New Zealand, Part 2

See part 1 of our journey to New Zealand!

We have lots of pictures of our travels in New Zealand. I'll let them do most of the talking.

Our "base of operations" in New Zealand is Christchurch, the largest city on the south island. Before leaving on our trip up the east coast, we explored the city's botanic gardens.

A Californian redwood, with ivy climbing up it! These trees aren't native to New Zealand but they've been introduced.

A flower of some variety.

Coffee! As a former British colony, tea is very popular in New Zealand, but the most recent gourmet coffee revolution begin in nearby Australia, and there's a thriving coffee culture here. Excellent espresso abounds.

 We rented a car and drove north along the east coast to the seaside town of Kaikoura. This area is notable for being close to a mountain range, a large bay with lots of marine mammals, and several seal colonies.

This is a seal.

Talia and Rory. Not native to New Zealand.

There are some seals on the beach waaay in the distance.

A lot of the landscape reminded me of Scotland. And of Oregon, too. It was an interesting combination, with the sea, the beaches, the cliffs, the mountains. A lovely place to be. There is also a fairly large set of businesses that will take you out on whale-watching tours, or to swim with (wild!) dolphins or seals. But there is something more special (and cheaper) just up the road from Kaikoura. Close to a seal colony, there's a waterfall which leads to a large pool. The seal pups trek up from the beach and go to the pool to play and learn to swim.

Click the picture to see it bigger. It's a little blurry, but there are several baby seals playing in the water here.

A clearer picture of two of the seals.

Our next stop was Picton, a northerly village where you can catch a ferry to the north island. It's right by the Marlborough Sounds, a network of sunken valleys with lots of winding water paths. Very wild and great to explore. We took a little boat tour around the area, stopping at a few places.

Clouds! The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, which is thought to derive from a phrase meaning "land of the long white cloud".

Little penguins! Yes, that's the actual name of this species, also known as "blue penguins" and "fairy penguins". These guys are only found in Australia and New Zealand. The ones in this picture are inside of a nesting box on a nature reserve.

A carved pouwhenua, similar to a totem pole, erected at the site of Captain Cook's first landing on New Zealand. Cook was one of the first Europeans to visit New Zealand. This pouwhenua depicts Kupe, the mythical Maori hero who discovered New Zealand, and a giant octopus.

After Picton, we headed southwest, passing through a national park.

Lake Rotoiti.

Us at Lake Rotoiti.

The Maruia Falls

 Continuing over and through a high mountain pass (where we experienced rain and hail), we came to Hanmer Springs, a popular holiday destination noted for its skiing (in winter, of course) and its hot springs.

Hanmer Springs! Talia called this "ridiculously picturesque".

We saw this happy little tree in the forest near Hanmer Springs.

A male chaffinch. Not native to New Zealand, but fairly widespread (and friendly).

On the way out of Hanmer Springs you pass this beautiful turquoise river. If you like, you can do bungee jumping here too!

Then, back to Christchurch. Such a beautiful country! We've only scratched the surface here. There's so much of the south island we haven't even seen, not to mention the north island. There's a lot to explore here, and we don't have time for it all. Still, everything so far has been amazing, so it's hard to complain!

New Zealand, Part 1

First, a word about Paris. It seems our trip to New Zealand came at a fortuitous time. Whether it was divine intervention or random circumstance, for some reason we were not meant to be in Paris at the time of the terrorist attacks. I am infinitely grateful for this fact, but it was still heart-wrenching and frightening to learn that several of the attacks took place very close to our home. When the attack locations were published, I instantly recognized two of the streets as ones I often travel on. In fact, I walked past the Bataclan concert venue just over a week ago when buying a suitcase for our trip. And we have friends who go to work every day very near the attack sites. It's a decent, relatively safe neighborhood populated by hard-working Parisians, and now terrorists have shattered any feelings of safety and security that once existed. It was our home, is our home, and this tragedy has changed it forever.

New Zealand, however, is the perfect antidote to violence and hatred. In what has to be one of the most beautiful, serene, and majestic countries in the world, it seems impossible not to be kind and loving to each other. I want to tell you about all of the amazing things we've seen in only five and a half days, but I'll start at the beginning of our journey and take you there in shorter instalments. It hasn't been the smoothest ride.

Mon, Nov 9 - Wed, Nov 11
We left in the evening, flying from Paris to Dubai overnight on Emirates Airlines. Emirates is a nice airline. They give you a hot towel at the start of every flight, they feed you frequently (you can choose one of their many types of special meals if you have dietary restrictions), and they have hundreds of movies and shows for you to watch. So it was a fine, sleepless 6-hour flight, then we arrived in Dubai (a very blingy and commercial airport), and a little while later we headed to Bangkok on a 5.5 hour flight. Again, no sleep for Talia. I don't do well with sleeping on planes, unfortunately. Next we had a one-hour "break" in Bangkok while they refuelled the plane and we were herded through security in the airport. Then we hopped back on the newly cleaned plane and flew to Sydney. This time it was an 8-hour flight. By this point, I was sore, exhausted, and really not looking forward to an even longer flight. Rory successfully slept for a good portion of this one so as to align his body with New Zealand time. I, however, did not. Finally we made it to Sydney and I'm practically bounding off the plane. It's only two more hours to Christchurch! I'm nearly done! I'll survive! Hallelujah! We got back on the plane for the last time. And then something unfortunate happened.

