"Jemaine, remember that day we invented hip-hop?"

We've bumped into a fair number of musicians in New Zealand. There was an evening of impromptu music in Auckland, lead by a music producer from Fiji. Thames' own Jennifer sang professionally in Spain for years, and while we were working there, her daughter scored a solo in her school's chorale performance. In Tauroa, we met Jordan from the States, who could play anything on the guitar by ear.

After numerous fireside sing-alongs on the farm, we bid Jordan goodbye in Napier. He had a week to kill in that art-deco town. We asked the Oregon native how he'd spend his free time.

"Well," he shrugged, "I've been meaning to busk for a while, now."

We don't know if anyone passing over this blog uses the word "busk" in daily conversation, but to us all those months ago, the word "busk" was entirely unfamiliar.

"Busk?" We looked at him, perplexed. The verb suggested some sort of farmwork. And Jordan had just started his respite from agriculture yesterday. Well, we reasoned, maybe nothing comes between a die-hard farmer and his thistle grubber...?

Jordan was quick to explain that "busking," is in fact, "street performing."

This "busking" concept seemed like the best idea ever.

So, as soon as we reached the quaint village of Arrowtown, an exceedingly busk-friendly environment, we set out to test the waters.

The bustling scene looked something like this:

Pleased with our find, we settled down on the green you see above, right next to the sidewalk.

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Playing the ukulele (Alice) and singing (Zoë) for some coin taught us a few things. If you are tempted to try busking sometime (and note "busking" is a loosely-defined term; according to Wikipedia, it can include acrobatics, mime, sword swallowing, and snake charming.) then hopefully the following humble tips will come in handy.

1. Busking is a respectable profession, a real place to begin. There is bona fide talent out there (and contrary to popular belief, there are people more talented than us.) Simon and Garfunkle, Cirque du Solei, and the Blue Man Group were once Buskers. While busking in Arrowtown, we met an eleven-year-old prodigy who had made $400 in one afternoon from tapdancing. We are sure he is the stuff of Broadway. Buskers are gold. We rest our case.

2. Location, location, location. Try outside of popular bars and cafes, near shop centers. Think like the Little Mermaid and be where the people are.

3. When you busk, selective hearing is a must. Did that older gentlelady tell you to "keep working on it?" Unimportant. Don't go making a lasagna for one, and don't get hurt feelings. As far as you're concerned, she just told you you're going to be on American Idol.

We leave you with this picture of Alice working the ukulele. She's probably playing a little "Knocks You Down" by Keri Hilson and Neyo (who'd have guessed that diddy would be a crowd pleaser?)

"Glah-see-ehs"

Next destination on our free-wheeling travelventure? Glaciers, or "glah-see-ehs," as the Kiwi might say. We headed to Franz Josef and Fox, the fastest moving, largest glaciers in New Zealand.

Here we are in front of Franz Josef!



And again, a bit closer...

We awoke on the morning of our scheduled Fox Glacier walk to pouring rain. Unfortunately, that meant our plans were canceled.

But that didn't stop us from learning a cool story about how the glaciers were formed, according to Maori legend.

Tuawe, a Maori, went searching for a wife. He found a woman, Hine Hukatere. They were forbidden to be together because they were of different classes. They would meet in secret. One day, Tuawe was following Hine on the mountain paths. Poor Tuawe fell off the mountains (his lady was more adept than he) to his demise.

Fox Glacier - in Maori, Te Moeka o Tuawe - is where Tuawe died. Moeka means "resting place."

Devastated by the loss of her lover, Hine cried a flood of tears. They remain today: Franz Josef Glacier, or Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere.

Ladies of the World

Since our last post, a bit has happened. The Kirsch and Hintermann families dropped by New Zealand for a holiday visit. Zoë previewed Christchurch and Wanaka in the South Island (though obviously not overly enjoying it because she was saving her enthusiasm for when she traveled there with Alice), while Alice traveled the North Island. Seeing family was cozy – being a kid had never been so much fun – and surreal – Nick, Zoë's brother, had grown 20,000 feet taller. It’s pretty weird to see people from back home here.

It was also pretty weird for Zoë and Alice not to see each other for ten whole days. By the middle of December, we had reached that uncomfortable stage where we could complete each other’s sentences, and we think that might have made people we met nervous. However, after our hiatus apart, we each had new stories, vocabulary words, and most important, jokes, to bring to the table.

Post-family visits, we met up in Auckland at our home-away-from-home, Borders Beyond, on December 31st. We had not only new thoughts, but also literal tons of freebies, namely teas and chocolates, items we wouldn’t normally purchase due to tight budgets. Giddy with excitement because this was the official start of our New Zealand Half Deux, we spent New Year’s Eve eating a Cooking-Beyond-Borders barbeque (crunchy salad, juicy meat, and smoky vege) and watching Sky Tower fireworks down by the wharf with new German and Swiss friends.

