BUT, the good part about Dunedin was that though the magic of the internet I got hooked up with S, who invited me over for dinner with her family two nights in a row. She and her husband C have two kids who think that visitors are the coolest ever and did I want to see this pokemon game and look at this dance and it was all very entertaining. S even let me embarrass myself heartily on her spinning wheel. It trounced me and I was demoted to spindle practice.

As a quick aside I’d like to note that if there’s anyone out there with an entrepreneurial spirit, you should think about bringing bathroom ventilator fans to this country. In lieu of fans they just leave the bathroom window open. Now, I’m all for saving the planet and whatever, but one of the main places I want warm is the bathroom, thank you very much. So, you know, if you’re into that sort of thing, go for it.

Right! Anyway. After the second dinner with S and her family, we went to my first knit night. It was small but friendly, and nice to be around so many knitters. I managed to almost finish a sock, which got completely ripped out the next day. Alas.

From Dunedin I went to Queenstown, a place I was steeling myself to have to endure rather than relax in. Lonely Planet had it described as adrenaline-junkie, party-animal town, which, as you may have gathered, is not so much my scene. Fact remained, however, that there were plenty of athletically-inclined things to do there, from bungee jumping (oh HELL no)¹, a canyon swing (a “bungee variation,” according to Lonely Planet), jet boating, white-water rafting, river surfing & sledging (sledge = sled), skydiving (NO), and plenty of other things, all of which are quite expensive ($100+).

I decided to be frugal and pick two. With the canyoning ticket, the trip to Milford Sound, and the hostel I was spending $350 for 2.5 days in Queenstown. Ouch.

That being said, canyoning was awesome. And terrifying at points. I didn’t know much about it, and actually have no idea why I picked it over all the other non-height-based options, but after I got the brochure (after I booked it) I started to get worried that I wasn’t going to be fit enough to do it. There was noise about how you should be an active adult, and considering I couldn’t make it up the bitch of a hill getting to my Queenstown hostel (well done, self, picking hostel on a worse slope than the one from the night before) I wasn’t feeling terribly “active,” and there were noises about climbs and other things that I wasn’t fully sure I was able to do, and what if they had to stay behind because of me? Augh, that would be so embarrassing, and maybe I should just cancel now and hide under my bed for the rest of my trip. Or intentionally sprain an ankle or something.

I did go, and the first thing they did was to suit us up in the appropriate protective gear – oop, no, the first thing was to have us sign away our right to sue them should they screw up and break our legs or kill us or whatever. Woo hoo! Love those. Right. So, full body wetsuit, socks, booties, head sock, harness, life jacket, and helmet. I felt like the queen of style, right there, let me tell you.

After a brief hike through the woods they had us submerge in glacier water 6º C, or –595º F – the water we would be spending the trip trudging through – and then climb a ridiculously steep hill to a zipline. I haven’t done a zipline since middle school, and all I remember was that I spent most of it backwards and trying to turn myself the right way around. This go around was about the same.

Then they had us abseil/rappel down a vertical (vertical) cliff. For those who aren’t In The Know, abseiling involves attaching yourself to a rope and having someone lower you down the cliff while you walk backwards, perpendicular to the rock. Ha.

The trip involved a couple of slides, and at one we couldn’t quite see what we were in for, but followed directions just the same. They held our life jackets, we crossed our legs and arms, and they let go. Next thing you know it’s not the easy drop you were thinking, and your sinuses are packed with water. Mine felt larger when it was over, and I haven’t been nearly so congested since. Scrambling to the surface and looking back you realize the it’s actually quite a fall and what were they thinking and GOLLY that was cool.

Some (easier) slides and jumps later there’s the option of climbing up to a ledge, what I estimated to be about 4 meters high, and jumping off into the water. Being a little delirious from having an unstuffed nose for once, I decided to go. After climbing up a vertical cliff face involving clipping carabineers to safety lines and hauling oneself up with ropes and things, you look out what is, in fact, a six meter drop, eeeeee.

It turns out that my comfort level for jumping into water is at about four meters. When I’ve gone that far and still haven’t hit the water I panic. Lived to tell the tale, though, and enjoyed the adrenaline rush.

And I might’ve come out and hugged the rocks, laughing and wide-eyed with terror.

The other zipline offered a little more responsibility than I was happy about. We ziplined over the deepest pool, then unhooked our safety ‘beener, pulled on the rope that was keeping us in the same place, and lowered ourselves down to the pool.

