Filed under: Happenstance
Cough, cough, sniffle.
Actually, it’s more of a sore throat – and more of a swollen throat, in that sense – and an unquenchable thirst that have me down today. I am all about experiencing “firsts” of anything in New Zealand, so I suppose I can tick this one off the list.
If you are the religious type, please pray for a speedy, no-lung-congestion recovery for Sunday morning’s half marathon.
Mats Sundin has earned the right to use that no-trade clause. He is all heart and one of the warriors of the NHL. It is not his fault that he has never ever ever had an all-star calibre left winger during his tenure as Leaf captain. And for anybody to accuse otherwise…if your employer asked you to trade departments for “the good of the team” in the hopes that everything worked out, would you? I really don’t think so.
If I was in Mats’ situation, I would do the same thing. And anyone accusing him of being a coward or sellout or anything less than what he is to this team and that city (he is not a household name in Auckland) will never be so fortunate to face such a quandry.
Hooray for Mats Sundin.
My favourite indie sports blog, Cox Bloc, puts it more eloquently that I do above. But in my defence, that is their job. My job is to talk about New Zealand.
The rain didn’t slow up much yesterday, but that failed to stop me from attending the 2008 New Zealand Beer Festival at the Ellerslie Racecourse.
The name is self descriptive. Beer, noise, music (not live), portable toilets, fast food, and everybody crammed inside due to the ceaseless rain.
Alcohol representation included the usual international brands with New Zealand distribution deals (Miller, Carlsberg, Amstel, …), not-all-but-most big New Zealand brewers (Monteith’s, Lion), and a wide range of small brewers that none of my friends had ever heard of.
Everybody was given a ballot to vote for their favourite beer on the day (a People’s Choice Award). I was torn between two choice beers but, much like any election, a decision had to be made. My choice beer of the day was…
…Sunshine Brewery’s Black Magic. It was nicely mild, not too bitter but definitely the heavy finish I want from a stout. The coffee flavour was a nice way to enjoy java without the caffeine fix, too. I think they only sell it in bottles at the liquor stores.
My other choice was the Epic Pale Ale from Epic Brewery. It has won a tonne of awards. There was a lot of flavour in it. Certain pale ales back home should learn something from these guys.
There was a third beer I liked too but not for winning best in show. West Coast Brewery’s Good Bastards Dark Ale. I’m all for cute branding, but it’s a previous award winner for a reason as well.
There were also $40 t-shirts. I did not buy one.
It is quite rainy and windy today in Auckland.
Highlight thus far: my curtains getting sucked out my apartment windows. Oh, how they fluttered against the greasy stucco exterior of my building. How they fluttered…
Apparently, there was a single released in New Zealand over Christmas that topped the charts in sales. But nobody could actually hear the song. It is audible only to dogs.
Honest to goodness, I had no idea this even happened.
It is a fundraiser for the New Zealand SPCA and it sounds as though they are working on a licensing agreement to send this non-song worldwide. They even made a music video for it. Those blonde elves are super-hot. And there you have it…
Having just completed another round of successful phone calls home today, I thought I would share a couple of my tips for battling homesickness. It’s surprisingly easy in the Internet age to remain connected. I mean, I have my choice of any Canadian media available to me (including the delightful TV adaptation of Douglas Coupland’s jPod) and even our few food products.
Below is a non-comprehensive list of how I make Canadian magic happen. Feel free to send along your tips as well and I will update the list accordingly:
- Random $900 flights home.
- CBC Radio 3.
- French toast with Steeves’ Maple Syrup from Elgin (pronounced “el-JIN”), New Brunswick.
- In Flight Safety (also a great cool down band post-run).
- Putting-hyphens-between-words, which-they-don’t-do-in-New-Zealand.
- My weekly round of phone calls home to family and friends (called in theme groupings: one week Guelph, one week Barrie, two weeks of planners, …).
- Downloading TV shows the day after they air back home, including jPod, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Torchwood, Squidbillies, and on occasion Dave Foley’s shows on Super Deluxe.
- Putting letter zeds into words that have esses in them in New Zealand, such as “memorise” or “realisation.”
- Teh Facebook.
- Teh e-mails.
- My website.
Missing you all…
Question: What is ‘25 and sunny’?
I received a few e-mails and photographs (plus one text message) about how much snow and cold we’ve been getting back home this week. Pictures from my Clapperton Street condo show two metre-plus snowbanks, and I know of at least one roof in Ontario that has been shovelled off recently that is not normally needing a shovelling.
