german night: session 1

You may remember from previous posts the Lewis Pass tramping trip that we took in the snow six or so months ago with Ann-Kristin, our German friend, and her boyfriend Josh, a Kiwi. Since Ann returned to Berlin in September, Josh has been planning his own overseas trip to visit her and has finally purchased his tickets for a six-month trip leaving in April. I'm sure he'll have a fantastic time visiting his Liebchen, working, sightseeing, and maybe even doing some climbing...but the only problem is that Josh doesn't really speak German.

And he's not the only one wanting to learn - being overseas is a constant reminder that knowing only one language is an intellectual and cultural weakness and that I am in the minority for it. I brushed up on some vocabulary with Ann while she was here ("Der Schmetterling? The butterfly is a masculine noun?"), but am eager for opportunities to move beyond my kindergarten speaking level and develop the language into something that I can legitimately put on a resume...not to mention that trip to Germany that Bryan and I intend to take...eventually.

Thus begins an official series of German Nights, in which Bryan, Josh and I work through a chapter of exercises in the book that Ann so hopefully sent him for Christmas, sample a menu of "traditional" German food from a library book of Central European cuisine, watch a movie set in Germany (lots of war films to choose from), and play some Settlers of Catan. That last one doesn't have any cultural significance, but it should always been included in any enjoyable evening.

As we have only recently instituted the German Nights program, we have so far only met once for this purpose, but I believe we could easily call it a success. We mastered the alphabet, were introduced to the idea of formal and casual pronouns, and heard over and over from the dialogue sound clips that "Aynur" is a Turkish name.

But the highlight of the evening was the success of our meal: Schnitzel with Spaetzle (inconveniently similarly named for our group of beginners). Being on a budget and acknowledging the danger of spreading our limited cooking skills too thinly, the Schnitzel was the frozen kind that we merely threw in the oven, while the Spaetzle with bacon, mushrooms and poached celery was fully homemade. Spaetzle are a sort of knobbly pasta made by scraping little bits off of the wet dough into a pot of boiling water, an art which I cannot yet claim to have mastered, as many of mine came out in big dumpling-like clumps that weren't all that appetizing. Fortunately, we had enough decent Spaetzle to go around and were all pleasantly surprised to have genuinely enjoyed our new dish.

With these two dishes we've exhausted the good-looking recipes in our Central European Cuisine book, so we're now taking suggestions for future meals. Maybe next week we'll skip dinner and go right to dessert - German chocolate cake? Apple strudel? Black forest cake? Plenty of options in the sweets category...

-Rachel

an awesome valentine's day card

so this is the card i gave bryan for valentine's day. it's blank inside. i don't have a clue why this card needs to exist, but i think it's hilarious and i'm hoping that he did too. it's made by the korean company mmmg (millimeter milligram), who office above the cutest little urban coffee shop. apparently the "you are not ugly" slogan also comes printed on a canvas bag or on a button featuring a redhead with braces, available through telegram paper goods. :)

-rachel

crossing our fingers...

So we've pulled out our (thick) file of immigration paperwork, and today we're submitting a variance request to INZ with the hope that they'll grant us two things:

1) Our current visas expire in August, and we're hoping that by submitting our police checks (which we hadn't received from the FBI when our current visas were being processed), they'll extend our visas for another two years, the maximum allowed under our Missionaries and Religious Workers visa. I'm thinking it might also help me with the job search to be able to prove my ability to work in the country for more than just the next six months. What's really cool is that when we attempted to photocopy our background checks for our files, the copy came out with "UNAUTHORIZED COPY" printed all over it in. That's some pretty sweet technology.
2) Bryan's also applying for the ability to work with a program called Wise Up, teaching social and behavioral skills to primary school kids. He would only be working 5 hours/wk at most, but the program is very much in need of male facilitators and it would give us a little extra income as well as more experience working with kids. His current visa prohibits him from working anywhere but the church, so we're crossing our fingers that they'll be lenient on this one, since it's only a few hours and it's kinda related to his field of study.

Wish us luck! We've been needing to get our act together on this for a while, so it will feel good to have all of our paperwork finally in and step into the part of the process that's out of our control :)

-Rachel

one big january update

So I realize that I haven't posted anything in the last month, which I will be blaming on the beautiful summer weather but which is actually due to my slothfulness and the large quantities of movies that I've been watching lately - it is, after all, the heart of Oscar season. So, in an attempt to make up for this long silence, I will recap the highlights (and lowlights) of my January and you will pretend that I blogged consistently all the way through. Agreed?



Bryan (best man) and Dave (DJ) at the wedding



Highlight #1: Celebrating one glorious year of our residence in Christchurch!

Lowlight #1: Still no job, one year on.

Highlight #2: Attending the wedding of our friends Simon and Sara in an adorable little stone church outside of Geraldine.

Lowlight #2: Contracting food poisoning at the wedding reception and missing my last two days of seasonal work  :(

Highlight #3: Watching our tiny veggie/herb garden grow. Still not sure what to do with the silverbeet (swiss chard), which I've never cooked before.
Lowlight #3: Discovering a solitary strawberry growing amongst the ivy, only to watch it rapidly wither and die.

Highlight #4: Hemming my own jeans for the first time - by hand! This has now created the possibility that shopping for pants could be...possibly...fun.

