Work and play

Also called “weeks and weekends”. I’ve been working down in Christchurch on the South Island during the week on a consulting engagement. Good for work, yet my enjoyment of living out of a suitcase has waned, fun for the first few weeks but now 4 weeks later with two more still I’m getting a bit less excited. At first seduced by an expensed lifestyle eating out at fabulous meals every night, a life of taxis, and running in a beautiful park everyday after work as my work days are barely 8 hours, yet I began to realize how much I miss my mates in Wellington. This was an excellent thing to realize, but last weekend as I landed in Wellington (I’m flown back for my weekends) I got off the plane, texted my pals to see where they were, and then found myself nearly skipping to meet them. A realization that I have made some great friends here.

Now for the fun part, what I’ve don with my weekends! Four weekends since I last wrote, I spent in Christchurch after my first week of work there. I could stay in an excellent hotel for free and had never been there so I enjoyed strolling about the city. Went out dancing Friday night with a girl I met at the place I was working, took photos of the city while strolling around (the Christchurch photos on my blog), dinner with some American girls I met in my hotel, then Sunday shot the concert of this musician I had met earlier in the week on Sunday in a beautiful suburb of Christchurch – can’t even remember the name now. It was through the mountains (about a mile long tunnel to get there) and was the port for Christchurch, a small artsy town perched on a mountain side looking over the sea.

The next weekend I took Friday off work and went to “Big Day Out” in Auckland, a one day music festival with about 60 acts including The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, Iggy Pop, 2ManyDJs, The Magic Numbers, The Subways, and The Go! Team to name some of my favorites. (I’m actually wearing the T-shirt as I write this) I used to scoff at buying these bits of paraphernalia, yet now I wish I had ACL Fest, Flipnotics, and Stubb’s BBQ T-Shirts to wear here. It guess it is because I know I won’t be here forever and I dig a shirt that states “Blah blah blah awesome music venue, Austin, Texas or Auckland, New Zealand” instead of buying an “I’ve been to Los Vegas” shirt – the more subtle souvenirs the being the best. That or just knowing the satchel I use now I got in Singapore and my jeans I’m wearing I got in Bangkok.

Anyhow, the concert was BAD ASS! In the mosh pit before Franz Ferdinand I was smashed up against this Dutch chap and chatting with him I mentioned I was from Texas. He asks where, and I say Austin. He turns to me and shows me his shirt which was a band shirt from an Austin local! Holy hell, a Dutch guy in New Zealand! This world is small. Our last show was 2ManyDJs, my first time to truly enjoy a DJ show as proper music. These guys were awesome, and the venue was incredible! An enormous tent, 100 yards wide and about 250 yards long, 4-5 stories tall, filled to the brim with smoke, hundreds and hundreds of lasers and strobes, incredible sound, and lots of people on great drugs.

….I had written the above on a Saturday morning in the bar I live above before continuing to watch the Seven’s Tournament. My mate Scottie arrived for to join me for brunch and I’ve not updated my blog since. Terrible I know, it’s now July 17 – brunch was on February 4th.

To catch up I’ll have to summarize to say the least. Not for worry of rambling as that worry has long since been overlooked, but for my atrocious memory. I’ve kept a few notes in a Moleskine and I’ll just bring across here all those that are fit to print.

The same weekend after Friday at Big Day Out I went camping at a place called Castle Point (photos previously posted). Despite my puppy dog impersonations I had a blast at yet another stunning beautiful Kiwi locale on the coast.

After Big Day Out and camping, we had Sevens weekend. Sevens is a Ruby tournament in Wellington played with, you guessed it 7 people per side. Even better, the games are only 7 minutes per half. I’m rather sure I couldn’t over emphasis how ridiculously fanatical Kiwi’s are about their rugby, add to the mix a weekend long international tournament in the divine summer weather and you have what I would call the Kiwi Mardi Gras. Everyone goes in costume (my mates and I were pirates), lots of imbibing takes place, a fair bit of sunburn, and even parties afterwards for those with incredible stamina or a pension for party pills. To say the least it was an incredible two days. It should also be noted that it is held on Friday and Saturday, yet the Monday is a national holiday so people have two days to attempt to recover from Sevens – and even that was not enough for some. From my Moleskine: “7’s is about letting loose every kitsch impulse you’ve ever suppressed to sing along with AC/DC. Grabbing your mates shoulders and screeching along with songs while falling over the isles in a sea of beaming smiles. Saw the USA play. Waking up with eye liner on, and unable to speak from all the “pirate talk” the day before. Beautiful women – summer does have a positive effect”

Other notes from summer:

Excellent concerts in the botanical gardens with pinot noir.

