Familiar faces (continued)

Holy Chris, I'm behind on this blog! Right. Where was I? Oh yeah. Katie, Melissa, and I were on our way to Wanaka. First thing on my agenda was to correct my guests' pronunciation of my new home town. Kiwis, I've found, pronounce quite a few words and names differently than Americans would. 'Wanaka' is definitely among those. I imagine that, like me before I arrived here, most Americans would think Wanaka was pronounced so that it rhymed with 'banaca'--you know, the fresh-breath spray?--but no, it's actually pronounced so that it rhymes with Hanukkah--you know, the Jewish Festival of Lights? Correct pronunciation established. On with the trip.

We arrived in Wanaka after about an an hour and a half drive through some very pretty country. We passed more than a few vineyards along the way. Some quite picturesque. But none nearly as breathtakingly gorgeous as my workplace, which I was itching to show my former coworkers. And, after checking the girls into the motel, that's just where I took them. First stop, the tasting room. We sampled the entire range of Rippon wines, from Osteiner to Pinot, and there was much rejoicing. A wander through the vines and the requisite picture taking with the lake and mountains as the backdrop followed. I was so glad the weather was nice--we hadn't seen the sun once during the preceding nine days due to a most-stubborn inversion layer that had settled over the valley. But it cleared up brilliantly for my out of towners, and there was much rejoicing. After snapping a number of pics, it was up to the Winery for a tour, which Bret, the Assistant Winemaker, was more than happy to provide. He gave my guests (and me) quite an education on the process of wine making that was so much better than the tour I would've provided, i.e. "There are the tanks. There are the barrels. Any Questions?" Bret even provided us with a bonus tasting--straight from the barrels! We got to sample from two or three of the 08's and from two of the 09's, including from the barrel "Steve the Texan" named for yours truly (an entry on the naming of barrels, and how it is I got one named for me will be coming soon) and there was much rejoicing.

After the tour of my workplace, we went back to my house where Katie and Melissa took over the kitchen and prepared a most delectable Mexican food dinner. What a treat! They had read somewhere that I had been desperately missing good Mexican food and were so sweet to bring with them some much needed supplies. Although their beans got confiscated as contraband from Customs upon their arrival, they came through with flying colors. Our taco dinner was Grade A, muy delicioso, and there was much rejoicing.

After dinner we met up with Shannon down at the bar Woody's, where my friend Mike is the Manager. Jenn and Michelle joined us shortly thereafter and we had a fun night out, and there was much rejoicing.

The following day, the sky had reverted back to the grey palor it had maintained for most of the previous fortnight, but even so, the beauty of this place was little diminished so we took a long walk along the lakeside. About midway through our walk, it began to snow. The novelty of experiencing snow in July, especially for a couple of visiting Texans who, three days prior, were experiencing triple digit temperatures back in Dallas, was something to behold. I don't think it would've been possible to wipe the bewildered smiles from Katie's and Melissa's faces. I wouldn't have wanted to even if I could.

After our walk, I got to introduce the girls to one of my favorite Wanaka pastimes--drinking Brewskis at Kai. Kai is the cafe/bar on the busiest intersection of town, and if you sit outside long enough, sooner or later you'll see everyone you know. Shannon, Mike and Dean joined us, and for the next couple hours we all drank Brewskis, talked, laughed and greeted the multitudes of passersby we knew. Mostly I just sat back and watched as Mike and Dean kicked their 'entertaining out of towners' engines into high gear. Dean, an angry (not really, it's all an act) Welshman, and Mike, an affable (not an act, genuinely affable) Kiwi are quite the story tellers, and they had us all in stitches for hours. Just get Dean going on a diatribe about the French and you've got an afternoon's entertainment that's second to none. I really couldn't have asked for a better afternoon to show my guests just why this place has become so special to me. And there was certainly much rejoicing.

Come suppertime, we retired back to my house where Paula had prepared a traditional Kiwi dinner of lamb shanks, roasted veggies, and kumura. It was alright, but, frankly, not really worth writing home (or blogging) about, so I won't. There was only a little rejoicing.

Theirs was an extremely short visit--only a few days--but I'd like to think that Katie and Melissa had a good time. I know I certainly did. It was so great to see friends from back home, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to play tour guide in my new little corner of the world. My only regret is that we never got a chance to make it to Puzzling World. Maybe next time. **Sarcasm heavily implied here. Brad knows, but for the rest of you, Puzzling World is the local, cheesy tourist trap.**

So, to sum up: good friends (both visiting and local) + good scenery + good weather + good wine + good food + inclement (but fun) weather + good beer + good conversation + good laughs = one helluva good time...