Highlight #5: The arrival of Oscar season! Our nominees list is color-coded and we have our movie watching planned for these few weeks leading up to the ceremony. We'll have watched every best picture nominee, at least one nominee from each category, and, if we can find a (legal) way to see Biutiful, every multiple nominee. I love January.

-Rachel

the heart of the great alone

One of the things I love about Christchurch is its identity as an Antarctic gateway. It figured as the last major port of call for many of the heroic era Antarctic journeys, and a person looking to remember the legacies of the great explorers will find plenty of monuments, artefacts, and personal connections to maintain their interest in the subject. This is one of the ways that Christchurch has developed in a way that differentiates it from the rest of New Zealand - Auckland and Wellington rarely find their names in the annals of Antarctic history, but Christchurch seems to find itself on the opening and closing pages of every heroic southern adventure. And as Christchurch finds itself directly north of the Ross Sea, where the US and NZ have their primary Antarctic bases, our little city is still the last stop for those heading to the ice today.

So while it was no great surprise to see an the Royal Collection's exhibit of Ponting and Hurley's photographs from the Terra Nova and Endurance expeditions on at the Canterbury Museum, it was still an exciting occasion for someone like me - someone with, admittedly, a bit of a crush on Ernest Shackleton. If only I'd been born 100 years earlier.... Having read Shackleton and Scott's diaries of these expeditions, Frank Hurley's lovely words and pictures describing his experience as Shackleton's expedition photographer on the Endurance, and accounts from members of their scientific staff and crew, the gallery seemed full of familiar friends, retelling a story that I had long ago made myself a part of. Here are some of my favorites:







"A night watchman spins a yarn" (Hurley)
A classic image, and a beautiful one.





"The HMS Endurance crushed
beneath the floes" (Hurley)

The Endurance got stuck in pack ice and, after
months of anxious waiting, was crushed by its
massive force. Its slow demise makes for some
stunning pictures.

"Vida" (Ponting)
One of the dogs from Scott's expedition.
I don't think Scott ate as many of his dogs
as Shackleton did...





"Captain Oates and Siberian Ponies on board Terra Nova" (Ponting)
Scott invested heavily in ponies, hoping that they'd offer
significant benefits while hauling heavy sledges to the pole.
It didn't really pan out for him.



Neither of these two pictures of Tom Crean
were part of the exhibition, but I like them so
much that I had to include them anyway. He
was part of Shackleton's Endurance expedition.



Where can I get a hat like that?

As soon as the library reopens from its weeks-long holiday siesta, I'm going to renew my efforts to find some Antarctic classics - most notably Cherry Apsley-Garrard's "The Worst Journey in the World" - and maybe pay a bit more attention to the pictures :) If you haven't read Shackleton's "South"...don't you think you might want to get on that?

-Rachel

graduation day

Bryan and I were honored to be invited to our friend Dave's graduation from the University of Canterbury with a Japanese Studies degree, which was held in the Town Hall this morning. Everything about the ceremony exuded a sense of New Zealand's geography, history, culture, and status as a Commonwealth country, and I can't think of a way I would rather have spent my morning.

First of all, the graduates and professors were part of a procession that made its way from the beautiful Arts Center building (the university's original home) to the Town Hall, a walk of about half a mile that must have made many of the graduates question their choice in footwear. I was sad to be seated inside the hall while this was taking place, but I did happen to witness this part of the University of Otago's graduation last time I was in Dunedin.

Then there was the ceremonial mace, which was crafted out of a piece of seasoned oak from a bell tower at Oxford. Very cool.

The ceremony opened with a traditional Maori call-and-response-type greeting between a woman on the stage and a group entering from the back of the auditorium, and included many elements of Maori ceremonies from start to finish. Many Maori graduates draped a flower lei over the Chancellor's neck while accepting their diplomas, which piled up throughout the morning so that he looked a bit lionlike by the end.

I was pleased to find that the national anthem was included in the program, as I have a special fondness for "God Defend New Zealand" and proudly sang along, though secretly relieved that both the Maori and English words were displayed on the screen for the benefit of those like me. We also sang a song in Latin at the closing end of the ceremony, though it didn't make up for the lack of Pomp and Circumstance.

One of my favorite elements of the graduation, which comes as no surprise to those of you who know the admiration for Ernest Shackleton and other Antarctic explorers that I've developed over the last few years, was the reminder of New Zealand's historical and geographical connections with the Great White Continent. I longed to be one of the graduates receiving a degree in Antarctic Studies or walking in under the (ironically) green banner representing this sacred academic discipline. The graduation speaker, a botanist and the head curator at the Canterbury Museum, even quoted a piece of Scott's journals during his brief oration.

Obviously the best part was being present to celebrate the end of a long season of study for Dave, and we were thrilled to be a part of this momentum occasion for him. Bryan's also receiving his degree from NCU this month (though, obviously, he won't be present for his graduation ceremony), so I suppose in a way they get to share this experience together.

-Rachel

a picture that i love

so i finally got my pictures off of my camera, which broke early on in our trip to kaikoura in october. here's a picture of mt fyffe hut, not far below the mt fyffe summit, where we spent two wonderfully cozy nights near the wonderful fire. i'm just glad to be looking at a picture of snow at christmastime. i started working at a homeware store at the mall this week (just until january), and am being reminded continually that christmas is coming, though our christmas stockings are marketed next to picnic blankets and bbq sets.

-rachel