Good Times, Bad Times

Well our time in Chch has finally come to an end. And in the end, it was a mixed bag. Not as much work at Three Boys as I would’ve hoped, and the accommodations left a bit to be desired, but we did some fun things in Chch and made a couple bucks, which made us feel better about not just spending heaps of money this year.

One highlight was getting to Mt. Hutt to get a good day of skiing in. As opposed to the club field at Lyford, Mt. Hutt is a proper ski resort in the style we’re used to, complete with a quad and a six-seat chairlift. On the day we went it was a gorgeous, sunny day with little wind, near perfect conditions for a day on the slopes. We met a bunch of people who said it was probably the busiest day of the year, though it didn’t seem more than an average weekend day in Vermont. The snow was pretty good that day, with a little bit of powder to enjoy, and with the lifts we probably got more skiing in in an hour there than we did in four hours at Lyford. Our only misstep on the day was to miss a moderate blue square trail for an icy, rocky, and really steep double black diamond run, which took us forever to get down. I looked really cool sliding down a couple hundred meters on my butt.

From the mountains to the sea, a typical view from Mt. Hutt

Even though Mt. Hutt is a more polished (and definitely more expensive) resort, you still have to drive about 14km up an unpaved, potholed road that winds along a mostly-unguardrailed road on the mountain. We found out later that a number of cars have been blown off the road in really windy weather. Great. Luckily for us, there was no snow on the road, meaning we didn’t have to use our chains.

Andrew takes a break between practicing his 360 jumps

One quick drama to relate about our landlord/flight attendant, Phil. By the time our last night in Chch rolled around, we’d grown rather annoyed at him, mostly due to his refusal to provide heat for the common areas, and his reneging on our agreement to lower the rent when he brought on another roommate. As expected and as he detailed in his memo, he had the balls to approach us on our last evening and attempt to pocket two nights of rent from us for one extra night’s stay. I’d just like to know where he buys his sporting equipment.

At this point we were tired of feeling taken advantage of, so we let him know that on principle, there was no way we’d pay him for two nights. He wouldn’t back off, however, and acted all indignant like we were the ones trying to screw him, so we packed up all of our things and left as he sat at the kitchen table, pretending to read his orientation manual for his new job in customs. He looked a bit shocked that we had our stuff largely ready to go and that we would just leave; the look on his face was pretty satisfying. We left that evening and found a hostel for the night, and though it cost us a couple extra dollars to stay there as opposed to Phil’s, not giving him the money felt good to us; if a couple bucks was the price of satisfaction for us there, so be it. With a good night of sleep and I guess what we’re calling a moral (if somewhat pyrrhic) victory over our nemesis Phil, we were ready to welcome Becky’s mom and Don to NZ!

A kea at the ski field... at least he's not eating our boots!

On The Road Again

Howdy from Nelson, thought I'd do a quick post to say that all is going well on our trip through the northern part of the South Island with Linda and Don. Since arriving here Thursday we've been through Kaikoura, Blenheim, Marlborough Sounds, and are currently enjoying the sunny north. Linda and Don seem to be having a good time and are holding up well on Becky's demanding trekking tour. It's nice to have other people cooking dinner for you every once in awhile. Look for more updates in the near future!

In other news, the ABs continue to whomp their competition in France, beating an undermanned Scotland 40-0. Actually, the match was in Scotland, not France, giving the Scots an odd home game in a tournament that is ostensibly set on the continent. Weird. NZ has had a ridiculously easy opening group in the tournament, leading to a month of non-competitive games before the more trying quarterfinal round begins. This in turns has caused the whole country to fret that they won't get enough good game-time action before they face a real test. Here's hoping that's not the case.

Last, we highly recommend this recent NYTimes article on Couchsurfing (go to www.bugmenot.com if you don't have a nytimes.com account, though they are free). It summarizes the CS experience quite nicely, we think. Maybe we'll be able to convince at least one of our friends/family to get involved with the website. We'll be holding our breath from down here!

Kiwi Jams

While in NZ we've been trying to listen to as much Kiwi music as we can. Here in Chch, that means listening to RDU, the University of Canterbury's college radio station. It's a pretty good station in our opinion, playing a decent amount of indie rock as any proper college radio station should. It also plays heaps of NZ music, of which a surprising amount is dub and drum n'bass. Dn'b might be a predominantly college or Chch thing, as we hadn't it at all in first stint in the N. Island, but dub is definitely popular all over NZ.

