It's been a while, old friend

Last the intertubes heard, I was on a ferry to the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. Since then, things have happened. Let me elaborate a bit:

Got to Wellington and it became clear that Wellington is one of those cities that you should plan ahead for. I was having trouble finding accomodations to last the weekend. I eventually went to the YHA (Youth Hostel Assoc) of Wellington and checked into a single for Thurs and Fri night. I was impressed with it for what it was.

Wellington is a cool-looking city. The center of town stares into a massive harbor and they've done a really good job of making the area around the harbor look very nice (take note all you eastern seaboard cities that have wasted your waterfronts). It's turned into one large sidewalk/running area that people are constantly using (lots of runner, in Wellington).




The city's not that large. Population of the proper city is below 200,000 and for the area is around 400,000 but the nightlife is concentrated into a couple areas and gives ya some options.

Suits! Never before I have I seen so many suits at bars before (outside of happy hour in midtown). When I was hanging out Thursday night at the bar of Tasting Room, I heard one guy beside me explaining FRA (forward rate agreements) to his buddy (CFA covered this stuff). But, being in the know, he was referring to them as "frah"s. To let them know that I was one of them and yet different, I said "Wow, future rate agreements. I feel like I'm back in New York."

Speaking of which, my new favorite fun thing to do over here is to say that I'm from New Zealand. This was prompted (couple nights later) when some drunk guy was trying to talk to me and I couldn't understand him. He was this big Maori looking guy and I honestly thought he was sarcastically (or over-drunkenly) trying to talk to me in some sort of native Maori language. That's how unrecognizeable his accent was at first.

Him: gibberish, possibly Maorian, gibberish... Wheel are da gills?
Me: [pause, considering the context - we're at a bar with almost all dudes - lightbulb! girls!] I don't know. I thought you were bringing them.
Him: [pause] You're not from around here. Are you?
Me: Born and raised!
Him: [quizzical look] Nah.

But, I should give credit where subconscious credit is due. This has long been a shctick of Darragh - where he tells girls that he's from Vermont and is a lumberjack.

Anyway, back to Wellington: Thursday night was fairly boring. The FRA guys were on their way out and I sat alone for most of the night. I woke up Friday morning contemplating windsurfing or actual surfing but decided it was way too damn cold.

Wind! Wellington wind is on par with the windiest Boston days (I'm talking crossing the Harvard bridge wind) because of the harbor. 20 mph wind seems to be the norm.

So, I decided to walk around for a bit. I came across a little skateboard park area but notice an empty basketball goal. I keep walking and I come across a bastketball goal with one (1) guy shooting around. I sit and watch him for a bit wanting to play (I'm dressed in jeans but at least I have my running shoes on). Eventually, some of the skateboarders are shooting around with him. A couple of his friends show up and we're in prime pickup-game territory so I jump up and ask if they're playing. They let me in on a four on four half court game. Skateboarders vs non-skateboarders. This quickly becomes boring (skateboarders = not-basketball players) and the skateboarders move on.

Two on two time. This quickly (d)evolves to basically a one-on-one game where the good-player (university student, about 6'3", 185, and could reverse dunk) and I go at each other and pass it to our teammate now and again. (I actually kept trying to get my teammate to drive cause he was quicker than the guy guarding him but he never wanted to and would pass it back to me.) The wind's blowing like crazy so 95% of all shots are layups and post-ups (I had a shot from the block affected by wind), but I manage a couple jump shots in lulls. I can handle the ball and shoot better than him but he's quicker and has much more ups.

What really messes me up is there are no lines on the court and the courts extends about twice as far as it should behind the backboard. I kept driving baseline and when I'd rise up to lay it in, I'd realize that I was too far behind the backboard. Rather embarrassing. Made me realize how much I subconsciously rely on the court-markings when I'm playing.

