Sunday 31 July 2011

Odds and Sods

We'd forgotten to mention earlier that we'd gone to an improvisational Shakespeare play - "Shakespeare As You Write It". The audience was asked to suggest or vote on a number of choices, and the three actors put together a Shakespeare play incorporating the suggestions. The audience chose a setting (ancient Rome), a movie to use themes and characters from ("Finding Nemo"), and a trait that the protagonist should have (someone yelled out "rhythm", and the cast started laughing - quickly admitting that they were looking for something like "honesty" or "daring", but they went with "rhythm"). They also asked for a number of smaller features that should be included. The list ended up with six items, ranging from the hero going on a quest to living with a disability. The actors skillfully wove these all together into a multi-act play. We were greatly entertained as well as very impressed.

This last Wednesday we went to a mid-day gardening workshop at the university. The topic was how to build a raised bed garden, but the interesting part was meeting Rev. Tom Innes, the university chaplain, who is apparently known around campus for being a skilled home brewer. Before the workshop started we were all offered a mug of his home-brewed ale. Paul is getting to like this university!

Tom Innes shows how to build a block wall for a raised garden
Rev. Tom offers his home brew to the crowd
On Saturday we took a city bus to the village of Lyttelton.  Lyttelton is just over the foothills from Christchurch, and is known as a village with a strong English heritage.  It also functions as the harbour for Christchurch, as the Christchurch beach is too shallow for commerce.  Lyttelton also boasts a good farmer's market, actually the first in the area.  Saturday was a cold day to start with, and it started to rain just as we got to town, so we didn't stay long.  However, we'll be back on a nicer day to better investigate this charming community that unfortunately was hit quite hard by the recent earthquakes.

Savoury treats at the Lyttelton Farmers Market
A roasted vegetable calzone and a mushroom crepe got us through the rain

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Christchurch Snowstorm

On Sunday night it was quite cold, and we'd had snow and sleet flurries during the day.  On Monday morning we woke up to about 6 inches of snow, and it was still snowing.  We turned on the TV and heard that the University of Canterbury was closed, roads were dangerous, and most businesses and offices were not opening that day.  We later found out that the buses stopped running as well.  By the end of the day about a foot of snow had fallen.  Snow only falls a few times a year in Christchurch and usually it's just a trace that quickly melts.  This time the large snowstorm was followed by record cold (about 23 F) that left lots of rutted ice on the sidewalks and streets which made travel on Tuesday (all day) and Wednesday morning quite slippery.  This storm was apparently the worst in about eighteen years.  We enjoyed having a snow day (the University didn't open until 11:00 AM on Tuesday).  Cindy taught the neighbor kids how to make a "snow buddy".  The family is originally from Zimbabwe, so we think they may not have seen a large snowstorm like this before.  Then, on Wednesday afternoon, it got up to 57 F.  Someone said to us that New Zealand is where you get four seasons ... sometimes in the same day.

Sunday 24 July 2011

Winter Life in Christchurch

We're now well settled in, and are making connections with a variety of local organizations - the University of Canterbury and the Computer Science/Software Engineering department, the Okeover Community Garden on campus, Farandol (the international folk dancing group), the Newcomers walking group, the local University staff yoga class, and now the Christchurch Vegetarian Society.  We went to a benefit dinner for the Vegetarian Society (their office was destroyed in the recent earthquakes) at a local Vietnamese restaurant, and about 35 people showed up.  We met a bunch of nice, interesting people, and had a very good 3-course dinner.

We picked up bicycles this week - Paul's bike is on loan from the Computer Science and Software Engineering department (a prior visiting scholar had bought it and left it for others to use - it just needed new brakes), and Cindy's bike is a long-term rental from Church Corner Cycles, our local bike shop.  Dave, the owner, is friendly, knowledgeable (about bicycles and New Zealand), and interested in the States, so we have a lot to talk about when we go there.  It's been pretty cold the last few days, so we haven't biked much, but we're looking forward to getting out more as it warms up toward spring.

Dave with Cindy's bike, ready after a tune-up
We also have bus cards, which give us a discount on the local buses and saves our legs on longer trips around town.  We got on one of the local buses today, and Paul greeted the driver with "hello, how are you doing?".  He responded, "Fine as a bunch of fluffy ducks."  With sayings like that, how can this not be a great country?

We've seen a few interesting birds that we don't see in Wisconsin - photos below.

Fantail (small bird that looks for insects)
Paradise Shelducks (more like a goose than a duck)
As we said above, a winter blast has hit New Zealand, with frost and snow coming in.  The online weather forecast even tells you how many layers to wear - today was a "four regular layers plus one windproof layer" day (advice that we followed).  There's more snow up in the high altitudes, but we even got some sleet and snow bursts today here in Christchurch, which is close to sea level.

