BA weather forecast...

Just how I like it.
All the time.

Cheers/Salut

Yellow Fever...

Write off Day 4... the Yellow Fever vaccine I received in Auckland got the better of me. I woke up with a fever and a headache at 2am. ah.

Fortunately for me the vaccination was only about 5% of the live disease... Great eh? I paid money to have a live disease injected into me! Crazy. Anyway, the fever only lasted for 5 hours but the rest of the day was spent recuperating. Combine that with an annoying back/headache and a bit of jet lag and I haven't exactly been at the top of my game in this first week.

However, the vaccination is worth it in the long run. If I head to the far north and there's a breakout and I get infected (chances are fairly low) the death rate is between 20 and 50%!

Javi's madre came home in the evening and was worried about me, lying in the dark in the early evening... (well, I guessed that was what she was trying to say...). Ah. How do you explain yellow fever vaccination with limited mutual language...? Looking through phrase book – ah, yellow? Amarillo. Feibre. Vacudo? Some charades... Shot in arm? Headache. Tired. Eventually I show her the translation of vaccination in my phrase book. Then she understands. Yah. Its not until 2 hours later I discover Google Translate. Ah. La vacunación contra la fiebre amarilla. I have a feeling that website will come in handy again... If only I could carry it with me...

First Impressions of Buenos Aires

BA is big, ridiculously big (greater BA pop. 13mil). The best way to illustrate the size, is to open these Google maps (they are the same scale) in separate tabs and compare:

Wellington, Auckland

Buenos Aires

Although Auckland might look like a similar size, imagine all of the city and the harbour as dense as Ponsonby and you'll get a better idea.

Its flat - think Christchurch, except its a 4 hour drive to the Atlantic (we are near a river mouth which is so wide you can't see the other side!) and about 15 hours to the Andes.

The streets feel similar to the U.S - honking horns, large trucks, lots of concrete which is often not well maintained (everyone looks after their own section of pavement), painted curbs, many 2 to 3 story apartments packed up tight, a grid system with the standard simple traffic lights (no arrows or traffic detectors to tell where the traffic is coming from) and generally less green space about.

The people look like Mediterranean Europeans. I could easily be in Spain or Italy and they talk as fast as the rumours suggest!

The accommodation around my area reminds me a little of Bangkok. It feels like many of the houses lack the trappings of a western home.

They have some very nice treats. Submarino is a glass of warm milk with chocolate dropped in and dulce de leche is a caramelised version of sweetened, condensed milk spread on bread. Naughty but very tasty!

There's a lot of PDA... I watched the big game (Argentina vs Uruguay, world cup qualifier) in a local cafe last night and it seemed like there was more action between the couples (who may or may not have a partner somewhere else in the city) in the cafe, than on the screen.

Screen: Kick forward, kick back, pass, pass, shot, save!

Cafe: Pash, pash, hug, kiss, touch, kiss, kiss, touch, pash!

And that was waaay before the only goal was scored.

I must be in another country... if that was happening in a south island bar, they'd get red carded for sure!

Time travel

Even though its my third time traveling east, its still a novelty to travel back in time...

I left Auckland at 8pm on October 14 and at 8pm on October 14, I watched a game of football at a cafe in BA.

I have arrived in BA!

That is all.

It was good to see you, Auckland

After 6 days catching up with friends in Auckland its time to go!

Thanks for the catch ups everyone

Christina at Pioneers, Williams and Lloyds out West, Greg and Rachel and the Maxim flat mates, Roger from SIM; Lisa; Lauren; Pete, Michelle and Nathan; Peter, Ruth and the Langtons at Ironique; Peter and Reuben at pitch and putt; Dave; Andy and Helen at St Pauls; Steve and flatties; Jeremy; Tanya and Sarah; Andy the 2nd cousy once removed :); Geoff and the bunch of new people I met along the way.

Hasta leugo Neuva Zelanda!
See you later NZ

Views of the Manukau

I'm staying with some friends in Hillsborough, Auckland that have an alright view...

A typically atypical day

This is an extract from an email prior to leaving Welly, written for an extrovert to illustrate a typically atypical day.

Got up at 8.30. Had breakfast, played with the kids for a bit. Practised Spanish. 5 min walk to cafe in Newtown for coffee with an Anglican rev./community worker/ex-greenhaus-resident. We talk about community, connection, ideas, people, the market, newtown, he offers to help wherever he can and to introduce someone who maybe helpful. Then Matt (peoples coffee) and Becky (community centre) walk by, we wave. Then Nathan (intellectually disabled heavy metaler, once he knows your name, you know you've made it in Newtown (he knows my name, as of March)) sticks his head through the door to tell us about the 5 heavy metal shirts he got for his birthday.

Then on the spur of the moment went with Rev up the road to The Club House for an hour of awesome drumming with local mental health consumers (not neccesarily intellectually disabled) and a professional drummer. Great fun! Wish I'd heard about it earlier. Most of the faces were familiar as they all come to the Greenhaus soiree (evening performance thing once a quarter). Then went home, made lunch from leftovers. Rode to town to catch up with Chinese friend just back from Argentina. Got a few tips. Then missed ex-colleague due to a delay with her Telecom text, dang Telecom!! Then bought some souvenirs for presents in Arg.