...with much rejoicing!

Cheers!

I feel the earth move under my feet

I was planning on writing about the Wanaka portion of Katie and Melissa's visit tonight, but that's going to have to wait.

About three hours ago, I was over at Shannon's house with Shannon, Mark, Michelle, and Paul watching a DVD of season one of Flight of the Conchords when, all of a sudden, I felt kind of weird. Sort of dizzy. Just the slightest bit queasy. Almost drunk even. I wasn't the only one feeling that way apparently. All five of us, all at once, just looked at each other for a few seconds, bewildering, confused looks plastered on each of our faces, trying to comprehend this strange sensation. What's going on? Why does it feel almost like we're on a boat? Why are the clothes hanging from the drying rack all swaying back and forth like that? Is this? Can it be? Yep, it sure is. This is an earthquake!

That's right. I just experienced my first earthquake. It was really trippy. There wasn't anything falling from the shelves or anything like that, and we didn't go running in terror to huddle under the nearest door frames. We all just rode out the three- to four-minute rumble smiling and laughing, not quite believing what we were experiencing.

I'm finding it exceptionally hard to describe. The best I think I can do is to say that it felt like we were on a boat in particularly rough waters. But still, that doesn't really nail it. Because there's just something so completely indescribably strange about the ground, you, two seconds ago, took for granite as being immovably rock solid, moving right under your feet.

We learned from the news shortly thereafter that it was a 7.8 magnitude quake, with the epicenter being some 250 kms southwest of us and 5 km deep in the ground. It's amazing that even that far away we could feel it as strongly as we did. What's more, there were reports of tremors being felt as far away as Wellington, which is on the North Island!

I tell you, I'm glad I had four other people around when it happened. Had I been by myself somewhere when it happened I most likely would've been scared out of my mind, but for some reason, because I was amongst friends, and it was a shared experience, it turned out to be the highlight of the evening. It was certainly more memorable than your average Wednesday night, that's for sure.

Granite, get it? Granite? Rock solid? Huh? Huh? Anyone? Is this thing on? Oh sod off, I thought it was funny.

C___E
__H___E____S
_________R___!

Familiar faces

I recently had the great pleasure of hosting my first visitors! Katie and Melissa, a couple of friends from my old office, got themselves some fantastic airline-employee discount tickets and escaped the apparent blast furnace that is Dallas, Texas these days for the cooler climes of the southern hemisphere for a week. After stopping in across the ditch in Australia for a couple days, they found their way over to New Zealand. I met them at the Queensown airport, which, based on watching a couple of planes land there, has got to be one of the coolest airports in the world to fly into. The planes come in over the lake and literally land in a valley between two mountain ridges. It has to be an absolutely breathtaking view from a window seat.

After a mini Odyssey locating their rental car, it was time for Katie to take 'driving on the left 101.' She got more than her money's worth, I'll tell you. You see, I was driving the Chariot and Katie and Melissa were following in their rental, and I initially missed the driveway to the hostel where we were staying and proceeded to do a couple loops around town--through more than a few roundabouts--in an attempt to find our way back. Knowing what to do in roundabouts usually doesn't come up until 'driving on the left 201,' but despite her beginner status, Katie passed with flying colors!

We dropped our bags in the room and went for a wander about town. This was my first time in Queenstown, so it was all new to me too. Queenstown is a gorgeous, if slightly over commercialized, ski resort town. We had a great stroll along the waterfront and through the town; ate some yummy sushi; witnessed an elaborate Mardi Gras parade; found said parade to be completely random, given that Lent and Easter are both long since over; found a bar called The Lone Star--being Texans, we found that neat; freezed our buns off as soon as the sun went down; warmed up a bit in front of the fireplace at a local bar; listened a bit to a free outdoor concert; found a gelato shop that specializes in hot gelato drinks--brilliant; and called it a night. A very fun day.

Before setting off for Wanaka the following morning, we took the gondola ride up the mountain overlooking town. The vistas from the top (above some clouds, by the way) were absolutely stunning! The gondola is a must do if you ever find yourself in Queenstown.

Now, Queenstown was fun, but I was anxious to get to Wanaka, as this was my first opportunity to play tour guide for a couple of days. There's just something about sharing a place that's special to you with others that just feels really really good. You'll have to stay tuned for the recap of that part of their visit--I'm tired and I'm freezing, and my electric blanket has by now had sufficient time to get up to temperature, so I'm gonna go climb into bed.

