Christmas Day

It's amazing how quickly one day can come and go. When I first arrived in New Zealand, Christmas seemed like an eternity away, and now we're already halfway through Christmas week to New Year's (which I've heard might be spent at the beach).

I spent Christmas with a wonderful family in New Plymouth that has adopted me as their American daughter. In many ways, it was the same as what I'm used to: sharing gifts, family and friends all around, lots of yummy food. But there were some quite noticeable differences. Instead of turkey and ham, we had chicken and pork. In place of hot beverages to keep the cold away, we had lemonade and ice water to stay cool. And there was no snowball fight, but we did have a water fight. I can say without a doubt, this is the first Christmas I was running around barefoot and joining a water fight. I can also say my team lost, but shhh we don't want to talk about that :)  I shared stories and pictures of white Christmases back home and my friends here told me about BBQs and playing Cricket on the beach (a game I have yet to wrap my head around, even though it's theoretically somewhat similar to baseball).

Most folks (including myself, yay!) are off work through the first week of January so the next few days will be laid-back and relaxed. The weather is wonderful right now, sunny most days and around 70 degrees, with a nice breeze so it's perfect weather to be outside. Next adventure: New Year's celebrations!

Tis the Season

Contrary to what the weather may seem to indicate, it really is nearly Christmas. The closer we get, the warmer and more summery everything is becoming, so in some ways it has been difficult to feel like it is really Christmastime. Instead of being huddled inside by the fire, we have been scheduling BBQs outside. In place of hot chocolate or coffee everyone has been opting for a milkshake or iced coffee. Gone are the coats, hats and gloves and out have come the sandals, shorts and sunscreen.

A summer-time Christmas definitely takes a bit of adjusting, but it isn't without its charm. Coming home from the beach to write Christmas cards can be quite nice, and listening to Christmas carols while relaxing out on deck is really just as nice as being bundled up inside while it snows (although you don't hear "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow" quite as much haha).

My Christmas season began with the orchestra's Christmas concert at the end of November, in which I had the pleasure of participating. Yesterday I enjoyed a Christmas organ recital at the cathedral after I'd finished the last of my shopping.

 Last week (which also happened to be my last week of work before the start of the summer/Christmas holiday shutdown), we enjoyed lunches, gift baskets, and a black-tie Hollywood themed Christmas party, all compliments of my employer.

The city park, Pukekura Park, is currently lit up with Christmas lights so last weekend I ventured out one evening for Christmas caroling, fireworks, and the lights.

The mountain as we entered the park

The crowd out for Christmas carols and fireworks

Everyone lit candles when it got dark :)

I think it's only green for Christmas time 

Most of the lights didn't photograph well, but these were cool :)

Now that I'm adjusted to the idea of it being Christmas while it's getting hot, I've quite enjoyed the decorations around town. Nature has decorated for the season as well, with the Pohutukawa trees, New Zealand's Christmas tree. They started coming into bloom 2-3 weeks ago and are positively lovely :)

Chance Encounters

One of the great things about traveling is the people you meet. Kiwis are friendly people and always ready to welcome you to their country. A lot of people I've met have traveled extensively throughout NZ so I've acquired quite a list of must-sees for my time here.

While I was in Wellington I was having lunch at a cafe with a friend. The lunch rush was in full swing so we ended up sharing a table with a gentleman and his young daughter. We chatted about traveling and places for me to visit and for him to visit if he goes to the US. His lovely daughter shared her french fries (I mean, chips!) with us. When they were ready to leave, they had gotten halfway to the door when she suddenly turned around and ran back to give me a hug and tell me that she had fun eating lunch with me.

One morning right here in New Plymouth I didn't have to be at work as early as normal so I decided to have some me time. I stopped in a little French bakery for some mango tea and a chocolate croissant. As I was making my way to a table I saw a lady there with a precious baby that was intent on saying hello to everybody. I stopped to say hi and 45 minutes later I had to hurry so I wasn't late for work. We traded travel stories and shared thoughts on life in Taranaki. My solo breakfast turned into a fun morning chat that resulted in me making a new friend.