Skyped Javier (who I'll stay with in BA) to practice my Spanish. Hola (hello), como estace? (how are you), muy bien (very good) y tu? (and you), muy bien gracias encantado (very good thanks, please to meet you) Then put out flattie's washing, then made some calls to Auckland, then cleaned the bathroom, then wandered through Newtown to buy stuff, then dropped off another flatties overdue DVD, then dropped in to old flat to get my garden fork. Then dropped into ex neighbours to chat. Then walked the fork across town to the GH. Played with the compost for a while (working on making it less sick (too little oxygen, too little carbon, too much nitrogen, too much acid), it currently smells bad! Fortunately I like compost.

Then I did some homework for a course ive organised for a group of friends. Then cooked some left overs for dinner (no organised dinner on a Friday). Then the parent-flatties and their kids came home. Talked to the kids briefly then they went to bed. Then flatmate pours boiling water into a mug... and the mug starts leaking, and she's looking at the mug leaking saying "oh no, the mugs leaking what the heck" by which point I'm saying "put it in the sink!" as it pours all over the floor. Then other flatties come in, we watch 7 Days ondemand. Then flattie goes dumpster diving. Then we watch 7 days live. Then we shoot the breeze and eat chocolate... then i surf on the web for a while. Day over.

The Greenhaus goes to the snow

Recently I moved into a new flat called the Greenhaus (11 adults 3 kids!). Its kindof temporary at the moment, as I'm heading overseas for 2 months but in early Jan I'll move in properly.

Anyway, most of us went on a weekend away to Ruapehu to ski/board. I saved my pennies for other trips but had some good down time and took a few sweet pics...



We stayed in a great lodge in Raetihi. It had the works. Large fireplace with chopped firewood, gas heater at other end of passage, enough beds with linen and electric blankets for 10 of us, pool table, large living area, fresh roasted coffee waiting for us and I could go on! All for the measly price of 69 bucks each for 2 nights! Very nice.

See ya Nelson

After 2 weeks in Nel-sun i've returned to Welly. The weather really put it on for me!
Yeah, yeap, ok, this is a real deep post...

Maybe some photos will help...

The bus ride out super calm in Nelson

Exiting the channel into Cook Strait

G.ma

Hanging with Grandma on the old swing seat. Plenty of memories on that seat.

Class act

Last time I visited my sisters' year one's at Nayland Primary I was greeted with...
"My brother is faster than you!"
"My dad had a beard like that when he was old...."

I dropped in yesterday, they remembered me, and greeted me with:

"My dad's older than you!"
"My dad's 44 and my mums 42!"
Ha!

On top of Nelson

I went for a walk with the folks the other day. Behind Stoke, up to Barnicoat range where the paragliders launch.

Due to their pace... (the folks that is) I left them further back and headed on to Jenkins Hill for some great views of Nelson.

A recently launched paraglider

View over Stoke to Tasman Bay

Hitching a ride

So, I had a $2 bus trip all lined up from Chch to Nelson but I decided to stay on a bit longer. As it turned out, a friend from Welly just happened to be heading to Nelson on the same day (only reason I knew was because of a chance email to a community group I'm apart of in Newtown) Crazy NZ! So we decided to hitch a ride.

We leave late (10am) due to bad weather and manage some seriously bad waiting times (about an hour per ride). First ride gets us 2kms further out of town. Second ride is with a Kiwi girl and a Canadian guy, this gets us to Kaikoura. Third ride is with an old codger from Blenheim who has just been south of Chch for the first time... ahh!

He drops us in Blenheim where we have zero success in getting another ride! Admittedly it was 4.30pm, not a great time to hitch. Blenheim also has this annoying split highway so you can only catch half the traffic. So by 6pm, with a freezing hitchers thumb and the light dying we decided to go for plan B. Sent out a text looking for friends of friends and head back to town to get food. As it turned out, one of my texts struck gold! A semi-retired friend of a friends family (you know, the whole 2 degrees thing...) was fine with us staying at his place close to town. Excellent! He came and picked us up and we ended up with a cosy warm sleep and a ride out to a good hitching spot the next day!

Day 2 saw avg waiting times (across two rides) drop from 1 hour to about 10 mins! Thats more like it. And got us to Nelson by 9.30am! Very nice.

Our 2nd hitching spot in Havelock

Addington

Just been checking out a community group in Addington. They've started a cafe called the Addington Coffee Co-Op. Its a very cool, for profit company that is intending to return that profit to the community via projects such as the "Freeset community in Kolkata and to the coffee growing communities we purchase our green beans from."


The company is owned by a group of shareholder's who mainly live in the community. They sell fair trade organic coffee, Freeset bags and organic cotton shirts. There's a meeting room, a Laundromat and 80-100 seat cafe. Most of the staff live in the area and "contribute their thoughts on where the money is sent." Excellent! I want some of this in Newtown!