Halloween, Checklist, and Food Stuff
Hey Guys! It’s been pretty great weather here lately, so I’ve been on the move. That, combined with limited time on the Internet once again, has meant a lot less communication overall. On the plus side, I have enough writing material to cram into at least three different posts, so watch out for all of that in the next week.
Fair warning: this is going to be a bit of a boring post. Just saying. I have this other epic story to talk about, but it’s so long that it deserves its own entry without any other commentary. I’ll try to have that up within the week sometime. The pictures are already ready, but they take forever to load onto LJ. I’ll start off by talking about the checklist I found in Katy’s my New Zealand guidebook. Before flying over here, I put together a preliminary to-do list of stuff to do in New Zealand, so I thought I’d share what I found.
North Island
__ Climb Mt. Ruapehu at Tongariro Park
__ Attend Festival of Lights (December) in New Plymouth
__ Jump off Auckland Sky Tower
__ Go to Egmont National Park
__ See Champagne Pool at Waiotapu
√ Climb up One Tree Hill in Auckland (Kind of, does getting really close count?)
__ Scuba Dive in Northland - Poor Knights Islands
__ See Waitomo Caves, Lost World Adventure
__ Take gondola over Rotorua
__ Go to Wellington Cathedral Church St. Paul
__ Ride Wellington cable car
__ Cross City-to-Sea Bridge
__ Visit Museum of NZ Te Papa Tongarewa
__ Go to Whangnui National Park
South Island
__ See a kiwi bird on Stewart Island
__ Go to Mount Cook National Park
__ Visit Marlborough Sound
__ Go to Nelson Lakes National Park
__ Tour Dunedin - The Octagon
__ Go to Fiordland National Park and Te Anau Caves
__ Jump off “The Ledge” above Queenstown
__ Visit Abel Tasman National Park
__ Walk along the Catilins
Other
√ Go tandem skydiving
√ Attend a rugby game
__ Ride a jet boat down rapids
__ Swim with dolphins
Kind of depressing that I've been here for so long and done only a couple of these things, but I guess we'll have to see, right? I can easily add another ten or twenty things to this list after being here, but I'll leave it at this for the moment. Time will tell.
I also have to say something about food over here. The thing is, there really is no such thing as New Zealand food. I mean, there IS, but it’s not quite as overt and visible as, say, Italian or Mexican food. The closest thing would probably be the Maori hangi feasts where they cook a bunch of meats and vegetables underground and have a big celebration at the end. That sounds pretty cool, but I haven’t been around to see one of those yet, so the jury’s still out. I guess you could say the same about American food - we just steal from everyone else. So, really, the only new food that I’ve experienced over here tends to be…British. There are so many Germans and Brits over here that I’m starting to wonder what it is about their homeland that makes them want to flee the country.
But I digress. I meant to talk about how I’ve recently discovered the awesomeness of British cuisine, mostly courtesy of Darren. The first thing that I’ve become addicted to is very simple to make and tastes incredible when you’re starving in the morning: Beans on Toast. It sounds exactly like what it is. You take about four slices of bread, toast them up, and then put them aside. Depending on how healthy you want to be, you can leave them plain or melt a little butter on top. Then you microwave a bowl of baked beans for about two and a half minutes or so. Once all that’s done, pour the beans over the toast, and sprinkle a little cheese on top for extra flavor. It’s really good and surprisingly filling. I guess it’s a pretty common dish in the UK, but I had never heard of it before coming over here. It’s now my go-to meal when I’m hungry but can’t be bothered to do a whole lot of cooking.
Beans on Toast and Gingerbeer - like Ginger Ale, only better
The other dish that I’ve been exposed to is a bit more elaborate: Toad in the Hole. This requires a little backstory because it goes back a ways. A long time ago, Darren and I were talking about food and various differences between our cultures, when he brought up Toad in the Hole as an example. When I just stared blankly at him and told him that I had no idea what he was talking about, he took great personal offense and considered it his British duty to introduce me to it as soon as physically possible. That ended up being about two weeks later, when we both had a little time to kill in the afternoon. We went down to the place where he works, Jolly Good Fellows, and got a nice table overlooking the water.
Our View From the Table
The Toad in the Hole is probably one of the more complicated items on the menu, but everything on it was very, very British. The whole Bangers and Mash and everything. Darren warned me that Toad in the Hole is sort of like our Thanksgiving dinner - you don’t eat anything that day before or after trying it. I was skeptical, but it actually was enormous. This is the general breakdown of what it is: the main ingredient is Yorkshire Pudding (a sort of savory pudding that hardens in the oven and creates a little dome around the rest of the filling), in the middle are onions and about four bangers, and the mushy peas and gravy are sprinkled over the top. Then there’s a sort of green salad with cucumbers and whatnot to the side. All in all, really, really good. It’s about the size of your head. My line of thinking went from: “oh my God I’m starving” to “no problem, I’ve got this,” to “ok, I kind of see where Darren’s coming from now” to finally “…agh, kill me now.” The last half of it was incredibly filling and proved to be a complete culinary challenge. Totally did it though. I think the kitchen staff was actually a little impressed. I guess not many people can do it in one sitting, and I think I may have been the first girl ever. They forgot to factor in the all-important American portion size and our ability to eat half our weight at a time. So that was fun, but it was hard going in to work immediately afterwards because I was all full and comfortable, ready for a mid-afternoon nap. I would recommend it to anyone hungry enough though.
