Foot and Mouth - Tane and Lauren's blog

Amotai

2011-11-13T07:39:00.001Z

As I hope those of you who read this regularly (ie family and friends) know, we have been blessed with the arrival of our now five week-old son, Amotai. He is a delight.

Amotai, aka Captain Cute

Every now and then, despite the fact that he dominates our lives, I have a 'gosh, we have a child!' moment, and have to pinch myself. For all we've seen and done, this is by far the biggest thing that has happened to us.

I also have to pinch myself sometimes about how well it's going. You get a lot of people telling you how tough it is being new parents. If we had a dollar for every time someone told us we're not going to get a lot of sleep, we could have hired a wet nurse to ensure that we did.

Thankfully, Amotai is a good sleeper. He's got what they call good state control - which means he's pretty good at switching to sleep state. Many babies are not and I have a massive amount of sympathy for those parents. We feel very, very lucky. Touch wood, throw a horseshoe, cross our fingers and toes it continues. Not looking forward to his first illness, or teething.

It's not all fun and games.

Amotai is a constant source of amazement. There's the speed at which he is growing - he's packed on 1.5kg since birth, growing from 3.48 to 5kg, and is already too big for most of his newborn stuff. It's a bit sad really, having to pack away some of the lovely things people have given us after a few weeks.

Then there's the mundane things that are so fascinating. Holding him and watching him stare at you like he's trying to memorise your face. Seeing how the bath changes him in moments from hysterically crying over being naked to floating peacefully. Realising he can see you on the other side of the room. Best of all his watching him smile. He started imitating our smiles two weeks ago - last week he started smiling properly. He's also suddenly become interested in his dangly toys - the brightly coloured creatures that hang over his car seat and play gym. It all generates a rather manic excitment that childless people probably find bemusing.

Look! HE'S SMILING AT THE DANGLY TIGER!

There's also the stuff that's not directly about him. Watching Lauren be such a tender, loving mother. Feeling like a good dad as I feed him bottled Mum Milk, as he stares up at me with his big brown eyes.

These are happy times.

Things I have enjoyed about pregnancy

2011-09-16T10:11:00.004+01:00

As many of you know, I am now over 38 weeks pregnant, so well and truly in that stage of pregnancy where I may be having a baby anytime. Being so close to the end, I have been reflecting on what I've enjoyed about pregnancy, and what I haven't. This is what I’ve enjoyed:

The scans. Given that we haven't had any bad news in any of ours (and I appreciate that if we had I would feel quite differently about them), the scans have been a thoroughly moving experience. The 12 week scan was especially special as baby moved his arms and legs, resulting in Tane and I looking at each other as if to say "there really is a baby in there!" It was cool.

The random cravings. These have been quite funny at times, and I have rediscovered food that I hadn't really eaten in years - cheese, fruit by the tin, and hot chips. Mmmmmm. Given I'm a person that tends to stick to my favourite foods when selecting what to eat, it's been quite fun having cravings for foods that take me in all sorts of directions. Of note, the entire avocado I ate on toast in one sitting, and the short-lived Big Mac phase.

Feeling baby kick. This is something I still enjoy, even now when he's been kicking for months and sometimes leave me feeling a little winded.

Speculation. What will he look like? Whose eyes will he have? Will he have much hair? The speculation about what he'll be like has been great fun.

It's interesting and exciting. It really is, going through so many changes in such a short space of time. I don't just mean physical changes either, but emotional changes that Tane and I have gone through to get ready for baby - things like moving to the ‘burbs, starting to notice what brand of pram other people have (whereas before they were all prams to me), and having discussions about swaddling. Pregnancy has opened an entire new world of things to think and talk about, and I am very, very excited about having a baby.

Getting excellent advice from other women. While there is a flip side to this (see below), I have enjoyed much of the excellent advice that many other women have given me about pregnancy and baby. I have also learnt a lot about other women's experiences, and found out new things from my Mum about my own birth and her pregnancies with me.

Things I have not enjoyed about pregnancy

2011-09-16T05:11:00.026+01:00

Getting bad or disempowering advice from other women. This is the flip side of my last point, the bad or disempowering advice that some women give.
Being told you might miscarry if you walk on your feet in a certain way, or anecdotal theories plucked from the back streets of the Internet.
Being told about labour by some women in an unhelpful way. Some ladies are great with advice, and I hope to put their advice into practice. Some women, though, seem to just like telling gory stories and watching me squirm. Being told by some women about how bad it will all get, just wait, I'll see. I don't doubt that labour will be hard and agree that 38 weeks is harder on the body than 28 weeks, but when tired and sore at 28 weeks it is not helpful being told that it will get much, much worse. Especially when it didn't get much, much worse (touch wood thus far), just more waddling and less energy.

Worry about things going wrong. This is one aspect of pregnancy I haven't enjoyed, that little nagging voice in the back of your mind about what could go wrong. I understand though that this is a part of parenting as well, so may never be free of this one!

Being judged by others about food/drink/health. This isn't true for all people, but there are times when I can feel the judgement coming my way from someone who disagrees with food or drink I am consuming. And, sometimes the person judging may be in the right (ie Big Mac phase mentioned above), but that makes it more annoying, not less!

Feeling soooo tired some days. I really have had an easy pregnancy so can't really complain, but some days I feel like I have just run 15km although all I have actually done is walked to the shops. The only times in my life I'd ever felt like that before was when I had actually run 15km.

Gendered clothes. Earlier in pregnancy I got very frustrated at baby clothes being so clearly divided into boys' and girls' sections. Not only does it make no sense and have no basis in nature, but the pink/blue divide appears to be one giant marketing ploy. This rant aside I have become more wearily accepting that this is the reality of the children's clothing market, but I still don't like it.

The baby industry. Shops like the Baby Factory and Baby City have a lot going for them, and I have spent a great deal of time (and money) in them over the past months. At risk of sounding overly cynical, though, it seems that there really is a baby industry centred around making mums-to-be feel that they are somehow failing their unborn children by not buying certain things, or buying cheaper versions or things like cots. Because of this, it is impossible to know how much you actually need something. Navigating the baby industry really was one area where I really did appreciate the advice of other women who have had kids themselves.

World gone mad

2011-08-16T11:13:00.001+01:00

First there were the appalling, murderous riots in our beloved former home of Ealing. Now a major snowfall in Wellington. The world has gone mad.

Central Karori

Fortunately, while seeing sedate Ealing torn apart was heartbreaking, the snow was magic. It didn't last long in central Wellington, but the hill suburbs - like where we live - remain covered in white ice.

Though we both nearly slipped coming down the driveway today - tramping boots and all - and any room without a heater rapidly turns into a refridgerator, it's been worth it for the memories. As we got off the bus last night it was like a blizzard.

We weren't born the last time this happened in this city, and we might not be around the next time Antarctica comes to visit. So it's been a few days to savour.

Ten songs that have rocked my world recently

2011-08-08T11:00:00.000+01:00

Let It Loose - The Rolling Stones, Exile of Main Street

Wrecking Ball - Gillian Welch, Soul Journey

Please Read The Letter - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand

Red Dirt Girl - Emmylou Harris, Red Dirt Girl

Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks, Something Else By The Kinks

Shangri-La - The Kinks, Arthur

Intervention - Arcade Fire, Neon Bible

Back To Black - Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

Mykonos - The Fleet Foxes, Sun Giant

The Cave - Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More

I love good music. What's been rocking your world?

A Tale of Two Lists

2011-07-05T10:34:00.000+01:00

I imagine most people who drop into this blog now and then already know Lauren's and my big news - this little fellow is due to arrive in our household around the end of September.

We call him Camel, because he makes Lauren really thirsty. Or at least he did. Now his thing is kicking. Lots and lots of kicking.

It's going to be a huge change in our lives, of course. Priorities are going to be heck of a lot different. That really struck me recently when I made a list (as we do), then came upon another one from a few years ago. Here they are:

The London List
Crossed out because I did/saw/visited it:
British Museum, Play at The Globe, Victoria and Albert Museum, Wicked, Game at Wembley, Phantom, Game at Lord's, Oliver, Windsor Castle, John Soanes Museum, Windsor Great Park, Thames Boat Race, Regent's Park, Tate Britain, Tour of Lord's, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Centre Court at Wimbledon, Kew greenhouses, Highgate Cemetary, Westminster Abbey interior, St Paul's interior.

Wanted to see but didn't get around to:
Epping Forest, Pitshanger Manor, Abbey Road, premier at Leciester Square, London Eye at night, Richmond Park, Tate Modern

Crossed out because decided wasn't going to go:
Uxbridge, Hampton Court Gardens, game at Twickenham

With giant sloth, Natural History Museum

The UK List
Crossed out because I did/saw/visited it: Cornwall/Devon, York, Bath, Winchester, Canterbury, Hastings, Yorkshire Moors, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Highlands, Stirling/Aloa, Family up north/Ilkley, Isle of Wight, Festival

Crossed out because decided didn't want to go there: Cardiff

Walking in the Yorkshire Moors

The Baby List
Must haves:
Car seat, pram, changing mat, basinet, capsule, cot, high chair, pram sun cover, pram rain cover, draws, soft towels, blankets/sleeping bag, sheets x3, basinet mattress, bag for nappies, reuseable nappy liners, bibs, nappy bucket, flannels, portacot

May haves:
Baby bouncer, sling, hammock, carrycot, baby gym

Some of the stuff cluttering up our spare room

Yep, priorites are changing.

Through the window of a plane

2011-05-03T21:00:00.060+01:00

It may well be a while before Lauren and I get overseas again, which makes me reflect back on those days when we were hopping into a plane (oh, the carbon miles guilt) and heading off to some exotic place.

There are many who intensely dislike plane trips. Maybe it's the interminable airport queues. Or the souless no-man's land of the departure lounge. Or being crammed into a small space where you can never get a decent sleep. Or the fear of plunging to your doom.

Me though, I like plane trips. Airline food (heck, any food) has to be really bad for me not to enjoy it. These days, I have a smorgasbord of games, tv shows, documentaries and movies to watch - and usually end up choosing some mindless action movie (the flights to China featured Prince of Persia and The A-Team).

But the real kick I get is being in the air. There we are suspended above the world in a steel capsule, watching hills turn into crinkles and clouds turn into hills. I bet there were Neanderthals who watched the birds and dreamed of flight. Now we can do it so often it becomes mundane.

Not for me. Here are some of the reasons why.

Los Angeles at night

The endless suburbs of Mexico City

The epic, monochrome landscape of Baffin Island, Canada

Great Barrier Island - the first sight of home for two and a half years

On an island in the sun

2011-04-26T10:13:00.001+01:00

You all know the stories. The German who's been to Cambodia and Peru, but not to France. The American who's surfed off South Africa, but never seen the Empire State Building. So many people neglect the gems in their backyard while looking for them on the far side of the planet.

To an extent, that's true of us. It was only last year that I went to Australia and I've never been to Cape Reinga, while Lauren's never been to Milford Sound. Only once has one of us been to a Pacific Island - Lauren's trip to Tonga.

So going to Rarotonga this month was an overdue pleasure.

My whole life, I never made the connection. Duh.

And what a pleasure it was. We've been a bit dubious about island/resort type holidays - there's only so much lying in the sun that we can take before we get bored. One of the great things about Raro is that it's as gorgeous a tropical island as any cliche - rugged jungle-covered hills, palms drooping over white beaches, coral atol teeming with fish, friendly locals - but there's a lot more to do than just laze around. While we were there we:

Went on a glass-bottom boat tour and learned about coconuts from this guy, the Pacific coconut tree climing champ. Seriously, he was awesome.

Got cultural: visited the site where the Great Fleet waka allegedly left for New Zealand and watched a tapu-raising ceremony at the marae at Highland Paradise

Raced crabs. The little pincers were everywhere.

And, of course, spent a lot of time lying around doing some light reading. For the record, I read a trashy fantasy.

And despite an economy dominated by tourism, Raro doesn't feel like a tourist trap. Grab a bike and head inland and you are surrounded by taro fields, pigs, rusting cars, innumerable small cemetaries and Rarotongans going about their lives. It is a genuine place, and certainly different enough from New Zealand to make you feel that, despite not needing to change currency, you had visited a very different part of the world.

Add in some nice restaurants and plenty of adventure-type options (I tried scuba diving for the first time, which is another story), and Rarotonga has it all. Go.

... and the living is easy

2011-02-14T09:06:00.001Z

When the days grow long, the weather warms and the pohutukawas start to flower, there is a certain phenomena that begins to grow in the minds of New Zealanders. It's a primal urge built in after years of school holidays and long, lazy hours in the sun - burned into you, you might say.

It's the subject of corny television commercials. An itch that has to be scratched, least you go mad. A cultural, nay, spiritual institution. Something that, for all their charms, Wellington and London just can't provide.

The Great Kiwi Summer.

Growing up in the second-sunniest part of New Zealand, one of the few things I dislike about both London and Wellington is that a sustained spell of hot, fine weather is rarer (and as precious) than Black Caps wins over Australia. Fortunately Lauren and I have had plenty of opportunities to get out of the city and enjoy the fabled Great Kiwi Summer. Here, for me, are its components.

Fatty fish (Grand Central Fry, Turangi, home of the world's best fishburgers)

Cricket (New Plymouth)

Family (Team Raema at the Harkness reunion in Napier)

Opotiki (much of the Aikman clan, spending another wonderful Boxing Day on Hukuwai Beach)

Road trips to the coast (Himatangi Beach, with Erica and Sarah)

Back to nature (Bark Bay, Abel Tasman National Park, with Richard and Louise)

You can keep your Meccas, your Nirvanas, your Valhallas. Give me the Great Kiwi Summer and add a rapidly melting ice cream, and I'm in paradise.

The Abel Tasman

2011-01-31T05:52:00.003Z

I've wanted to do the Abel Tasman walk for years. As gallivanting around the World got in the way, it wasn't until the weekend before last that Tane and I finally got around to it. It was worth the wait - a great walk, excellent company, and the scenery spectacular. We took our tent and camped, walking about four hours of mildly undulating track each day. There is something very relaxing about only having a backpack and a tent, and I came back to Wellington feeling thoroughly refreshed. Describing the walk and the scenery would involve far too many cheesy adjectives, so have decided just to let this photos speak for itself.

Five pics that make me laugh

2011-01-17T08:40:00.009Z

I was reading my best friend from school's blog just now, and really liked her entry on photos that always make her laugh. Not only were they funny, but got me thinking about my own. Much laughter later (as it was hard to limit this to six) here are my top ones:

At the gazebo from the Sound of Music. Doing that tour in Salzburg was the most hilarious day ever, my abs even got a work out from laughing so much.