Sleepless in Bangkok, attempting to smile

Food poisoning. I'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that I quickly realized I had a serious problem. I suspect the culprit came from one of my Emirates gluten-free meals; my hunch is that it was a salad with tuna on top. Future gluten-free Emirates travellers, beware. I spent most of the flight in agony in the tiny lavatory, and once we arrived in Christchurch, for the next two days I alternated between being miserable in bed and being miserable in the bathroom. This was my first experience with food poisoning, and I have to say, I'd rather not try it again.

By Friday, I was well enough to get out of the house a bit, and Rory and I had initially planned to spend the weekend travelling, so I didn't want to waylay those plans with my illness. Not yet feeling completely better, we rented a car and began to make our way up the east coast of the south island. It was a mostly wonderful journey with breathtaking scenery and experiences. But you can read all about that in Part 2.

The Land of the Kiwi

Sometimes I feel very cosmopolitan. There's of course the whole being-married-to-a-Scottish-guy thing and the living-in-Paris thing which add to that feeling. Right now I'm living this crazy fantastical life in which I don't have to earn money and can experience on a daily basis the most popular tourist destination in the world. On Tuesday morning at my yoga class, after sharing my reason for moving to France, I was high-fived by a professional singer from Los Angeles who is in Paris shooting a music video. Is this even real?

Indeed, to make me seem even more sophisticated and well-traveled, Rory and I will be on an airplane to New Zealand four hours from now. Apparently it's not enough to live in vacation-land; we still have to take vacations too. But we're not just going for a holiday. Rory was invited by a colleague at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch to finish working on a linguistics project they had started together at Ohio State. So we'll be spending three weeks on the south island, Rory working for two of those weeks, and the rest of the time will be spent touring the countryside and being engulfed in the natural beauty of the other Land Down Under.

After nearly three months in Paris, I'm really looking forward to being surrounded by hills and sheep and very few people. And hearing English when I walk out the door will be nice too, even if it is a funny-sounding English. I've heard that New Zealand is like the Scotland of the southern hemisphere (sheep and funny accents), so it should be a lovely change of pace from the busy streets of Paris.

We'll take photos and share our travel stories soon, but in the meantime, here are some pretty pictures I took of Paris.

I stumbled upon a magical little neighborhood on a hill.

A carved pumpkin! How rare!

A very friendly neighborhood feline

Roses at Square Severine

Beautiful foliage at Square Severine

Kids playing at Le Square Edouard Vaillant

This is a memorial for the Jewish children from this neighborhood who were deported by the Nazis.

Vroooom!

La Toussaint

Yesterday (November 1) was La Toussaint, the French name for All Saints' Day (also known as All Hallows). Despite France being a secular country, this Catholic holy day is also a national public holiday. (Yeah, French secularism is weird, and feels less consistent than American secularism, but that's probably just a matter of perspective. It's quite rare to see French politicians talk of their personal relationship with God, for instance.)

Most people from Anglophone cultures will know All Saints' Day as "the day after Halloween". After all, Hallowe'en is a contraction of All Hallow's Eve(ning), in other words, "the evening before All Saints' Day". However, Halloween celebrations as we know them in Anglophone cultures were quite missing on Saturday night!

Although the tradition of "trick or treating" is often regarded as being American in origin, it actually finds its roots in Scotland. Still practised today, children will go "guising", that is, going around the neighbourhood in disguise. They knock on the door of a neighbour, are invited inside, and have to perform a "piece" to get their reward (fruit, nuts, and sweets). The piece can be a joke, a riddle, a poem, a song, or some other performance. Apparently this practice in turn can be traced to traditions around the celtic pagan festival Samhain, the traditional harvest festival.

Okay, back to France. So, we didn't get to dress up, or give (or receive) any sweets, but instead, we got a public holiday with excellent weather! Yesterday was also the first Sunday of the month, which, as you may recall, means that many museums are open for free. We took advantage of this and visited the Musée du Moyen Âge (Museum of the Middle Ages).

Wow, the middle ages were pretty grim. Here's a statue of a martyred saint.

Yep, still pretty grim.

There was also some Roman artefacts, like this statue of Emperor Julian the Apostate.

Luckily, the middle ages weren't all doom and gloom. They had unicorns too.

And bunnies!

And books with pictures. Or maybe this is a colouring book?

After the museum, we visited Grom, an Italian ice cream shop. They have a variety of sorbets (milk-free, of course), and all of their cones are gluten-free. This is a winning combination for a happy Talia.

Apple and lemon sorbet!

We also visited the Panthéon, a huge mausoleum which houses the bodies of many of France's most famous men. (Yes, men. There is the body of exactly one woman in there: Marie Curie. However, two more women - Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, both heroes of the French resistance during WWII - were added recently. Their bodies were not physically moved into the Panthéon (at the request of their families), but their names are listed among the others.)

Voltaire's tomb.

We also spent some time cycling around in the sun - the weather was really fantastic! (Unlike today, which is grey, cloudy, and barely more than 10C (50F).) Unfortunately, the camera battery ran out, so no pictures. But it was very pleasant.

So, while we may have missed out on the candy explosion of Hallowe'en in the USA, or more traditional Hallowe'en activities in the UK like apple dooking, a day of free museums, ice cream, and relaxing in the gentle sun definitely makes up for it. More of this, please!