Botanical Musings

The way I see it there are three speeds of travel. Speed 1 is what I did over the (northern) summer* in Europe. We had eight major stops in 3 ½ weeks, meaning we spent 1-3 nights in each place. That’s pretty super sonic. This was really good in some ways, though, because it meant we rushed around and tried to see as much as we could. With the exception of our stops in Switzerland and Hamburg, we pretty much didn’t have downtime. We knew our time was limited, and we wanted to take advantage of every minute.
Speed 2 is slightly slower, and usually involves a lot fewer places. I think this is the most typical travel speed… most family vacations involve going somewhere for one to two weeks, with maybe one other stop or side trip. This speed is pretty good too, though in can be bad for the cultural sights mentality. I mean, if you have two weeks, you don’t rush to see every museum right away and (I find) this sometimes means that you realize on your last day you haven’t seen nearly everything that you planned to. But it is good for relaxing and for absorbing the atmosphere of a place.
Which brings me to Speed 3, aka move to a country for a few months and see what it’s all about. Guess what speed I’m on right now? And I have found some entirely dorky reasons to love it.
Now, of course, there’s the obvious, ie you get to see how people Really Live. For example, through extended observation I have determined that New Zealanders don’t believe in wearing shoes (ok, I actually discovered this on my first day here. But I have CONTINUED to discover it), they eat out of bowls much more often than other people (this could just be my flatmates), and they say things like “gutted,” “average,” and “yus.” (I have worryingly started to pick up on some of these expressions.) I noticed things like this in Australia as well—their slang especially took some time to pick up.
But the dorkiest thing ever that I have noticed through staying in one place for a long time is... the change in the flora.
Now. I should first point out that New Zealanders are really obsessed with their plants. Australians are too, but to a slightly lesser degree. More specifically, New Zealanders are obsessed with what is “native” and what is not… ie what was originally on these tiny islands and what the Evil Europeans (or the Maoris, less frequently) brought with them. I am constantly being instructed that I can’t look at certain plants because they’re “not native.” For example, my flat is on a hill, and when I walk out on a particularly nice day I look over at the surrounding hills and comment on their beauty. If I’m with Tamsin, I’m swiftly chided because those hills are covered with pine trees, which are not native and thus could not possibly by pretty. I am often questioned on what is native in America, and they never seem to accept the answer that I don’t know, or really care. They take nativeness really seriously here.
Anyway, of the plants that I am allowed to look at, I have noticed recently some awesome changes as the months progress. Now, to northerners this probably seems pretty obvious—duh, plants change when it gets to fall. But in the southern hemisphere that isn’t so true. In Australia, for example, the eucalypts that make up a lot of the flora don’t lose their leaves all at one time—they lose some leaves all year round, and shed their bark to get rid of waste. This means that you wouldn’t notice much of a difference if you were to visit for a week in August and then a week in December. New Zealand is the same in some respects… actually here I could be totally making things up, but I am pretty sure they don’t have deciduous trees. So you need to be here for a while to observe the small changes that do occur through the seasons. FOR EXAMPLE, when I first got to New Zealand it was December, and the Pohutakawa trees (also known as New Zealand Christmas trees) were beginning to blossom. They have beautiful red flowers and green leaves, and they flower through December and into January. So when I came back I was able to observe them some more, and then got really depressed as I started walking through carpets of red petals… there is now hardly a Pohutakawa blossom to be seen. Also, a few weeks ago I went up to a tree in our garden and saw these weird green pods. Now they’re orange! And falling off the trees! The same thing happened with purple flowers in Australia! It’s all pretty exciting, and is making me realize what’s nice about being in one spot for a prolonged period of time.
So I just realized that the rest of the post was probably far more interesting than the actual point of the post, and that this is way too long, but there you go. My dad was begging for a blog, so a blog he will get.

*Now that it is nearing the end of summer here, it has become even more difficult to say I did things during certain seasons. I mean, when I first got here I could say “over the summer…” and people would understand me, but now they won’t know which summer I’m talking about! Confusing.

Beat This

I am in Wellington. I am bad at blogging. Moving on...

Central Park is, of course, very nice. On one of my last days in New York I walked through part of it, near the reservoir. Though it was late summer, everything was still green and beautiful. The sun was out. There were lots of people lying in the sun or jogging or whatever. You could see skyscrapers peeking over the tops of the trees, which is always one of my favourite things about Central Park-- you can easily imagine you are in the middle of... well, not the country, but a not-quite-city, but then you look up and remember you're in New York. It's pretty awesome.

Also good is the Sydney Botanical garden. It goes right up to the Opera House, and I'm pretty sure you can see the Harbour Bridge from parts of it (one of my favourite things about Sydney is you can see its landmarks-- Opera House, Harbour Bridge, from a lot of places in the city, not just when you're right next to them). There are many plants and trees labeled for your botanic education (which I am planning a blog post on soon), and some of the trees have infestations of flying foxes, which is apparently a bad thing but is pretty cool when you look up and see all these bat-like things in the trees. I mean, provided the stay in the trees. I would not like those to come swooping down on me. Anyway, good garden. In a city. Sweet as. (I am so down with the antipodean lingo)

Even Hong Kong park is pretty nice. It's always fun to walk through on a Saturday and play count-the-wedding-parties... I'm sure everyone in Hong Kong must have the same exact wedding photos. It has an awesome aviary (when it's not closed because of bird flu), and the extra bonus of having an escalator that goes from the park DIRECTLY into a mall. Only in Hong Kong.

But...
On a clear, sunny, crisp day like today, I challenge you to find a city garden/park nicer than the Wellington Botanical Garden. I just went for maybe a half hour walk in it, and it was gorgeous. There are bits that are dark and shady and you don't see or hear anyone else, and bits of open meadow where lots of people (though, you know, in New Zealand "lots of people" is a relative term) are lying out. There is a beautiful rose garden where you can sit and have a cup of coffee and a pretty good lunch, and there are bits of seemingly uncultivated wood with only the slightest path through them. You have to walk up and down hills the entire time, meaning you get some stunning vistas of Wellington harbour and houses nestled on hillsides. As much as I like seeing the skyscrapers from Central Park, it is pretty nice to know that I'm only just outside the centre of Wellington and yet it's all houses, not apartment blocks, and most of what I see is green. And then-- bonus!-- I can walk out the top and either take the cable car down into the middle of the city, or walk five minutes to my flat. Bliss.
The only way I think it could be improved is by having slightly better signage near the Magpie Lawn. I got a bit lost.
I didn't take any pictures today, when I saw the nicest bits I've seen so far, but here's a picture from the top, where the Cable Car comes out, just to give a bit of a feel.