The world's most stoned looking owl

Hiding behind a pastry in Germany, 2007

Tane in Turkey

With Stephen in Pompeii 2009. We had no idea until it was taken that it looks like he's shot me in the stomach.

Tane and his twin in Kathmandu, Nepal late 2008

Shanghai from the books

2011-01-13T08:16:00.016Z

It's always strange to travel to somewhere I have read a lot about in fiction, especially when the books I'd read were set in the past. On one hand the place is alive in my mind, but on the other hand it doesn't exist anymore, not as I imagined it anyway. When I eventually make it to Russia I expect to be a little surprised by Moscow and St Petersburg, as I've read so many books set there in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. I know on a rational level that Stalin and even the USSR are long gone (which is a good thing), but thanks to the Bronze Horseman Trilogy, Child 44, and Kate Furnivall's books to name a few, the Moscow and St Petersburg in my mind feature the Stalinist system rather than the Putin-sexy-spies-Russian Mafia one.

The Pearl Tower - clearly not around in the 1930s

This was the case with Shanghai, as the only times I had read about Shanghai the book was set in the 1920s and 1930s. For example, Ishiguro's fabulous When We Were Orphans, and in Belinda Alexander's White Gardenia. I knew on a rational level that Shanghai's notable features had morphed from opium dens, a French concession filled with the French, and Russian emigres to skyscrapers, shopping, and more sky scrapers. Going there, though, I still hoped to find some of the Shanghai from my imagination. At first glance, I was out of luck. Shanghai is home to some of the most impressive sky scrapers in the world, some of which Tane blogged about here. The subway is impressive, and the train to the airport reaches over 400 km p/h. The Bund, Shanghai's famous river walkway, was also a million miles away from what I imagined.

Lucky, then, that we happened to get lost. We were trying to find the subway station that took us to the Expo, and took a wrong turn. After walking through some vacant lots and a part of Shanghai that was much like Canary Wharf, we found ourselves, quite by accident, in the old town. It was fabulous - quirky, picturesque, crazy and interesting. Not only that, but with the right amount of imagination, I could also imagine the Shanghai I'd read about.

I'd been told that old Shanghai doesn't exist anymore, but it turns out I was told wrong. It's a lovely city where the new parts are shiny and impressive, and the old places still exist. I just hope that when I do go to Russia I have a similar experience in terms of seeing some historic infrastructure, and catch a glimpse of what I imagined it to be like from the books.

Things I learnt in 2010 #1

2011-01-06T05:44:00.004Z

That part of me will always miss London. I am very happy back in New Zealand, but still remember London with a lot of fondness, and get disproportionately excited when I see it on TV or in the movies. I'm aware that had I stayed there I would be missing New Zealand even more, but enjoy thinking about having lived there and imagining what I'd do if I was magicked back for a day or two. So far, a day wandering from Soho to St James Park via Whitehall wins, followed by some time in the V&A and a walk along Southbank. It's fun nostalgia rather than real longing, although I was terribly excited when we found an M&S in Shanghai so I was able to stock up on Percy Pigs.

Things I learnt in 2010 #2

2011-01-06T05:19:00.004Z

That living without flatmates improves quality of life a million fold. No-one to dominate the living room by continuously watching reality TV, use up the hot water, cook smelly food, or randomly fly into an apoplectic rage about the kitchen cupboards being dusty. No-one that you have to ask whenever your friend/sister/parent comes to stay, or if you want to have people over for dinner.

True, I've had some great flatmates over the years, and some good flats. The last year in London in particular though we had some flatmates that left a lot to be desired, and were totally ready for our own space. Now it's me hogging the TV, and I love it.

Things I learnt in 2010 #3

2011-01-06T05:02:00.004Z

That being injured sucks. I already knew that having a running injury sucks on account of getting injured after my half marathon in 2008, but in 2010 not only did my running injury flare up again but I had back troubles as well. Ug. While I appreciate that in the scheme of injuries mine were relatively minor and that others have it much worse, I still spent much of the winter feeling very frustrated at being unable to bike, run or sit still for longer than an hour. I'm working with weights to try to ensure neither injury returns, and here's hoping that 2011 is the year of no back pain and running more than 5km without getting too sore.

Finishing my half in 2008. Little did I know then that two weeks later I'd hurt my feet so badly I'd still be nursing random injuries over two years later.

Things I learnt in 2010 #4

2011-01-06T04:49:00.005Z

That I don't think I'll ever be done travelling. Tane and I went to China back in September for what was supposed to be our last big trip before becoming proper grown ups with assetts and what not. As if. If anything, going to China only showed us that travel from New Zealand is relatively convenient and even more special if trips are spaced out. I don't think we'll travel at our UK rate of a trip per month again, but I'd love to go on at least a trip a year if I can. At that rate, I might fit in about 30% of the places I want to see during my lifetime :)

Tane jumps for joy about travel

Things I learnt in 2010 #5

2011-01-06T04:44:00.004Z

That being an aunt is O for Awesome. Some of my favourite moments of 2010 involved my nieces Chloe (4) and Holly (16 months), and getting to know them has been a highlight of moving back to New Zealand and year ago. I could bore you for hours with stories involving Chloe and Holly, but instead will simply say that they are cool and leave it at that.

In the bones of the earth

2010-12-02T09:22:00.000Z

Following the Pike River mining disaster that has consumed New Zealand for the past two weeks, my Aunt Sylvia sent me some pictures of my great great grandfather, Yorkshireman Stephen Ruberry, and his family. He bady injured his back in a mining accident, and never recovered.

Stephen Ruberry and Elizabeth Shepherd at the time of their marriage

Later in life

"The fatal explosion at the Altofts Colliery, near Wakefield"

Sylvia also sent me this poem by that great and tragic poet of World War One, Wilfred Owen

MINERS

There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal,
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.
I listened for a tale of leaves
And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests, and the low sly lives
Before the fawns.
My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children.
But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
Writhing for air.
I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
Bones without number.
For many hearts with coal are charred,
And few remember.
I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed:
Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
In rooms of amber,
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our life's ember;
The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned;
But they will not dream of us poor lads
Lost in the ground.

It makes you wonder why anyone would want to work down there, in the darkness of the earth. For an answer, see this brilliant interview clip from Welsh actor Richard Burton, whose father was a miner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkddEkM7FQw

London, a year on

2010-11-24T09:14:00.000Z

It's been just over a year since we left London. Just over a year since the West Walk, Trafalgar Square, the 8.32am from Paddington to Oxford, the Wheatsheaf, Big Tesco and Little Tesco, St Paul's cathedral.

Yesterday and over the weekend we took advantage of a special and got more than 500 of our best photos from our two-plus years overseas. Looking through them we realised that we haven't printed enough from our time in London. We've not captured all the wonderful times we had there.

As you might have picked up, we're feeling nostalgic.

London is the best of all the big cities I've visited. Here are some of the reasons why that's so, and why I miss it.

It's filled with fantastic old buildings, and some cool modern ones too

World-class football on tap (no offence to the Wellington Phoenix)

Ye Olde Pubs

International mates

And then there's wandering the narrow streets and taking in the vibe of Soho. The parks in the summer, teeming with footballers, dogs, squirrels and topless Poms. The zillion cool places within a few hours on the train. The cheap flights to Europe and North Africa, The British, Natural History, V&A and other fabulous free museums. The Tube and how it will take you most everywhere you need to go. Being mocked for the accent.

London. Well good yeah innit bruv. Time and money permitting, we'll be back.

Koala-rama

2010-11-12T02:46:00.007Z

I'm spending a few days in Australia, and am blogging today from Sydney. Sydney's lovely - like what I imagine Auckland could be like if it had better infrastructure and weather - and I'm enjoying walking around and checking it out.

The highlight for me so far has been a wildlife centre on Darling Harbour, where I saw snakes and other creepy beasties that I would hate to see in the wild. There was a giant croc as well that gave me the heebie-geebies good and proper. The best part about the centre, though, was the koalas. I know it's terribly cliche to get a koala picture while in Australia but I don't care - aren't they cute?

Books

2010-11-08T04:53:00.003Z

Last night I discovered the newly added "stats" function on blogspot, which is able to track how many hits our blog has, where people are finding the blog from, and what posts are the most viewed. It's all very interesting, especially as it's three old posts that seem to come up in Google searches so get the most traffic at a much steadier rate than ever expected: Five Things About Egypt from May 2008, The Other Boleyn Girl and Historical Accuracy from March 2008, and Lauren's Pole Dancing Tips from May 2007. Although, anything with "pole dancing tips" in the title really should not have been a surprise. The stats are an interesting reminder that while people may not comment, we get much more traffic than previously thought.

I also logged into my other blog, Lauren's Pint Sized Book Reviews, and found that also has many more hits than expected. Given that no-one has ever commented on it ever, writing it felt a little like talking to myself. I know that hits shouldn't matter, but finding out that people are actually reading my pint-sized reviews inspired me to write some more, so feel free to check them out!

Strangers in a Strange Land

2010-11-05T11:36:00.000Z

When you're travelling, you spend a lot of time staring at strange things and strange people. Well, unless you're the kind of person who travels to eat, drink and spend time on the beach. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we most love seeing things that are different - in their geography, culture or time.

So it's a bit weird to have the tables turned and become tourist attractions ourselves.

Another boost for Sino-Kiwi relations

But that's what we were sometimes in both China and India. Both countries have massive middle classes that can afford to both travel to the big sights in their lands and take cameras with them. Many of those people are from places off the traveller radar, so they probably will not have seen a pasty, bare-legged Westerner before, and often love taking photos of and with you. It's quite charming - and turnabout is fair play - but can get a bit much at times. And sleazy too, with Lauren and some men. Not a problem that affects me, strangely.

The walls of Pingyao, which date from 1370AD

It got a bit overwhelming once on the walls of Pingyao, a beautiful historic town about halfway between Beijing and Xi'an. As the best-preserved Imperial era town in a country that has concreted over much of its architectural history, Pingyao is a massive internal tourism drawcard. Being there on a Saturday, the area around one of the entrances to the wall was packed with visitors. Several guys wanted to take a photo of me and I obliged for a few snaps, then I looked up and saw a score of other Chinese visitors rushing towards me with their cameras! We fled. The paparazzi scence is not for us.

View down one of the main streets from a watchtower

Pingyao, by the way, is a wonderful place. It is the home of Chinese banking and as such became a wealthy place, with many beautiful wooden houses. Unfortunately for the bankers, the interference of the Western powers and rise of Western banking in the 1800s brought the good times to an end. But that was fortunate for the bankers' descendants, as the town became a backwater and thus its heritage was preserved. Now it's been repaired and repainted to make Pingyao a beautiful and chilled out spot to spend a few days. You get a feel for how China was a century or two ago.

Courtyard of our hostel. Mint.

It's definitely somewhere worth taking a camera. After all, there's lots of strange wide-eyed people with backpacks hanging around.

A sign summer is coming

2010-11-03T06:41:00.001Z

Mmmmmm ...

The Big Smoke

2010-10-25T10:10:00.000+01:00

Auckland, I take it back. I've always said I'd never want to live in the Big Smoke, but after the lovely long weekend we just spent up there I might consider it.
The weather was beautiful, it was a delight to see our friends and family, and for a change driving wasn't a nightmare.

Fish and chips at Mission Bay with Daniel, Jenny, Jess and Paul.

Traffic is, as every New Zealander knows, Auckland's worst feature. Fueled by Kiwis' dreams of a quarter-acre section, Auckland sprawls enormously. Because for decades urban planning just consisted of building more roads, the city's public transport (though recently improved) is woefully inadequate. Therefore you usually have to do a heck of a lot of driving to get around. Fortunately, on Labour Weekend many Aucklanders were off to the coast to enjoy the sun so traffic was light. We still managed to go the wrong way several times, but that's par for the course for yokels from south of the Bombay Hills.

It wasn't just Auckland that was great, the whole North Island turned it on for our road trip - the volcanos in particular

Having not had a proper visit to Auckland since going overseas, several things struck me as we were driving from Laingholm to Mt Eden to Mangere Bridge to Mt Wellington to the North Shore. Firstly, the place is riddled with volcanos. Once you start looking for them, you see them everywhere. They give it a lot of character, as do the pohutukawa trees. Because I'm red-green colour blind I can't appreciate the beauty of pohutukawas when their red flowers blossom, but despite that I still think they're fantastic. Add them to Auckland's many gorgeous bays and you have one of the world's best urban coastlines.

Mission Bay on what felt like the first weekend of summer: pohutukawas, volcanic Rangitoto and many, many happy people.

So, while we have no plans to be JAFAs any time soon, I'd no longer prefer to live in Kabul.

Another brick in ...

2010-10-17T09:03:00.001+01:00

A few years ago, a private Swiss company set up a massive global vote for the new seven wonders of the world, which ended up being Macchu Picchu, the Great Pyramid at Chichen Itza, the Taj Mahal, the Colloseum, the Great Wall, Christ the Redeemer in Rio and Petra. The Pyramids of Giza (the only one of the original seven wonders still standing) were inducted as 'honorary' seven wonders.

Now, I've already grizzled that the Redeemer statue, while undoubtedly very impressive and in a fabulous setting, made it in rather than much worthier candidates on the shortlist like Angkor and the Alhambra (which have the added glory of being visited by us). Sadly, there's a lot more Brazilians and general fans of Jesus than there are Cambodians. Such are the flaws of democracy. You can see them in the shortlist for the seven natural wonders of the world - a random Taiwanese mountain and Korean island, but no Mt Fuji or Mt Kinabalu? And please, Vesuvius is cool, but there are three more impressive volcanos in New Zealand alone. Guess Ngaruhoe or Taranaki should have wiped out some Roman towns.

But the thing with the seven wonders lists is that they are lists, and lists of awesome things, and therefore we love them. The Great Wall was the fifth (counting the Pyramids) we've been to.

The Great Wall is Lauren's favourite out of the Wonders we've seen. I find it hard to rate them, as they're all amazing in distinctive ways, but the Wall is definitely the Wonder we had the best time visiting. It's the most interactive of them, because you can climb up it and walk along it for hours (or days if you wanted to). You get a real feel for it, with the bricks under your feet.

We had a particularly good time because we went to Jinshanling, a section some three hours drive out of Beijing, in steep, forest-covered hills. It was wonderful to get into the wilderness and even more wonderful to be somewhere with clear skies. The views were, well...

Lauren enjoys some solitude

To add to the atmosphere, there was not a massive amount of tourists as there are at Badaling - the site closest to Beijing - so you could take a moment to enjoy things. The wall, which dates from the Ming Dynasty, had also not been as heavily reconstructed as at Badaling. That made climbing it a bit more fun.

The Great Wall is a truly staggering piece of building. It stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, winding its way along ridgelines, up hills, down valleys, until it disappeared into the distance. It's possible to walk from Jinshanling to Simatai, which is about 10km away, but sadly the Simatai section was closed to we walked for about an hour then walked back. It was an unforgettable day.

