Easter break, redux

To make up for the lack of excitement in my life, I'm posting a few more photos from my Easter break hike and bungee jumping. I've been meaning to post these for some time - they're from Lydia's camera, which I didn't get my hands on until after posting the original series - but work/laziness has interfered. Anyhow, enjoy!

Chipper at the start of the trail (note the clean hair/clothes)!

This was the first of our photos with the camera timer. I'm not sure whose idea it was to jump, but it was suggested for every posed photo (on the side of mountains) for the rest of the trip.

Relaxing before dinner/dark in the kitchen of our first cabin.

"No, Peter, we CAN'T jump - we'll hit our heads!"

The possibly ill-advised snowy mountain side trip.

"No, Peter, we CAN'T jump - we'll fall off the mountain!"

We arrived back in Queenstown from the trek & Milford Sound on Good Friday. Under law, while alcohol can be served in restaurants, it can only be served with food - the language is something like, "Customers must be present for the purpose of eating." Apparently, New Zealand takes these things seriously - police make regular searches of the bars, and we had to hold onto our receipt that showed what we had ordered to eat. Which they looked at. And then questioned us about. ("So how were the nachos?" "Actually, we had pasta.") Lydia thought the whole thing was so funny that she had me pose for a picture to get an illicit photo of the police in the background.

And a few more bungee pictures, just for fun ... I think, in this one, I'm wondering how safe this harness thing actually is.

"Nope, I'm not nervous at all!"

The high-tech towel and nylon strap - I'm chattering away, probably being a smart ass. I would imagine these guys get a LOT of nervous talking in their line of work.

My Trip on the Catalina!

I apologize for the long silence - I've been doing my best to make some real progress on my thesis before winter break (and my trip to Australia's Great Barrier Reef!!). That doesn't mean that I've been letting my Rotary obligations slide, though - I've made several presentations in the last month, and a couple of weekends ago, I spent my Saturday out in Drury (about 40 minutes away from the city) with the Drury Rotary club, volunteering at their annual Catalina day.

The Catalina is an old WWII aircraft, designed to scout for submarines and communicate with troops based in remote locations, often inaccessible by land-based landings. That's right, the Catalina is amphibious! Out of the thousands of Catalinas that were manufactured in the 1930s and 1940s, only two are actively flying today. One of those, based outside of Auckland, is now dedicated to raising money for cancer research. Once a year, local children - cancer fighters and survivors - and their families are invited out for a sausage sizzle and a ride on the Catalina, sponsored by the Drury Rotary club.

My role in this day was pretty minimal - I helped paint some faces and chatted with kids and their parents while they waited for their plane ride. And, on the last ride of the day, there was one seat left just for me, so I got to take the ride too! While painting faces was fun, the flight was definitely the highlight of my day (and I'm sure the kids would agree)!

The first group of kids and parents getting ready to take flight with their two pilots and two crewmembers.

My seatmates, Ethan and Kellan. The take-off was a bit noisy for Kellan!

A view of the city from my (unfortunately foggy) window.

We also flew over Rangitoto Island, site of the infamous helicopter evacuation documented earlier on this blog.

The farmland "suburbs" 40+ km outside of the city - you don't have to drive for long here to get to the countryside!

North American Law Schools Alumni Dinner

Friday night, I had the privilege of attending an alumni dinner at the prestigious Northern Club. I was invited by Professor Ken Palmer, a member of the law faculty at the Uni and also a member of the Remuera Rotary Club. He also is a Harvard Law School alum, having received his LLM degree there some years back. As one of that prestigious group, Ken receives invitations to dinners such as the one we attended last night.

The dinner, though organized by two other Harvard LLMs, was open to members of the New Zealand legal community who had received legal education at any university in North America. It turns out I was something of a rarity in this group. I found myself in a room full of kiwis, who had received their masters degrees in America or Canada; the idea of a Harvard educated lawyer coming to New Zealand for anLLM caused a bit of confusion. I was even asked to stand up and introduce myself, and share a bit about my studies and research!

(Oddly enough, I was substantially less nervous addressing a room of lawyers and judges in formal wear than I was earlier this week, when I had to give a presentation to a 12-Rotarian audience with an audibly shaking voice!)

The highlight of the evening, though, was the post-dinner speaker, Justice Joseph Williams. Justice Williams was recently appointed to the High Court (which, I feel compelled to clarify, is NOT the highest court in New Zealand), but prior to his appointment was a Chairperson of theWaitangi Tribunal and Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court - the two judicial/quasi-judicial bodies of most significance for my research. He received hisLLM degree in British Colombia, with a focus on First Nations issues, and it turns out that the field of indigenous rights is his passion. After his address, I had the opportunity to chat with Justice Williams for a few minutes about some of his history, and about what I am researching. I ended the evening with his email address and the promise of an engaging academic discourse on the very topics I'm studying! "It's my favorite thing to talk about," he told me. "Just don't quote me - pretend they're your own ideas!"

Actually, Justice Williams was not the only person who offered to share knowledge and connections with me. I now have a small stack of business cards to follow up on, and am pretty excited about these new resources. I was able to reminisce about Cambridge with quite a few HarvardLLMs, and I also befriended a couple of young lawyers, both of whom are headed to New York in the fall to begin their own LLMs - but meanwhile, I might even manage to broaden my social circle a bit! Overall, it was a great evening, and I'm very grateful for Ken for inviting me along - and it was nice to step out of my "student" shoes for an evening and feel like, well, an adult.

But now I've got to get some studying done before I go watch the new X-Men movie with a friend!

One day in Christchurch

The next day, Lydia hopped back in the car to meet up with some friends for a second trek. I stayed in Christchurch for a day of exploring with Brooke, another Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Christchurch is about 350,000 people large, and was actually quite spread out ... but still had something of a small town feeling, after spending so much time in Auckland!

We started out by wandering around the city centre ...

This is a fairly famous cathedral in Christchurch. We didn't go inside, but the exterior was certainly impressive.

This was the old University of Canterbury campus (Brooke's school), until the Uni just outgrew the property. It seems to be some sort of arts complex now, with a bunch of artists and crafts persons displaying their work.

One of the standard touristy things to do in Christchurch is, apparently, to go punting on the Thames ... it would be much cooler if the punter sang, Venice-style, but it was still a lovely ride.

This monstrosity is at the entrance to the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. It's in memorial of someone ... either someone with bad taste or a great sense of humor.

This giant metal rose marks the entrance to the rose gardens. Where I took WAY too many pictures.