Soon after that evening, we bade Ernest and Mahes, the lovely owners of Borders Beyond, a teary farewell and embarked on three weeks of no-strings-attached travel. First, we made a beeline for Wellington. We’d recommend the Te Papa Museum (http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/pages/default.aspx); it’s got free admission and dynamic exhibits on New Zealand’s cultural and natural history.

Perhaps even more riveting (for Gandalf admirers like ourselves) was the Weta Workshop, what appeared to be a few industrial-looking buildings sitting nonchalantly in the middle of a Wellington neighborhood. They’re where movie magic happens: conceptual design, weapons, armor & chainmaille, specialist props, vehicles, specialty costumes, models & miniatures, special makeup & prosthetics, public art & displays for movies like Lord of the Rings, King Kong, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Avatar (Don't miss this movie! Blue cat-people have never been so cool-looking.)

What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop, so to speak, but visitors can tour the Weta Cave, a mini-museum that displays tasty items like…see for yourself...



For more on the WETA workshop, check out http://www.wetanz.com/about-us/

Sure, we're weedy...

Queenie, the Smart Organics Puppy

Smart Organics Shop in Taranaki
November 30 – December 9, 2009

Our week at Barbara and Bruce McPhillips’ home was colorful. For work, we weeded Barbara’s garden and did some product packaging in her organics shop. For fun, we got sun, got creative, and got indispensable advice. We think this experience is best summed up in the letter we wrote to Barbara and Bruce when we said goodbye: “a little poem to explain why we love Smart Organics.”



Soaking up the sun in your lovely garden
Merry-making amongst the weeds
Always smiles on your faces
Renting movies for cozy, rainy nights
Taranaki (Mt.), an epic journey.

Our beloved caravan
Rambunctious Queenie the St. Bernard puppy
Great meals every evening
A wise expression: “Bitter or better”
New and exciting ways to eat organic
Insightful conversations
Culinary creativity abounding
Smart Organics shop…pure genius!

If you want to learn more about Barbara's business, check out http://www.smartorganics.co.nz/.

An Epic Drama on the farm: November 10-November 26, 2009

Setting: Havelock North. Tauroa Trust Farm (http://tauroatrust.com), near Hastings

Sometimes on the farm, we would: Feijoa mulch, Thistle Grub, Move Cows, Garden, Move Hay Bales, Clean

Alternate settings: Ocean Beach, Te Mata Peak, Farmer’s Market, Havelock North, Hastings, Napier, Craggy Range Winery, Te Mata Cheese Factory, Chocolate Factory

Favorite Tauroa moments:

Beltaine Festival: Beltaine festivities meant the ladies made garlands, and the misters made a stag out of wood. Togas were donned, and generally all were beautified. We held a circle ceremony and ritualistically leapt over a fire. Cows and sheep were blessed, and then we ran around a maypole. Togas were trampled in the mayhem that ensued, and jokes were told and not laughed at. The almighty King and Queen were chosen amidst music making. A lamb was roasted and subsequently devoured, along with German potato cakes. We sang and ate and sang some more, late into the night, when we burned our garlands in a bonfire.

Watching NZ vs. Bahrain soccer game

Havelock North’s Farmer’s Market

Cast:

Heather: Free-spirited, farmer from Vermont.
Nick: Farm caretaker.
Toby: Wwoofer, and the King of Beltaine (German). Patronus: Dog.
Peter: Vivacious German Wwoofer. Patronus: Sid from Ice Age.
Emily: Twenty-four-year-old friend of Heather’s, from Austin, Texas.
Benny and Maria: A Wwoofing couple from Germany.
Jordan: Sensitive guitar cook Wwoofer from Oregon.
Steffi (Shteffi): Forthright Southern German Wwoofer. Patronus: Lion.

And Creatures:

Clark: Fast, ripped, magnificence.
Shakey Soxy: Sadly shaky.
Emma: Bigger, not shaky version of Soxy.
Puppies: precious x 1000000 and teensy.
Lamby the Sheep: Presumably, was once adorable. However, is now Darth Vader-like and morbidly obese. Lamby breathes heavily, has a stinky odor, and likes to eat bottle caps (or anything else likely to kill him.)

Just Want to do Something Special

Highlights of Coromandel Peninsula Trip (October 9-12, 2009)

1. Playing "Who Am I?" at Anchor Lodge hostel in Coromandel Town. "Who Am I?" is brilliant. All you need are paper, pens, and a troupe of enthusiastic participants. Gamers, continue reading to learn how it's done!

* Distribute one small piece of paper to each player (participant count is unlimited; the more the merrier)
* Players discreetly write down someone famous on their paper slips. (When gaming with an international party, think very, very famous people. Kermit the Frog, for instance. Or perhaps Jesus.)
* Players pass their papers face down to the players on their left.
* Without looking at the name on their slips of paper, gamers pick them up, lick the backs, and stick them to their foreheads.
* One player, randomly selected, begins by asking 'yes/no' questions to the group about the name on their forehead. When the player gets a 'no' response, play progresses to the gamer on the left.
* Play continues until every player has figured out who they are.

