Summer Palettes

The sky above finally clears and assures us below that blue can indeed stretch from horizon to horizon over Western Washington. Looking at the ground when my eyes are not turned up toward this hopeful summer expanse, a gathered coat of white reminds me of another summer-time scene from the near-underside of the globe.


In New Zealand, the Pohutukawa trees inevitably shed their soft pink bristles and coat the ground around them. A year and a half ago, I paused on a well-tread sidewalk and, stepping down next to the curb, bent low to capture an essential part of the land's summer palette, seen in the photograph above.


Here is my driveway today, and the concentration of nature's shedding and settling in this particular land.



And I just have to share photographed evidence that the skies surely cleared. The sun shone fearlessly. The temperatures climbed brazenly (that's all subjective of course, considering the high was around seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit).

Eating dinner inside would have been an injustice to this gift of a day, so I tossed together a panzanella inspired by a leftover portion of Breadfarm's Black Olive Baguette and settled into the mossy grass outside my front door (picking white fluff out of my bread salad along the way).

NZ: The Loose Ends

I've been thinking about New Zealand a lot this week. Not just the country as a whole or the way saying it tugs at my heart but the specific memories from my most recent residence there.

Finding a coffee shop to frequent in Bellingham reminds me of Caffe Massimo in Takapuna and the strength of their cappucino, which always came served with a familial wink from the owner.

Boarding a bus and seeing Bellingham from a whole other viewpoint reminds me of the rides across the Harbour Bridge into downtown and how I spent my last few trips trying to engrave that beloved skyline into my memory. It reminds me of giggling with high school girls as we headed to the shops or the beach and how beautiful those young ladies were (are). It urges me to seek out eye contact with the bus driver as I step off and make sure to send a "cheers" his way...but it's not the same here as there. And it would be dull if it was.

Changes have been stewing ever since I landed in Bellingham (much more permanently than I expected). I feel so grateful that, in the settling, newness and adventure still have created days of inner smiles as I squirm uncomfortably and/or excitedly. I still have reasons to take big gulps of air, to wonder about the unknown, and to be reminded that so much of what I picture isn't at all what comes to be. And that's for the better.

I'm seeking community once again and yet am in the unusual place of already have some automatic "ins". Family, for example. A few lasting friendships from those days when Bellingham really was a brand new place as well, when I was a (naturally) blonde nine-year-old with a lingering Kiwi lightness to the ends of my sentences. I'm grateful for what has lasted through so many years and for what is to come.

Before getting further into Bellingham life on this blog, though, I need to wrap up the loose ends from New Zealand. It will come more in pictures than words because there are just too many stories over the course of the three weeks my mum and sister and I spent traveling the north and south islands. Reunions with old friends are among the dearest moments. But swooping narrowly between peaks to land in Queenstown, cutting through water of the darkest teal as fjords framed the way for our voyage to the Tasman Sea, and slipping into the rhythm of left-side driving while leaning to the right and the left with each curve of road that took us around the Coromandel and through dense fern growth and alongside near-deserted white sand beaches, these experiences were priceless in their own right.


Road to Milford Sound I


Road to Milford Sound II


Milford Sound


New Zealand Flax


Our friends' llama


Ella and her chicken


Inside Christchurch Cathedral


Mum


At She Chocolat at Governor's Bay


On the Mount in Tauranga


Bush walk to Cathedral Cove


Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula


Elise


Northern beach along the Coromandel


Looking west across the Coromandel

A Summer New Year's: A New Cafe and Its Fries

In these catch-up posts on my four months in New Zealand, it's worth including an update on the coffee shop I endorsed so highly back in October after a weekend in Raglan. My friends and I returned to their bach for New Years weekend and we were all very excited for stops at the distinctive artsy Tongue & Groove as often as we could justify needing coffee in one day.

As it turns out, we walked right by the entrance to the cafe and then stopped at the doors to the next store, confused and bewildered. (I was the one more so bewildered as my confidence in how well I had learned the blocks of Raglan's main street in my last visit were now in question and my generally reliable sense of direction also up for examination -- at least internally, for, upon stopping, the rest of my company immediately understood that this familiar spot had simply been replaced. That's right, entirely gutted and replaced.)

While we all shared in a healthy dose of mourning for Tongue & Groove as we sat down in these new surroundings, it didn't take long for us to appreciate what was before us: The Shack. A bright white sunny old beach house turned cafe with less grunge than its previous resident and a bit more swank. The wide wooden boards lining wall and ceiling had been entirely painted over in clean white and uniform paper globe lights hung high over our heads. Apart from the warm-hued wood trim still around windows and doorways, the only other prominent colors came in striped fabric in cheerful oranges, yellows, pinks, and whites that covered a low L-shaped bench running along the back wall and part of the length of the room.