Our commute

2010-10-05T09:46:00.001+01:00

A break from posts about China - today was one of those rare, calm and clear days in Wellington and I finally remembered to bring my camera to work. So here's an entry about how we get to work.
We're blessed to live in Mt Victoria, a wonderful suburb filled with 19th century wooden villas and an eclectic mix of partying students, young professionals and wealthy older home owners. It's got the massive benefits of being a few minutes walk to the entertainment hub of Courtenay Place. Plus, it's a mere half hour walk along the waterfront to get to work.

And on a day like today the waterfront is stunning.

A gull who knows a good view

It's a tonic on the way to work and, especially now that daylight savings has kicked in and it's light in the evening, a tonic on the way home.
We walk out the doors of our government skyscrapers, through the canyons of Lambton Quay and Featherston Street, then out onto the harbour.

It's past the posh restaurants, the heritage cranes and Fergs, the indoor rock climbing and kayaking centre. Then it's the playground and the first of the poems that mark the Wellington Writers Walk.

The harbour is an ironing board

The rowing club and its pretty lagoon, the waka house that's nearly built, the mighty floating Hikitia crane, the bulk of Te Papa, and the Solace on the Waterfront statue, which always attracts people who like a nice butt.

Finally, it's Waitangi Park, with the ducks floating amid the reeds, the many games going on the grass, and the skaters and basketballers on the concrete.

Then its past the Art Deco fire station, the Embassy Theatre, more good restaurants, until we go up the hill to home.

Beats being stuck in traffic.

My Beijing-a-ling

2010-10-01T10:51:00.000+01:00

Beijing is the new San Francisco. Well, substitute hills around a bay for the North China Plain, the sea breeze for haze, gay-friendly liberalism for conformity-friendly authoritarianism ... alright, so there's not much in common. Except that I don't know anyone who's been to either city and not liked it.

Beijing is enormous, old, brand-new and fascinating. It's been the capital of China since the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan (of Marco Polo and 'In Xanadu did ...' fame), so it's packed with history. The King Kong attraction is the Forbidden City, the exclusive palace/fortress complex that the emperor, his concubines and horde of eunuchs rarely strayed from. It's the biggest star of the excellent film The Last Emperor, and is just bloody magnificent. It's huge - like Pompeii, you can spend a day walking and not see everything.. There are endless treasures: rooms full of delicately carved jade, intricate gold pagodas, beautiful porcelain and a vast number of amazingly elaborate clocks.

It's a wonderful place, with art everywhere - from the procession of beasts on the rooves to the marble walkways. Naturally it's very popular, but fortunately because there's so much space everyone spreads out and it's possible to find some quiet spots to do what we do best - jumping photos.

Beijing has really had a facelift in the last decade or so too. Opinion is divided on whether or not it was a good thing. On the downside, many of the very atmospheric hutongs (the tangled alleyways of old Beijing) have been levelled. On the upside, they've gained many a grand skyscraper and the mightly impressive Water Cube and National Stadium, the Bird's Nest.

On the whole, we found the city a great mix of old and new. While the traffic is pretty horrible, the biggest downside is the haze. Even on a fine day there's precious little blue in the sky. The air pollution is so bad that, after spending most of a day walking around the Forbidden City and the concrete vastness that is Tianamen Square, I had a coughing fit that lasted half an hour. So do go to Beijing, but just take it easy with the deep breathing.

China - Interesting Times

2010-09-21T10:25:00.001+01:00

Shortly before we left for our holiday in China, I was asked why I was going. I was a little flummoxed. Why would you not want to go to China? It's the world's oldest continuous civilisation. Third largest country. Second biggest economy. The next superpower, with one fifth of the humanity as citizens.

Roofing end in the Forbidden City

But I can understand the question. For a long time I wasn't terribly keen on China. I pictured a few sites surrounded by wasteland of concrete, watched over by polluted skies and Big Brother. And there's more than a little truth in that image.

The Chairman: even after the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, he's still a national icon

But the China that locks up dissidents, cuddles up to North Korea and Sudan, levelled much of its history to make way for motorways and apartment blocks, and sulks about the Dalai Lama is only part of the picture. The China we saw was a dynamic, often beautiful and always fascinating place. We'll do a bunch of entries on where we went, but I'll start with a few thoughts on China in general.

You can see the tightrope the Chinese government walks when you visit the country. The Communist Party doesn't have two of the major advantages that a government in a democracy has - the legitimacy that comes with being elected and the pressure valve for public discontent that elections provide.

To get legitimacy it essentially has two tactics - emphasise how strong it has made China and keep the economic good times going. That's why Mao is still idolised (he's on all the notes). He was a megalomaniac whose policies killed millions, but at least he made China a great power again - and the Party emphasies that they are his heirs. Of course, China has long since been Communist in name only - you can't move without running into Western consumer brands. But the government has done an done an amazing job of keeping the economy growing and providing the jobs that allow people to buy their Audis and Lacoste shirts.

Huge LED screen at a new Beijing Mall. The image is (appropriately) a phoenix, one of China's favourite mythical creatures.

It deals with public grumpiness in differnet ways - allow it (to an extent) at a local level, stomp on it when it opposes national policies (e.g. Tibet). The media I saw was fascinating, Coverage of other nations and local issues such as traffic jams is much like in the West, but all stories at a national level - such as a disputes over territory with Japan and with America the value of China's currency - are basically government press releases with an expert thrown in to back up the official view.

The economic boom is one of the reasons why China is such a terrific country to visit. The amount of construction is staggering - coming in to Xi'an, I counted about 30 cranes putting up skyscrapers. Contrasts are everywhere - there's Developed World roads with Developing World give way (ie non-existent) rules, and ancient temples nestle beside towering apartment and office blocks.

Temple of the Eight Immortals in Xi'an

Much of the old China has been demolished, but you can still see it in places like the surviving hutongs of Beijing, the Old Town of Shanghai or the wonderfully preserved town of Pingyao.

Street in Shangahi Old Town

Chinese tourists love seeing their heritage - 95% of the tourists in almost everywhere we went were Chinese - but there's also a real sense of pride in their recent accomplishments, like the Beijing Olympics or the enormous Shanghai expo. Shanghai and Beijing are like showyards for incredible modern architecture, from the Bird's Nest stadium to skyscrapers like these.

It's like China is saying "seen all these cool old things, from when we were one of the greatest and most advanced states on the planet? Well, we're back."

They sure are. There's a famous Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times". Well, the times are certainly interesting in the Middle Kingdom.

Tonga

2010-09-02T09:35:00.007+01:00

Tane's blog entry on Melbourne (and the very exciting use of the new tag "Travel in Australia and the Pacific") reminded me of another great trip I did back in 2005 to Tonga. I'd always been curious about Tonga, largely because of having Tongan family connections. My Grandpa was born in Tonga in 1914 as his parents were missionaries there, and my aunt married a Tongan man as well so some of my cousins are Tongan. As I hadn't been to Tonga before, though, these connections meant nothing to me apart from the fact that having an ancestor born there before the 1930s means that I could buy land there should I choose. That, and they fact that I know the Tongan word for 'spicy'.

In 2005, Ngaire and I decided to visit my Uncle and Aunt there, and it was a great week. It was especially neat having them to show us around, give us information about the country, and in the case of my uncle, cut open many a coconut for us to drink. Awesome.

It's true what Tane always says - visiting places where you know someone are always the best. In those trips you gain a greater level of knowledge and appreciation about a place - for example, that the frequent power cuts in Tonga were caused by the then Crown Prince stringing up his Christmas lights. Ngaire and I were talking recently about how glad we are that we went to Tonga when we did, as our Uncle and Aunt live in New Zealand now so we wouldn't have been able to visit them there if we'd gone later. And really, with regard to places when you know someone, that would have been a real shame. I certainly wouldn't have been able to cut open coconuts on my own.

At last, across the ditch

2010-09-01T11:21:00.001+01:00

Hello all,
Crickey, it's been a while since I blogged. To be honest, I've been thinking of blogging as time better spent working on my Great Unwritten Novel, which I've actually made a bit of progress on. Not much as I should of course. For instance, I'd earmarked last Sunday afternoon for writing but instead spent many hours disemboweling a dodgy vacuum cleaner. Such is our exciting domestic life.
Anyhow, we're about to get our backpacks on again and tackle China, which is very exciting. It's gotten me back in the mood for a long-overdue mention of my visit to Melbourne.

Melbourne is one of those cities, like Vancouver or San Francisco, that no one has a bad word for. And guess what? Neither do I. It's very multicultural, with an impressive cityscape, a pretty river, the best market I've ever seen and a stack of cultural attractions - including an excellent musuem (featuring wonderhorse Phar Lap and superb sections on Aboriginies and prehistoric beasts).

The best thing about the visit though - aside from the fact that the flights were free, as it was a work trip - was the mighty MCG, the second most famous cricket ground in the world. It's enormous, holding 100,000 people, but it's the history that really makes it a treat for sports nerds. It's the home of the Australian Sports museum, which I spent hours in (Shane Warne in 3D! Try your foot at kicking Aussie Rules goals!). There's a very cool tapestry of major sporting events that have happened there - Aussie Rules finals, Bledisloe Cup rugby, baseball and of course cricket, wonderful cricket. Almost all of the greats have walked out onto that pitch, including perhaps the greatest sportsperson of all time. This is hallowed ground.

The Don

This was my first visit to Australia, which is rather embarrassing given I've been to 30-odd other countries. It's like English people who've never been to Scotland, or the many Kiwis who've not been to either the South or North Island, but have travelled to the other side of the planet. You take for granted what's in your back yard, thinking you'll get to it sometime, that it won't be new and exciting. And it's true that Melbourne didn't feel exotic - it was rather like a New Zealand city I've not visited - but it was cool. I look forward to my next trip across the ditch.

Great walks indeed

2010-06-05T07:51:00.009+01:00

According to the Department of Conservation website, New Zealand has nine great walks. During a spate of communing with nature between 2005 - 2006, Tane and I joined Bonnie, Sarah C and a bunch of others to do two of them; the stunning Tongariro crossing day trip, and the three day Waikaremoana walk. As these walks pre-date both this blog and either of us owning a digital camera, I haven't blogged about them yet. I have recently acquired a (somewhat grainy) scanner as well as retrieved my photos from storage though so here I go. Yay!

Getting out some warmer clothes during the Tongariro crossing

The Tongariro crossing was excellent and I totally recommend it for a good day out. It took us about 8 hours, seemed to go through multiple climates, and had us constantly stopping to either put on or take off a layer. I loved it though, and after the aptly-named "The Devil's Staircase" part of the walk, the hot pools in nearby Tokaanu were very much appreciated afterwards.

Lake Waikaremoana

The Lake Waikaremoana walk the following Easter was also fabulous. Three days of walking, not showering, using long-drops and getting blisters the size of a bottle top are not every one's cup of tea. We both really enjoyed it though - the scenery was glorious and being in the bush very calming. If I did it again I think I'd take four days rather than three for more lazing around time, but it was still a great few days.

Given it's been four years since our last great walk I am looking forward to doing at least one more this summer. The only challenge though is deciding which, so if you have any recommendations about the other 7 I am very interested!

Wellington

2010-06-05T07:43:00.003+01:00

After two and a half years away, I had forgotten about how absolutely positively nasty Wellington could get at times. The rain! The cold! The wind! The combination of all three resulting in umbrellas being discarded in rubbish bins all over the city and rain coming at your face horizontally! Every now and then though, the sun does come out. On days like today when most Wellingtonians are probably frantically catching up on doing washing, we got our bikes out and went for a ride around the bays. It's true, you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

Lost: a review

2010-05-30T07:26:00.000+01:00

If you're a fan of the show, you might be interested in my review of the final episode. It's packed with spoilers, so if you've not seen the final and care about surprises, don't go there!

Why I stopped blogging and why I am back

2010-05-27T07:58:00.006+01:00

As you've probably noticed, I haven't written a decent blog entry in aaaaaages. There are three reasons for this:

1. I came home.

Arriving back in New Zealand at the end of last year was fabulous, but apart from the odd "I can't believe I'm back" moment in the first week or so things started feeling very normal very quickly. This wasn't by any means a bad thing, and the three weeks between arriving in Auckland and starting work was the most relaxing time I have had since university. For the first time in years I started filling my time with many small pleasures, rather than big exciting pleasures of the type that make for better blog entries. For the first time in years, I honestly felt like I had nothing to blog about.

2. The website counter of lying doom

Coincidentally, near the end of last year I signed up to a free website thing that was supposed to tell me how many hits this blog received. The first month's report came through and told me that the hits on this blog was a grand total of ... zero. A second month passed, and I was once again informed that not a single person had looked at this blog. I shrugged, and decided that if no-one was reading it, I might as well just write in my diary. It wasn't until someone mentioned to me that they had been on my blog during that time that I realised that the website was in fact the website counter of lying doom.

3. Facebook

Is it just me or is Facebook killing the blog? I know that it is all in the nature of things - after all, e-mail killed the letter, blogs killed the e-mail (and least the bulk e-mail) and now Facebook is killing the blog. Now we shall have to wait and see if Twitter is going to be the death of Facebook, but I have my doubts as I don't know anyone that actually uses it. With Facebook being as popular as it is I started to use more of that instead. How else, after all, could I keep up with that person I hadn't seen since 5th form science class? I have recently decided that blogging is much better than Facebook though, a realisation that I came to when the person I hadn't seen since 5th form science class persisted with inane updates that made me realise how little I actually cared about them. And, how little they probably cared about me in return.

Like many other Facebook "friends" from my past I only added them as a friend in the first place because I was curious about where they were now - a curiousity which was satisfied after having a quick look at their page when we first became friends. I feel weird about de-friending people as well after I did a "cull" a few months ago and two girls I de-friended asked me to be their friend again. That left me feeling pretty silly as I didn't have anything against them, I just wanted my Facebook friends to actually be people I am friends with. At least with blogs I'll only read the ones I am actually interested in, and assume that people who read mine are interested in what Tane and I are up to. And, I get to express myself in more than a line.

So, with that momentous warble out of the way, I will leave you with the promise that I am going to keep blogging and hope that you can find time to check in every now and then :)

Three years

2010-04-18T06:52:00.004+01:00

Tane and I have now been hitched for three years. Being hitched for three years is a strange length of time - long enough to be well settled and not to giggle anymore about saying "husband" or "wife". On the other hand, though, it's not really long enough that we look any different from our wedding photos. Unlike our last two anniversaries, we were unable to jet off to Paris or Washington D.C. Being in Wellington was lovely, though, as we have settled very nicely to life back in New Zealand and a nice meal out to celebrate three years of married life was just as good as going on trips for the past two.