A couple of months back I was up North at the Bay of Islands and booked a day tour that saw several wonderful spots including the tip of the North Island. Shortly after our bus started out for the day I realized there was a Japanese lady on board. We began talking and were fast friends by the end of the day. We made plans to stay in touch and I had the pleasure of showing her a bit of New Plymouth when she was making her way south. She has since returned to Japan but we are keeping in touch with emails :)

Thanksgiving isn't a New Zealand holiday but I happened to have time off for traveling that week. I had already wished my family a happy celebration and had made a mental note to catch up on turkey eating next year. Thanksgiving morning while making breakfast at the hostel where I was staying, I met a fellow American. Although we didn't discuss it much beyond wishing each other Happy Thanksgiving, it was a wonderful feeling to share a moment with someone who understands the significance of the day.

Some of the people I have met here have already become lifelong friends; others I will likely never see again. But each encounter makes an impact and creates a memory that serves as a reminder that no matter what country you're from, we're all people and in some ways are all the same.

Whitianga

I am incredibly lucky to have friends who enjoy traveling as much as I do and last week was delighted to have travel buddies visiting from Europe. Although I didn't have the time off work to spend the entire duration of their visit traveling together, we did have a few delightful days of adventuring together. We checked out part of the Coromandel peninsula, a lovely part of the Eastern side of the North Island (I will eventually make it to the South island!).

We stayed at a friendly little hostel right on the beach in Whitianga. Not too much to the town but it is in a beautiful location with plenty of outdoorsey opportunities. We spent the majority of our time there either hiking or enjoying the beach. We had perfect warm, sunny weather so for the first time in my life I was at the beach when it should be wintertime (it is really hard to get used to the idea of summer-time in December).

The street our hostel was on. I want a palm tree :)

The first super cool place we went was called Hot Water Beach (technically not so cool, haha). There are hot water springs that run along the beach so if you take a shovel with you to the beach, and go at low tide, you can dig a nice hole in the sand which will fill up with hot water and viola! you have a sauna. You have to find a spot that has hot water as it doesn't cover the whole beach, and we quickly found there were pockets of hot water in big clusters with big areas of cold water in between. We had found a spot and made a decent spot to enjoy the hot water, but then got lucky and inherited a great hot pool from someone else that left.

Hot Water Beach

Was a bit cold when we had to jump in to wash off the sand

When the tide started coming in, we packed up our beach gear and shovels, grabbed lunch at a cafe, and headed off for a hike to Cathedral cove. It's a bit hard to describe, but it's a gorgeous bit of paradise that has a beach divided in half by a huge rock that has developed a cathedral roof from the bottom, so you can walk in (under?) and cross to the other half of the beach, although if it's high tide you have to wade a few feet.

We had steak pies and kumara chips :)

Hiking to cathedral cove

My first glimpse of the cathedral

The other side

Coolest. Rock. Ever. 

 The next day took us to Shakespeare Point, Lonely Bay, and Cook's Beach. I couldn't find a good explanation of why it is naked Shakespeare Point, but you get a panoramic view of the coastline that includes Flaxmill Bay, Lonely Bay, Cook's Beach, and some rocks that have names :)
Lonely Bay had some of the best seashells I've collected so far (my bookshelf now has almost an entire bookshelf dedicated to the shells I've collected......
Cook's Beach is quite possibly the prettiest beach I've ever seen. I'd try to describe it, but think I'm better to just post photos for you to see!

Flaxmill Bay

Tip of Shakespeare Point

Lonely Bay

Lonely Bay (you could climb from the beach under the big rock on left side of photo up to more rocks)

Cook's Beach

ps, I'm listening to Christmas music while writing about beaches, who could have ever thought!!!

If I ever have a van...

Made me giggle :)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is not a New Zealand holiday, but it's one of my favorites so I decided it would be a New Zealand holiday this year. So I picked a date, invited some friends, and made a menu. When I asked one of my friends if he'd like to come, he looked at me like I'd just asked a silly question and said "of course I'll be there, there'll be lots of food there. America's got it right, having a holiday about eating. NZ should adopt that."

The menu was slightly non-traditional in that we didn't have turkey. We had planned to but when I went to the supermarket and saw that a 10lb turkey would be $70, I thought I'd look for a cheaper option since there were 15-20 people planning to come. Next I thought I'd buy a ham, but it turns out ham was even more over-priced than turkey. So we had yummy oven roasted chicken! In other respects I'd say it was a pretty normal Thanksgiving menu. Everyone said the dinner rolls I made tasted like traditional Maori bread, which was cool :)  I made a pumpkin pie and a butterscotch pie. Pumpkin is used as a vegetable here, and pumpkin pie is a foreign idea so this was the first time my kiwi friends had tried it. The general opinion was that it's quite yummy :) For a traditional NZ dessert, we had pavlova. Not sure how to best describe it...it's sweet deliciousness. I'll use a picture and recommend that you try it if you get the chance. Deviled eggs is another menu item my kiwi friends hadn't tried, but the recipe has been requested several times :)

Despite a bit of rain in the early afternoon, our randomly selected Thanksgiving day was quite nice. It was warmer than I'm accustomed to but it was nice to not have on too many layers. The evening was like any proper feast should be, lots of food and laughter with friends/family.