Dub is probably best described as a really cruisey bass-heavy reggae variant, and given that NZ has a pretty strong Pacific island influence, I guess it's not surprising that it's really popular here. Coming from America though, I can't really think of any dub bands of note back home. The following are some interesting Kiwi bands and tracks that we've heard over the past nine months here. Some I like, others are included mostly for educational value, as always your mileage will vary. Enjoy!

Salmonella Dub – one of NZ's biggest dub bands, they've got a big following here, mon.

Shapeshifter, Tapestry - Kiwi dn'b group from Chch, obviously very popular here. I'm not the hugest dn'b fan, but the song 'Tapestry' has got some soul.

Cut Off Your Hands, Still Fond - If you’re into Franz Ferdinand and other bands of the ‘white crunk’ ilk, you’ll probably dig this song.

Liam Finn, Gather To The Chapel - Recommended for all fans of Iron and Wine, Sufjan Stevens, and other acoustic balladeers, Liam brings the pathos on this song.

The Checks, Take Me There, Riding the currently hot retro/blues/garage wave are The Checks, and this is a good straightforward rocker.

Motocade, My Friends - I don’t have many emo moments, but this is a pretty good dancey emo-ish number from an Auckland group, nice and catchy. My friends think I'm stupid for liking you, but I like you, indeed!

Tommy Ill, Bill Cosby - Haven't heard too much NZ rap besides Scribe, who didn't do much for me, but this song is a great, feel-good hip-hop party song.

Black Market Art, Yell and Yell - a little Cantabrian indie rock never hurt anyone, this maybe reminds me of Pavement.

The Brunettes, BrunettesAgainstBubble - We actually saw this band in Vermont, supporting Clap Your Hands Say Yeah; this song is irresistable.

Fur Patrol, Hand on an Anchor - We saw the chick lead singer from this band play with some other guys in Chch, and even though the show was hardly overwhelming, we had to say she had a great voice. It shows in this song.

The Exponents, Why Does Love Do This To Me - Apparently these guys are a classic Kiwi band, as this song must be ten years old but is heard everywhere. An appropriate analogy might be if America was really proud of Hootie and the Blowfish or a similar band.

Myspace has clearly been supplanted by Facebook, but it clearly still is useful for music purposes, good on ya Myspace!

Countdown's On In Christchurch! (Aug. 24 - Sep. 14)

So we've been in Chch for about six weeks now, working and chilling, getting ready for the last three months of our trip. It's been good to have a bit of a break from traveling, earning a couple bucks, exploring Chch and whatnot, but we're about ready to get back on the road and get traveling again. Luckily Becky's mom Linda arrives next Thursday for a tour around the north part of the South Island, and we're psyched for her visit. As the title indicates we've been counting down the days until we're able to put Chch in the rear-view mirror.

As far as our working is concerned, Becky's been putting in major hours at the Convention Centre, sometimes working hard, sometimes not. She's learned that just like plants, people at conventions apparently need watering, and that if a package can be misplaced between the time the courier drops it off and it gets to the convention floor, it almost certainly will be. She's also feeling a bit like Gunther in The Life Aquatic as she's been entrenched on the B Team there, though it sounds like the package-receiving department will fall apart when she leaves.

As for me, there wasn't as much work at Three Boys as I'd hoped, so I've been doing a bit of temping as well, mostly casual industrial work. I was a runner on a garbage truck for a week, which I suppose I'll have to file under "Interesting Life Experiences". It wasn't that bad actually, as half the time I just rode around in the front of the truck, trying not to slow down the driver on his run. In nice weather riding on the back isn't terrible work and you will get fit doing it, though the smell does have something to be desired. I've also been doing some work at a powder-coating factory, which has been OK but awfully strenuous when it hasn't been tedious. I have learned that entropy doesn't favor the guy trying to vacuum up powder in such a facility, however. On the other hand, I now know how to spot-weld.

Our living situation has been a bit odd here in Chch. At first, we thought Phil was an alright guy, though the experience over the past few weeks has changed that, and we now would describe him as a cheap, opportunistic hermit. Cheap because he refused to buy more propane to heat the living room, even though the temperature has often hit freezing at night, making the living room pretty unhospitable in the evenings. It's also not a pleasant experience being able to see your breath indoors at the breakfast table in the morning. As a result we've spent more than a few evenings watching DVDs in bed on my computer. Phil didn't mind the lack of heat in the living room since he's spent the majority of his time at home in his room. Watching TV, sleeping, eating, you name it, he does it in his bedroom alone. It's more than a little odd, thus the hermit part.