Three years

The Curious Incident of the Cat in the Daytime

2010-03-09T09:20:00.000Z

A long time ago, Lady Lauren and Sir Tane paid a visit to the fairytale kingdom of Christchurch. Twas a fine tour, memorable for the most charming wedding of Princess Lucy and Sheikh Ammar. But it was also memorable for a tale nearly most drear - the curious incident of the cat in the daytime.

Sir Tane, his brother Kung Fu Master Tama and Lady Fatima of Asuncion were on their way to make a pilgrimage the mighty peaks of the Port Hills.

But first, Lady Fatima sought to assure herself of the safety of her beloved familiar, Michu the Naughty. Alas, when she returned to her castle, Michu was not to be found.

Much wandering hither and yon commenced. "Michu! Thou naughty, naughty Michu!" cried Lady Fatima.

Finally, there came a faint "mrrrow" of distress.

Alas, Michu the Naughty had sneaked inside in the highest tower of the castle.

Alas, the tower was locked. And alarmed.

Alas, there was neither food nor water.

Alas, the lady who lived in the tower was on holiday. In the Golden Coast of the Land of Oz. For sevenday. With her portable speaking-box turned off.

"Woe unto me!" cried Lady Fatima. "How shall we save foolish Michu, without storming the tower and laying waste to a window?"

But grace favoured our heroes, for the bathing room window had been left open and (Land) Lord Mike had a mighty step ladder. But who dared to brave the heights of the ladder and slip into the narrow portal?

"Fear not, Lady Fatima, 'tis I, bold Kung Fu Master Tama!" spake Kung Fu Master Tama.

And up the ladder he sprung. He tried putting his right leg in first. "Alas, I fear I cannot enter without breaking the Lady of the Tower's precious bathing room ointments!" he lamented.

He tried putting his left leg in first. "Nah." he proclaimed.

Finally he came up with a solution.

"Nice legs, brave Kung Fu Master Tama!" cried Lady Fatima. "But don't step into the Grand Hall, for it shall be alarumed!"

Would the alarum sound its terrible wail? Would the precious ointments and incenses break? Would Michu come to Tama's call? Had she shat in the bath? Great was the tension. And then, out through the window came a small, furry and frightened bundle.

And, in the fair suburban sprawl of Christchurch, there was much rejoicing.

New Zealand in the summer

2010-02-03T08:18:00.005Z

When you're overseas, people are always telling you how beautiful New Zealand is (thanks, Lord of the Rings) and you can only agree - because you know it's true. But it's not until you come back from a long spell away from Aotearoa that you really appreciate it.

The Te Waiti Valley

The intensity of the blues and greens, the lack of people, the stunning clarity of the air - I spent most of the trip from Auckland Airport to Opotiki staring out the window and grinning.

Brothers on the beach

While the summer in Wellington has been cool and wildly inconsistent (never a day the same as the last), you can rely on the Bay of Plenty for sunshine. And that's what we got - two weeks of nearly continuous brilliant weather. We spent a lot of time in the sea or the river. Perhaps the highlight was our trip up into the hills behind Opotiki, deep into the native forest in the stunning lovely Te Waiti Valley. We skimmed stones, swam, picknicked, walked down the river and perfected our kung fu skills to the point where we could shatter rocks with our hands. True story.

But all good things must come to an end and we had to head back to Wellington for work. Back to the land of blasting Antarctic winds and strange fogs, but also good days when, as the saying goes, you can't beat the place.

The hills beyond Johnsonville

It's good to be home.

Christmas

2010-02-03T07:45:00.009Z

After two and a half years, 30 countries, innumerable ruins, churches, museums and pubs, various elephants, camels, crocodiles and foxes, it is wonderful to be back in the place we love best with the people we love most - the folks.

Dad.

We landed on Christmas Eve, had a very nice catchup at the airport with Charyn, Sharan, Tony and Birgit, before the latter two took me down to Opotiki and Lauren jetted off to Napier. Things have changed back in 'Potes. Kieran and Rueben are huge, for a start. And while I was away Mum and Dad have been building a new house, which is flabbergastingly nice. It's all polished wood and light, with solar water heating, a thriving garden and spectacular views over the town to the Raukumara Ranges and the Bay of Plenty. Good work, parentals!

Mum in the new house.

Christmas in Opotiki is all about presents, a local pine tree, sunshine, beers and too much rich food, a trip to the beach, and family. This year was one of the best I can remember, with a big turnout of whanau - Sylvia, Tony, Birgit, Tama, Kieran and I joining Rueben, Mum and Dad from various parts of the world. It was a great day.

Home!

2009-12-26T04:02:00.004Z

On Christmas Eve, Tane and I landed back in NZ. It is great to be back, although the NZ accent seems stronger than ever and everything feels much quieter than I remember. It's great to be back and already is starting to feel like we were never away at all. Yay!

With my sisters and niece at Napier airport ...

Los Angeles, where the sky is smoggy-ish blue

2009-12-22T05:11:00.007Z

Yesterday Tane and I arrived in Los Angeles from Guatemala City, our third visit to the USA this year and my fourth time in LA. Los Angeles is a strange city - the sky is a strange mix of smog and sun, there seem to be about 4 million cars too many, and the famous sites are fun to visit but feel incredibly gaudy at the same time.

Spirit fingers at Venice Beach. Note the colour of the sky as well.

We did have fun visiting Hollywood though, the Walk of Fame is interesting (did you know Mickey Mouse has his own star?), and the tat shops filled with fake Oscars and Hollywood bling hilarious.

And, it also turns out that Tane has larger feet that John Wayne. According to a guide Wayne's feet look smaller than they actually were because of his boots, but as I am too dense to follow that logic myself have decided to let this photo do the talking!

Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire

2009-12-18T23:29:00.006Z

We have more than our fair share of volcanos in the North Island of New Zealand, but Guatemala leaves us for dead. The country has more eruptions than a spotty teenager. In a fit of machismo, I decided to climb one of the two live volcanos near Antigua (there´s also two huge dormant cones) - Volcan Pakaya. It has lava continuously flowing down it.

Pakaya. Dodgy.

But I smirk at danger!

Until I actually get close to something dangerous.

Kids aged 6-9 on an active lava flow, where the rocks that aren´t molten are very sharp. Hmmm.

The guides were a tad more relaxed about the lava.

Mayan Time

2009-12-15T18:49:00.001Z

Ah ruins, our old friends. For us there´s nothing better than spending a few hours gazing at raggedly buildings and trying to imagine what they were like when they were at the heart of living cities. In our trip to Mexico we are getting into Mayan territory, which means there are scores of ruined cities waiting for us. We called it quits after six.

All the sites were cool, each having a different highlight. We started with the newest and most famous one, Chichen Itza, which is top of the pile for impressive buildings. The pyramid is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World and deserves its title because of how brilliantly it was built. It is aligned so that when you clap in front of it you get an echo like a strange bird call, and at the spring and autumn solstices the light falls in such a way as to make a ´moving serpent´ illusion, a homage to the Feathered Serpent Kukulcan.

Uxmal was next, which had an unusual pyramid with circular corners, lots of beautiful carvings, a more laid-back atmosphere than Chichen and - bonus - iguanas.

The Pyramid of the Magician

Kabah is a relatively small but interesting site, with an amazing facade with more than 200 faces of the all-important rain god, Chaak, while Palenque is famous for its beautiful setting in jungle-covered hills, and was Lauren's favourite.

The Palace at Palenque

Bonampak's chief claim to fame is its amazing murals, probably the best in the Mayan world. Like the stonework the murals can be pretty grizzly though, as the Mayan kings loved to show themselves torturing, sacrificing and generally being mean to captives.

Captive bleeding after his nails were removed.

My pick of the bunch though was Yaxchilan, which is deep in the Lacadon Rainforest on the Guatemalan border. Getting there required a 22km trip through the jungle down a crocodile-inhabited river, which was almost worth the journey in itself. There was hardly anyone at the site and best of all, there were howler monkeys in the trees. You would not believe the racket they make. If you did not know they were monkeys you would think they were jaguars, or the smoke monster from Lost.

Yaxchilan´s main plaza.

Sadly we did not have time to fit in what is said to be the most amazing city of all, Tikal, or Copan in Honduras, famous for its stonework. But at least that gives us another excuse to come back to Central America!

Random fact about Mexico number four - Crocodiles

2009-12-15T00:36:00.003Z

I discovered while in Mexico that crocodiles seen up close are ugly scary looking mo fos that I would never like to see closer than this. Tane, though, really enjoyed it so is cleary less of a wuss than I.

Random fact about Mexico number three - Guadalupe

2009-12-15T00:22:00.004Z

We were lucky to be in Mexico during the Festival of Guadalupe on 12 December. The festival first came to our attention while on the long bus trip from Palenque to San Cristobel when we kept passing people running up the hills carrying torches, being followed by decorated trucks. Later we learned that they were running a relay for Guadalupe (the Virgin Mary) which covered 220 km.

Guadalupe Church

The relay ended at Guadalupe Church in San Cristabel, where the tired but jubilant relay teams arrived, yelling their praises to Guadalupe and putting out their torches outside of the church. It was an amazing sight to see, and I was impressed at the commitment of those teams for their cause whether I believe in worshipping the Virgin Mary myself or not. The festival really was the cherry on our good-time-in-Mexico cake.

Random facts about Mexico number two - The Mayans

2009-12-11T22:45:00.008Z

There are almost four million Mayans living in the area covering Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and some of Hondurous. Where we are at present, San Cristabel, Mayans make up the majority of the population. The Mayans are an interesting people with a facinating history, which the massive pyramids (that Tane will blog about later) are testament to. I am more interested in the modern Maya though, so here are some random facts about them:

1. Many Maya believe that if someone takes a photo of you they take your spirit. This also means that you can't take photos of certain churches, or people participating in religious rites. Lucky the girl above (and her mother that gave me permission) didn't mind.

2. In Mayan records, the date 22 December 2012 is an important one, leading to speculation as to why. Pity that the Spanish burnt most of the information about it so we can only speculate about it (until that date of course).

3. We have talked to three Mayan people on seperate occasions about Mel Gibson's Apocolypto. Two of them loved it, said it was funny and excellent to see the Mayan people and culture on the big screen like that. One other Mayan hated it for being historically inaccurate, which is very much is. Either way I am looking forward to seeing that movie again when I get home.

Random fact about Mexico number one - the cars

2009-12-10T19:41:00.002Z

Tane and I are currently travelling around Mexico, and soon Guatemala. As I am feeling very lazy at present I have decided to break my impressions on Mexico up into bite-sized random facts. Here is random fact about Mexico number one.

In Mexico, Volkswagens are everywhere. Apparently they are still made in Mexico City, which is why they are such a popular form of transport. We haven't seen so many old cars since Bulgaria, AKA land of the Lada. Needless to say, I would much rather see a Volkswagen' than the Lada. No wonder Mexican's are so much cheerier than the Bulgarians.

Highs and lows in Southern Italy

2009-12-04T03:31:00.012Z

One of the few downsides about traveling in the cities and towns of Europe is that, after a while, you get the feeling you´ve seen almost everything before, in different forms. The castle on the hill beside the river, the grand church, the narrow cobbled streets of the Old Town. Caucasians and some immigrants walking around in the same clothes you´d see on the streets of Wellington or Toronto. Sure, in Stockholm you see considerably more blondes. In the UK it´s terraced houses rather than the apartment blocks of the Continent. There´s differences in architecture and culture. But really it´s usually variations on the same themes.

Sunday morning in Sorrento's old town

So Southern Italy came as a bit of a shock. In terms of the people it´s the most distinctive area of Europe I´ve been to. There's such uniformity: almost everyone has black hair, olive skin, strong noses and shiny, puffy and ugly jackets. It´s also as close to the Developing World as you get in the European Union. Lauren lived here for most of a year in her teens and has mixed feelings about the place. Me too - Southern Italy is all about highs and lows.

What's not to love about hideous apartment blocks and manky train stations?

The reputation of Italy is that the further south of Rome you get, the poorer, more corrupt and crime-ridden it is. There´s certainly a lot of scuminess around, but also plenty of gems. Take Naples. There are some of the ugliest decaying apartment blocks you´ll see outside of Cambodia. There´s an air of dodginess around the train station. There´s the murder rate, easily the highest in the country. But there are also plenty of elegant apartment blocks, spectacular state and religious buildings, a superb ancient history museum and real buzz in the air at night.

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Then there was the day we spent trying to get to the famous Greek ruins of Paestum. We started off in lovely Sorrento, which is perched on the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, then took a graffiti-covered Circumvesuviana train to our accommodation near Pompeii. Unfortunately, turns out near is a relative term. We were actually in Scafarti, a non-too-nice town next to Pompeii. To get to our b&b we had to trek from the train station, with its distinctive spraypaint, rubbish and concrete decor, in our backpacks down a busy road with no footpaths.

Happily, it turned out the b&b was lovely, with really nice owners and a cute garden. But we then had to get another train to Paestum, on a different Circumvesuviana line, from a different Scafarti station. That station was a whole other level of dirtiness, the ticket machine was broken and the store we were directed to for a ticket was closed.

Scafarti Stazione. Bella.

By now we were pushing it to get to Paestum in time. Some freeriding and transfers later, and a long wait at yet another ugly station, and we were finally there. Ten minutes after the gates closed. But after the day we had, that was not going to stop us. We managed to get in and as the setting sun turned the temples to gold, it was magic.

And, maybe best of all, the pizza place down the road from the b&b was sensationally cheap and sensationally good. So at the end of the day, like Southern Italy as a whole, the highs definitely outnumbered the lows.

All for just two Euros and fifty cents

The most beautiful buildings on Earth

2009-11-28T00:02:00.007Z

I don't know much about architecture, but one of the highlights of most trips for me is seeing the grand buildings. In Spain we saw two of the most famous and fantastic buildings in the world, the Alhambra and as Lauren blogged below, Sagrada Familia. For me they're up there with the Taj Mahal and Sacre Coeur in Paris as the most beautiful buildings in the world.

Part of the Alhambra

Granada's Alhambra was the last and greatest flourishing of Islamic architecture in Spain. Unlike the Mezquita in Cordoba, it has not been partly spoilt by an obscenely gaudy church plonked into the middle of it. It's jaw-droppingly detailed, but being Islamic the decorations are geometric rather than images of animals and people, so it does not seem as over-the-top as the interiors of many European churches and palaces.

While the Alhambra has been around for more than half a millenium, the Sagrada Familia will not be finished for decades. But it is still one of the most stunning things I have ever seen. Normally a great building reminds you of others of the type you have seen, be it a Mughal palace, a Hindu temple or a Gothic cathedral. The Sagrada is like nothing I have ever seen before, and I can't say how much that impressed me.