Cheers and Good Night!

SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!

A couple Mondays back, Nick came to work and announced he'd been up to Diamond Lake the previous weekend and that it was completely frozen over. He seemed particularly excited about this fact, and I soon found out why. A completely frozen Diamond Lake means curling! Several of us decided that would be a fantastic activity for the upcoming weekend, and we gave ourselves a mission during the week to make eight perfect curling "stones." All we needed was eight 2-liter ice cream containers, eight choice cuttings from the grapevines, and some water. We had zero problem rounding up the containers. With my bowl-a-day habit going strong for several weeks at that point, there was no shortage of empty ice cream containers at my place--I never throw them away, they make perfect storage containers/lunch boxes! Finding the perfect handle-shaped cuttings from the vines proved to be little of a challenge either. We filled the containers with water, stuck in the handles, popped the whole lot into the deep freeze and, abra cadabra, eight perfect stones. Or eight really big ice cubes with branches if you want to see it that way.

Sunday morning: Shannon, Nick, Bret, Bret's wife Jo, two of Bret's kids, and I loaded up our hand crafted stones, a couple brooms, a portable grill, a package of sausages and some buns, a tin of brownies, a couple bottles of Shannski (Shannon's home brew), and a bottle of whisky and made the arduous journey (10-minute drive followed by a 15-minute hike at a slight incline) to the rink. After a few extremely cautious first steps near the shoreline we were out in, excuse me, "on" the middle of the lake. Trippy! Other than at the American Airlines Center or the Galleria, you just don't see ice in such mass in Dallas, Texas.

Right, time to make targets. Two screwdrivers and a string is all you need. Anchor one screwdriver in the ice at a center point with a string tied around it. Tie the string around the second screw driver and pull it taut at a length of six inches, and simply walk in a circle around your center point, carving the business end of the screwdriver into the ice. Repeat the process with the length of string at two feet. And again at four feet. Voila. Three, perfectly round, concentric circles of one-, four-, and eight-feet diameters--a perfect target.

Nick and I teamed up and took on Bret and Shannon. One team member pushed the stone and the other used the broom to sweep in front of the stone's path, or not, depending on if you wanted the stone to go faster or not. Then you switch roles when you come back in the other direction. We quickly determined that our "sweeping" had precisely zero effect on either the stone's speed or trajectory, but we kept up the pretense in the spirit of the great game that is curling. That, and for a laugh--it was not uncommon for the sweepers to take hilarious tumbles from time to time. You try sweeping while trying to run slightly in front and to the side of a speeding ice cube on a big slab of ice and see how long you stay up, huh!

Nick and I made a pretty good team, and we dispatched not only Shannon and Bret in that first match, but all comers throughout the day. We left with an undefeated record. But, to be perfectly honest, Nick didn't contribute all that much to our efforts. Yep, I was, hands down, the best curler on the ice that day, my friends. Which prompted an oft repeated question from my Kiwi friends throughout the week's retellings of events: "how is it the man from the land with no ice is the best curler in the bunch?" I just shrugged it off as beginner's luck. What I may have failed to mention, however, was that a few years back, I made up one half of an illustrious* shuffleboard duo known as the Ted Strykers who dominated** the tables at Strokers and the Inwood Tavern. And what is curling really, if not shuffleboard writ large, on a slightly bigger, slightly more frozen table?

So, if you ever find yourself with access to 2-liter ice cream containers, grapevine cuttings, a deep freeze freezer, a broom or two, a couple screw drivers, some string, and a frozen lake, might I suggest giving curling a try. It makes for quite an enjoyable and memorable day.

Cheers!

Disclaimers:

*The "illustrious"-ness of the Ted Strykers may have been slightly exaggerated for the purposes of this story.

**The amount by which the Ted Strykers "dominated" the tables might also have been slightly exaggerated.

Living the dream!

For several years now--nay, for the entirety of my life--it has been my dream to be able to eat ice cream every single day. Today, I can proudly say that I am living that dream. I've eaten a bowl, cup, or cone of ice cream every day for the past six weeks or so. And, I don't say that as an exaggeration. I literally eat ice cream every day.