Going to “The Races”, the Wellington Cup at the horse track with fashion shows and all in classy dress for a fab afternoon. Followed by a Fat Freddy’s Concert (A kiwi band you should check out on iTunes), the best part of the concert was how it exemplified some the kiwi’s core traits: the concert was truly “all ages” with everyone having a great time, huge Maori guys carrying baby girls, 70 year old matrons with nose studs pushing to the front. It became apparent to me here that in New Zealand the counter culture ceases to be counter, it’s just the culture. I guess you can’t have sub cultures with so few people? It’s just great to see that with a small population they have creatively diversified instead of conforming as I’ve seen in small Texas towns.

Long sunny days, chai lattes and economists, brunches, walks on the seafront, art gallery crawling, Sunday night jazz al fresco, rock climbing, a ride to Wellington’s south coast to walk around in a pitch black fog that hid even the ground on which you were walking… (from a single weekend)

While working in Christchurch (where I ended up for nearly two months) I had a scary realization about losing some of what I gained while traveling. Particularly, the overvaluation of time – being in a rush for no reason. I went to a pool and my locker ate a 50 cent piece, I asked the desk for more change and they said they would just send someone to open the locker. I would have rather just paid again then wait the 3 minutes, I would have even paid a couple dollars for that matter. A year ago while traveling I would have had no problem waiting an hour – now I couldn’t wait 3 minutes, is this progress or regression? (The thought makes me consciously walk slower)

Don’t know who said it, but I quoted a friend “She’s a bliddy shocker, that girl” – I’m still in love with all the accents and colloquialisms.

Had a bowling club night. Loved it. I could so be a 60 year old doing some lawn bowling in all whites. The place is covered with trophies from the 50s, they’ve only just introduced “colours” nights where you can even wear jeans (the thought!). Photo of Queen Elizabeth hanging, white V-neck sweaters and ties – some damn classy exercise. Fabulously kiwi as wealth seems to play no part, classiness amongst all classes.

The summer actually wears me out. I’ve never looked forward to winter in order to rest because I’d actually experienced a seasonal exhaustion. This doesn’t last though…

During the last week of June I traveled back to the states for 8 days. If you read this a wonder why you didn’t hear from me, it’s only because no one did as I was with family the whole time. First surprised by my mom who managed to get in the seat behind me for the Houston to Corpus leg, surprised my sister Whitney, and then spent a long weekend in Corpus (Rockport really), where the summer was most welcome as winter was setting into New Zealand. Then 4 days in Lexington, KY to surprise my sister Audrey for her high school graduation. The surprise was excellent, and the time with my family fantastic, yet overdue and short. I was surprised as after having no problem saying goodbye to Mom, Whit, Dad, Jane, Audrey, Kathryn, Christie I absolutely broke down when giving my goodbye to my brother Colin. A sorrow that really didn’t go away for at least two weeks. After not being home sick for 18 months, I was torn up by how much I missed everyone I had just been with.

Nothing like work to numb that thought, and the work piled on. July was a bit nuts, with work the month blew by as I became less and less content with the short days and cold weather (apparently one of the coldest winters in about a decade). New Zealand tends to have very poorly insulated buildings, so in winter you can wake up cold and not feel comfortable for what feels like days. Probably because I’m a Texan, but I could be found wearing an overcoat and scarf at my desk in the office this past June. Needless to say, this only made me look forward to my July holiday even more.

June 31st was the date to fly from Wellington to Auckland, stay with John’s (a mate from work in New Zealand that is traveling with me) cousin and then off on Saturday July 1. I was originally worried the travel gods had it in for me as the week before I came down with something nasty that had me thinking about calling an ambulance – high fever, aches, and even some hallucinations, etc for 3 days before I was supposed to leave. Finally on Thursday and took a turn for the better, back to work on Friday and then an attempt to finish my week of work the day I was supposed to leave. In the rush I managed even to leave my passport in the scanner at the office. An unbelievably amateur thing to do, but I knew I didn’t need it until the next day from Auckland so I arranged it to be couriered via the airline and some last minute help from my mate Scott. Spent Friday night with John’s cousin and then called the airport to confirm my passport was on its way when they tell me that Wellington airport is fogged in! So I spent a few hours in agony, calling the American consulate to see if I could get an emergency passport and calling the airport for a constant update of “no flights are out yet”. Despite delays, my passport arrived just in the nick of time. Oh yeah, I also managed to forget my toiletry bag, geez!

So off we flew from Auckland (John and I on different flights), about 4 hours to Melbourne, hour layover, then something like 16 hours to Dubai, met up with John during a 3 hour layover, and then the final 8 hours to London – arriving around 10 in the morning. A marathon effort, nonetheless I would highly recommend Emirates as they have some fantastic planes and service.

London! First time in England, first time in Europe! John crashes out upon arrival at our naff hostel around 3pm, but I couldn’t so I hopped back on the tube and only need to look at tube stops to be inspired on wear to go – London Bridge. A wee bit of wondering around and I wasn’t going to make it past 8 pm myself. Oddly, I couldn’t understand why everything seemed to be closed and I finally had to ask some girl at a tube station “Is it Saturday or Sunday”? She responds “Sunday” and quickly sidles away as she must of thought I was a complete nutter ☺

The next day John and I are up at 4:30 from jet lag, so we decide to hit the town early to say the least. Out of the hostel by 6 am we didn’t return until nearly 11 pm, walking all over the place. Turning corners I kept thinking, “Damn, this is here too!”. St. Paul’s, Tate Modern, bridges galore, the Thames, parks, castles galore, bloody famous place, bloody famous place – it was an awesome if not exhausting day, after which poor John had a fever. I felt like he was a toy with which I had played too hard.

