What Happens to Old Wannabes?

Maybe they turn into New Hasbeens?

On the Same Note...

"Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventure happens in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels and regret."

-Michael Chabon, 'Gentlemen of the Road'

That's my favorite "adventure" quote and one I've been saving for a long while to put on the blog.  I kept waiting for the perfect moment because it was such the perfect sentiment to me.  I agree with everything Steve said in his beautiful post previous to this one.  I look forward to seeing you, friends and family, very, very soon.  

At Adventure's End

Insert pithy quote:

“A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.”

---Bertrand Russell; English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970

So our adventure in New Zealand is at its end. We've all but actually flown back home, having tied up our affairs here in Wellington. We're essentially just waiting for the last few loose ends to get strapped down and we'll be setting foot on a plane with enough baggage accompanying us to let us persist back in Marin until the Big Crate arrives.

The quote above works for me, because this experience has been potentially the second (or third) best thing I've ever done (next to having Zoe and Haley and marrying my wife Joanne.) I've never felt more American or been more aware of what I'm made of than I am right now. How can you really see it without putting it first into contrast with your surroundings? Thanks to having the guts to step outside of our comfort zone, we've learned where we end and our environment begins. And that environment is peopled with loving family members, dear friends, and a culture that we took for granted for many decades.

It's also time to call it and head back home. Duty (familial and otherwise) calls us back to our brown and familiar land. I have nothing but gratitude for the country and company that took me in and let me see this side of the world---not as a tourist or traveler coming through for a look at arms' length---as a native sees it. We drew our livelihood from the same springs as the natives, lived shoulder to shoulder in the drafty old houses with the natives, and enjoyed the natural beauty of this green and sodden land as the natives do. And that is the biggest gift of all.

“It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.”

---Andre Gide; French writer, humanist and moralist, 1947 nobel prize for literature, 1869-1951

There's no coincidence that our trip corresponded with the year of my 40th birthday. I'd never felt so uncertain and ill at ease with the comfortable suburban lifestyle that I'd fought so hard to put in place.

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”

---Nelson Mandela; 1994 South African Statesman, 1993 Nobel Prize for Peace, 1918-

So that's probably enough of the extremely fitting but incredibly pretentious quotes. I was actually just hunting around on the web looking for observations people have made about leaving home, going off and doing something to the chagrin of their community and then returning home again. There are tons. We're not the first people to try this. We're not the first people to learn something significant in the process. It makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy to know that we made it through and that most of our community still accept us.

There are a ton of things we're going to miss about Wellington life---A list so long as to be innumerable. But as we bring to a close the "Four Kiwi Wannabes" and start up the "Four Kiwi Hasbeens" it's worth drawing up a big list in no particular order to help us remember and to call out what we appreciated the most.

• Kebabs - in the manner they're prepared here
• Roti - where has this stuff been all my life?
• EFTPOS - accepted everywhere, including places without electricity and running water?
• km's instead of miles - everything here in Wellington is close and convenient
• Public Transport - Wellington has shown me the way. I'm a believer. I love it.
• Slow down - the pace of life here is slower, more relaxed, less riddled with compulsive urgency and impatience---yet things get done
• People - friendly, helpful, open, interested, agreeable, trustworthy
• Safe - the kids can play outside the restaurant on Cuba Mall unsupervised and we trust they'll be safe. Women walk home from bars at night unaccompanied.
  
• Green - god it's lush here... you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some of the lushest and greenest wilderness
• Lamb - delicious here. Ask for ewe. Better than aged beef steaks here. Seriously.
• Cadbury Milk Chocolate - deserves its own level on the Food Pyramid... preferably close to the bottom
• more to come...
  

We'll add to that as more occurs to us and keep posting what we come up with. I just wanted to get started.

We'll also probably start listing what we DON'T appreciate too, as part of due diligence and fair warning.

Thanks for reading. It's been great blogging during this past year. Hopefully it's something we'll continue to d0 in the much less adventurous but surely just as satisfying years to come.

Staglander 2: The Chickening

From Staglands

Yesterday we visited the Staglands Wildlife Reserve   

And it was extremely extremely cool.  As cool as holding a chicken up to your face.  Actually, cooler than that.

Basically Staglands is the biggest most beautiful and lush and well-kept and healthy-looking petting zoo you've ever seen.  It's about an hour north of Wellington proper out in the Akatarawa Valley (pronounced Akaratawa Valley) nestled in a dense and green valley amongst steeply sloping hills.  To get there required turning off of the main highway in Upper Hutt and following an extremely winding one lane road around many completely blind turns best negotiated witha kind of furtive terror.  There were two single-lane bridges over a stream and a riverbed, two blueberry farms (one of which doubled as a emu farm,) and a handful of art galleries and/or sculpture gardens.

On the way out there we found a place called "Efil Doog" which advertised 11 acres of gardens, sculptures, galleries and riperian beauty and which we took to be some British-Isles-sounding Gaelic or Welsh phrase meaning "art gardens" until Zoe pointed out that it's just "Good Life" spelled backwards.

Staglands itself charges admission.  It cost us $40 for a family admission to the Reserve, which seems pretty steep for a nature reserve and set my teeth on a skeptical edge until later when a few very tame Kea (native alpine parrots) completely won me over and I warmed up entirely to the whole experience.  By the end, the admission price hardly seemed like enough for the sort of experience we had and I really can't recommend it enough as a day-long family outing.

The whole idea is that the park arranges animals so that people can get right up to them and interact.  The creator/owner/maintainer asserts that intimate and personal interactions with animals can be life changing.  From the web page:

Aims of the Reserve

"It is my belief that an enormously rewarding and lifelong appreciation of wildlife can be kindled by a brief, intense encounter with an animal or a bird.  Ideally this will be in the wilds of our beautiful bush, maybe on a farm or even at home with grandma's budgie. Few children or adults have such an opportunity nowadays.