Of course, I've always been physically capable of eating ice cream on a daily basis. It's just that in my old life I didn't burn nearly enough calories to do so without potentially ballooning up to 400lbs as a result. But no longer is that the case. Now it seems all the physical work I do in the vineyards every day burns enough calories that I can eat all the mint choc chip, hokey pokey, cookies 'n cream, caramello, and raspberry ripple I want and never gain a pound. My scale hasn't budged from the 180lb mark for close to two months now!

However, it's not all peaches and cream, this dream of mine. Mostly because peaches and cream doesn't exist as a flavor here. Which brings me to my point. As much as I enjoy my daily bowl, I can't help but wish I was dishin' it up from a half-gallon Blue Bell container. Now, don't get me wrong; Deep South, Cadburry, and Tip Top make some fine ice creams. But they're not Blue Bell.

I thought about delving into the human condition and exploring that which keeps us from being fully satisfied when dreams or desires are achieved or obtained (i.e. I'm finally able to eat ice cream every day but it's not the brand I'd truly prefer), but then I decided I'd rather just go and take this new white chocolate raspberry flavor for a spin.

Cheers!

Hey Bartender

A few weeks ago, when my friend Shannon asked me if I wanted a job for the weekend that involved long hours of hard work for no pay, I jumped at the chance. And that's how I found myself down at the Lake Wanaka Center on a Friday and Saturday night bar tending at the annual Wearable Creations Fashion Show & Party.

To be fair, I really couldn't call what I was doing "bar tending." We only had two brands of beer, four varieties of white wine, and one type of red on offer. Serving the beer took no more skill than opening the bottle, and serving the wine rarely took any more--most of our wine sales were by the bottle as well, rather than by the glass. Every so often I was called upon to actually pour a glass of wine, but I think I managed to master that particular skill sufficiently well. Like I said, not really bar tending--I didn't have to learn to mix any fancy cocktails or anything.

Wearable Creations is easily one the biggest, and most anticipated, events in town. The show is three hours long, and features, as the name implies, wearable creations conceived, designed and modelled by fellow Wanakans? Wanakites? Wanakanos? people from Wanaka. And, boy howdy, are there ever some creative and talented people from Wanaka! Some of the entries included: a suit made entirely of wine bottle corks; a 20's-style flapper dress made of plastic cutlery; another flapper comprised of a couple thousand beer bottle pull tabs; two dresses made of toilet paper; and a couple dresses made of red, yellow, and blue 'admit one' tickets.

But my three favorites entries were as follows:

3.) The dress made entirely out of zippers--10 kgs (22lbs) worth according to the emcee--that started out as a long, billowing ball gown but kept getting smaller and smaller throughout the routine as layer after layer kept getting unzipped until our model finally strutted off in little more than a tank-top and miniskirt, made of zippers.

2.) A dress made of old car parts, complete with a license plate in the back, flashing turn indicators on the elbows, and a pair of working headlights exactly where you'd expect a pair of headlights to be. This of course prompted more than a few cat calls from the crowd of "Hey baby, nice headlights!" Pretty clever--the dress design, not the cat calls.

1.) Easily the highlight of the show! Two gorgeous women (who I later found out are aerobics instructors at the local health club) showcasing a local graphic artist's abilities with body paint. The medium? Chocolate. That's right--naked aerobics instructors body-painted in chocolate! Did I mention the show was a tad risque at times, and had an R18 rating? That means nobody under 18 was allowed in, which, as it turns out, made the bar tending gig that much easier because we didn't have to worry about checking IDs (the legal drinking age in NZ is 18).

The show, and even the bar tending work, was great fun. I met heaps of people and added them to my grocery list--that's the ever-expanding list of people I now know and could potentially run into while shopping. Or in Dunedin as the case may be! I ran into the show's head organizer, Kate, and her husband Ian, another of the bartenders, at the Governor in Dunedin the day after my big night out following the All Blacks game. That was kind of cool.

Now if you'll excuse me, my aerobics class down at the health club is starting soon!

Cheers!

Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage Part II

We entered the stadium and found our seats, stopping on the way at the concession stand for some Steinlagers of course. Our seats were pretty good. We were on the front row at the corner of the end zone. The ABs were doing their pre-game warm-ups not ten meters from us. Other pre-game activities included the Mayor of Dunedin (not my friend, Aaron, but the actual elected city official) singing the New Zealand national anthem. I'd never heard it before. It's really cool. It's bilingual, the words in both Maori and English. But that was just the preamble to the most important of pre-game festivities: the Haka. I've seen the AB's Haka on television or in you tube clips a number of times, but nothing compares to seeing it live and in person--a true highlight of the entire experience!