One pro of my year in New Zealand is that I get a straight year’s worth of summer (June 2007 to May 2008) with the reverse seasons in our respective hemispheres. True, the con is a straight year’s worth of winter (June 2008 to April 2009) but I won’t want to do much running over the winter of 2009 anyways. From the Canadian end of things, there really isn’t much you can do about minus thirty windchills.
But what about the paradise Auckland summers I often talk about in e-mails back home? Well, Wikipedia is a bit skimpy on record temperatures, but the BBC is not. Here are some weather facts about Auckland:
- The record high is 32 degrees Celsius, set in December, January and February (Toronto’s is 41, set in July);
- The record low is a balmy 1 degree Celsius, set in July, August and September (Toronto’s is a delightful -32, set in January and February);
- The average daily high temperatures range from 13 (July) to 23 degrees (January and February) in Auckland, compared to between -1 (January and February) and 26 (July) in Toronto;
- Conversely, the average lows range from 8 (July and August) to 16 degrees (January and February) in Auckland, compared to between -9 (January and February) and 15 (July) in Toronto;
- Auckland has 193 wet days per year (defined as more than 0.25 millimetres of rain, versus Toronto’s 155;
- Those rainy days bring 1249 millimetres of rain to Auckland (145 millimetres of which falls in July, the greatest month ever), while Toronto gets 821 millimetres per year;
- Auckland consistently receives between 4 and 7 hours of sunlight each day. Toronto, meanwhile, received between 2 and 9 hours of sunlight per day;
- I am told Auckland has the most consistent weather of any major city in the world. What defines those two variables above, I do not and cannot possibly know.
Anecdotally, the banner picture above (the former Rotorua Bath House and now the Rotorua Museum of Art and History) was taken in the middle of January, and I received the worst sunburn of my life the week previous. I finally understand why I have so many snowbird relatives.
In case you were looking for a one liner comparison, Auckland is warmer and wetter than Toronto.
I wrote this back on Saturday but I’ve since received some questions on what I wrote, plus I’m generally just not very happy with it. So instead of a new post (and I have lots of ideas but little energy right now) I am updating this one.
***
It was something like Day Two in the country when my boss (and then-landlord) brought me back a pie from the shops. I’m not talking apple or lemon meringue, though you can’t go wrong with either of those, I reckon.
I’m talking mushroom and cheese.
At the office it became a mid-morning break routine to head across the street and pick up a pie from the Fonterra Building Cafeteria (I’m sure it has a name, but I could not tell you for the life of me what it would be). Steak and cheese led to mince and cheese led to Mexican led to pepper steak led back to Mexican.
Oh right – I forget to actually tell you that the GREATEST New Zealand snack food is the pie! But these aren’t big pies. These are fist-sized pastries that are served hot. The “fresh batch” is supposedly supposed to be released for sale around 9:30 or 10:00 every morning, but of course you can get them anytime. The best ones always sell out quickly.
What you get is a little pastry, fist-sized, full of a savoury (New Zealand English for “not sweet or sugary” but does not necessarily mean salty) filling that feels soooooo good going down. You certainly don’t think about the cholesterol your ingesting as the gently spiced filling warms your heart and your tummy when the 10 AM stomach grumbles kick in. The pastry is a little thicker and more doughy than a typical pie crust, but it’s the same principle.
I’ve been boastful to people back home about how much my eating habits here have improved in the past 4.5 months. Yeah, well, one week I ate five pies. One day times two pies and three days times one pie. Don’t worry; I ran off all the calories the following week. I’m still not hyper-obese!
Canadians have the doughnut…Timbit…cruller…double tall latté. New Zealand has the pie. Except that you can’t get a pepper steak cruller in Canada (not even Barrie!).
Here’s the Dad’s Pies product information website, complete with promotional video showing you pies being made. The accent in the background, by the way, is Dutch. Here is an even better article on that company.
My coworkers tell me stories of, as children, going to the dairy (New Zealand for “corner store”) to pick up a Big Ben pie during a break at school. I have only sampled their frozen fare, which of course just isn’t the same as one made fresh that morning. It’s like the difference between a pizza from a restaurant and pizza from the freezer case. The “fresh” one came in a plastic wrapper and just wasn’t nearly as saucy as the “actually” fresh pies from the cafeteria across the street.
I mean, it’s all good, really, but to varying degrees of good. Outside of the pepper steak pie I had yesterday (being Monday) morning, I have yet to meet a pie I did not like. And they say there is no such thing as New Zealand cuisine…
(Oh man, am I ever hungry now…)
