first sighting, with feasts and celebrations of the people's connection with the land.  There is a month-long festival in Auckland. 

We know Matariki as the Pleiades. 

On safari

We used a day of our copious annual leave to play hooky on Wednesday.  We dropped the kids off at daycare (oh. yeah.  School, I mean school, PRE-SCHOOL) and then we got on a boat for a safari.  The catamaran was staffed by marine biologists, and our fees went toward paying for the education of future marine biologists who are doing their training while crewing the boat.  We got a little safety demonstration and then off we motored.  We went through Waitemata Harbor, north past Rangitoto, and admired the green water and the view of the city.

Then east across the Hauraki Gulf, north of Waiheke Island to within view of the Coromandel, and then north to near Great Barrier Island.  We could see the Little Barrier Island, a bird sanctuary.

The tropical current from the open north Pacific pours into this region.  This means warm blue water.  Which means plankton.  Which means fish.  Which means birds.

And which also means dolphins!  We came into a pod of about 100 of them.  The captain slowed the boat down and they surrounded us.

They would surface every few seconds and seemed to actually enjoy looking up at us and pacing the boat.

Eventually, 10 or 12 of them ended up chasing along behind the boat, playing in the chop.  I was within six feet of wild dolphins!


It got late, and cold (remember, it's late fall here!), and it was time to turn around.  We saw more birds, like the shearwater and the Australasian gannet, and a few smaller pods of dolphin who dashed past us.  And then way off in the distance, at approximately here, we spotted a whale.  He made a big plume of spray every time he took a breath.

What a really incredible day.

Upon arriving home from school

And it was Triple Chocolate, to show you just how generous he was

Amiri was a good boy recently, so he was rewarded at home with a big ice cream cone.  Oh, he loved it so much!

Then Arram turned up and wondered what his big brother was doing.

And Amiri was SUCH a good boy that he willingly shared with him!

Some of my favorite things

Nice coffees.  New Zealanders are serious about their coffees; you can get a really proper coffee at nearly any cafe.

Or enjoying a plate of Kapiti cheeses-- here we have brie, havarti, and bleu, and some purple grapes.  

 

But my favorite favorite thing is going out for pizza with a charming gentleman...

Or enjoying a walk with another gentleman friend.

I have to sound them out just like Amiri

Many towns and landmarks in New Zealand have native names.  They almost sound cartoonish to me at first, when they're pronounced fast.  It's actually rather straightforward to sound them out, though.  Here are the rules:

• Every letter is pronounced
• Exceptions (because Kiwi is a lazy-mouth accent)
• au = prounounced like 'oh'
• ao = pronounced like 'ow'
• ei= pronounced like 'ay'
• wh= pronounced like an 'f' sound
• The accent is usually on the first syllable

And here are some of the towns in our vicinity.  Have fun with them!

• Pukekohe
• Papakura
• Wanganui
• Te Papapa
• Manurewa
• Takanini
• Waitakere
• Remuera
• Manukau
• Whangarei
• Papatoetoe (my personal favorite, it makes me smile when I hear the announcements over the loudspeaker in the train station)

We know it's ridiculous

Now that Arram is a good walker, and also very clever about opening things, he gets up to more and more complex examples of mischief.

Just having a nice bottle of milk, right?  Think again.

No, it's a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise.

He toddles over to the fridge and opens it up, pulls the mayo bottle out of the door, scoots back into the living room, and pretends to drink from it.  (It's closed, and clean, so he's not actually ingesting any.)  Silly little boy.  He could at least close the fridge afterward.

As Amiri would say, "Funny Arram."

Footie jammies

One of the AWESOME reasons to have kids is that you get to dress them in footie pajamas and take pictures of them.

Happy Birthday Liz

We have the day off from work/school today!  It's the Queen's birthday, a public holiday here.  Her actual birthday is in April, but there's always been a winter celebration for a monarch's 'birthday', so I guess there always will be.  I think it's just an excuse to have a day off.

They succeeded in making me feel slightly guilty for liking it

We got the best burgers the other night.  The place was called Murder Burger.  The staff all wore shirts saying 'Meat is Murder'.  And happily serving up big meaty slabs.  Yeah, they were really good.

He just teethed two new molars. You wouldn't know it from this smile.

More speaking Kiwi

• Chokka: As in chock-a-block, meaning full or busy. “I’m tired. My day was chokka!”
• College: A private or upscale high school. “I’m in year ten at Queen’s College.”
• Ta: Bye. or OK.  or Yep.
• You sneeze.  The other person says: "      ."
• Diary: Schedule book or calendar. “OK, I’ll meet you next Tuesday at 3 PM. I’ve written it in my diary so I won’t forget.”
• It suits you: Wow, you look really nice!
• Good on you: Good for you.
• Uni: Where you study after high school. “I’m going to uni at Auckland University.”
• That's all right: You're welcome.
• Are you happy to...: Please do this task for me.
• Aircon: A heatpump with both heating and cooling functions. “It’s a [chilly/hot] morning, shall we turn on the aircon?”
• Aye: I agree—“Aye, let’s go to the store.” Or Do you agree?—“Let’s go to the store, aye?”
• Poor sausage: Pitiable wretch. “The computer just crashed and you lost your document? You poor sausage.”