Our major gripe with Phil is that when we moved in he promised he'd reduce the rent if he took on another tenant. Unfortunately, after a few weeks he rented the spare room to a Korean English-language student, and then refused to lower the rent as he had earlier promised. It wasn't so much the monetary aspect of his reneging on the deal that really bothered us (a token amount off the weekly rent would certainly have sufficed) as it was the fact that he was bent on taking advantage of us once he had us in a compromised position. In a hilarious example of Phil's anti-social and somewhat greedy nature, he wrote us a memo informing us that if we wanted to stay another day at the end of our stay (Linda arrives on a Thursday and the final day of our rent cycle is a Wednesday), we'd need to pay for two days, even though we'd be staying just one extra night. It would seem that hotel management is not in the cards for him. In any event we've chosen to ignore his fuzzy math and will find alternate accomodations for that night.

As a result of Phil's shenanigans we think little of his character and have endeavored to use as much internet and electricity as possible in our time here. We're doing our best not to think badly of all male flight attendants now, but I guess we'll have to be wary in the future...

All Black with NZ!

In honor of the Rugby World Cup and in support of the New Zealand national team, the All Blacks, we’ve gone all black, at least for the time being. To do that we’ve had to ditch our previous template, as it was seriously tough to modify for a couple of HTML-neophytes like ourselves. At the end of the RWC, we’ll probably be faced with a difficult decision whether or not to go back, but that’s another story. Most of you are probably unaware (and we would be, too, had we not come here) that the 6^th RWC has started in France, and will continue for the next six weeks or so. Rugby hardly rates a mention in the States, but in NZ it’s practically a religion.

We’ve touched on it before, but New Zealand is absolutely mad for rugby (the Union form, as opposed to League, which is a different beast that’s much bigger in Aussie), with other sports hardly comparing in terms of popularity. You can hardly swing a dead possum anywhere in the country without hitting a set of rugby goalposts. On any given weekend heaps of Kiwis are either playing or going to ‘the rugby.’ We’ve gone to a few games and found it to be just as entertaining as any football game back home. You have to admire the power, agility, and fitness of all the players on the field, and especially the abuse they take. No playing only half the game or wearing huge pads here!

The countdown to the RWC was on in Auckland when we visited in January

At the peak of rugby and NZ sporting are the All Blacks, probably the best rugby team in the world and the subject of the entire country’s focus and support. If baseball is American as apple pie, rugby is as Kiwi as No. 8 wire, or the haka, the Maori war dance that the team does before each match. Rooting for the ABs is practically a patriotic duty here; it’s rare to find a New Zealander who doesn’t. Being from America this is a pretty novel concept, as we don’t get behind any one team as a country, except for maybe a few times in the Olympics. Here in NZ we’re struck by the absolute devotion shown by Kiwis for their team nationwide, and obviously have caught the fever ourselves.

Ever since we arrived in NZ in January, the RWC seems to have been on many Kiwi’s minds. Being a sports junkie but generally uninformed about rugby, I’ve brought up rugby in conversation countless times this year, and nearly everyone has mentioned the RWC and how they reckon the ABs should be poised to bring home the Cup this year. The ABs won the inaugural Cup in 1987 and have been favored to win it a number of times since, but have been snakebitten in their last five attempts. It’s quite a sore spot for many here, and even though the ABs have been the best team in the world for the past couple years and are heavily favored for this Cup, I suspect that many are trying to engage in a ‘reverse jinx’ by playing down the team’s chances.

The ABs perform the haka against S. Africa in their Tri-Nations match in Chch in July

If anything, the country may be too wrapped up in the RWC and how the ABs are doing. Over the last few weeks, there’s been little actual sporting news, but they manage to fill the allotted time by reporting on every detail of the ABs’ health, practice regimen, potential lineups, off-field activities, and most hilariously, changes to their breakfast schedule. I like sports as much as the next bloke, and living here I realize there are a lot of slow news days here, but that’s some serious overkill. Perhaps NZ takes the whole thing a bit too seriously, like countries in South America tend to take the World Cup in soccer. Hopefully Kiwis don’t take success or failure at RWC as a referendum on the country’s worth. You guys are alright, seriously.

We meant to get this post up a couple days ago, before the RWC started, but technical difficulties got in the way. The ABs have already had their first game, beating Italy 76-14 in a romp that got out of hand in the first ten minutes. In other news, the US played a valiant game, losing to defending champion England 28-10, a heartening outcome for the Eagles, who the bookies have at the longest odds of the tourney, 5000 to 1. It’s going to be a bit of a struggle watching many of the games live as they start around 12-4 am in NZ, but I’ll give it my best effort. Who said being a fan was easy?