The game got underway. The French took an early lead, and looked as though they were going to dominate the entire match. Our heroes came back at the end of the first half to score a try (directly in front of our seats no less) to narrow the gap. But narrow the gap was the best they could do. The French emerged victorious with a 27-22 win. Bloody hell. Is there anything worse than losing to the French? Oh well, on with the evening's festivities. Can't let the AB's loss put a damper on a big night out on the town.

The queue for the buses going back into town was a mile long so we decided to hoof it. A good long walk, but it was kind of fun walking down the street with a couple thousand people. I did fear for the safety of a few rather boisterous French fans that kept asking people in a sarcastic way, "Who won? Did you see who won? Did the French beat the mighty All Blacks?" Not too bright.

After our marathon trek back into town, our first stop of the night was a bar called Toast. While there I bumped into a friend of Brooke and Aaron's who I met the first time I was in Dunedin. A while back I thought it was kind of neat to bump into someone I knew at the grocery store, now I'm bumping into people I know in a town three hours from where I live which I've only been to once before. Toast was alright. We only stayed for one drink. Next stop was Pop. Having just left Toast, all I could think of when we entered Pop was Pop Tart, and I wondered if we'd later round out the toastable breakfast foods with a stop at Bar Eggo Waffle. Pop was fun. A dark little bar below street level that played dance music. At one point during our Pop stay I had to excuse myself to the restroom. I found each of the two toilets occupied so I leaned against the wall in the little anteroom outside. Moments later a girl walked into the little anteroom and saw me waiting patiently. I said "hello." She said, "you're cute" and then proceeded to wrap her arms around my neck and start kissing me. Now I know this might come as a shock, but cute strangers kissing me out of the blue isn't all that common of an occurrence for me. But, 'when in Rome,' right? And I'll tell ya, I've had worse experiences while in line for the pisser--like, for instance, every other time in my entire life that I've ever been in line for the pisser.

After more than a few drinks at Pop, we thought it would be a fantastic idea to go to the casino and make a deposit. While we may not have had, the doorman at the casino seemed to have our best interest at heart, when he uttered three simple words before we were even within thirty feet of the door: "Not tonight, fellas." We sure felt like we appeared sober. Guess not. Thank you mister doorman. You probably saved us heaps of cash.

Having been denied our opportunity to blow all our money, we changed tack and decided finding some fallafel was now priority number one. And in this respect, our luck was aces. We found a late-night Turkish takeaway not three blocks from the casino. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Well, maybe not chicken. What is fallafel anyway?

Having satisfied our late night kebab craving, we hit a couple more bars, the names of which, if I ever knew them, I have since forgotten. I remember though, at one of them I ran into my friend Agustin who worked at the vineyard during harvest. And that was nice.

The rest of the evening is a tad bit hazy. But I do remember our desperate attempts to hail a cab for the ride home, because there was no way on God's green earth we were going to attempt to walk up the small mountain atop of which Jason's house sits. I think it was probably the 12th empty cab to pass us that finally pulled over to take our fare. Another two dozen or so and we would have started to worry.

Next thing I remember is waking up on the floor of Jason's living room the next morning. Well, afternoon, if you want to get technical about it. Head pounding, teeth in desperate need of a good brushing, and wait, why do I still have my shoes on?

Right. Time for a good, greasy, hangover-curing breakfast. Shannon recommended Governor's--it's a Dunedin institution, apparently. Governor's is right down the street from the Dunedin Church of Chris--I'm guessing that's one of your lower-tier, lesser-known religions in the pantheon of monotheistic faiths. Either that, or the sign at the Church of Christ is missing a "t." Our afternoon breakfast was top notch. God bless the genius who invented Hollandaise sauce! Those were the best Eggs Benedict I've ever had--full stop. Until about a half hour later, of course, when they turned on me. They seemed to settle like a cinder block in my stomach. I guess I should have seen it coming though. There's really no one to blame but myself. I mean, what else should I have expected but treason from a dish with such a moniker. I somehow managed not to lose my lunch (breakfast), but I felt fairly queasy for the remainder of the drive.

We pulled into Wanaka a couple hours later, thank Chris. I took a shower and proceeded to do little more than read a little of my book and sleep for the remainder of the day. I paid for it in spades on Sunday afternoon, but the rip roaring Saturday night in The Big Smoke was well worth it.

Cheers!

P.S. For those unfamiliar with rugby, "Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage" are the instructions given to the teams by the ref during every scrum.