puxatillie paul

listening to my ecology professor trying to explain the concept of groundhog day to a roomful of apathetic kiwis today has most likely been the highlight of the week. desperately searching the faces of his pupils for some sort of recognition when confronted with "bill murray? puxatillie paul? they have the movement of a rat but the cute of a rabbit? they're weather forecasters in the states." blue powerade is huge. locals bleed it i think. this weekend i went south south to the college town of Dunedin for the extended easter break. part of the reason it's taken me so long to post is because i believe this excursion to be more or less a bust with only a few minor notable or writable hiccups. nothing to write home about, so to speak.

one would think a largely agnostic country like this one would proceed with little more then the obligatory pleasantries of the rebirth of christ within the public sphere. logically, when maintaining a population as diverse as new zealand's one would assume it would be in the best interest of the government to try and stay away from the forceable celebration of any sort of exclusionary holiday. however, the one thing i've come to realize with relative certainty about this place is that hardly anything is handled logically, methodically or efficiently. new zed is in it's awkward teenage years, lanky and oily and snapping girl's bra straps at the lockers. still very much in it's colonial phase, this laid back culture seems to be caught in a timewarp and seems to still be resorting to a more or less 'trial and error' approach to life. not that i'm complaining. the mountains are close, the skies are sunny and to someone who often felt out of place in the drone of the great machine us of a, a more informal approach is most often welcome. man that was a doozie of a tangent. apologies and we press on.

so yes, the whole of dunedin was shut down upon our arrival. groceries, pubs, restaurants and all stores were closed in this party town 2 out of the 3 days of our stay. food was scarce and we were left to our own devices for most of our stay. lots of pidgeon watching. and kiwi watching. one interesting perk of our misadventure was that it is on these national holidays that the locals come out of the woodwork to do the same touristy things i've been enjoying since my arrival, including the cadbury factory and speights brewery tours (pride of the south!). these were a huge part of the experience and included a chocolate waterfall and 20 minute open-bar taste-test/pillage, respectively. so overall, the town was cute with interesting (volcanic) architecture, the world's steepest street, and i'm sure a lot of local flavor when it didn't look like a zombie town, but the true worth of our journey wasn't apparent until we ventured out onto the otago peninsula the following day.

The otago peninsula boasts and hosts the only northern royal albatross colony in the world, as well as yellow-eyed penguins, little blue penguins, fur seals and sea lions. unfortunately what they don't tell you is that you is the only way one can actually see the whole of these creatures is to pay copious amounts of shrapnel to the corporation that privately owns the beaches of Taiaroa to take a separate private tour for each species. so that comes out to: $35 for a tentative albatross sighting, $30 for yellow-eyed penguins and $30 a sea lion, so much as i can gather. we blew the whole thing off and took a hike to the edge of the world and i got to stand next to a few sheep on a cliff side staring out to pacific abyss. my god the sites! windows down arms out tiny dancer golden slumbers.