Staglands is my attempt to provide that encounter in an environment that is as good as I can possibly make it.

Native animals, birds and plants need our help. Many are unlikely to survive without our willingness to provide huge ongoing funding in the form of donations, taxes and physical effort. That willingness to provide help, I believe, is more likely if an interest has been kindled by an enjoyable, first hand experience, as can be obtained at Staglands."

John Simister.

And I'd have to say he achieves his goals in spades.

Here's a slideshow of us interacting with well-hand-tamed and lovingly-reared animals of all varieties (many "wild" animals raised in captivity.)  There are a lot of conservation efforts underway at Staglands as well.  It's not JUST the Coolest Petting Zoo Ever Conceived.

Goodbye, Zaida

Our family is sad tonight. Goodbye, Ed. Goodbye, Zaida. We love you.

Ha-Makom y'nachem et'khem b'tokh sh'ar avelei Tziyon viyrushalayim

For Zaida...

How to Speak New Zillund

After almost 10 months I feel secure in saying the Kiwis and I finally understand each other.  I no longer get the glassy-eyed stares and a long pause after I finish my sentences, during which the Kiwi I'm speaking to replays what I have just said in their head, so that they can decipher and make sense of my heavy, staccato-ed,  American-accented words.  I understand, and am comfortable using, the local slang, so that I'm not having to break the flow of a lively conversation with sidebar explanations of the meanings and etymologies of every other word or expression.

Working with children all day, it has been necessary to amend my words to be understood.  It became a matter of needing to speak "correctly" to them.  Considering that for half my day I am teaching very young students which letters make what sounds, and how to sound out words with them, it would do no good to teach them using my American English pronunciations.

Lately Steve has been very amused with me when he catches me using the Kiwi pronunciations at home.  In all honesty, it's just pure laziness on my part.  Take the word "chance" for example.  Or take the word, "example" even.  Take any word with the "a like apple" sound, and replace it with the "o like octopus" sound.  Now try to say it.  See?  It's just lazier  easier to say.  

And for a short lesson in the real Kiwi pronunciations, I give you the following.  Unfortunately, this was one of those viral email things so I don't know where this first appeared or who to give credit for it.  My friend Brandie was the first to bring it to my attention.  Thanks, Brandie!  Click on the image to enlarge it.

The Many Faces of Haley

I was surprised that several of you expressed concern for our Haley after viewing the family elf dance a couple posts ago. The truth is, we have a bit of ham on our hands, and it verges on impossible to get a nice, Christmas-card-photo-esque picture of her these days. She's constantly pulling faces, or laughing with her mouth wide open or otherwise being an utter goofball. I've tried explaining to her that some day when she's older she might wish she had smiled pretty for the camera, but folks, she's just not that girl and we wouldn't have her any other way.

So, to put your minds at ease, (I'm talking to you, The Grandmas) I present to you "The Many Faces of Haley" including the original photo that she chose to use for her elf. Enjoy!

Magical Elves!

The best part of celebrating the holidays while living in a foreign land is being able to partake of the local customs and traditions...oh, who am I kidding? It's all about the chocolate, folks.

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, Cadbury is huge here. There is a big ol' factory in Dunedin with a tourist attraction called "Cadbury World". I'm conjuring up images of Willy Wonka, but I think in actuality it is just a factory tour. Cadbury may have originally been a Brit company, but to Kiwis it is their own. Soon after we got here I read a statistic about how much chocolate the average Kiwi eats in a year, and it's a lot. I'm too lazy to dig up that factoid but it's a good one.

Recently the stores have become jam-packed with huge displays of Christmas assortments of Cadbury chocolates. On our weekend on the South Island, which I will try to post about soon, our family consumed more of this stuff than I am comfortable admitting.

By far the very most awesomest discovery of the many Christmas-themed candies we sampled were the Magical Elves. What chocolate-making genius thought of these and why don't we have them in the States?! They're little elf-shaped chocolates, each named for a gem, and given a puckish description. The one I ate this morning read, "Aquamarine is a talented musician who plays to inspire the elves to enjoy themselves and work harder, but is a bit of a farty pants."  

But the best part, the magic part, is that they're not just plain old delicious Cadbury Dairy Milk. They have pop rocks in them!  Don't tell them, but I'm sending some of these home to my niece and nephew who I just know will get a huge kick out of them.  Below is the official "Story of the Magical Elves" from the Cadbury NZ website.

The Story of the Magical Elves®

Many, many moons ago, Santa heard about some magical elves from the South Pole who were mischievous, but oh so very clever. These crafty creatures had magic dust that made amazing cogs in one zap! But how could Santa get them to come and work for him? …A-HA!! Santa had an idea. Elves adore chocolate. So, in return for making toys, Santa would treat them to a delicious year’s supply! The elves jumped for joy! Each Christmas since then, Santa chooses eight hopeful elves who are sucked through a secret tunnel up the Earth’s centre to his workshop where they merrily make toys for all the world’s girls and boys. But, there was just one small problem. The elves kept sneaking off to eat chocolate before they’d finished their work! Thankfully, Santa had a little plan…he put magical popping dust in the chocolate so a naughty elf could be heard and promptly popped back to work! Now all the presents are finished on time. So next time you’re nibbling a Cadbury magical elf, remember those rascally elves are too! Can you hear them? They can hear you!

ed note:  Did anyone notice that this is the second, actually third, post about elves on this blog? I'm thinking of switching us over to an all-elf format, what do you think? 

Updated Dancing Elf Family

Send your own ElfYourself eCards