Gaudi was inspired by nature, so the Sagrada is all about curves and organic forms. It looks like it has grown out of a coral reef, or leaf litter. There are snail and lizards for gargoyles, pillars like tree trunks, steepletops like flowers. Go and see it.

A stairwell in one of the Sagrada's towers.

Andalucia - a few thoughts

2009-11-23T18:31:00.011Z

Andalucia in Southern Spain is an amazing province. As discussed below, we went to Barcelona and I was whelmed. We then went to Valencia and was very relaxed, happy and full of paella, but still whelmed. When we arrived in Seville at the end of the week though I finally fell for Spain, and after visiting Cordoba and Granada as well I have decided Andalucia is probably my favourite region in Europe.

Tane in Cordoba

First, the tapas and paella are amazing. I also really love the Moorish architechture down here. We haven´t been to the Alhambra yet (although we did have a good look at the outside at sunset tonight) but the Mezquita in Cordoba and the Alcazar in Seville are fabulous. The Islamic influence offers a welcome change to the cherub overload suffered by the rest of Europe, and the buildings are spectacular.

We have been especially lucky with our time in Andalucia as well as we´ve met interesting travellers, and learnt a lot about Spain. We´ve been given freee sangria, and have seen a local band performing flamenco music. We´ve also been given excellent recommendations for places to eat, and I´ve had ample chances to practice my very average Spanish.

Mmmmm. Tapas. Made even nicer after using the old point and randomly select options method of ordering

I am already sad about leaving Andalucia in a few days time, which is saying something about how great it is here. Lucky we have one more month of travel to get over it, eh? ;)

Super mega awesome

2009-11-23T18:20:00.003Z

As my sister Erin would say, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is super mega awesome. One wonders what went on in Gaudi´s head when he came up with the designs, but it is still amazing. It´s still under construction, and I can´t wait to see it when it´s finished.

In general though I was not overwhelmed or underwhelmed by Barcelona, simply whelmed. I am not sure if that is a word, if not, it ought to be. Barcelona is a nice place, and I can´t even put a finger on why I didn´t love it as much as Rome or the Andalucian cities we are travelling around at present. The best I can come up with is that it doesn´t have the atmosphere of other places I´ve been recently. It is still worth a visit though, if not for the Sagrada Familia alone.

Ruined

2009-11-21T17:28:00.011Z

There are ruins and then there are Pompeii and Herculaneum.

History geeks that we are, we have seen a lot of ruins in our travels. But the volcano-buried towns below Mt Vesuvius take the cake. Ephesus, Paestum, Pergamon, Angkor, Luxor, Karnak, the Forum and the other ruins of Rome are all superb, but Pompeii and Herculaneum take it to another level.

Lauren and Stephen in Pompeii

With other ruins, almost always what you see are the big religious, military, cultural or political buildings - the likes of your Pyramids, baths, theatres, temples, palaces and castles. They´re splendid, but they don´t give you much of an insight into Joe Ancient´s everyday life. After all, what´s more likely to survive down the ages - Westminster Abbey or your flat? P & H were drowned in ash and mud respectively, so they were in a way frozen in time. Everyday life is there to see, from the ´pubs´ with their holes for amphoras of wine, to the ´beware of the dog´ mosaic in the doorway, to the frescoes on the walls. The pyroclastic flow that covered Herculaneum even partially preserved wood, bones and food.

Stephen in a building in Herculaneum. Note the 2000 year old charred beams.

Lauren, Stephen and I had a great time wandering around both towns, poking our heads in the doorways and bedrooms of 2000 year old houses, walking the cobbled streets with their cart ruts, doing silly jumping photos in the forum.

But every now and then we would get a reminder that a vast and terrible tragedy happened there. One house in Herculaneum is full of skeletons. In Pompeii the bones are gone, but the hollows left by the bodies remained to be filled in by plaster. Stilled in the moment of death, they are chilling.

This one's for Bill and Jack

2009-11-14T07:37:00.014Z

Like many New Zealanders, my grandparents´ generation was the one that lived through the Second World War. My grandad Jack drove trucks in the Pacific and died with shrapnel from a Japanese shell still in his leg, while my great-uncle Bill served in Italy, including during the prolonged, brutal battle of Monte Cassino. On the way south from Rome we visited the town.

Cassino was a key point on the road to Rome and during the battle for it 45,000 Allied troops and many Germans were killed, and most infamously, the historic hilltop monastery (founded in the 6th Century AD) was bombed into rubble by Allied bombing.

Today there´s little to remind you of the devastation. The town has been rebuilt as nondescript apartment blocks, while the new monastery again sits atop its steep, strategic peak. It´s part of the lovely backdrop to the town, along with the Appiennes rising in the near distance, the higher peaks covered in snow.

The town´s museum was closed for the winter and we didn´t time it right to take a bus up to the monastery, but the Commonwealth War Cemetary was open.

In this sublimely peaceful place are some 4000 graves, each with its words and symbols. There are crosses, Stars of David, verses from the Koran in Arabic, Hindu scriptures. There are the many emblems of the British regiments, the crossed knives of the Gurkhas, the maple leaves of the Canadians, the Springboks of the South Africans, even a solitary star for one of the Soviet Red Army. And row after row, more than 400 silver ferns.

In the New Zealand section, with Monte Cassino in the background.

There were two other visitors to the cemetary, an elderly woman wearing a poppy and her son. It was Remembrance Day in the UK and they were there to lay a wreath on a British grave. The ring of poppies was marked with a poem and a note with one word: Dad. He was 28. She probably barely knew him.

Grandad Jack died when I was too young to talk to him about the war, though I have his medals and memories of playing darts in the garage with he and my father. Uncle Bill I met once, on a trip to the South Island with Dad. He shared some war stories with us. I remember one about a little Italian girl raped and murdered by some Algerians fighting with the Allies, and another about Bill taking a body out of a tank. The man had popped his head out the top and a shell had taken it clean off, the heat sealing the wound.

Bill is gone now too. In the cemetary, surrounded by the graves on a beautiful autumn day, I thought about Bill and Jack and the others who went to war. This entry is for them.

Roma: Numero Uno

2009-11-14T07:03:00.008Z

Ah, Rome. This is my second visit here and about Lauren's fourth, and we have decided that is (against a lot of tough competition) our favourite place to be tourists in. We don´t count London, as somewhere you have lived is different. You don´t think of things like a tourist. You value things like parks, supermarkets and movie theatres a lot more, for a start.

We were thinking about how to rank cities as places to visit. For us, it comes down to five things.

1. Coolness of sights
St Peters. The Vatican Museum. The Forum. The Pantheon. Some of the most amazing buildings, ruins and museums in the world are here. Including this little feat of engineering:

Stephen at the Colloseum

2. Range and number of things to do and see
After two years in London, in which we saw something every weekend we were in the city, there's still a few things I've not seen that I'd like to. Rome's like that. There are more wonderful churches and fountains than you can shake a stick at, and you can't walk without falling over a Roman ruin. Our Western Europe Lonely Planet doesn't even mention the huge city walls, or the aqueducts running through and far beyond the city, or the extraordinary Theatre of Marcellus. These would be among the must-see sights of most cities.

Part of the Theatre of Marcellus complex.

3. Atmosphere
That X factor. The vibe, the feeling in the air, the people. Glasgow on a Saturday night, Paris in the spring. Rome, with its piazzas, rust-red apartments and gelataries, has atmosphere in spades. It´s a mix of chic, chaotic, historic and modern.

4. Transport
Boring but important. Rome´s public transport is only okay, but the beauty of the city is that almost all of the major sights are in a very walkable area from Piazza del Populo in the north, to the Vatican City in the west, to Termini in the east, to the Circus Maximus in the south. Pretty much the only time we left this was to see some fascinating catacombs just south of the city where the early Christians secretly buried their dead.

The Palatine Hill, where the emperors has their palaces.

5. The food
It´s Italy. Pizza. Pasta. Gelato. Salads. A hundred tasty deserts. Enough said.

of course, other people would have different ways of rating a place. Nightlife or shopping, say. But what about you? What´s your favourite city to be a tourist in?

Autumn

2009-10-31T19:15:00.005Z

I don't usually like autumn. Granted it's pretty, but it also means that summer Pimms, long days, green trees and sunny mini-breaks are over for another year. Given that we are leaving the Northern Hemisphere at just the right time this year though I feel like I can really enjoy the autumn as I'm not so worried about months of barren grey and it getting dark mid-afternoon. It's quite nice this way, because it really is pretty isn't it?

The Old St Pancras church in North London

Daytripper

2009-10-24T13:04:00.009+01:00

When I told my workmates we were heading up to Liverpool for the weekend, they said I must be looking for a reason to leave the UK. Apparently the city doesn't have the nicest reputation in Britain.

Maybe the reputation was deserved back in the '80s, when the only good thing about the city was the all-conquering football team. But not now. Liverpool was European Capital of Culture last year, it's had some serious money poured into making it look good.

The Liver Building. Legend has it that if the statues of birds on top fly off, the city will fall.

As Liverpool is a port town - once one of the world's most important - the main attractions are by the sea. We particularly liked the Merseyside Maritime Museum, which had lots on three great doomed ships that sailed from there (the Titanic, the Lusitania and the Empress of Ireland), the Battle of the Atlantic and, commendably, history of slavery and how Liverpool benefitted from it.Sarah, Lauren and Erica hanging out by the docks

Liverpool's not just famous for the port and football though. There's the small matter of a mop-topped band who had a few hits back in the '60s.

Though we avoided doing a Beatles tour, we did wade through some of the Beatles tat (as The Sound of Music is to Salzburg, so are The Beatles to Liverpool) and did the other obligatory musically-touristy thing in Liverpool.

Ferry, cross the Mersey

So the next time someone tells you Liverpool is rubbish - don't believe them. Any city that's been home to Gerry and the Pacemakers, Fernando Torres and John Lennon is definitely worth a day trip.

A note on Ealing

2009-10-24T12:36:00.010+01:00

Yesterday Tane and I left the flat we've had for over two years and embarked upon four months of dossing and travelling. Living in Ealing has been fabulous, we couldn't have asked for a nicer part of London to make our home away from home. It's green, safe, calm and has the perfect number of shops and facilities, and excellent transport links. Ealing has a fabulous Council as well ;)
The "West Walk" in particular gets a special note. We've walked up it countless times, sometimes laden with bags from Tesco, sometimes in our backpacks after a trip. We've laughed at the squirrels, and tried to get close to the foxes. We've trudged through snow, kicked fallen leaves, and walked under trees in full summer leafiness.

Yes, we are still in London for two more weeks, and yes I will be in Ealing every day for work but it was still sad to leave our actual home there. It was also sad to realise that the two backpacks and two boxes we came to London with has somehow turned into eight boxes , two backpacks, two large suitcases, a laptop, a guitar and a mammoth pile of electronic crap to be recycled on Freecycle. I can only assume that while we have been away on our travels our belongings have been breeding.

E noho ra, West Walk and Ealing!

The easiest job in the world

2009-10-11T11:26:00.010+01:00

Must be being in charge of promoting Salzburg to tourists. Alps, Wolfgang Amadeus, singing nuns - and a stunning old town packed with churches and topped with an impressive castle. It's possibly the all-round best long weekend destination we've been to in Europe - and I don't even particularly like The Sound of Music!

We lucked out with our visit, because not only was the weather awesome, there was also a festival on so many of the locals were out in leiderhosen and dirndels. It's kind of weird being in Europe and seeing people in traditional costume - normally what you'd see in say, Berlin, is variations on what you'd see in London, New York or Auckland. Jeans, t-shirts, skirts, etc. Watching grown men walking around in leather shorts is a bit odd.

Eins, zwei, drei ... flug!

And of course, it being Central Europe, the beer is awesome.

Cheers Lauren, for getting us to go!

Climb every mountain

2009-10-09T22:09:00.007+01:00

Not only is Salzburg home to the Sounds of Music and Mozart (and boy, does the souvenier trade do well out of those), it's right on the edge of the Alps. One of the few things London lacks - along with beaches and the sea - is proper hills, let alone mountains, so we were determined to get amongst the peaks. And what better opportunity than visiting the world's biggest ice cave?

The Alps didn't disappoint. They were really dramatic, very steep and rugged.

The cave is high up an Alp so the views were superb. Nearby is a very cool castle that Alastair Maclean fans will be interested to know was the setting for the movie Where Eagles Dare.

Despite it being crowded and rather claustrophobic inside, it was a literally very cool experience. You can't take photos inside, but you can see some here.

One of the weirdest experiences was coming out of the cave. It was a gorgeous and warm day outside, while inside it's close to freezing. So when you walk out the door, you get shoved by this gale-force gust of cold air rushing into the open, which pushes you along for a metre or so.

The Hills are Alive ...

2009-09-29T19:37:00.007+01:00

I love the Sound of Music. Growing up, my sisters and I would act out the movie, recite the dialog, and sing the songs. I have a memory of us trying to build the Von Trapp house out of Lego, and even used to wish that I had three more siblings - two boys and a girl - so we could be just like the Von Trapp children.

Jumping for joy by the lake where the kids fall in and the back of the house

Given that both Stephen and Alice have a similar level of love for the movie it was a real buzz for me to finally travel to Salzburg with them last weekend to see the sights and do the tour. Tane came along too, and was a very good sport about it, even letting us call him Rolfe.

We are 16 going on 17

The tour was fabulous. The only way to really enjoy it is to embrace the cheese, and throw yourself into singing "Do Re Mi" while driving around in a giant painted bus, so that's what we did.

The bus

I loved it, and only regret that my Mum and sisters weren't there as well. The Sound of Music tour is a must for anyone that loves the movie, and I totally recommend it. If you want to cringe whenever Julie Andrews opens her mouth, though, it would probably be best to stay clear of Salzburg entirely!

3 great things about Stockholm

2009-09-20T20:28:00.011+01:00

Last week we went to the fabulous city of Stockholm in Sweden. Stockholm is charming, and home to a lovely old town. Here are the 3 top reasons why Stockholm is O for Awesome:

1. A city of islandsStockholm is exceptionally pretty, partially due to the fact it spans several islands. While not on the sea, I still loved being so close to the water. We also got to see the coolest ship that I have ever seen ...

2. The Vasa

The Vasa accidentally sunk in 1628 and lived in the bottom of Stockholm's harbour until it was brought back up and restored in the 1960s. The Vasa is also possibly one of the most amazing historical objects I've ever seen - it looks like it belongs in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and is so massive all of my photographs look lame compared to how it looks standing underneath it. I think that the Vasa would have been worth the trip to Stockholm alone. 3. Moose!