We played a good hour before we decided to keep score. During most of that time, we were pretty even, both getting the better of each other offensively about 60% of the time. Then, I started getting tired and he started to show off how much energy he had. We decided to play to 5 and (t)he(y) won 5-3.

I hung around them for 45 minutes getting something to drink nearby. They were all university kids, two of them in architecture and the other one was just ending his first year (so, undecided, I gathered). We talked the usual (politics, my finance jobs, NYC, NZ). And, I met the first person from New Zealand that seemed to have heard of MIT.

In Queenstown I read an interesting article saying that New Zealand males have the lowest ratio of college degree to non-college degree wages in the OECD (females are fourth lowest, I think). So, given the cost of education, college in NZ makes less economic sense than elsewhere (US has the highest such ratio). But, the article wasn't very specific and I don't know if this was just a starting wage or what.

Anyway, they gave me some nightlife suggestions and we parted ways. I went to the museum here and learned that the Maori tribes signed over their sovereignty to the British Crown in 1840 with a ~200 word treaty and saw a lot of exhibits lamenting how much forestland has become pasture in NZ.

Friday night I met an American girl at an Irish pub. She was a few months into traveling the world for two-years "doing some soul searching" after she got her chemistry degree from somewhere in Colorado.

Me: So, have you found your soul yet?
Her: No.
Me: Don't worry. You still have some time.

Pretty sure this annoyed her. But, I'm generally annoyed with this notion anyway. This notion being that one finds their true self while traveling around and living a life of leisure. It's just a romantic notion that people use to justify taking extended vacations. Don't get me wrong. Vacations are nice, and they allow you time to think and some new experiences. But, I think the best way to try and find out what you want to do with your life is to try doing something with your life and seeing if that works. If not, try something else.

Luckily, some Baltimore businessman enters the conversation "What's the likelihood of three Americans sitting down next to each other in Wellington?" I quickly kill a tiny bit of the mysticism "Yea, I guess we're likely to find Irish Pubs familiar".

Anyway, the three of us talk a while before the businessman leaves. The American Girl (Leelee) and I are pragmatic at this point and realize that neither one of us knows anyone else in this city. So, we keep hanging out. The notion of karaoke comes up and we find a karaoke place and put in songs. We play pool forever waiting for our songs to come up. They finally do two hours later. I sing Brown Eyed Girl and have three fans in the front. She sings Goodbye Earl and these same three time don't know that one. We call it a night.

Next day I get up and head a few hours north to Palmerston North. I have time to do all my laundry and pick up my laundry-book again (Cryptomicron). I have been reading it on and off for six months now whenever I travel. But, while spending some time reading it while doing laundry here, and after 300 total pages (it's 950 in total), I have really gotten into it. I spend the evening reading it until it's time for some food and the big rugby game.

Turns out Palmerston North is a college town and a small college at that. Everyone seemed to know everyone at the bar and everyone seemed to not know their own drinking limits. It's been a while since I've been stumbled into that many times in a night. It's hard to break into conversations in this type of environment and the game was a blowout (in the wrong (non-NZ) direction).

Sunday morning I drove to Turangi where I did a three-hour kayak trip through a couple rivers and a lake and read my book in the evening. Monday I did a 12-mile hike during the day (more book reading in evening). Today I drove to Rotorua (along the way I saw the largest thermal lake in the world (Thanks Alison for the heads up)) and I've been sitting around my room reading more book. Tomorrow is some hot springs. I'll add more details and some pictures for all mentioned in this paragrah in the near future cause I'm tired of typing and no one has actually read this far down.

Ok, you get a picture:

Final days on the south island

I'm riding the interisland ferry across right now. I made a point to get internet access onboard but it's too spotty to upload pictures so that'll have to wait.

To summarize the last few days:

Monday: I took a helicopter to the top of a glacier and we roamed around on it for a couple hours. I wasn't that impressed with the glacier. It's a lot ice. But, I LOVE crampons (these spikes that you attach to the bottom of your boot). The grip you have with these things is amazing. The entire world could be covered with ice as long as I had crampons.