About half the food

Dessert, before the cheesecake and pavlova arrived

pavlova

Taranaki Garden Spectacular

Every spring there is a local garden festival. I'm not entirely certain on the required criteria to be a part of the festival, but I did have the pleasure of seeing two lovely gardens. The festival was over two weekends. Various locations in town and the surrounding rural area were open to the public for viewing. I performed at Hurworth Cottage and a local winery both weekends of the festival.

Hurworth Cottage is a settlers cabin that was built in the 1850's. It is a part of the local historic society now and has been restored to excellent condition. It is open on the weekends for viewing, and has a lovely garden/yard surrounding it. I performed there with the orchestra both weekends of the festival. It is the New Plymouth orchestra's annual fundraiser to perform there in small groups while selling tea/coffee and cakes. It is positively delightful to have a cup of tea and a yummy treat while sitting in the garden listening to a string quartet. Or brass ensemble. Or piano solos :) I performed with a french horn player, with a violinist, and some solo piano sprinkled here and there to fill time. I found it just as relaxing and enjoyable to perform as I did to sit and listen to the other musicians. Somehow playing in a garden made me feel sophisticated :)

Coming up the drive

The Cottage

The garden, taken from the corner of the porch

One side of the yard/garden

The living room in the cottage

The second weekend I also had the pleasure of performing with a cellist at a winery. It is a lodge used for company retreats and also has a wine shop where it hosts wine tastings and small community events. It was another delightful piece of paradise in New Zealand. I hadn't performed with a cellist prior to this, and other than a slight technical difficulty (we had the keyboard plugged in but were missing the amp to actually get any sound, so we had to wait for it to arrive), it was a lovely Saturday afternoon full of French, English, and German classical music.

The Lodge

The backdrop to my garden gigs :)

Food

Since I've had four months to adjust to any major differences and sample some of the local fare, I thought I'd should some thoughts on what there is to eat in this lovely place. There aren't tons of differences and it is quite possible to find most "American" food. There is also plenty of Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Indian food. Unfortunately there isn't much Mexican food, but if you are willing to pay $4 for a very small jar of salsa and $5 for 6 tortillas, you can create your own Mexican feast :) There are some local yummies though, and I've found a few things which I quite enjoy.

Meat pies, yum yum yum. As an American, I think of pie in terms of apples, chocolate, lemon meringue, coconut cream, cherry, etc. etc. etc. and the occasioanal Shepherd's pie. In New Zealand, there is a much wider range of options. You can find yummy meat pies at supermarkets, gas stations, convenience stores and bakeries. They are usually mini-pies, probably about four inches in diameter. There is black pepper steak, steak and cheese, mince and cheese, steak and mushroom, mince and onion, and other yummy options. The potato-top pies have a ground beef mixture with mashed potatoes on top. You can buy them already warm for about $3 and it's a perfect afternoon snack :) You can also buy them in bulk, frozen, to keep at home if you can't be bothered to go the store!

Potato Top Pie

Mince Pie

"Friendly Helpful Employee: 'Welcome to Burger Fuel, what can I get for you today?'      
Hungry Customer: 'Hi, I would like kumara chips please'."
Burger Fuel seems to have the most legit burgers in town, and kumara chips are their tasty sweet potato fries. A common topping for your burger, along with gerkens (pickles), tomaaaatoes (NOT toe-mate-oes), lettuce and cheese, is beetroot. I have tried a burger that had beets on it and it was surprisingly yummy. While beets aren't my favorite food, I have nothing against eating them, but I must confess it never occurred to me to put it on a burger. I think I'll stick to beetroot-less burgers from now on, but I did give it a go :)

