Final few weeks in Wellington

The last couple of weeks have been action packed as I’ve tried to fit in as much as possible before I finish my time in Wellington.

After the excitement of the Sevens, a quiet next weekend would have made a lot of sense. A group of us decided to meet up and watch a fireworks display for the end of Chinese New Year and go for a karaoke session. I never have a desperate desire for karaoke, but was happy to go with the flow. The venue was a booth in the upstairs of a Korean restaurant that felt a lot like someone’s sitting room. Safely out of the public gave and after quite a few beers it was a great laugh. We carried on to a few bars afterwards and I didn’t make it home until five am. Sunday was spent moving very slowly and enjoying a bit of all too rare sunshine on the beach.

The next weekend was another busy one. After work on Friday evening we went to watch the first Twenty20 game in the South Africa tour of New Zealand. It was a close game with the Black Caps (NZ’s team) winning in the last over. On Saturday the centre of town was turned over to a music festival called Homegrown, which showcases Kiwi bands of all different genres. It was a fantastic afternoon and evening soaking up the sunshine and the music. After a year here I’d heard of quite a few of the bands, so it was great to set to see them live.

In between all of this we were searching for a new flatmate to take over my room and I was selling off the bulky things I’d bought on Trademe, the local ebay. In a reversal of the process I went through to find a flat last year, we spent several weekends interviewing prospective flatties. It all got a bit disheartening when we had a procession of people who couldn’t read the add (‘no students’ apparently wasn’t clear enough), couldn’t string a sentence together or didn’t know when to stop talking! Eventually we found a laid back Scottish guide called Alisdair who’s now settling in to what was my room.

I was also wrapping things up at work, trying to tie up at least some of the loose ends on things I’d been working on and hand things over. A big new project has started up in the last few months and so rather than gradually winding down, I found myself rushing around with urgent meetings and briefings. It’s strange to look back on a whole year of working in a role that was both similar and different to what I was used to back in England.

During my final week I had something on almost every evening. Not long after I arrived, I was told about how John, who was here on secondment the year before me, had jumped into the harbour with a few other people shortly before he left. Not to be outdone, I was keen to do the same and on Tuesday evening got the chance.

Getting ready to jump

Here goes nothing

This one didn't end quite so well!

On Wednesday evening we went to watch Back Benchers being filmed. Then on Thursday a whole group of us went along with Helen to see what the Zumba class she has been raving about was really like, it was much more exercise than I expected.

My final weekend came round all too soon. Friday was my last day at work and so we had some farewell drinks at the end of the day. I’ve been immensely lucky to have landed in such a friendly and supportive team (and I’m not just writing that because some of them may read this post!). It made a huge difference, particularly when I first arrived, to enjoy going in to work and getting to know my colleagues. My manager put together the most incredible leaving present, an apple photobook with all the pictures off this blog along with others from trips and nights out through the whole year. It’s going to be a treasured memento of my year out here.

Saturday was mostly spent sorting through all the stuff I’ve accumulated and trying to pack my bags for travelling. In the evening, Harry and I went to see Hugo, which is great, and grabbed some dinner. Then it was back to more packing.

All of this needs to fit into two 23kg suitcases (except the furniture)

This morning (Sunday) I was entered into the Round the Bays Half Marathon. I was running with Carina (of cupcake and previous half marathon fame) and the goal was to help her get her first sub-2 hour time. We had good conditions, without too much wind and ran a great pace finishing in about 1:56 (the results are published in the paper tomorrow so they haven't yet loaded them online...grr). Angela and a couple of friends all ran the seven km course and so we got to meet up at the finish line. I would have loved to spend the afternoon relaxing and having a few well earned beers with everyone, but had to dash off to load my car up and make a start on my trip.

Wellington sevens

The first weekend in February was a long weekend to mark Waitangi Day. It was also the weekend of the Wellington Sevens. The Sevens is a Wellington institution and a must do on the global calendar of any serious fancy-dress fan. Part of the World HSBC Sevens Series, it's gained a reputation as one of the biggest fancy dress parties in the World. Apparently there's also some rugby going on in the background.


Tens of thousands of Kiwis (and a few expats) descend on the Wellington stadium for two days in some of the most impressive costumes I've ever seen. In the two days I noticed only two people at the tournament not wearing fancy dress...truly spectacular!


Helen, Harry, Angela and I decided to find a theme with four characters. After much deliberation we settled on Wizard of Oz. We had a mix of bought and home-made costumes. I was the tinman, which involved two cans of silver car spray paint, two pots of silver face paint, lots of cardboard, red material and about a week of evenings to prepare. It turned out to be quite a good choice as we only ran into a couple of other groups who had chosen the same (among 35,000 people in fancy dress that represents pretty good odds).