As soon as I undid the knot that would allow me to get down my lifejacket shifted right up under my chin, which was very attractive, which is, of course, when the camera got pulled out. Foxy lady!

The final jump was about as high as the previous big jump, but more exciting because you had to be specific about where you jumped so as to not hit a rock, and had to bend your knees, because the water wasn’t tremendously deep. I almost didn’t do it, but did, and may have yelled “ OH FUCK!” on the way down. I also jumped wrong, but managed to keep from injuring myself.

A few more easy slides and the group emerged the freezing water fast friends. The fear and cold bonded us together. They don’t have you wear gloves because you need to have good grips on the rock (I guess), and their recommended method of warming up your hands is to straighten your arms at your sides, hands flat and pointing out, and pumping your shoulders up and down. I came out of a pool at one point to find four of my compatriots standing in a line, arms straight down, hands out, bouncing their shoulders. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time, and I told them they looked like a chorus line. One guy started can-canning.

My fears about being too weak were denied, though it’s three days later and I’m still sore. Two women didn’t make it through – they (or maybe just one, and her friend joined out of solidarity) was too freaked out by the heights and who knows what else.

A German woman on the trip, K, and I decided to go out for a coffee after the trip, and we found a café and sat as close to the fire as we possibly could to warm up.

We ended up getting dinner as well, and I splurged because it’s not often I actually allow myself to do that. It did involve some measure of plugging my ears and going LA LA LA LA NOT THINKING ABOUT MONEY LA LA LA.

During dinner we discussed tattoos, and I learned that the popular tattoo for women these days – the one on the coccyx – what some of us in America call the “tramp stamp” is, in Germany, called “arschgweih.” Literally, “ass horns.” HA!

We went to a bar afterwards (LA LA LA LA LA LA LA) and played no small amount of pool. A Dutch gentleman who was being summarily ignored by his two young companions was watching us play, and I think my lack of natural billiards-ability was causing him actual physical pain.

In the end I was reminded why I don’t go out to loud, busy pubs at night, and was happy to head to bed early. I took two Sudafed to keep the snoring/7am sneezing down, and while my body felt like a sacka hammers, I couldn’t sleep. I saw 4:30am and was awake before my 7:30 alarm. Nice.

¹ When I told my mom that I was headed to the bungee-jumping capitol of the world she said “Don’t do it,” in that mom-to three-year-old-with-a-hand-in-the-cookie-jar voice. “Or at least don’t tell me about it.”

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1. If you’re just wandering around a shop you’re not browsing, you’re “having a browse.”

2. Apparently I am very obviously a tourist, though twice I’ve been mistaken for being British.

3. Construction workers often wear shorts. Sometimes rather short shorts. It’s unnerving, like stumbling into a photo shoot for a special edition of Playgirl Magazine: The real men next door!

4. It is damn hard to find healthy food here. There’s plenty of fish, which all the newspapers and gossip magazines tell me is good, but 3/4 of the time it’s fried in some way. Which isn’t a bad thing, to be sure, but doesn’t add much to the health benefits (never mind the ambitious serving of fries or “chips” that are added to the side). Aside from that there’s a lot of fried, a lot of eggs and bacon, pies, cakes, breads, and not a whole lot in the manner of “vegetables.” I’ve spotted a few salad cafés, but only in Auckland and Wellington. AND gyms seem to be exceptionally rare, even in the cities.

As a result this isn’t a “thin” country. I’d call it rather curvy, actually. And yet in clothing stores (not of the department variety, but of the fashion variety) the largest size is still just a 16. But on the local television shows they employ a lot of “regular-looking” people rather than the standard strong-jaw, slim-legged, glasses-free actors that are so popular in other first-world countries.

There’s also at least ten stories per newspaper/magazine/news hour about how New Zealanders are overweight and are eating poorly. There’s a big fuss now about how processed meats are being linked to colon cancer. I don’t think it’ll change much for BBQ season.

5. It’s really not “pedestrian friendly” here. They will mow you down. When they have to wait for you to cross the street they’ll creep up slowly as you walk past, and zip by as soon as they can clear your heels. I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of reward system for hitting someone not in a car. But I could be wrong about that.

—

In the meantime I’ve been staying in hostels and it’s been decent. A good technique is to be the last one to go to bed. Cuts down on the number of people who will come in and bash around while you’re trying to sleep. Having a few beers beforehand doesn’t hurt either.