One of the islands of the main city is home to Skansen, which is half zoo and half showcase of Swedish culture and history. It was an excellent day out, especially as we got to see a real life moose. Later that day Tane and I also ate some moose, but don't tell the guy in the picture. I am impressed with what I have seen of Scandinavia so far, and Stockholm is no exception. The cities are clean, pleasant, and pretty, and I consider Stockholm and Copenhagen the safest cities I have visited outside of NZ. Unfortunately they are also very expensive, so as much as I'd love to see more of that corner of the World will have to wait a while to do so.

Off the beaten track

2009-09-17T20:43:00.017+01:00

One of the many cool things about visiting friends is that, being locals, they can tell you about all the interesting stuff tourists don't get to - like the Stasi prison in Berlin. Here's a few other examples from my trip Germany and France.

Osnabruck Rathaus

No, not where they keep German rodents - it's the very old town hall. This one is particularly cool as The Treaty of Westphalia was hammered out here.

The Gasometer

A 161m tall cylinder that used to be hold gas from a coal mine. The mine has gone but the Gasometer remains as an exhibition space. They had a really cool display on the Solar System.

Ulf touches the Sun

The bottom floor was impressive but the top ... wow. It was almost filled with a balloon painted to look exactly like the Moon. It was 25 metres wide and one of the most awesome things I've ever seen.

The Gasometer is symbolic of the Ruhr region. Once it was the greatest industrial zone in Europe, famous for coal, steel and smoky factories. Almost all of the mines are gone now and they have made a big effort to green the area and turn the old industrial sites into tourist attactions. The result is an attractive but rather strange landscape, filled with things like the Tetrahedron below.

View from the top.

The Ossuaire at Verdun

The year-long Battle of Verdun in World War One was the longest and bloodiest of all time.The hills of this area of eastern France are now covered in trees but beneath the leaves the land is still pockmarked with the craters of the 40 million shells that were fired. In the midst of the battlefield is the Ossuaire. In the grounds are the graves of some 15,000 soldiers whose remains were identified. Within the building are the bones of about 130,000 who were not.

For me the most moving thing about the place was a display of photographs of old soldiers from both sides and war widows. All were set against pictures of them from before the war.

Friends, Europeans, Countrymen

2009-09-17T19:32:00.008+01:00

September has been the month we've fallen back in love with Europe. We got quite burned out with city breaks in the first six months of travel here, with going away about every third weekend. Then it was all about the exotic developing world. The trip to Normandy aside, we've not been in Europe for well over a year. But with our time in the UK coming to an end we thought it was high time we saw some of our European friends. And they really helped us have a great time. Lauren's already mentioned Andrea and Maria, so I'd like thank ...

Marty and Janka, who showed us around Berlin, one of my favourite cities, and stuffed us with delicious fondu.

Daniel, my host in the lovely, historic university town of Osnabruck and (like Martin and Janka) a good guy for letting me keep him up way too late playing Dominion.

Ulf and Nicola, great people with a great flat and great taste in honeymoon destinations (New Zealand).

Julie, Paxcal and Shistou the naughty puppy for a wonderfully relaxed time in the countryside of Lorraine and lots of games of Mario Karts. Best time I've had in a barn.

Miikka, for introducing us to Stockholm, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet.

You 're are all fantastic.

The colour of evil is grey

2009-09-09T07:50:00.011+01:00

One of my favourite places in Berlin is the Neue Wache, a former guardhouse that is now empty except for a sculpture. It's called Mother With Dead Child and is by Kathe Kollwitz, who encouraged her son to go and fight in World War One. He never came back. Nor did her grandson from World War Two.

The sculputure is the centrepiece of a memorial to the victims of war and tyranny. It's hard to think of a city where it's more appropriate to have one.
During our trip to Berlin, Martin, Janka and I went out in to the depths of the former communist eastern part of the city to see some of that legacy of tyranny, at a secret interrogation centre for the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. It was a grey, grim place that radiated a kind of drab evil.

We were shown around by a former prisoner who as a young man tried to escape to the West. He told us of the two phases of the prison. The first was in the days of Stalin, when prisoners were tortured and sometimes murdered. There was a cell coated in rubber that they used to fill with water so the inmate could not lie down or sit without getting soaked. Then there was the punishment cell, a hollowed out wall where there was not enough space to even move. They used to keep people in it until they collapsed.

He then showed us the area where he was kept. These cells were much 'nicer' and there was no physical abuse, as it had been decided that psychologically torturing people was better for East Germany's image - it left no visible scars.

Prisoners were kept in complete isolation from each other and the outside world, unless when it suited the methods of torture. Three people were assigned to each prisoner to work out how to break them down. As an example of how they did it, the Stasi had our guide's wife write him a letter of separation, then left him in his cell with nothing to read but love stories.

"You can break someone with books," he said.

It seemed even worse than the torture cells. I think brutality is easier to understand than the calculated, bureaucratic destruction of people. It's like the Rwandan Genocide compared to Auschwitz.

After visiting the prison we went to the Stasi HQ, a colossal and completely soulless complex. Anyone who's seen The Lives of Others (and if you've not, you really should) will know the kind of ugliness and colour scheme of greys and browns that marked the East Germany government.

The size of the place reinforced just how much money and effort the communist governemnt spent on monitoring and repressing their own people. There was one cool part though - the exhibition on the secret weapons of spying. Fake rocks with recorders inside, guns built into briefcases, cameras inserted into hollowed trees or handbags, or ones like below that could be hidden in clothing. Real James Bond stuff.

In the age of the microchip it makes you wonder what they've got now!

A few days in Denmark

2009-09-05T18:24:00.005+01:00

As mentioned below, earlier in the week I spent a few very relaxing days in Copenhagen. It's a lovely city, and I am impressed with the Danish people as well as how cycle-friendly the city is. The town harbour is especially nice, and a canal trip was my highlight of sight-seeing there. I had a great time walking around, seeing the sights and eating ice-creams. The only disappointing thing for me was the Little Mermaid statue. Yes, everyone had told me it was a bit lame, but I didn't listen and went there anyway. Apparently it's taking a trip to Shanghai in 2010 for some reason, and hope that the people of Shanghai have been warned that it is certainly a little mermaid and much more tiny-Pania-of-the-reef than Ariel.

Old friends

2009-09-05T17:55:00.004+01:00

In 1996 two cool exchange students came to Freyberg - Maria from Copenhagen and Andrea from Rostock in Germany. With the help of numerous letters, blog entries and more recently Facebook we have kept in touch, and last week I finally got to visit both of them in their home towns. It was rad - catching up in London or New Zealand (or Washington D.C. in the case of Andrea) is one thing, but seeing people where they're from is even better, especially as we're moving home soon and have no idea when we'll be back in Europe. I'm glad I made it to see them, and look forward to catching up with them both again soon. It's such a pity that the world is so large though and NZ and Europe so far away ...

Andrea and the Baltic and Maria at Tivoli

Berlin 1933 to 1989

2009-08-30T23:22:00.008+01:00

Berlin is a place where some of the most important events of the last century took place. There is so much to see here that relates to World War Two or the Cold War, some of it obvious and some of it less so. In the former category sits what is left of the Berlin Wall, as well as bullet-holes in East Berlin buildings and this mural of Communist propaganda found at the former Luftwaffe HQ.

In the latter category, though, and of more interest to me are the things that look simple and ordianary but are actually the site of something much more significant. A prime example is this parking lot, a place where we were told people bring their dogs to do their business and sometimes do their own business here as well. The reason? It is the spot of Hitler´s bunker in the latter parts of WWII, and the spot where he died.

Another facinating legacy of the past is Ampelmann, the green and red man in all the traffic lights. I would not have noticed it usually but was told that he is Ampelmann, and is the only part of East Germany culture to survive the fall of the Great Wall. Apparently when Germany got reunited the East Germans were happy to shed the icons from the Cold War, but would not give up Ampelmann. He´s now used in all of Germany, and you can buy an entire range of Ampelmann products including clothes and lollies. Awesome.

Jumping for joy in Berlin

2009-08-30T23:11:00.005+01:00

Berlin is awesome. I like it so much, if I had travelled here in my late teens or early 20s I think I would have seriously considered moving here instead of London. The place reeks with history, and as I love 20th Century history Berlin is the place to be. What better way to express my love for this city than jumping for joy outside the Reichstag? None, I say! I regret not staying here longer, but like it so much it is now first place with India on my "places I have been that I must return to" list.

With our wonderful hosts Martin and Janka outside the Reichstag

Roots, part two

2009-08-19T22:04:00.006+01:00

Having retraced some of my roots on Dad´s side up in Scotland, a couple of weeks later Lauren and I did the same with Mum´s family. Her dad, Jack, was born in Ilkley in Yorkshire and moved out to New Zealand with his family when he was just 14.

Ilkley is also the birthplace of Barbara, an aunt who has gathered a wonderfully large amount of information about the genealogy of our family. She, her husband George, daughter Jodie and partner Mike were superb hosts for us and took us on a tour of the town.

Picnic in an Ilkley park.

This being a part of the world famous for the Industrial Revolution, when the area was filled with cotton mills, I was expecting Ilkley to somewhat grim. It was the complete opposite. Having been a fashionable spa town it is filled with big Victorian houses and leafy trees, and with the surrounding moors covered in wild flowers it is a lovely place. I was thrilled to see that some of the buildings connected to my ancestors were more or less the same.

The excellent wine shop that used to be the furniture store of my great grandad, joiner Arthur Baynes.

The house grandad Jack was born in.

It was a real pleasure and a privilege to be there, as it had been to go to Alloa. But though I enjoyed seeing where my ancestors came from, I did not feel any kind of connection to the places. It reminds me that while decades ago New Zealanders still called Britain Home, my heart will always lie in the South Pacific.

Not that I would not love to spend more time with those good people up North!

Roots, part one

2009-08-19T21:37:00.008+01:00

Back in the early part of the 20th Century my ancestors, like so many people from Great Britain, packed their bags, said goodbye to their families (often for good) and headed off on the long voyage to their new homes. Seeing where the Aikmans and Bayneses came from has always been one of the must-do things for me and in the last month we've done it.

First up was Alloa, the Scottish town where my great-grandfather William Aikman was born. It was a thriving industrial port at the time and though the glory days have gone, it is still a nice place. Very much a typical working class British town, with a mix of pubs, Indian takeaways, pretty old Victorian buildings and the ubiquitous chain stores - WH Smith, Boots and the rest.

Downtown Alloa

The countryside is pleasant too. It's similar to the Waikato, with low hills, plains and lots and lots of green grass. However, it's also where the Lowlands end. Just north of the town is the steep edge of the Highlands. This is the area - near Stirling, the chokepoint of Scotland and site of many battles - the Aikmans come from.

We went to the Alloa library, where a super-helpful librarian dug into the files and found a bunch of interesting information. They're very well set-up for genealogy requests here, as clearly there's a lot of us colonials retracing their roots. I imagine a lot of them hope to find a king, famous warrior or at least a ruined castle in their background. What we found when we went looking for the area where William Aikman grew was a car park, motorway, petrol station and supermarket.

An Asda, but not a castle in sight.

On the bright side, in Edinburgh's Scottish National Gallery I was gobsmacked to find a portrait by a different William Aikman - a famous painter. So there's some glamour in those roots after all.

Highgate

2009-08-17T20:56:00.010+01:00

I've had a real appreciation of historic cemeteries ever since proof-reading Stephen's Master's Thesis and soon to be published book on that subject. Although many people find the old stone graves of people long-gone a tad creepy, I've always found them interesting and appreciate the way historic cemeteries remind me of my own mortality. Our visit to Highgate Cemetery last weekend was no exception.Highgate is a lovely cemetery - leafy, spacious and full of very photographic tombs. Some well known people are buried there, such as writers Douglas Adams (who very fittingly has a dolphin on his headstone) and George Elliot. Highgate is also home to the most famous person whose grave I've seen, Karl Marx (below).

Tane argued that the most famous person's grave we've seen is that of Elizabeth I or Henry VIII, whose graves we saw at Westminster and Windsor respectively. I maintain it's Marx, as I imagine more rural Chinese and Russians would have heard of Marx than English royals. Either way, Dad tells me that after World War II Churchill offered Marx's remains to Stalin as a gesture of good will. Stalin said no, for which I am very grateful as otherwise we would not have been able to visit his grave for myself.

Cathy! Heathcliff!

2009-08-12T20:36:00.008+01:00

I think that Wuthering Heights is one of the best books ever written. Given my love for the book, I was very excited to go to Yorkshire last weekend to see where the book was set, where the Brontes lived, and do a walk through in the Moors.

Picnic in the Moors

I was not disappointed - Yorkshire is lovely and our hosts there were awesome . The highlight of the weekend for me though was doing an excellent walk through the Moors, trying to imagine Heathcliff and Cathy being dysfunctional and selfish (as they are for 99% of the book), and getting some sun. It was also great to finally get the walking boots out again, due to a series of injuries combined with bad weather and laziness they had gathered dust ever since last summer.

The house that inspired Heathcliff's Home of Dysfunction in Wuthering Heights.

After walking through the Moors we visited the parsonage where the Brontes lived - and most of them died - which has been turned into an excellent house museum (see photo below). The house told the tragic story of the Bronte's in a way that left me feeling very sad for them, especially seeing the sofa Emily died on. It made me even sadder for the countless other families that probably suffered similar fates that have been completely forgotten on account of not having written works of genius themselves.
Anyone that loves Wuthering Heights should visit the Yorkshire Moors at least once in their lives, it's a fabulous place and might even be the inpiration for you to write a novel to be considered one of the best ever!

It's not grim up north

2009-08-09T21:42:00.008+01:00

Lauren and I have just come back from a fantastic weekend in Yorkshire, where we stayed with my relatives George and Barbara Carter, and travelled with their daughter Jodie and her partner Mike. They were the most wonderful hosts imaginable and, with the British weather finally coming to the party, we all had a great time wandering around the moors, eating lots of yummy food and drinking nice wine. We'll blog about it in more detail later, so for now I'll just post some photos.

The Yorkshire moors

Mike clambering up The Calf on Ilkley Moor
Above Ilkley, where my grandad was born. Check out the Victorian graffiti carved into the rocks.

A delicious dinner at the Carters' house.

Highlander

2009-08-06T20:23:00.009+01:00

I've wanted to see the Highlands since as long as I can remember - certainly from when I first saw Sean Connery swinging his sword around the place in the movie Highlander. Then Braveheart made me hungrier. So on our Scotland trip I was determined to spend a good few days getting away from civilisation and travelling around the lochs and mountains.

Loch Torridon

We picked up a car in Inverness but - almost disastrously - on the way to the car hire place, Lauren (and her 20kg of packs) slipped on a battery and twisted her ankle. She could barely walk once it swelled up. Luckily she had lots of good books so didn't get too bored when I went out wandering, such as to the awesome Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye.