2. A hike at Port Jackson.

3. Cooking improvements. Meals to note include successful pasta dinner and omelet breakfast. Also worthy of notation: we continue to be upstaged in the culinary department by other travelers. For instance, a Swede in Coromandel Town fashioned five-star sandwiches out of only lettuce and bread. Perhaps eventually we'll be this good at cooking through a miracle, or osmosis.

4. Waterfall walk in Colville with a German couple. Our merry band trudged through hilly pastures, scaled cliff faces, and waded knee-deep through a river. All the while, we got bits of wilderness knowledge from the pair. Predictably, our favorite tip is animal related. If you ever happen upon an angry cow, know that to ward it off you should raise your arms above your head. Our German farmer friends swear by this trick.

5. Visiting the beach next to New Chum's Beach. New Chum's, renowned for its beauty, is secretly nothing compared to the dazzling splendor that is its neighbor. High tide waits for no lady, not even in New Zealand.

6. Pretending to be the Pevensies at Cathedral Cove (it's a natural wonder and, quite importantly, a filming location from The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian.)

7. And last, but not least, exhibiting our likeness to Amazons by digging a sandpit at Hot Water Beach. Then exhibiting our likeness to sloths by lazing in the tepid water 'til nightfall.

And a short message for our readers...

Thanks for your feedback and patience. Sometimes the opportunity to compose entries are few and far between. This, we'd like to think, can only be good; time spent not posting is time spent acquiring new experiences to share later. We miss you all and love hearing from you.

To anyone who has stumbled upon this blog (or is up late into the night reading and re-reading our posts...who knows? Girls can dream.) but isn't a "follower," you'd be the greatest if you'd just click the "Follow" button under the word "Followers" on the right hand side of the page. It's cool to know who's reading our blog.

Lots of love and (almost) holiday wishes,

Zoë and Alice

We’re Not Just Wild, We’re Trained, Domesticated

By the beginning of October, we had arrived in Thames, gateway to the Coromandel Peninsula, population 7,000: our home for the majority of October. We had arranged a “Wwoof” job with Jennifer Neal, a business-savvy local. We’d work 27 hours a week for her in exchange for bed, more-than-six-minute hot showers, hot water bottles, and foods that were best described as “yum.” We got weekends off, and work was helping Jennifer with her catering business, as well as running her “dairy” (here, that’s a general store.)


The shop – the Kauaeranga Store (“Cow-Ruhnga”) - vends tobacco, “lollies” (in New Zealand, that’s candy) bread, milk, ice creams, and more. Weeks of no work in Auckland meant shop keeping was not only economical for our budgets, but also entertaining. Thames’ residents made work lively; oftentimes the average Kauaraeanga Store patron was a small child eating her weight in sweets.

On October 5th, we found ourselves working 12 to 7 p.m. Through some ironic twist of fate, we had turned into Martha Stewart doppelgangers charged with turning the shop’s porch into a visual masterpiece. Brushes in hand and buckets of fresh paint at our sides, we turned plastic tables purple. Around 3 o’clock, fifteen minutes of sunshine ended when a cloud passed over the sun, and it started to rain. Funky weather is typical of New Zealand, which is sometimes called the place of “all seasons in one day.” As gallons of water tumbled from the sky, we heard kids’ shouts growing steadily louder. Next thing we knew, we were in round-faced company.
Soon enough, ladies of the world and youths were fast friends (this happened perhaps faster than usual because we were accompanied by Genoveva, Jennifer’s eight-year-old daughter, and she’s spunky.) Movies, music, Halloween costumes – if it was fun to talk about, the kids covered it.

“Do you know who Akon is?” shot one.
“What about Beyonce?”
“How about Spiderman?”

Drifting off in pairs, they left, but the afternoon didn’t end without some ukulele sing-alongs, Harry Potter read-alouds, mini-fortress construction, and further cultural sharing.

Outside of work, we spent time getting to know Jennifer, Genoveva, and the other “wwoofers” Jennifer hosted during our time there. Among them was Jack, a British carpenter who was fixing Jennifer’s doors. His interests include Flight of the Conchords, horses, and homemade wines; soon, we were all fast friends.

Read-alouds became a favorite for the Wwwoofers of Thames. We selected kids’ books from the library for Genoveva (who are we kidding? We love children's books as much as the next kid.) We’d come home from that literary haven with J.K. Rowling, Shel Silverstein poems, fairy tale spoofs, and the epic saga of Paddington Bear (of “Darkest Peru” – it turns out that story’s awkwardly outdated.)


In short, daily routine was awake, chow down on muesli, serve customers in the shop (creating small talk a requisite and enjoyable component of the job), clean up the shop, perhaps help Jennifer with catering at the golf club, and then a tasty, family-style dinner with Jennifer, Genoveva, and anyone else who had come to call. Each weekend brought something new: A Fun Run (if you had fun, you won, please don’t ask us what place we came in), Miranda Hot Springs (naturally heated, blissful swimming pools), a hike through an old goldmine (for a few hours, we were intrepid explorers channeling Frodo and Sam), and a weekend trip through the Coromandel Peninsula…