Returning Home: First Impressions

3 flights and 25 hours later I'm back in the States. I feel like possum roadkill and I'm a bit overwhelmed with reverse culture shock, but I wanted to mention some things that I have noticed about being back in the US:

1. There is so much air pollution! Coming in for a landing in San Francisco I couldn't help but notice the gray-brown smog sitting over the Bay Area. New Zealand definitely doesn't have this problem. NZ skies are piercing blue and sparkling clean.

2. They drive on the other side of the road here! Every time we made a turn coming home from the airport, I got freaked out. I don't think I'll be getting behind the wheel anytime soon...

3. Speaking of driving...the roads here are wide and packed with huge, speeding cars, but no tailgaters. Yipeeee!

4. The hot and cold faucets are switched and water comes out of one spigot. I love this, especially when washing my face in the bathroom sink.

5. It's a bit cold out but my house is warm inside!

6. Hot water pressure actually exists.

7. I don't have to worry about how much Internet bandwidth I'm using. I can return to downloading podcasts to my heart's content!

8. There is no Tui song to begin my day.

9. There are lots of snakes, lizards, bugs and spiders. Ugh.

10. Clothes dryer = no more lint ball.

11. The land of plenty has become the land of too much. The consumerism is overwhelming!

12. I'm already missing all the things I said I would miss about New Zealand in an earlier post.

A Learning Experience

My time in New Zealand has been a huge learning experience. I've learned

sometimes you have to adjust your expectations

it's OK to ask questions about things you don't understand

how it feels to be foreign, new, strange, and different

that I don't like cold, rainy weather

to read more than the guidebooks before you move to a new place

that sometimes you have to give something up to discover something new

how to drive on the left-hand side of the road

that I like lamb more than I thought

that I need my friends and family closer than I thought

that it is possible to hear bagpipes in the South Pacific

when in doubt, always carry an umbrella

I'll Miss...

Beautiful sunsets
The scent of flax flowers
Grass-fed lamb & beef
The Tui's song
New wines
Maori TV
Maori radio
Southern hemisphere constellations
Hedgehogs
Crazy geological formations
Rainbows
Pasha's restaurant
Cabbage trees
Cider on tap
Summer sunsets at 10pm
No traffic
Bacon Butties
Sheep
Tim Tams
Nikau palms
Fresh feijoas
Apricots, peaches, cherries & plums in January
Thyme-covered hills of Central Otago
Knowing I can go curling anytime I want
Curious fantalis
UB spotting
Mountain beech forests
A wood pigeon's crash landing
Empty white-sand beaches
Fields of lupine in bloom
Podocarp trees
Beach combing
Kiwi words & phrases
Penguins

....and Y

Anzac Day

Red Poppy
Georgia O'Keeffe

April 25th is Anzac Day, a national public holiday in Australia and New Zealand that honors members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli, Turkey, during World War I.

The ANZAC forces landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish Army commanded by Ataturk. The aim was to capture the Dardanelles, the gateway to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. However, it quickly became a stale-mate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915, Turkey still held Gallipoli and the Allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties.

Over 8,000 Australian and 2,700 New Zealand soldiers died at Gallipoli. The deaths of so many young men had a profound impact on Australians and New Zealanders. In 1916, April 25th became the day on which Australia and New Zealand remembered the sacrifice of all those who had died in war.

In New Zealand, Anzac Day is commemorated through memorial services through out the country. A typical commemoration includes a pre-dawn march by returned service personnel and an afternoon parade to the local war memorial.

The red poppy (above) has become a symbol of war remembrance all around the world. The red poppy was the first flower to grow in the battlefields after WWI. In many countries people wear the poppy, usually around Armistice Day (November 11), to remember those who died in war or who still serve, but in New Zealand the poppy is most commonly seen around Anzac Day.

Kate Morton

Kate Morton is a best-selling Australian author that I've recently discovered. Her extraordinary books are full of mystery, dark secrets, historic detail and unforgettable characters. She has published 2 books so far and is working on a third. Because the stories are too complicated for me to explain, here are the descriptions from the back covers:

The Forgotten Garden (April 2009 Best of the Month on Amazon.com)

A lost child...

On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.

A terrible secret...

On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell O'Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.

A mysterious inheritance...

On Nell's death, her grand-daughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold - secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family and their ward Eliza Makepeace, a writer of dark Victorian fairytales. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about the family, and solve the century-old mystery of a little girl lost.

The House at Riverton (Published in Australia and the UK as The Shifting Fog)

Within its four walls lay a secret that would last a lifetime.

Summer 1924: On the night of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.

Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, onetime housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet’s suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Grace’s mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The House at Riverton is a thrilling mystery and a compelling love story.

Check out Kate Morton's website:
http://www.katemorton.com/

Do the Hokey Pokey

Hokey Pokey ice cream is a Kiwi institution and I embrace it whole heartedly! This yummy treat consists of vanilla ice cream with bits of Hokey Pokey (sponge toffee candy) mixed in. The toffee is made by mixing sugar and golden syrup (a baking staple in the Kiwi kitchen) with baking soda to create a frothy mixture, which sets like a crunchy toffee. It tastes sorta like caramel or butterscotch with a bit of crunch. Delicious!

Hokey Pokey ice cream has recently become popular in Japan and the South Pacific. Although, sadly, it's not available in the U.S. Guess I'll have to make my own!

Tuatara

No, Tuatara isn't another Japanese monster who battles Godzilla in some really bad B movie. The Tuatara is a lizard-like reptile that is found only in New Zealand. They are the only living members of the Order Sphenodontia, which lived during the age of the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago!

My favorite part about the Tuatara is that it has a third eye on the top of its head! The eye has its own lens, cornea, retina and degenerated nerve connection to the brain, suggesting it evolved from a real eye. The eye is only visible in hatchlings, which have a translucent patch at the top center of the skull. After four to six months the eye becomes covered with opaque scales and pigment. Its purpose is unknown, but it may be useful in absorbing ultraviolet light to manufacture vitamin D or to help regulate body temperature.

Today the Tuatara only lives on a few islands around New Zealand, although there are many captive breeding colonies on the mainland. There is a large Tuatara colony at the Southland Museum in Invercargill where the public can see these amazing reptiles up close. Unfortunately when we visited, it was too cold for the lizards so they were all comatose in their burrows. Although we did get to see 11 hatchlings, along with their third "eye".

Maybe Godzilla vs The Three-Eyed Tuatara will be coming to a theater near you....