I got back from the glacier around 3pm. I went to the Dept of Conservation (think "Parks and Wildlife") and asked the lady which trail near the town was "the most rainforesty". I've always been fascinated by the rainforest ever since I found this book in second grade with larger than life photos and crazy-ass animal facts pertaining to it. I remember for about three days straight, whenever I had spare time in class, reading through it and then running up to Mrs. Sorenson's desk every 6.5 minutes and telling her - with the enthusiasm suited for finding Atlantis or at least The Meaning of Life - the latest unbelievable factoid about the rainforest that I had just read.

So, the lady pointed me to a 2.5-hr round trip hike that took me to a lake. Course, the problem with the NZ is it lacks animals. The only mammal native to it is a small bat. So, I feel a bit cheated, but it still made for some nice photos.














I had to wait a little for the sun to get behind the trees at the lake to get any of those pictures to work. Then, I knew the beach was about a thirty minute drive from there. So, I hauled ass back to the car and then drove very responsibly towards the beach in order to catch the sunset.

[foreboding voice] The Tasman Sea [slight pause] is an angry sea.






The sun was setting.













Tuesday morning I woke up to a rainforest doing the two things a rainforest does best: 1) being a forest and 2) raining... hard.

So, ice climbing on the glacier was out of the question, but ice climbing indoors was a very valid question (answer?). Franz Josef has the "only indoor ice climbing wall in the southern hemishere". It's about 10 m (33 ft) tall.

I opted for the 45 minute session and walked in to meet Murry.

Murry: So, ever done ice climbing before?
Me: Nope.
Murry: Oh, but you've done some rock climbing, right?
Me: Nope.

I could hear Murry's eyes roll in his mind along with a voice saying "oh boy... one of these".

I put on my harness and my mountaineering boots (which Murry over-carefully explained how to put on) which are boots with super-crampons built in. Sweet! Then, he made me walk up an ice "ladder" dug into the wall to practice coming down (which is really easy). I passed the basics so I got ice picks.

Ice climbing basics: you put both your ice picks into the ice as high as you can reach and then you kick the wall with your spiky boots (spikes are angled at 45 degrees so you can *almost* just stand on the wall once they're dug in) and walk your way up until your crouching. Repeat.

First wall: When I took my ice picks out the first to replace them into the wall, my feet spikes gave way. I hadn't placed them hard enough. So, I dropped about 8 inches to the ground. On my second try I was having trouble getting the ice picks in but I eventually made my way to the top.

Second wall: Murry and I start chatting. He asks me what I do and I say finance. We got talking about finance. All of the sudden, ice climbing wasn't so hard.

Me: [ice pick, ice pick] Yea, China has bought a lot of our bonds [boot kick, boot kick] but that's cause they have to keep their [boot kick, boot kick] currency low or else their goods [ice pick, ice pick] become too expensive for us. [boot kick, boot kick] Yea, they could send the dollar [boot kick, boot kick] plummetting [boot kick, boot kick] but then their economy would tank because we wouldn't be able [ice pick, ice pick] to buy their goods. [boot kick, boot kick] We got each other by the balls.

I think the second wall took literally half the time of the first and it covered China, US housing market, and current financial crisis.

I knew Murry was no dummy when he pointed out that the root problem was that "people in America, just like in New Zealand, want to spend more money than they have". I told him I thought was just an American thing.

I climbed a third wall and my forearms were spent (rookie mistake of using mostly upper body) and so I called it quits.

Murry and I went back to the locker room where I took off my boots and harness and we kept talking. I think we sat there talking for about an hour and a half. He grew up on a sheep farm in the south ("We had 3000 sheep so it only took seven days to sheer them all") and we talked about bailing hay and building fences. He had been working in the tourist/guiding business for twenty years (he was about 45-50 years old) and has bounced around all kinds of jobs depending on the season (he mentioned heading to Turkey next but I think most of his jobs had been around NZ). We talked labor laws and unions. New Zealand had recently repealed the law that required time and a half for hours over a forty-hour work week but also had a law limiting how many days a week you could work (Murry had two jobs and sometimes, weather permitting, would work seven days a week. This was illegal.)