I have no critiques of their redesign. I think they created a lovely new space that I would be happy to live in. However (if I must point out a negative), it did seem awfully chick-y, though that didn't keep the place from staying full all weekend long with both men and women...my sister and I even sat next to some high school age boys while waiting for a take-away order of curly fries.

Somehow I neglected to get any pictures of the food and don't remember anything too distinct about it. Except those fries. Kiwis seem to live their fries (most often referred to by the British term chips) because I really don't think the amount of fries I'd eaten the previous five years amounted to the quantity I consumed in New Zealand...especially if you count Burger Fuel's kumara chips, which have already received one mention of affection on this site.

Anyway, back to The Shack's fries. We got a rather late breakfast our first morning in Raglan, so my friend took it upon himself to jump straight into lunch fare and order curly fries. At 11am and paired with my morning coffee, I was not drawn in and let the rest of the table pick away. However, every time we walked by the sidewalk-lined tables outside the cafe throughout the weekend, every table seemed to have at least one large bowl piled high with the cute curly fries complete with a bright sprinkling of fresh parsley. So on the last day the craving got to me, and as we were heading out of town, my sister and I made one final stop and placed an order for the road and grabbed a cold sweaty bottle of ginger beer. I won't blow these fries out of proportion by saying that they were the best I've ever had, but they hit the spot on that summer afternoon. Their batter was crisp and lightly coated each pure white spiral, hitting that spot of salty and starchy that many of us wish we could stifle.

As for the rest of the holiday season, my sister and I got to spend Christmas day
with dear old family friends and feel truly welcomed as family. This was in Tauranga, a city we only spent a few days in and that I remember most strongly as the place with the Wild Life Park...a quirky experience recorded on my 35mm, which reminds me of all the rolls of film in my closet nagging to be developed.

Between Christmas and New Years we were in Taranaki near New Plymouth having a wonderful time at our friends' dairy farm. I kept procrastinating on pulling out my camera during this time and sadly realize now that I have very little to show of the spectacular views we saw and even less of the dear faces of people we grew closer to. I'll offer what little I have.







Stay tuned. Just one more post on NZ, and then I'm jumping into the exciting happenings of my present life in Bellingham, Washington. Truly, they are exciting! I can't believe the opportunities that have opened up to me recently and can't wait to share.

Three Girls and an Island

Think rolling hills. Think wide hedges and closely shorn fields of green. Think of all of this dropping away to rocky points and white sand beaches. You've reached Waiheke Island (or any number of islands in the world, actually), but my sister Elise, her friend Amanda, and I set out very specifically for this one on a Monday morning in December. And we're so glad we did.



It became one of my absolute favorite NZ days.

We caught a ferry from downtown Auckland and gave ourselves a full day to see the island: the quiet beaches, the artsy shops, and (mainly) the wineries. Sitting down for a cup of coffee and perusing the shops took all of an hour, so we wandered down to a beach to kill some more time before tasting rooms opened/till we felt like it was late enough in the day to healthily start drinking wine.





The wonderful thing about these two people I was with was that they were both within two years of my age - a rare experience after working and living in a community where I was most connected to toddlers, high schoolers, and moms of university students. Also, they loved photo ops, especially jumping ones and goofy ones, which gave me no excuses in my tendency to focus my camera lens more on food and scenery than people - a subject matter that still often intimidates me. It didn't necessarily make for professional material (as you will see) but the cheesiness still gave me practice. Oh, and I was back with my loverly sister again, who had been off on her own New Zealand adventure for the past two months.





Our first stop was Mudbrick, a vineyard and restaurant boasting the most spectacular views and coziest, classy decor. As soon as we pulled into the gravel parking lot and peered through our rented old station wagon's windows, we were gushing. We oohed at the restaurant's long french-door lined wall. We aah-ed at the outdoor stone fireplace bordering the rows of vines. And, really, I don't think we shut up for the next nine hours.

We had gotten to experience Waiheke on a perfect sunny summer day, and driving through the quiet winding roads on the east side of the island as well as visiting Te Whau and Wild on Waiheke (don't judge the name like we did - or the gunmen firing laser guns at claybirds in the field next to the driveway - just drive on in and make sure to taste their beers...and ginger beer!), we snapped more pictures with our mind's eye than was possible with camera lenses and said over and over, "Isn't this beautiful?", "Aren't we glad we did this!", and "Do you think the owner of Mudbrick has an eligible son who'll marry me?"