A frosty morning in Christchurch
We try to do something every Sunday, so today we hopped on the bus and rode down to Hagley Park, the big park near downtown, to see the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.  Given that it's the middle of winter, there's not a lot growing, but you can see everything is neatly trimmed and ready for spring.  The garden caretakers also have set up a Gnome Hunt for children.  One permanent metal gnome starts things off, and then a series of clues are given, leading to ten wooden doors with a picture of a gnome behind them along with a clue to the next door.  We'd been hoping there were real (well, at least real clay or metal) gnomes at the end of each clue, so we were a little disappointed.  We still started to follow the trail, and found the first three doors, but a burst of wind and snow sent us scurrying back to the information centre to warm up.  On the way, we stumbled upon the end of the gnome hunt, which is a gnome grotto.  This had "real" gnomes, which we were happy to see.  Those who have seen the movie "The Full Monty" will understand our fascination with gnomes.

Cindy locates a gnome on the hunt
Real gnomes in the grotto

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Farmers Market and Riccarton Bush

On Saturday morning we went to the local farmers market, located on the edge of a small nature park called Riccarton Bush.  There were about 50 stalls, with a variety of produce, cheese, chocolate, yogurt, carmelized walnuts, other food and even local microbrewed beer.  Even though we'd just eaten breakfast, we were soon eating onion bhajis from one of the vendors.

The farmers market, in front of the earthquake-damaged Riccarton House
A huge Tasmanian blue gum tree borders the farmers market area

Great produce, including monstrous leeks
A variety of organic apples, all local to New Zealand
Eggs next to Pork Pies
Paul samples a local microbrew (note: beer is great at farmers markets)
French baker
The baker (he was French, making several varieties of French bread and rolls) had an interesting story.  He was working as a pastry chef, but was laid off after the earthquake due to loss of business (a common story here.)  He decided he had to do something for work, so he started baking bread out of his home.  He was helped out by being given access to a commercial kitchen, so that he could sell his bread at the farmers market.  This was one more example in our minds of how people have banded together to help each other after the earthquake.

After a number of passes through the farmers market, we went into the neighboring Riccarton Bush and walked the 30 minute loop trail.  Riccarton Bush is a park area that is being restored to its native state.  It was a homestead in the 1840s, but very shortly after establishing the homestead the owners set aside part of their land to maintain natural flora and fauna.  It's amazing to go very quickly from roads and grass in the farmers market area to native forest, shrubs, and vines.  The bush area is fenced to keep out dogs, cats, weasels and other predators, and native bird and animal species are being reintroduced.  The sounds were wonderful - we moved quickly from hearing people and cars to hearing native birds.

Riccarton Bush protects native animals and plants
Any hobbits around?
Jungle in the middle of Christchurch
Many birds heard in the canopy, but they're difficult to spot

Sunday 17 July 2011

Farm to Fork, and the Lantern Parade

On Friday, July 15, Cindy went to a work event at the Community Gardens on the University of Canterbury campus.  She met Jonny, the garden coordinator, and Smirna, a biology student from Macedonia.  They planted and weeded (including removing "twitch", which we would call quackgrass), and Cindy ended up with some veggies for her efforts.  We have to admit that we've been watching Master Chef - Australia on New Zealand One TV (comes on right before the evening news) and we've become slightly hooked.  On Friday night, we attempted a "farm to fork" challenge to use the ingredients Cindy got from the garden in our supper.  The photos show the progression.

The community garden at Univ. of Canterbury

Veggies harvested from the garden
Cindy brings home the harvest
The chefs work on the challenge
The final result - Eggs Hamilton Avenue - ready to be judged
Saturday night July 16 we went to the Light & Flight Lantern Parade at Hagley Park, a large park just west of downtown Christchurch.  The Lantern Parade involved home-made lanterns from kids all over Christchurch - bunches of them made by schools, but many made by individual children and families for this annual event.  The parade was led by the Be There Bicycle Band, a group of musicians on bicycles, sponsored by the Canterbury entertainment web site, Be There.  Despite the growing evening cold, hundreds of children and parents paraded through the park to celebrate the Christchurch winter.

Local children getting their lanterns ready
The lanterns were lit
An enthusiastic lantern holder
Twilight in Hagley Park
The Be There Bicycle Band
Everyone is ready to start the parade
Once in a blue moon...

Wednesday 13 July 2011

First Impressions of Christchurch

"Welcome to Christchurch!"   These were the words said by several colleagues in Paul's office right after he felt his first earthquake aftershock (a relatively mild but noticeable 4.3 event on Monday July 11th that shook the building for a few seconds).  Paul is now considered semi-native to the computer scientists, as he quickly added GeoNet (a New Zealand earthquake event information web site - http://www.geonet.org.nz/ ) to his web bookmarks.  We've only felt one aftershock so far, though this site shows that there have been thousands since the largest earthquake in February of this year.

