Visit from a Semi friend
Perhaps I should explain that title.
Ten years ago, I went on a student exchange to the town of Blaubeuren, Germany. Unusually for Germany, I went to a private school - and even more unusually, a boarding school - called the Evangelisches Seminar (Evangelical Seminary), which is housed in a thousand-year-old monastery there. The students are known as Seminaristen, or 'Semis' for short. (By the way, that's 'sem-ee', not 'sem-eye'.)
One of them, who has been living in Canada for the last few years, is on his way to Samoa, I believe for research purposes - he's studying botany at the University of British Columbia - and decided to stop in New Zealand for a week or two on the way. He'd invited me to go round with him, but I couldn't get the time off work. So instead, he visited me in Dunedin over the weekend.
He arrived on Friday evening, having driven down from Christchurch in a rental car. We had to wait a few minutes for tables at Filadelfio's - he suggested we share a table with someone else, as that wouldn't be a problem in North America, but it's a bit weird here - and proceeded to eat a 'medium' pizza each. Medium pizzas are probably supposed to serve two, so there was a bit left over, and I've an idea he might have left it in the fridge. There wasn't much to do on a freezing Friday night, so we watched Eagle vs. Shark on his laptop and went to bed with the heaters on.
On Saturday, we went round the Otago Peninsula for an 'ad hoc' tour. He'd got some brochures from the visitor centre, but they'd told him he needed to pay for the privilege of seeing albatrosses and penguins, which is complete bollocks; we saw them free. Albatrosses fly overhead at the colony on Taiaroa Head, so we saw a few there. We missed the seals on Pilot's Beach, possibly because it was high tide and the beach wasn't really there - or possibly because it's winter and a little too cold for them - but we did see some sea lions at Ōrau (better known as Sandfly Bay), as well as a few hōiho (yellow-eyed penguins) coming in at dusk.
In between the albatrosses and penguins, we also walked out past the Pyramids to Okia, where there is supposed to be a steamship wreck, but didn't see it on the beach and were a bit too tired to go all the way along to try and see it up close.
The weather turned during the afternoon, and was pretty savage by the time we were walking back from Sandfly Bay. India Garden curries warmed us up nicely.
He was also able to catch me up on a lot of Semi gossip that I hadn't heard - even from the time I was there. Apparently there are a lot more scandals going on than I ever realised - but perhaps that's not surprising, since I wasn't great at German while I was there, and tended to try and hide from having to interact with people too much.
Oh, and he tells me that in two years' time, it will be the tenth anniversary of that class gratuating, so there's bound to be a reunion of some sorts. Here's hoping I get there. In fact, I'm still hoping to be able to get there during our next winter...
Ten years ago, I went on a student exchange to the town of Blaubeuren, Germany. Unusually for Germany, I went to a private school - and even more unusually, a boarding school - called the Evangelisches Seminar (Evangelical Seminary), which is housed in a thousand-year-old monastery there. The students are known as Seminaristen, or 'Semis' for short. (By the way, that's 'sem-ee', not 'sem-eye'.)
One of them, who has been living in Canada for the last few years, is on his way to Samoa, I believe for research purposes - he's studying botany at the University of British Columbia - and decided to stop in New Zealand for a week or two on the way. He'd invited me to go round with him, but I couldn't get the time off work. So instead, he visited me in Dunedin over the weekend.
He arrived on Friday evening, having driven down from Christchurch in a rental car. We had to wait a few minutes for tables at Filadelfio's - he suggested we share a table with someone else, as that wouldn't be a problem in North America, but it's a bit weird here - and proceeded to eat a 'medium' pizza each. Medium pizzas are probably supposed to serve two, so there was a bit left over, and I've an idea he might have left it in the fridge. There wasn't much to do on a freezing Friday night, so we watched Eagle vs. Shark on his laptop and went to bed with the heaters on.
On Saturday, we went round the Otago Peninsula for an 'ad hoc' tour. He'd got some brochures from the visitor centre, but they'd told him he needed to pay for the privilege of seeing albatrosses and penguins, which is complete bollocks; we saw them free. Albatrosses fly overhead at the colony on Taiaroa Head, so we saw a few there. We missed the seals on Pilot's Beach, possibly because it was high tide and the beach wasn't really there - or possibly because it's winter and a little too cold for them - but we did see some sea lions at Ōrau (better known as Sandfly Bay), as well as a few hōiho (yellow-eyed penguins) coming in at dusk.
In between the albatrosses and penguins, we also walked out past the Pyramids to Okia, where there is supposed to be a steamship wreck, but didn't see it on the beach and were a bit too tired to go all the way along to try and see it up close.
The weather turned during the afternoon, and was pretty savage by the time we were walking back from Sandfly Bay. India Garden curries warmed us up nicely.
He was also able to catch me up on a lot of Semi gossip that I hadn't heard - even from the time I was there. Apparently there are a lot more scandals going on than I ever realised - but perhaps that's not surprising, since I wasn't great at German while I was there, and tended to try and hide from having to interact with people too much.
Oh, and he tells me that in two years' time, it will be the tenth anniversary of that class gratuating, so there's bound to be a reunion of some sorts. Here's hoping I get there. In fact, I'm still hoping to be able to get there during our next winter...