Steak pie for lunch, burger with beetroot and kumara chips for supper. What about breakfast? How about crumpets? Best description I can give is that crumpets are an English muffin pancake. The bottom looks like a pancake, the texture is fairly similar to a pancake, but the top looks like an English muffin. Pop it in the toaster and when it comes out put some butter and syrup on it and there you go. They're pretty tasty :) If you prefer normal toast, a topping option is Marmite or Vegemite. I've been told you like either one or the other but not both. So far I have tried Vegemite and once was enough. I haven't tried Marmite yet but have been told it's milder. Vegemite looks deceptively yummy, it looks like chocolate peanut butter. But oh it's not. It's a bit bitter, and to me was very salty. So not really what I want on my toast :) If you go out for breakfast, a common item on the menu is sauteed mushrooms. Not sure how they make them but they are very yummy with some sausage and fried eggs.

Crumpets

One thing that is disappointing to my taste buds is tomato sauce. If you're out and order french fries (I mean chips) then you'll get tomato sauce with it. It looks like ketchup so you happily dunk your fry, anticipating the flavor combination of ketchup and french fry and then BAM! You're eating tomato sauce with your fries. You'd think I'd have learned after the first couple times but I still get fooled nearly every time. I guess I just always hold onto a little bit of hope that somebody somewhere will have the sense to serve ketchup and not tomato sauce :)

If you'd like a tasty local beverage, try some L&P, Lemon and Paeroa. It's soda made in NZ, rather similar to sprite. You can even find white chocolate with L&P in it. It's like eating chocolate, but also eating pop rocks at the same time, crazy :)

One item you will not find here is biscuits and gravy. You will get an amusing reaction if you ask a kiwi whether they like biscuits and gravy. Biscuits here are actually cookies. And it seems they normally only use brown gravy, so you can see the train of thoughts going "wait...biscuits and gravy...a cookie with gravy on it??? Yuck!!!" I've done my best to describe it but since they don't really have biscuits (the American kind I mean), it's somewhat hard to accurately communicate. I reckon I'll have to make some up at some point and see how they like it.

There is a traditional Maori dinner called a Hangi, which I have not had an opportunity to try yet. But whenever I do I'll be sure to share :)

Final thought. When in NZ, don't say "I cut up a kiwi to go with lunch." If you do it means you are a cannibal. Say kiwifruit, it makes those around you much happier!

Green kiwi fruit

Golden kiwi fruit

Whakatane

Last weekend was Labor Day so I took an extra day off to get a 4-day weekend and went for a weekend adventure with one of my friends. We had planned to go to the city of Napier because her older sister lives there, but when that fell through we had to pick somewhere else to go. So I asked where she'd like to go and she said "Anywhere!" Not helpful, since I was of the same opinion. So I pulled out  my trusty North Island of NZ map, made a quick note of where I have been and then thought "OK, Whakatane, haven't been there, that's where we'll go." PS, that is how most of the trips I've taken so far has been determined. I see a place with a cool name or I close my eyes and point and see where my finger lands, then I go there. So far so good :)

But anyway, so Whakatane. For those of you who wish to be culturally aware, the "WH" is pronounced like "F."

It's a beautiful place. We stayed at a lovely hostel run by a couple who wanted to do something different. It was by far the nicest I have ever stayed at, and for an incredibly reasonable price. Our hostess was delighted that we noticed how she color coordinated the rooms, and we were thankful for the comfortable lounge room to relax in after a day outside.

Whakatane is a small town, so was easy to quickly get a feel for where everything is located. The best breakfast was at the Bean Cafe. Best smoothies are at Poppy's Cafe. The grocery store was just around the corner from the hostel and Pizza Hut was just around the corner from the police station. And it's a beautiful place to be outdoors. We spent most of one day biking/meandering down the water front, finding beautiful seashells and people watching and enjoying the fact that it was both warm and sunny all in the same day.

Our other full day there was devoted to hiking. There was a lovely trail (which we'd mistakenly thought we could bike on day 1 and quickly found out otherwise) which led to Ohope Beach. So we packed a lunch, grabbed some water (and sunscreen) and off we went. It was a delightful hike, up a mountain, or probably just a really big hill, and around the the top of it so we could see the town and then the bay and then we came to this lovely little cove thingey where we found more seashells. As we continued on from there it was only a short way further to Ohope Beach. We had a picnic and walk along the beach before making the hike back.

I'll let you look at pictures now because it's easier than trying to describe what we saw :)

Island in the distance is possibly Whale Island, not positive

He just about let me walk up to him :)

Ohope Beach