We changed hostels to something a bit better and a lot closer to the city, then John found a flight to Dublin so the next day he was off. I caught up with, Harriett, an English lawyer I had met in Fiji 18 months before and enjoyed dinner with her and her flat mate. The next day was spent wandering around London at the end of which I caught up again with Harriet for dinner.

Then I hopped on a train (my first authentic European train travel, whoo hoo!) and flew up to Durham in the north of England at 120 MPH. I was met at the station by Miranda the bride, whose wedding brought me to Europe in the first place. I then spent two days before the wedding experiencing the most gracious hospitality and people I have ever been around. The wedding day also was a blast if not a great deal of work. I had met Tim and Miranda in Tonga about 18 months before, after which we kept up by email and upon hearing of their wedding and their trouble finding a photographer I put myself forward. Fantastically, they choose me and purchased my flights to Europe for payment. So here I was, in the North of England shooting a beautiful couple and family during an absolutely picturesque summer wedding in England’s finest weather – what more could a photographer want? How about a quaint Norman chapel wedding followed by a reception in a positively stunning 900 year old castle with immaculate grounds and rooms? Add to the mix natural light until nearly 10:30 and the fact that I was shooting friends – I was in photographer heaven. The end result of which was a daunting 3100 images, the preview of which managed to nearly have both mothers crying. Sweet as!

I then spent two more days in Durham with post wedding BBQs and a tour through my postcard imagination view of an English town, including their 1100 year old cathedral. (In tossing out these ages, remember that *Columbus* only found *The Americas* less than 600 years ago)

Back to London for two more nights (one of which with the absolutely hilarious brother of the groom) before meeting back up with John for the Eurostar to Paris. A train ride of only two and a half hours via the Channel Tunnel and we arrived in Paris! Being keen to get to the Mediterranean we only stayed for a few days catching some big sights and enjoying the fine, fine, fine French food. Then a train to Barcelona with a couple that lived in the US but were from Ecuador and Venezuela who we pumped for Spanish lessons nearly the entire time (11 hours this time). I had to be impressed as both of these kids were 18, the girl had just finished living in France for a year (not to mention becoming fluent in a third language) and the guy was about to spend a year between Spain and England, 18! Damn, I took a while to get out in the world. We enjoyed beautiful views of the south of France, the Pyrenees and finally the Med! Whoo hoo!

Barcelona was amazing, yet due to finding a last minute flight to Granada, our intended destination, we were only in town for two nights. Nonetheless, the creativity of that town seemed to drip from the walls. It was beautiful and heaving with life and definitely a place I could spend a fair bit more time in. I would just have to learn to speak some Catalonian as to my surprise Spanish is a second language – I guess I should read *something* before visiting a city.

After some delays and crazy lines we flew to Granada and a fan-bloody-tastic 105 (41) degree dry heat. After whinging for months about the cold in New Zealand I was in heaven. Lost bags and having nothing but what seemed to be a wrong number for John’s sister-in-law we headed into “el Centro”. It was siesta so everything was closed, but we found lunch and then free wifi so we were able to get Annie’s (John’s sister in law who lives in Granada) details. We later caught up with her and her husband José, and then went out around eight to see some of the town. Granada is gorgeous! Mosaic sidewalks that serve as roads between narrowly built quintessential Mediterranean architecture from the 1800’s. Arabic shops and and tapas bars abound. John and I sat in the ten o’clock sun in a plaza when John sees someone he thinks he recognizes. And of course, these bloody traveling kiwis, we meet some girls (who now live in London) with which John went to university. Joined them for dinner and then drinks were José works, shortly after they left José got off work and we decided to head home only to be dumbstruck to find it was half one in the morning.

Slept till noon in Annie and José’s flat before having to go collect our bags from the airport. Laundry and then to the bus station to head were we are now, Almuñeca. A lovely beach town where José’s mom has a beach house in a 300 year old neighborhood with the same mosaic lanes! We’re on our third day here and I’m well on my way to my stated goal of staying in one place long enough to get tan, fat, and board. Already a bit sunburn, thoroughly enjoying swims in the sea and many a leisurely drink and tapas in the numerous plaza cafes.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this bad boy to say the least, but I’ll do my best to stay on top of it better. If anything, it is only a consequence of letting the excellent readjustment of priorities I received while traveling become unraveled while I joined the rat race. (Also why I have emails from December to still respond to, I nearly stopped reading, basically not making time for doing the fun stuff!) Photos coming soon as well, just have to find some cheap or free broadband. Until then, hasta luego.