I went to Akaroa last week and stayed at Chez La Mer. The first night I lucked out and got a dorm room to myself. As nice as it was to spend $25 on a room to myself, having four empty beds in the room felt lonely. Bitch, bitch, bitch, that’s all I do. It filled up fast enough, and every now and again there’d be good conversation.

I didn’t get the best reception from one of the owners, though. Our first meeting was when she yelled at me for having my towel on the heater. Then she rushed off and the only time I saw her direct any happy feelings towards me was when she was waving me goodbye. Nice!

I’ve also spent more than a few nights at the Fraureisehaus Hostel in Christchurch. When I’ve told people that it’s women only they get all flustered and say they wouldn’t want to stay somewhere like that. I didn’t think I would either, but the fact is that the kinds of people who would stay at a women-only hostel are not usually the kind of people who stumble in drunk at 3 in the morning and do unspeakable things to the floor/bed/whatever. They’re more the kind of people who tuck up in the evening and watch a movie. And who are considerate and respectful. I can see why some people wouldn’t be into that.

This hostel is really cushy. Big screen tv, a plethora of videos to choose from, a garden to lounge in, resident pets, free coffee/cocoa/bikes/laundry/use of nice hairdryers, and no more than 4 beds per room. It’s wonderful.

Except that one morning when I woke up absolutely covered in bug bites (they changed my sheets and didn’t see anything, and suspect a spider had gotten in and thought I was delicious and/or threatening). And this morning when I had a very confusing series of interactions with one of the women who works here. When I dropped off the DVD of Frida that I’d borrowed for a bunch of us to watch she was very friendly. I was sitting in the garden some hours later and she came out of the building lugging my big bag which I’d left tucked in a corner of the hallway (under a sign that said “Leave your luggage here if you’re checking out before 8am” which makes no sense to me. If you’re leaving then you’d have your bags with you, and you surely wouldn’t leave your luggage there the night before). She asked if it was mine, and said it was to go into the shed until I left. She was downright frosty. There was nothing to indicate that that was protocol, and I hadn’t thought to ask. Silly me.

Other than that it’s been great.

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It’s big. Big enough that it’s really not so good for the walking dedicated (okay, fine, bus-phobic) like me. I’ve managed to wander around the same stuff for the past four days, and I’ve come to some conclusion about this section of central Auckland.

It’s not a particularly attractive city. It doesn’t have charming European architecture, instead leaning more towards industrial. What with the close proximity there’s a big Asian community here, so there’s all the Chinese/Japanese/Thai/I Can’t Read That Language So I Have No Idea What It Is food you could possibly want. My favorite so far is this:

Which I can only assume is some kind of combination meat market/greengrocer.

Friends of my grandparents picked me up and took me to what I’m pretty sure is Mt. Eden, the tallest extinct volcano “in the area,” as Lonely Planet so helpfully puts it.

(All that grass is on the inside of the volcano. Apparently you’re not allowed to walk into the cone, but there IS a path in case you do).

I went up the Sky Tower (which, I learned is the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere! Weighs as much as 6000 elephants!) and, for the low, low price of $15 got to see 360º views of a rainy Auckland.

They have this thing called the “Sky Jump” which tethers you between two cables that run from the top of the tower down to the bottom, and allows you to fall (“controlled fall,” I’m sure) all the way down. How completely delightful. There’s also a sign in the observation deck that lets you know how long until the next person jumps, which is a little uncomfortable (“Jumper in 30 seconds!”)

There are glass – well, probably not glass, but some clear-but-dirty something or other – so you can look STRAIGHT down to the street.

They promise that the glass section is just as strong as the concrete, but I’m pretty sure that’s a Big Fat Lie.

I was pretty queasy the whole time I was up there.

Then, yesterday, after being distracted all morning by neat shops, I went to the zoo. You’ll be relieved to know that visitors to the Auckland Zoo are just as charming and delightful as visitors in the states (“See if you can pet the otter, honey!” “Here, why don’t you sit on the wall with your legs dangling in the animal pen! What a clever idea!” “Here, hippo, have some popcorn!” ).

They have a kiwi, which, being nocturnal, is kept in a completely dark room – so dark that my eyes didn’t adjust the whole time I was in there – and its pen is lit by a red light so you can really just see an outline. It was still cute. Kiwis are cute. They’re round and fuzzy and they toddle along, wobbling back and forth. Cute.

Or, if you prefer, in slideshow form.