Costume components

Getting silver

The end result

We're off to see the wizard...after another beer

The effort that some people had gone to was incredible. The ideas ranged from traditional to topical, via trashy and truly bizarre. I didn't take many photos, but the newspapers got plenty.

Before we even got to the stadium

Lego men was a popular theme

These guys don't look to happy with their outfits

After the end of the rugby on the Friday night we headed into town to party. I eventually made it home about 5am. Getting up the next morning and doing it all over again was pretty hard!


I arrived in NZ just after the Sevens last year and all year people had been telling me I had to make sure I went. Now I've been I understand why. It was a legendary weekend, like no other party I've ever been to. Oh, and New Zealand won in the rugby.

Sir Paul Callaghan on prosperity in New Zealand

I went along to a public lecture by Professor Sir Paul Callaghan on Wednesday evening. He's a scientist who focusses on nanotechnology and magentic resonance. He was voted New Zealander of the year this year.


The lecture was organised by the main Wellington university and the City Council, as part of a programme of 'during the World Cup, but not rugby' events. The audience turnout was really impressive, with around 1,200 people showing up.


The subject of his talk was how New Zealand could become more prosperous. His arguments for why this needs to happen included a personal account of his battle with cancer - he has paid for treatments himself where they aren't funded by the healthcare system here.


He made the case that greater propserity shouldn't (and can't) be achieved through exploiting natural resources or by expanding tourism and the wine industry. Instead, he advocates a focus on high-tech export businesses that aim for small niches in the global market. These would need to be developed by scientific entrepreneurs, so policies should look at how to support researchers and reduce the brain-drain overseas.


I thought the proposed silver bullet was a bit too simple. I did really enjoy his speaking style and the energy he put into making his case. I haven't been able to find footage from the lecture, but
Update - here's a link to the lecture http://vimeo.com/29126569

he gave a shorter version of the address to a public service leadership course that my colleague went to a few months back. Here's the video of that -

Comedy

Over the last few weeks a comedy festival has run across New Zealand (it actually ended a little while ago, but I haven’t got round to blogging about it until now). It’s originally called the NZ Comedy Festival. 

Every night saw a host of different performances from stand-up through to comic plays at various venues around town. There’s a mix of antipodeans and comedians from further afield.

I made it along to three shows, each time with Angela, my comedy partner in crime from work. Here’s a quick run-down on what we saw and what I thought.

You can’t beat Wellington (on a good day) – this was a sitcom style show with a cast of 6. The setting was a coffee shop and the venue was a actual café, with the show carrying on between the tables, which was a nice touch. The plot centred on the owners of the coffee shop trying to cash in on the Rugby World Cup by becoming an official venue. They managed to achieve this through some underhanded means, but were then their plans fell apart. There were some really funny parts to the show, with lots of local jokes. But at times it was a bit slow moving and could have done with a bit more work on the script.

Mark Watson – the second show we saw was a Welsh stand-up. I hadn’t heard of him before, but he’s reasonably well known and has been on mock the week and other shows. His act was fantastic and had the whole audience laughing more or less non-stop for an hour. He had a very informal style, with lots of engagement with the audience and self-mockery. This was my favourite of the three gigs.

Jeremy Elwood – this was the final gig we saw and the tickets were free as a colleague had got hold of them from a newspaper giveaway and then couldn’t go. Elwood is a Kiwi comedian. He was the most political, making quite a few jokes about NZ current affairs and I was pleased to know what he was on about. He also did some guitar based comedy. Now I’m always quite dubious about this idea, although I’ve seen it a couple of times. His first two songs were ok, but nothing special. He then did a great closing piece where he improvised around a couple of members of the audience, with people shouting out different musical styles that he then performed the next part of the song in. It was a real feat to be able to do it that spontaneously and the audience weren’t generous with their suggestions.

It was a good festival and all the gigs seemed pretty much full. An annoying feature was that because they had several acts performing at each venue during the evening you were only let in just before it started and then herded out again right after the show, which got a bit frustrating. Aside from that, I really enjoyed it.

I’d heard that Kiwi audiences generally weren’t keen on the heckling/put down style of comedy that is common in England. Preferring a less confrontational, laid-back approach instead. I can hardly make definitive statements on the basis of two gigs, but they did both pretty much back that view up. 

Earthquake

This afternoon there was a major earthquake (6.2 on the Richter Scale) just outside Christchurch on the South Island. I didn't feel a tremor, although apparently it was strong enough to be felt up here in Wellington.

The news channels have been running rolling coverage and it's even become the top story on the BBC News website. The confirmed death toll has reached 65 and the damage and devastation is really severe. The emergency services are working flat out to rescue people who are still trapped with military support and international teams flying in to help.

It's a stark reminder that New Zealand sits on several fault lines and has experienced a number of deadly 'quakes over the years.

Anyone interested in more data can check out this website - http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/

For now my thoughts are with all the people affected by today's 'quake