At the end of our day, we landed back at the vineyard we'd fallen head over heels for (do I need to say Mudbrick again?) and had an elegant dinner in a quiet dining room flooded with golden evening light. It was certainly a splurge but the experience will not be easily forgotten. In fact, I very much hope for it to be refreshed before I have to climb the steps from the car park with a stooped back and silver grey hair...or in the next ten years would do fine too, thanks.

Been Missing You

Why is it that at some of the most important times in life journalling and recording habits show themselves the least?

It seems to be because sitting still and alone any longer than necessary shows itself as missing out on the fullness of the moments. At least for me. Especially in front of a computer (unless, of course, I'm watching Friends or Glee episodes with a friend or sister - let's just pretend that's justifiable).

So here I am after my longest break from One Hungry Soul, haunted by all those photographs I snapped and memories I now grip with a wistful heart. A degree of their narrative is forever lost by not leaping toward a pen and journal at the end of their day, the sharpness of their reality is vignetted and muted by letting days upon weeks upon months pass between their existence and this clicking of keys. And my mind becomes weary in the effort of recapturing. My heart grows achy.

I don't mean to slip into melancholy. I don't desire to turn this post into a complete recovery of times past either.

However, I do have some goals. I still want to share with you some of the highlights of my last five weeks in New Zealand. My plane lifted out of Auckland on January 26th, and I cried beneath that sleeping mask for a good duration of our flight over the Pacific. It was bizarre and unexpected behavior on my behalf, being a girl who embraces change and seeks adventure and is always pulling for tears when a goodbye is at hand. So my conclusion is there's something to be said for those four months in kiwi land. Something sweet and special and still not fully understood. In an outward sign of gratitude and joy in all I experienced, I want to share with you. I hope you find the pictures pleasing and the stories entertaining and it all of worth in your own travel plans, if they ever take you down to a certain little country near Antarctica that's known for its sheep and flightless birds and All Blacks and Southern Alps (let's leave Lord of the Rings out of this for once).

Here's a little preview of what's to come...













I promise you won't have to wait too long this time!

Fire in the Sky

While November in the United States means that the craft stores fill with cheap, mass-produced wooden turkeys and cutesy pumpkin-orange "Happy Thanksgiving" signs*, here fireworks stands begin to pop up and kids shift their attention immediately from their Halloween lollies to explosives and sputtering sparklers.

The month's much-anticipated holiday comes earlier here (November 5), but it tries to stretch out the length of its celebration as long as possible. While Guy Fawkes Day has great significance in the history of Britain, over the years it seems to have been reduced to one primary element (as holidays often are): fireworks. It seems that my neighbors have been conserving their firework stashes, because even as we were watching a movie last night -- three days after Guy Fawkes -- flashes of light were illuminating the darkness outside the living room window.

On Friday night friends and I got our fill of fireworks by driving out to Kumeu for a fireworks show that sent the young girl next to me on the crowded lawn cowering into her mother's arms. Crying out louder with each explosive boom that penetrated her small palms clapped over delicate ears, I felt sorry for the little one, but enjoyed playing with the aperture, shutter speed, and focus of my camera for the following shots.









*Just to be clear, I love Thanksgiving and all things fall related (okay, most things). It just so happened that today the inside of places like Hobby Lobby and Michaels popped into my head before turning leaves, pumpkin bread, and knit scarves. These latter things will always have a place in my heart.

Weekend by Weekend

I have one lament concerning Auckland. I acknowledge I was thoroughly spoiled by my last big-city experience. Three weeks in San Francisco somewhat raises one's standards of convenient local transportation and not only does Auckland lack this but it is so spread out in comparison to SF that walking is not nearly as much of a happy alternative.

So I'm covering this city inch by inch, weekend by weekend and that means I still have loads of ground to cover. Especially because when I say Auckland, I mean North Shore City/Auckland City. Just go with it.

Last weekend I got to explore new areas with a new friend and my feet loved the walk up Queen Street -- the mingling with the locals, the discovery of an orangey-red vintage purse on K. Road, the details on the old buildings, the worn signs on the new, the countless Asian discount shops, and the kumara chips (french fries) at Burger Fuel. (Yes, I have come to love a place with such an un-lovely name as Burger Fuel. But you would, too, if you tried their well-salted kumara chips with creamy, garlicy aioli.)

Details from the beautiful afternooon: