Remuera Changeover

As all of my Rotary readers must be aware, the end of June marks the change in administration in every club and district. I assume that all clubs hold events, but I don't know that any club pulls it off with as much class as Remuera!

The blonde woman to the right is Sharyn, who was in charge of pulling the event together. Good job, Sharyn!!

The actual changeover, complete with an exchange of bouquets between the former and current "first ladies" of Remuera Rotary.

My host counselor, John, and his wife - so my parents finally know who these people are!

New President John and his lovely wife (who I spent some time with at the VIP camp a couple of months ago).

Former President Jim and his wife, wearing the regalia for the last time. (I don't know about Jim, but his wife seemed ready to for a break from the presidential obligations!)

Midwinter Christmas

For anyone who's ever wondered what Southern hemisphere cultures think about celebrating Christmas in sunny December, you'll be relieved to know that quite a few people here think that's silly too. While Christmas obviously still takes place on December 25, a lot of people in New Zealand celebrate a midwinter Christmas as well - and so 41 Park Road (my apartment building) decided to jump on the bandwagon. Me and my friend Brodie got the University Accommodation office to give us some cash to throw our own party, and had a great night of food and drinks and holiday fun!

Preparation ... we had ordered (through the Uni catering services) two turkeys and a ham. And wound up with two hams and six rolled turkey breasts, pre-stuffed with apricot stuffing. Kind of annoying - and disappointing, as we were all excited for real birds - but the food turned out great! You can also see some effort being put into our authentic pumpkin pie (recipe courtesy of my mom!) ... wasn't great, but was the best pumpkin pie some of these people have ever had!

Me in my Christmas clothing! (After I finally got let back into my room, since I locked my keys in there mid-afternoon. The problem with starting the drinking at 3 in the afternoon ...?)

The carving station, post-dinner ... we did a pretty good job on that ham. And by "we" I mean the people who actually eat ham. I made a vegetarian lasagna for those of us who aren't big on holiday meats.

I tried to get everyone to dress in Christmas colors, but this was the only red Ed had. He kept it on only long enough for the photos ...

About half the desserts that made it to the table ... we ate WELL that night!

Coast to Coast thru Auckland

One of my first New Zealand experiences was a walk on Muriwai beach with my Rotary host counselor, John, and his walking group. Last month, I joined the group again for a Coast to Coast walk - an 18 km walk from one coast of Auckland to the other. It was a great opportunity to see some of Auckland that I hadn't seen before (not to mention a great reason to skip the gym!).

This is the monument on the top of One Tree Hill. Notice the complete lack of trees? Apparently there was a tree there, but a Maori activist cut it down because it wasn't an indigenous tree (it was, I believe, a Norfolk pine). Unfortunately, the tree has not yet been replaced, because the city council can't decide which indigenous tree would be most appropriate ...

Sheep. In the middle of the city. VERY New Zealand.

A view of Rangitoto (the infamous volcano island) from the center of the city.

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!