Though this is an English-speaking country, there are a number of initially disorienting facets of life.  First is that traffic proceeds on the left in New Zealand, so you have to look right first when crossing the street - we don't want to cause an accident, at least not in our first week here.  Second, the sun rises and sets across the north instead of across the south, and the wind patterns are backwards - north winds mean warmth, south winds mean cold.  Third is the seasonal switch - after coming from 90 degree temperatures in Eau Claire, the days get up to 50 or 55 F if it's nice, and down near freezing on the colder nights.  You'll notice in the photos that we're generally wearing lots of layers (Paul had five on top this morning, including two layers of polartec), and we generally put on an extra layer inside our flat.

Almost everyone we've met so far has been very kind and helpful, which is all the more impressive in light of the difficulties they've had with the earthquakes.  We were told that most people in the city know someone who died (181 people are believed to have died in the February earthquake), but people are cheerful and ready to move on.  Still, the earthquake is a central topic of conversation - morning tea time talk at the Computer Science department usually starts elsewhere but soon comes back to the earthquake.  There's a dry wit used by many people we talked to that seems helpful in lightening the burden of the recent events - witness the name of the cafe on the first floor of the Computer Science building.


We always like checking out grocery stores to see what's different, and we've done that here as well.  Some products just have different names (e.g. the British names are used for eggplants (aubergines) and zucchini (courgettes), but there are new vegetables we haven't seen, such as kumara (a sweet potato).  What they call a yam looks like a bright red knobby new potato.  There's also a huge wine selection in the local supermarket, as New Zealand has a strong and growing wine industry, especially in white wines.  (We received a bottle of New Zealand wine as a housewarming gift, and it's been fun to try several of the local wines.)  The beer selection is smaller, but there are some craft breweries in Christchurch, Dunedin, and other South Island cities, so Paul will have some tasting to do.


Today we took the bus across the city to the local food co-op.  Piko Market is a worker-owned co-op that had to relocate because they lost their old brick building (and all contents) in the earthquake.  They found a new building, and the woman we talked to said that business is picking up.  Cindy and our new friend discussed issues relating to worked-owned food collectives.  Piko is fairly small, but still retains the feel of older co-ops with an emphasis on bulk foods and friendly, enthusiastic staff.  We liked the store, and will definitely take the time to go back.  A major bus route used to go about 6 blocks away from their new location, but even the bus routes have changed because of the earthquake, and a temporary route detour now takes a bus right to their front door.


It's great to be walking around the city in the middle of winter and seeing blooming rhododendrons, bright ivy, a host of blooming plants we don't know, and green grass.  There are rivers, creeks and streams running right through town, which makes it even more charming.  Anyone who has lived in the Pacific west or northwest would feel at home here - bright and green in winter, drier in summer.  We're looking forward to learning more about the plants, and maybe even doing some gardening at the places we live.



So, we are starting to feel somewhat at home - we're settling in where we live, Paul's teaching and work schedule is somewhat set, we've found the neighborhood grocery store, and we have visited the local cooperative food store,   Life is quite good so far.

Cheers from two temporary kiwis!

Monday 11 July 2011

Arrival and an Unexpected Event

We landed safely in Christchurch, New Zealand on Saturday morning, July 9th after about 28 hours of travel.  The main flight from San Francisco to New Zealand is long (over 12 hours), but the food, wine, entertainment and sleeping were all top-notch.

Boeing 747 preparing for trip from San Francisco to Auckland

 We were met at the Christchurch airport by the very friendly Tim Bell, Deputy Head of Department for Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Canterbury.  After a quick stop at our flat (townhouse) to drop off our bags and unpack a few things, we were off for a tour of Christchurch.  Tim took us to see the university area, several parks, the Central Business District (fenced off, mostly to be razed from the recent earthquakes - more on that another time.), and finally ... to a ukulele festival!

It turns out that Tim's wife Judith is a music teacher, and she set up a ukulele festival at the local school where she works.  Ukuleles have source connections to the South Pacific, are fairly easy to learn, and have been shown to be successful tools for getting kids interested in music.  Two guest instructors came down from Auckland to lead the workshop, which culminated in a concert.  There were several kids' groups playing ukuleles, as well as several community adult ukulele groups.  We heard everything from old time blues to rock music to some Maori songs, including "classic" ukulele hits like El Condor Pasa, We Will Rock You, and Proud Mary.  Several of the groups were dressed up in themes, including one kids' group dressed as pirates (one of the adult ukulele players later said "Pirates are fun, and ukulele playing is fun", which I think explained the connection).

 Pirate ukulele players ages 3 to 8
The ukulele salute

Young ukulele player
We ended the day with a wonderful supper at a local restaurant with all of the people involved in the festival.  Somehow we managed to stay awake through the meal (good people and conversation helped), and we ended our first day in Christchurch.