The Old Man, which appeared suddenly and rather creepily out of the mist.

We'd been warned about two things for the Highlands - the weather and the midges. And sure enough, the weather was a schizophrenic mix of sun, gloom and pouring rain - I think it changed about six times on the way down Loch Ness to Skye. Sadly the clouds rarely lifted from the top of the peaks. Then there were the midges. The weather meant we didn't go camping as we'd hoped, but we did get our experiences with them. I hopped out of the car to take a photo in the middle of some spectacular scenery, took a couple of photos, then noticed a tiny, fruit fly sized insect trying to suck my blood. I turned and saw he'd brought a few dozen friends. I jumped back inside the car and in a few seconds the door was open, about six came in with me. Midges are scary. You could see them rising out of the grass when we went walking near a loch.

Despite the dodgy weather and biting beasties, it was really good trip. A lot of people say Scotland is like New Zealand and it's true. The lakes, glacier carved valleys and steep, bare mountains reminded me of the central South Island, the high plateaus were like the Desert Road, while the winding, one lane roads and tiny towns on the coast were like being back on the East Coast (minus maraes). If you like the wilderness, I highly recommend the Highlands - though be warned Kiwis, they might make you homesick!

A Symphony in Grey

2009-07-31T21:40:00.007+01:00

There are some cities that you never hear a bad review of. There are people who don't like London or Wellington, or even Paris. But, like Vancouver or San Francisco, I've never heard a bad word said about Edinburgh. So when we visited it had high expectations to live up to. It didn't disappoint.

Edinburgh: photogenic

I'd read the city called a symphony in grey, which sums up both its colour and the beauty. Built on volcanic remains, central Edinburgh is all grand grey buildings, winding grey alleyways and old pubs. And smack in the middle of the city is this wonderful piece of wilderness, Arthur's Seat.

From the castle, perched on cliffs on three sides, down the splendid, tourist tat-filled Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace, and beyond, the city is just gorgeous.

Holyrood Palace, where the heavily pregnant Mary Queen of Scots saw her husband stab her secretary to death.

Is there a city with something comparable to this mix of beautiful buildings, fascinating history, cosmopolitan atmosphere and spectacular nature? Vancouver and Wellington have the setting and the atmosphere, but not the history or the buildings. London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and the other great European cities I have seen have the past, the architecture and buzz (and all more so in one way or another), but not the scenery. Same for Washington DC and New York. Perhaps the closest are Luang Phrabang in Laos and Luxembourg City, but they feel more like towns than cities.

I don't think anything will match the love I have for Wellington and London, the sense of ownership you get when you live somewhere very, very cool, but I would definitely have to rank Edinburgh near the top of all the cities I've visited.

So what your favourite cities and why?

This photo isn't really related to anything, but isn't it brilliant? Go Lauren!

Strange resting places

2009-07-29T20:28:00.004+01:00

A couple of months ago, we went to a fabulous New Zealand play called Strange Resting Places. It was in London as part of an indigenous festival, and was about the Maori Battalion in Italy. The play was, without a doubt, the best I have ever seen. It was hilarious, moving, and wonderfully acted by three Kiwi guys that played a number of characters each as well as the odd chicken and pig. The play was so good, I told everyone I saw the next day to make sure that they went before it closed.

Afterward, the guys handed out wine for the audience, and we hung around to have a chat to the actors. I was saddened this morning to read that one of them, Robert Mokaraka, is now facing charges after being shot in the chest due to an incident with police that he was responsible for. These kind of "person cracks for some reason and does something stupid" stories appear in the news regularly and I don't usually pay much attention. Realising this time though that not only have I met and talked to the guy but that he is extremely talented, funny and had a fantastic career ahead of him saddens me, as well as serves as a reminder that sometimes you can never guess what bubbles below the surface. It also saddens me that if he goes to prison, you will never get to see the play. It's had a strange resting place indeed.

A note on Glasgow

2009-07-26T20:23:00.005+01:00

Glasgow is, I have decided, one of the strangest places I have visited in all my travels. First, everyone talks like they have a mouth full of haggis. Second, it is a truly Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde town. During the day, Glasgow has a great vibe. People are smiling, the streets are busy and Tane and I were amazed by just how handsomely Victorian the centre city is. There are also excellent parks, a pretty river, and the best noodle bar I've been to in years.

The Clyde

At 6pm, though, it's as if someone flicked a switch and all of a sudden Glasgow felt feral and intimidating. Rough-looking groups of young men prowl the streets, teenagers cluster in packs to drink their 6-packs. We went to two bars in Glasgow - one had a punching machine surrounded by men eager to demonstrate just how hard they could punch, and in the other I had beer spilt on me. I didn't take any photos of Glasgow in this state to show I am afraid - as it was I was worried enough that Tane carrying the Lonely Planet would get us mugged.

Hanging in the square, unaware that the city would transform in less than two hours

The next day, though, it was a lovely city again and I am glad that I have visited. I was glad, though, that we had planned to leave before 6pm fell again!

Scotland - a taster

2009-07-26T19:44:00.009+01:00

Tane and I have just returned from a fabulous eight days in Scotland. We had a great time - tried haggis, drove around the Highlands, got lost, found ourselves in the middle of no-where and saw the most spectacular scenery I've seen since New Zealand. I am far too lazy to blog about it at length just yet, but will leave these photos as a taster of a few iconic Scottish things we saw ...

A random marching band in Inverness

Culloden Battlefield
A frightening Highland cow that I would not want to bump into by mistake
Loch Ness (and a monster)
Tane contemplates his last day of being 30 at Torridon

Mont St Michel vs St Michael's Mount

2009-07-09T20:10:00.010+01:00

It's the battle of the English Channel, the contest between two champion tourist destinations. The prize? The prestigious title of Coolest Tidal Island Monastery/Mansion/Fortress Reached By Causeway What Lauren And Tane Saw On A Bank Holiday In May (yes, this entry is waaaaaaaaaaay overdue - I'm a slacker, what can I say).

In one corner is Cornwall's finest, St Michael's Mount, home to a posh old family who chose the right side in the Civil War, lovely terraced gardens, a bunch of retired cannons and a collection of various other cool old weapons.

Cornish flag flying over the battlements. Keep away from our pasties, ye swine!

In the other corner is the pride of Brittany and/or Normandy (it's right on the border of the two French provinces), Mont St Michel. Home to security-conscious monks and sellers of overpriced baguettes, set in the middle of an enormous tidal harbour where they say the sea comes in faster than you can run and capped by a stunning fortified monastery, it's famous for good reason.

Columns by the monastery's garden

It's a tight contest. Both places have exceptionally cool architecture and great views. But despite St Michael's Mount getting bonus points for having seals, many fewer visitors and a lovely chilled atmosphere, we have to give the title to Mont St Michel. It's just bloody magnificent.

And best of all, I could release my inner toddler and go out and play in the magnificent ...

... mud!

So, the original Mike Mountain is still the reigning champ. But do go to both islands if you're even remotely close to them.

Coming up at some point in the future, our favourite UK weekend destination the Isle of Wight vs the ominous smoking lump on Bay of Plenty's horizon, White Island. Green-hilled, historic retirement home vs deadly active volcano. Place your bets.

Soho & Gay Pride

2009-07-04T18:27:00.007+01:00

Soho is one of my favourite parts of London. I go there for a drink or meal at least once a week, and always enjoy walking around, sitting in Soho Square, people watching and generally catching the vibe of a part of London that is like an exaggerated version of Wellington's Upper Cuba Street.

Today Soho was especially cool due to it being the home of Gay Pride day celebrations . I haven't seen so many fabulous costumes, rainbow flags, bright colours and men in tight clothing since ... well, since ever. If we're still in London next year am determined to spend Gay Pride day in Soho again. Let's also hope that by then some move will have been made toward equal rights for LGTB people in terms of being able to get married so there will be even more to celebrate. Times like today I am especially happy at Tane's and my decision to get a Civil Union back in 2007. We may get "married" at some point in the future, but the way I feel about it now, it won't be until gay people are able to as well.

Like Jesus being onstage with Moses

2009-06-28T00:46:00.007+01:00

I think I can now die happy. Well, ok, not really, but musically what we saw at the end of the Hard Rock Calling festival Hyde Park today is pretty hard to top.

It was a funny old day - burning heat, then a thunderstorm, then overcast. Great atmosphere though, with thousands of people lying around, chilling out or standing up to watch the bands play.And what a lineup. The Pretenders and Fleet Foxes (excellent), Ben Harper (mediocre - played only one song I knew, though that was a cracking cover of Led Zeppelin's Good Times, Bad Times) and the brilliantly mad Seasick Steve. He this a grey beared old coot who dresses in ancient overalls, plays instruments like a one-stringed stick thing and sings bluesy swamp rock. He could have stepped out of a Jack Daniels ad, except he's the real thing.

Top of the bill of Neil Young. He played a great set, with a lot of the hits (Heart of Gold, Rockin' In The Free World) that he didn't play when I saw him last year. Only criticism is that he's over-fond of the big, drawn out crescendos of drums and guitar at the end of the rock tracks. Shorter is sweeter - like with my highlight, The Needle and the Damage Done.

Sadly, the happy atmosphere of the rest of the show was also tarnished too. There was quite a bit of grumpiness in the crowd, as older fans (possibly fueled by drinking all day) got mad at people getting in their line of site or bumping into them. The worst offender was a very drunk woman near us who kept leaning on people around her as she woozily tried to take photos on her disposable camera. Security pulled her away eventually and she promptly collapsed, which was a sad way to end a gig that obviously meant a lot to her.

But all that unpleasantness was forgotten during the encore, a terrific cover of The Beatles' A Day In The Life. A couple of verses in, this brown haired guy walks on to sing with Neil. I was wondering who it was when the camera zoomed in and Lauren suddenly grabbed me.

It's Paul McCartney.

We, and everyone, go mental. A Beatle. Singing with Neil Young. In front of us.

It doesn't get better than that.

Appuldurcome House

2009-06-23T20:21:00.007+01:00

Since living in London I have seen so many awesome old buildings that if I were to write about them all I would have to change the name of this blog to "Ye Olde Home and Garden" or some such. While on the Isle of Wight last weekend though we saw one old house so interesting I am inspired to give it its very own blog entry - Appuldurcome House.

The house from the front, looking deceptively like a house without a gutted interior

You can read about the history of it here, but the upshot is that the house was abandoned after the War and what remains now are the most delightfully creepy ruins I've ever seen. The house is intact enough to see what the rooms were once used for, but ruined enough to give it a mournful and solitary air.

The house from the back

We had a great time exploring and imagining what the house must have once been like. When an old house is full of furniture it often feels like a museum rather than a place where people actually lived. That wasn't the case at all with Appuldurcome.

While on the Island we also visited Queen Victoria's home, Osbourne House. It was well worth the visit, even if we did leave tut-tutting about how Queen Vic must have had very poor taste judging by some of the garish interior. I'd recommend Appuldurcome, though, if only due to the way it forces you to use your imagination about how it would have looked back when Queen Victoria was choosing her rude statues and bright gold ornaments for Osbourne House.

Osbourne House

Beaches! Tents! Joy!

2009-06-22T20:59:00.006+01:00

Yesterday was the longest day for those of us lucky enough to be in the Northern Hemisphere, and Stephen, Tane and I decided to spend in on the lovely Isle of Wight. In two days we managed to see some great old houses, walk to some cliffs, find some £2 beer and drive around the entire Island. Awesome.

Walking back from the western most point of the Island

The best part for me, though, was going camping. I love sleeping in a wee tent, snuggled in my polyprops and "Therminator" sleeping bag (Seriously, that's what it's called.) Tane and I bought our tent over two years ago and apart from a trip to New Plymouth and another to Ireland we haven't used it at all. After last weekend, however, I am determined that the summer of 2009 shall be known forevermore as the Summer-o-Camping. Maybe next time though Stephen will bring his own tent, even though he claims that the tiny car was comfortable enough ...

Tane packs up the tent while Stephen takes a photo of himself and I say something wise (I assume)

I am not sure what part of the trip the others liked best, but it was possibly the parts that involved laziness, sand and sea.

The Isle of Wight was lovely, and I can't recommend it enough as a great place to go camping and see the English countryside - especially on the longest day of the year when it doesn't get dark until past 10pm. Bring on the next camping trip!

Newseum - an after thought

2009-06-15T22:01:00.006+01:00

While having a self-indulgent browse through some travel photos from earlier in the year , I was reminded of something I meant to blog about months ago and didn't - the Washington D.C. "Newseum". As the name suggests the Newseum displayed a fascinating history of the media and news, as well as interesting exhibits such as this very moving one about 9/11.

Wreckage from the top of one of the Twin Towers in the foreground with the front pages from various newspapers around the World from 11 and 12 Sept 2001 in the background.

The exhibit that left the greatest impression on me though was a wall of photographs. On first glance it looks like a wall of ordinary photographs of ordinary people, but on closer inspection you learn that they are all journalists killed in the line of duty. We may complain about the free press when stories appear in the media that appear dubious or overly sensationalist, but after seeing these photographs I am even more appreciative than usual that I am resident in a country that allows the media to flourish.
On the subject of free press, I also recommend you all read this article written by murdered Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge about why he continued to critique his government in spite of threats to his life. His photo wasn't on the wall as his death had been too recent, but it is an excellent article that gives the photo wall at the Newseum even more perspective, especially his line "Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you." I just hope I remember that line next time I read a news article that irritates me for whatever reason or see a copy of The Sun ...

Dad in London

2009-06-10T21:37:00.005+01:00

As I said earlier, I love having family come and visit. As soon as Erin left Dad arrived, and we've spent a fabulous week showing him around the usual haunts. He's done a fair bit of exploring himself as well, especially around Ealing's book shops, and has developed a real taste for one of the best things England has to offer - the pub lunch. Yum.

Dad and the Houses of Parliament

The highlight for me, though, was going to Lords yesterday to see NZ lose by one run to South Africa in the 20/20 World Cup. It was great on so many levels - the game exciting, the grounds a great spectator venue, and most of all the sheer wickedness of getting to see a game at Lords with both my Dad and husband, even if I didn't understand their cricket speak half the time!

Lewis, Dad and Tane watching the game

Unfortunately Dad leaves tomorrow and the visits by whanau are over, but we are hoping that we'll get more family visiting at some point and look forward to seeing everyone again in the not to distant future.

Go the Black Caps!