The Masterpiece That is Toad in the Hole
Inside Shot
My Progression Throughout the Meal
Darren's Victory Pose
And, last of all, we celebrated Halloween not too long ago. Now, Americans are the only people who actually care about this holiday, as far as I can tell. Most of Europe recognizes it to some extent, but no one really takes it to the extreme of partying and trick-or-treating like we do. I already knew that about New Zealand, so I wasn’t really expecting much, but I was glad that we were able to throw something together at the last minute. I think we all wanted to do something for Halloween, but the problem was that at least half of us were working throughout the day. I really wanted to go down to Pac-and-Save and buy a pumpkin to carve, but the knives in the hostel are so dull that they can barely cut onions on a good day, so I ruled that out. In the end, we decided to dress up in some way and hang out until the evening, when Mulligan’s began its annual Costume Contest.
It actually worked out really well for me. About two days before Halloween, Heidi and Karl took a break from Dixie Brown’s and went out to buy costumes for everyone - apparently someone had suggested for all of the staff to be in costume, and the idea took off from there. They bought a range of everything from mouse to fairy sprite to demon, so we all had a few choices to pick from. When it came for me to choose, though, the only thing left at the time was…I’m going to call it Lady Devil because it’s the most polite way to say it. Nikki described it more along the lines of Satan’s Wh*re, and I can’t really argue with that. I think it was the gloves. To be fair, I originally wanted the horns, tail, and bowtie, but somewhere between Friday and Sunday, the tail and bowtie went missing, so I decided to add the gloves as well to make up for their absence. Just so we’re clear on that. But anyway, I showed up for work Sunday morning - Halloween day - and was handed the Devil costume a few minutes before my shift. I took a few seconds to adjust and BANG! - instant classic. Nikki ended up with a witch hat and Veronica drew a few spots on her cheeks with eye liner to supplement her dog ears, but Eli wasn’t so lucky. He’s the guy who happens to be from the Sacramento area and is usually the last one to sign in on Sunday mornings. So guess which one was left for him? Yup, fairy wings. Very manly. He took it like a champ, though, and wore it for about half the morning, before he traded Heidi for her angel halo.
Work It
The response from the customers was pretty amusing. It ranged anywhere from amused to puzzled and everything in between. Some of them would wander in from the street and not see any of us until someone abruptly popped out to greet them, and then they’d get this wry little smirk like, “Oh, right, I see.” Those were the It-Getters. The other ones who were confused tended to be from places like the Netherlands or South Africa - places that don’t really celebrate Halloween. But, c’mon people, even if you don’t honor the holiday, you should at least be able to put two and two together and figure out why people are in costume around late October. Some people had absolutely no idea why we were dressed up and thought we did it all the time. Ah, well. So it was an interesting morning, interspersed with older couples being wildly entertained by us and slightly creepy guys trying to hit on all the girls. Seriously. “Hey, nice outfit! You look absolutely sinful.” Ugh. Their pickup lines really needed work, but it was kind of funny.
The rest of the shift was pretty uneventful, just a regular day with costumes added. We were supposed to hand them back in at the end of the day, but I managed to secure mine for the evening with the promise that I would bring it back the next day. So I got to hang out in the courtyard area of the hostel in costume for a few hours with the boys and drink some beers while we waited for the sun to set. I usually never know when I’m working Monday until late Sunday night, so it was a relief when I got the text that I wasn’t working until 4pm the next day, giving me plenty of time to hang that night. When 9pm rolled around, we decided to hit the pub and see what was going on down there. Not surprisingly, it was packed to the walls. The bouncer actually stopped letting people in after 10 or so because it was so crowded inside. There was some pretty interesting costume, too. I think the three finalists for the costumer contest were a bunch of umpah loompahs, a mad scientist, and some guy in a giant cardboard box decorated to look like the tube that rescued the Chilean miners. Then there were the standard zombies, grim reapers, and a few people in medieval outfits. I think mine was one of the more traditional outfits of our group - Paul literally threw an old black shawl over his head on the way out like a burkha and smudged his face with something. I still have no idea what he was supposed to be. We stayed for a little while, but it was really to crowded to enjoy much. I didn’t have to be anywhere in the morning, but I still felt like getting back early and getting a good night’s sleep. I waited until the contest was pretty much over before waving at Tim behind the bar and calling it a night. Overall, not a bad way to spend Halloween.
And that’s pretty much been it in terms of non-event related news. Stay tuned for an actual post on something a lot cooler than messing around downtown. Bye for now!