We talked global warming (in Oz and NZ it's a very real concern since draughts are becoming more prevalent and everyone I've met has been curious as to what I (as an American) thought about it), alternative energy (Murry: Us, our parents, and our grandparents have just been lucky that we had such a resource like oil. Me: Yea, oil is a historically anomaly), China, Venezuala, old jobs (once Murry and a bunch of guides went to their boss to collectively ask for a raise and the boss told them that he could train monkeys to do what they do. They were out of there in a month. He also said that the guide business in NZ is "glamorous". People are beating down the door and willing to work for free just for the experience so it's tough sometimes.), Kyoto Treaty, European economic reforms, and the general global economy as it pertains to the US's slow down. NZ keeps up with US cause it matters to them. We're their second largest trading partner (behind China).

I wish I could've stayed longer but I wanted to get to Nelson in time to find some lodging so I got on the road around noon and started the seven hour drive. Got to Nelson and found some cheap lodging over a bar located in the center of town. My Lonely Planet guide spoke of two nice restaurants so I set off to find the first one had been replaced by an Indian restaurant. The second one had kept it's name but had recently re-invented itself (I learned once inside). I sat at the bar and had a 350g prime rib steak with calamari, scallops, and a large shrimp on top and some pinot noir. I'm not exactly a connisseur of food but I liked it. The restaurant was having a jazz night. At first it was a group of young high schoolers (with their parents gathered around dutifully adorning them) but then it moved on to some much older people. I'm less fit to judge jazz than food but the music worked equally well for me.

A bartender wanted to know if I wanted to try their microbrews and I told her to give me a minute as I finished off the last of my second glass of wine. She said she'd come back when I was ready and kept looking over every couple minutes to see if my glass was empty. After a little while, my wine was gone and she came back up in front of me. So, I said "Alright, Blondie. Let's go". I asked to sample the wheat beer and pilsener and she suggested I try their "sassy red" cause it seemed fitting for me. I told her to stop projecting. We got to talking and I explained my situation. She was from England and had moved to Nelson five weeks ago with her husband from the north island. We talked about the park that I would be going to the next day and things to do there. The drinks were hitting me hard so I only had one medium pilsener after the samples and a lot of water. Speaking of which, the bar had an awesome mural in the bathroom.




Anyway, got home around 11 and was up by 7am headed to Tasman National park (two hours north). It's a coastal forest and I wanted to kayak around the shorelines but they won't rent kayaks to a single person without a guide (something about kayaks flipping over in oceans). I was quite bummed about this. But, I decided to go for a seven-hour hike that went to a beach/lagoon and back. Once at the beach, I took an hour or so half-nap on the sand before heading back. I took some pictures.




























I was thinking I'd spend a couple days at Tasman but with kayaking out of the picture and a solid seven-hour (mainly flat) hike under my belt, I was ok with moving on. So, I went back to Nelson and checked back in at the same place for another night. I went to the aforementioned Indian food place and it was really good (I took down an entire pitcher of water with my meal as well). I went to bed around 10pm exhausted and full. Woke up this morning to prepare a bunch of photos to be uploaded (I have to shrink them and saved them as jpegs before uploading) at a starbucks and then drove to the ferry at Picton.

Soon, I'll be in Wellington - NZ's capital. I plan to spend a couple nights here and do some windsurfing here and maybe regular surfing, too (unsure what's available) during the day. A museum has been suggested to me as well and there's a nature sanctuary. I think there's a big rugby game on Saturday night as well but that's a few days away.

Hopefully, I can upload some pics soon as well.