The past 15 years

2009-06-05T20:46:00.004+01:00

I have been reading about David Bain this evening in light of today's finding by a jury that he is not guilty of murdering his family 15 years ago. When reading the news about how he is now completely free after all that time (in the legal sense at least, I imagine he will never be free from gossip and sideways glances), I started thinking about just how long 15 years actually is. Since mid-1994, David Bain has been in prison. Since mid-1994, in contrast, I have been to 31 countries, received 2 degrees, been shopping countless times, as well as eaten out, gone to parties, and had an average of a good laugh a day (so about 5,400 then), climbed 3 mountains and run one half marathon, dam dropped, gone both black water and white water rafting, gotten married, learnt to speak Italian well and Spanish, Maori and Arabic badly, and have discovered the joys of sushi, mee goring, Coke Zero and pasta while also learning that coloured jeans, blonde highlights and two minute noodles are not for me.

15 years really is a long time when thought about like that. Whether he did it or not, David Bain must be feeling more than a little overwhelmed right now. It also makes me sad for his brother, Stephen Bain, who was only a month older than me when he was killed. If things hadn't happened as they did (I am being deliberately ambiguous as I still can't decide what happened) I imagine he would have been able to rack up quite a list as well.

Erin in da house

2009-06-02T22:05:00.008+01:00

I love it when family come to visit, especially when they bring me lollies from home. So, I am feeling pretty happy at the moment about Erin being here on a short stop as part of her around -the-World trip. Unfortunately, although we went to visit the Queen she did not pop outside her palace to say hello. Never mind.

Outside Buckingham Palace

On the bright side though the weather has been amazing, which has made for some great times soaking up the rays. Oh, and seeing some old rocks as well.

Stonehenge

Whenever I see family it is great how quickly things click back to normal, even though years may have passed. Sometimes living in London I feel far away and disconnected from the folks at home, but when Erin (and Ngaire last year) visit it's so much fun showing them around my pad and newly adopted home. Yay!

D-Day

2009-05-27T21:08:00.009+01:00

On June 6 1944, thousands of Allied soldiers invaded Normandy in an act which contributed to the end of World War Two. Equally momentous, on June 6 1994 I sat in my PJs and watched The Longest Day in my Ashhurst lounge (put on by TV1 to mark the 50th anniversary of the landings ) and wrote in my diary that I would love to go to Normandy one day. Last weekend, I finally made it. Yay!

Tane looks at the NZ graves

We visited Omaha Beach first, the place where the Americans landed and home to the cemetery shown in Saving Private Ryan. The whole experience was a bit surreal however in that I really didn't feel as moved as I should have. I am not sure why, possibly a combination of not feeling like it was my history (given the number of American flags I almost felt like I had no right to be there at all) and the number of loud Americans hanging out at the site.

Omaha Beach

The next day we visited the Commonwealth Cemetery, which was much more what I had been expecting. The atmosphere was more sedate, and the cemetery more tasteful. It was very moving finding some NZ graves there, serving as a reminder that D-Day was about people from all corners of the earth.

A German grave

The most moving thing for me though was seeing a small section of German graves. This was the first time I had ever seen some, and if the names and dates inscribed on them were anything to go by the Germans that perished seemed to average about 18 years old, making them all of 7 when Hitler came to power. Should you ever visit the D-Day sites yourself I recommend visiting Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. However I also recommend that you do what very few others seem to do - visit the Commonwealth sites as well, and see the German graves. As well as being interesting, it gives the experience some perspective.

France ... mmmmm ...

2009-05-27T20:22:00.008+01:00

The Normandy and Brittany regions of France are awesome. There are ruins, as well as other interesting old things to visit. There is pretty countryside, and cute wee towns. Best of all, though, there is what I believe to be the best food in the world. The food is so good, in fact, I am resisting drooling into the keyboard just writing about it. Of course there is much more to say about our time in France and I am sure I will over the next week or so, but in the meantime here are a few of our food pics:

The sea, the sea

2009-05-17T19:22:00.012+01:00

As Lauren can testify, I nearly went into hysterics when I saw my first stretch of Cornish beach. The one thing I regret more than anything else about living in London is that it's not on the coast. Having grown up in a town a few minutes drive from sweeping sandy beaches and living in Wellington, with its harbour and bays, for most of the last few years in New Zealand, I love being near the sea.

Sunset at Mount's Bay near Penzance.

Which is one of the reasons why I loved Cornwall so much. People who say the UK has no good beaches are twits. True, they don't have nearly as many as New Zealand, so the ones they do have get packed in summer, but Cornwall is studded with gorgeous little harbours.

But much as I love the sea and have spend a lot of time swimming and bodyboading in it, it does freak me out a bit. I think it's the idea of being in this alien enviroment with brutal, pounding waves and vast depths. Maybe I'd end up like this ship we saw on the way to Land's End. Am I alone in this fear of the great blue yonder?

It's kind of like gulls. Listening to their calls is relaxing and watching them float on the breeze is beautiful. But they really are psychotic. Ever seen them fight over scraps, or peck at a wounded bird? The British ones are worse than the ones back home - bigger and with these yellow eyes that look more than a little insane. No wonder Lauren thinks there's a global seagull consipracy.

St Ives

2009-05-10T20:11:00.007+01:00

There is a reason that Britons flock in their thousands to Cornwall. It's lovely - not only is Cornwall home to the best beaches I've seen since Turkey, but St Ives where we stayed is now in the running for the Lauren's Fave Place in the UK award. Bath and York ought to watch out.

White sand + Diet Coke + T-shirt weather = Haaaaapy.

St Ives feels like it ought to be on the Mediterranean rather than in England with its windy roads and white sandy beaches. We spent a happy few days exploring the town and its surrounds, relaxing, getting fresh air and a fix of beach. It was too cold to swim but that's a good thing - had it been warmer I suspect the town would have been so full it wouldn't have been as relaxing to visit.

Tane near Land's End. Walking around the cliffs near Land's End is great, although Land's End itself a bit weird and creepy.

Being in Cornwall was great - not only did we have a fabulous time, but it now feels like summer is finally on its way. Especially as news reports are saying that it is predicted to be a good one. Bring it on!

Whingeing Poms and Loud Americans

2009-05-08T23:07:00.012+01:00

Being in the US and coming back to the UK has got me thinking about different attitudes in different countries. Stereotypes are dangerous, unfair and sometimes just plain wrong. However, often there is a kernel of truth. Nations do have cultures, with people tending to behave in ways that fits in with most other people, which is what many stereotypes are based on.

A couple of stereotypes that I'd be interested in getting your thoughts on are the friendly American and the negative, complaining Brit.

One of the things that struck Lauren and I being back in the States was just how good the customer service is. People serving us were so polite, friendly and helpful. I'd never noticed customer service in the UK or NZ as being particularly bad before, but in comparison it really isn't flash. A nice smile and cheerful snippet of conversation is not what you expect from the minimum wage slave behind the till in Pac N Save or Tesco.

Flags ringing the Washington Monument. Yanks do love the Stars and Stripes.

Back in London, I've been extra aware of how many Brits - especially in groups - like to have a good moan about something. How you'll hear something is 'rubbish', when it's merely mediocre, or 'decent' when it's very good. On the bright side, British pessimism makes for lots of great comedy and a healthy scepticism about people in authority.

I think New Zealanders have picked up some of this in our cultural baggage. There's the tall poppy syndrome for example - the urge to cut down people who stand out from the crowd.

Guardsmen at Windsor Castle, no doubt off to wet their stiff upper lips with a pint of warm ale and a moan about the boss.

So, what do you think of these stereotypes? Gigantic generalisation for sure, but is there something to them? Is so, why do you think it came about? Is it the British weather (I don't think it's that bad at all)? Is it the space and freedom of America, the optimism of people coming to the New World? What about other stereotypes - like the coarse, cocky, boozing Aussie? Or the cold, humourless German (completely untrue in my experience)? I'd interested to read your thoughts.

The people we meet

2009-04-28T21:18:00.004+01:00

Today I was thinking about some of the interesting people you meet when going about your day -to-day life. You know, a person whose name you don't know but face you recognise, a person that is a complete stranger bar the odd incidental conversation. I am sure you can think of a few that appear in your daily routine, and I'm interested to hear about it. These are a few of mine:

1. The girl in the store outside Victoria Station that sells me Chupachups from Lublin, Poland. Yesterday she told me that Chupachups are more common in Lublin than London, and went on to say that she used to think Lublin was a big city until she moved here.

2. The Kurdish guy that sells me Diet Coke in Ealing Station. Although he grew up in Iraq he's adamant that he's Kurdish, not Iraqi. He's currently setting up a Shisha Bar in South Ealing, which I assume has gotten off the ground as these last few days there has been another Kurdish guy selling the Diet Coke.

3. The men that run an awesome diner in St Martin's Court, part of the maze of streets between Leicester Square and Covent Garden. One is half Greek and half French, and the other Italian. They both have massive smiles and greet customers with a mix of Greek, French and Italian which I find hilarious.

Who are yours?

Two years

2009-04-20T21:51:00.006+01:00

We've been hitched two years. Yay! It's been grand, being married (or should I say Civil Unioned) is cool, although think it is my choice of husband that has made it such. Although I could go on, to spare you more OTT cheesiness, I'll just post some pics instead.

Two years ago ...

One year ago, in Paris ...
Now! In New York ...

Obamarama

2009-04-17T21:08:00.007+01:00

Last weekend we were walking to the White House and noticed a crowd. Nosey as ever, we went to investigate. On closer inspection, we realised that not only were there lots of people standing around, but plenty of police as well. Eventually, we also noticed this sniper hanging out on the building above us.

Given that the entire situation felt like something from a movie, I was not surprised to find out that the Obama clan were inside the church across the road. Naturally, we hung around in the hope we'd see them. The wait was fun - the crowd was in good spirits in spite of the number of police around, including one on a bike that would cruise up and down to eyeball us every now and then. Strangers were chatting, and everyone was clutching their cameras ready to pounce the moment the First Couple appeared.Sadly for us, Obama snuck out a side door and we only got a fleeting glimpse of Michelle. The whole situation was hilarious though, and another reminder of both what an important man Obama is and that Washington D.C. is where it's at. Anyway, with cut-outs like the ones below, who needs to see him in the flesh anyway? ;)

Best jumping photos ever

2009-04-13T15:33:00.006+01:00

I love jumping photos. Sure, you look ridiculous while taking them, and a lot of the time your camera ends up filled with photos of people in weird squats. Ones like these taken yesterday in the lovely city of Washington D.C. make it all worth while though - even if Ngaire did land on a strange angle after the last one and had a limp for the remainder of the day. Good times.

The Washington Monument

The Lincoln Memorial

New York, New York

2009-04-12T01:12:00.013+01:00

There is reason that so many people wear t-shirts that say "I Heart New York". New York rocks. It's a crazy place filled with yellow cabs, bagels and places that remind me of the movies, and more fun in an "I cannot believe I am actually here" kind of way than anywhere I have visited yet.

Tane at Wall Street.

There were three highlights for me during our visit - going to Planet Hollywood and a Broadway show with Ngaire, visiting the top of the Rockefeller Centre, and taking a boat to Liberty Island. Seeing the Statue of Liberty was especially fun after we decided to by green foam hats to mark the occasion as these were perfect for some shameless posing.

If I were to name my top place in New York, though, it would have to be Times Square. Before I saw Times Square, I considered NY all hassle and no charm. Who knew that dozens of crazy neon lights and a three level M&Ms store would change my mind?

I loved New York, and can't wait to go back again one day. For a small island, Manhattan is somewhere that I could happily spend a lot of time in, even if dodging the yellow taxis is a daily occurrence. I didn't buy one of those cheesy t-shirts, but if I feel the same next time might just. Brooklyn Bridge, right before we approached some sifty looking Italian-Americans (one with a cut lip) in a parking lot for directions. We are sure that we interrupted a clandestine meeting and are lucky not to be swimming with the fishes ...

Gettysburg

2009-04-06T16:45:00.008+01:00

Last week I visited the American Civil War battle site Gettysburg, the location of what many historians argue to have been where the Civil War turned against the South.

Like many other battlefields, little remains apart from grass, memorials, plaques and the odd cannon. It is still well worth a visit, however, especially to the gift shop where you are able to buy Confederate flags, Civil War chess sets and Abraham Lincoln memorabilia. The town of Gettysburg is charming, and my only regret is not reading up more about the battle before going there. I really enjoyed visiting nonetheless, and look forward to going back one day with Tane in tow.

On the left, Mikey looks a tad happy for someone born in the South. The photo on the right shows one of the many Confederate flags shown at the site.

London in the spring

2009-04-05T19:13:00.009+01:00

In case you were wondering if Lauren was the only one having a good time, over there in the US, I should say that its pretty darn wonderful here in London at the moment. It's funny, it's not until living in this part of the world that I really appreciated what a big difference the change in the seasons makes. New Zealand doesn't have the major shift from winter to spring that the UK does, particularly because it's closer to the equator and most of the trees are evergreens. Here it was dark at 4pm back in December, but is now light until 8pm. All the trees that were grey skeletons a little while ago are now either covered in blossoms or emerging leaves. This weekend we could wear shorts and the parks were packed. It's amazing what a lift it gives to people. Sitting St James' Park yesterday, surrounded by groups of people chatting, laughing or reading, you could almost see the happiness radiating off everyone.

So here are a few reasons why spring is great.

1) Flowers! The daffodils are out everywhere and the flowerbeds are filled with colours.

Yes, I've put up two flower photos. It's true. I am a girl.

Perfect weather for football in Kensington Gardens.

Andrew Burge is in town!

OK, so my old uni flatmate, divemaster and traveller extraordinare Andrew visiting Europe actually has nothing to do with spring, but it was really cool catching up with him after a few years. Pity my photo in front of the Diplodocus in the awesome Natural History Museum was a lot less than awesome.

But despite it being so nice in London at the moment, I'm really, really looking forward to joining Lauren over in the States on Thursday. Yay!

Roadtrip, wooo!

2009-04-04T14:50:00.009+01:00

I have been spending the last few days on the road with my best friend from school, Rachel, and her two kids. It has been great fun, especially spending time with them and watching the USA whizz by out the window. It really is a massive country, we drove for two days yet only passed through four states and covered in area of about 1 cm on my map.

Rachel with Mikey and Emmelia

The highlight for me, apart from spending time with the kids and catching up on years of conversations with Rachel, was seeing two Amish people on a horse and buggy in Upstate New York. That, and discovering dark chocolate peanut M&Ms. Happy. The wee Deck whanau has headed to South Carolina now, but I'm hoping to see them again soon. It's great that my friends live all over the world and that I am travelling myself, but it does make me a little sad that there are all these little people that I am not seeing growing up.

Capitol

2009-03-31T23:02:00.007+01:00

Does it reflect badly on me that when I was standing on the steps of Capitol all I could think about was the many episodes of The Simpsons where they visit? Is it true then, that there is a Simpsons moment for every occasion? I think that there is - especially in Washington D.C. I haven't yet decided if that enhances or takes away from the experience of being here though!