Oh! And I was asked about the food! I haven’t had much of an appetite, and all my breakfasts have been at the hotel (corn flakes, toast), but I had Thai food (massamun curry) which was fine, and I ate at a pub (chicken and mushroom penne – though it wasn’t penne as I know it – in a pesto-and-cream sauce) and it was fine. I’ve also had more than one bag of “Grain Waves” chips, which are just like Sun Chips. But crunchier. And I had a toasted ham, cheese, and pineapple sandwich.

So, in conclusion, the food thus far as been unmemorable.

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I have a free piece of advice for you. If you’re planning to go to Europe and cook while you’re there you should either 1. leave all of your recipes behind and forget you ever had them, or 2. bring a good metric conversion chart, plus cup measures.

I will explain.

Angela was organizing a dinner party for oh, seven or eight swing dancers, and we were all slated to bring food. No problem! It could be fun to cook. I haven’t done it since I’ve gotten here, as the kitchen is totally depressing. And by totally depressing I mean it’s a hallway and a closet and even a power-washing wouldn’t make a huge difference on the dirt. And peeling floors. And grimy dishes/pots/pans. And stained walls. You get it.

But! I would make Joy Of Cooking brand garlic bread! Easy! And also a fudge-like substance that is often smiled upon when made. Also easy! I’ll give you the recipe:

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese
2 c. sifted confectioner’s sugar
2 1-oz squares unsweetened (baker’s) chocolate
1/4 tsp vanilla
Dash salt
Fruit

Throw cream cheese in a mixing bowl, cream until soft and smooth. Slowly mix in sugar. Mix in chocolate. Mix in vanilla and salt. Then, if it’s firm, form into balls, throw some fruit on the top (strawberries and raspberries are the way to go here), place on wax paper, and chill until you get bored or hungry. Or pour into a greased cake pan – a 9” one works well – top with fruit, and chill, then slice into squares.

So easy! Right? Hah! Not so much. So I went to the grocery store for supplies. The only thing I had on that list is salt.

Cream cheese! In packages! Except that it’s measured in grams, not ounces. I blinked at the packages for a while, wondering if I had relevant converting information at my disposal. I just bought a package, figuring they looked about the right size, and moved on.

The sugar aisle! Great! Confectioner’s sugar! Nope! Nothing. It was all granulated. I needed powdered, or it likely wouldn’t work. I hadn’t even heard of half the sugars they had. Castor sugar? I made a guess as to which was the most in the manner of being powdered, and moved on. It was by fluke that I ended up staring, dejectedly, at the cake-decorating section (puzzling out pre-rolled icing) where I found icing sugar. Which was distinctly not in the sugar section. But it was right! It was powdered! Hallelujah!

Chocolate! I found a large bar of baker’s chocolate, nice stuff, too, but it was £4.50, which obscene. I had no plans to use the whole thing (or get even close). So back to the baking section. They had a few bars, but they all seemed sweetened, which is Bad and Wrong. But preferable to paying £4.50, so I got one.

Vanilla! That one was actually really easy and cheap. Bonus.

Back to the fruit aisle! Strawberries, I was thinking, if they weren’t too dear, maybe raspberries, maybe some other inspiring things. They had raspberries, okay. And nothing else that would be appropriate. Apples? No. Pears? No. Mangos? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Bananas? Naw. And zero strawberries. Well then! Raspberries it is.

I had, at this point, gone through the whole store about three times at this point. It was annoying. Because I still needed a serrated knife (the apartment version left a note saying it was fed up with the kitchen and was leaving) and maybe a dry measuring glass, as I wasn’t sure we had one.

Two more turns around the store and I finally found a suitable knife, and measuring cups. Except that the measurements were metric, and mine, as you may notice, aren’t. Not helpful! So I didn’t buy it.

Finally home, where I learned that we sure didn’t have any measuring devices. Not such a problem, though, since the recipe involves things like “cups” and “tsps.” I was left without any way to measure anything, and didn’t realize I had a conversion chart (in the back of my marbled composition notebook) until it was too late. I just guessed, as that was really all I could do in the time that I had.

And it didn’t work. I mixed everything, threw it in the fridge, and it didn’t firm up. It was goo. An hour later I pulled it out, tested the viscosity, and added more sugar. What else was there to do? Back in the fridge. An hour later, the same again. More sugar.

In the end I didn’t take it. I blame the cream cheese. But the goo tastes fantastic with raspberries.

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