It seems that even cactus will grow here. We saw some big prickly pears and agaves in people's yards today.
We found a nice backpacker lodge here called Civello. We have a quiet apartment with kitchenette, private bath, queen bed and a twin bed in another room for NZ$79. The best part is the free internet. I had gotten spoilt at the first few places we stayed where I had free wireless internet, so I could use my laptop. Then we encountered the more typical situation: I need to pay NZ$2 for 20 minutes on someone else's computer. Now I am able to upload the journal I have been keeping on my laptop to my blog using my laptop.
Today we went on a self guided tour of the Art Deco architecture of Napier. This town was demolished by an earthquake and subsequent fire in 1931, the height of Art Deco architecture, and the city decided to rebuild in that style. Miami Beach is often considered the Art Deco capital of the world, but I have seen Miami Beach, and Napier is way better. It's on Hawke's Bay, with a long, gravelly grey beach. The backpacker lodge where we stayed is on Marine Parade, the boulevard facing the ocean next to a long park. I want to move here and give tours of the fabulous buildings. I at least want to come back some February to attend the Art Deco festival.
Opossums are a huge menace here, and they destroy an enormous amount of vegetation. Like most introduced species, they have no predators, and the only way to control them is to kill them. An opossum industry had sprung up to try to make something positive out of all this death and destruction. Today we went to Opossum World in Napier. I skipped all the taxidermied possum displays that Steve said explained the whole possum problem. I was captivated by all the clothing that has been made out of possum fur. It is as soft as cashmere, and much warmer. It's mixed with merino (sheep) wool, because the possum hairs are too short to make yarn by themselves. I bought a purple knit possum/merino hat, and Steve bought a cranberry red one. Are we styling now! We have been promised that it won't stink like a wet dog when it gets wet.
We made a quick stop in Taradale for wine tasting at the Church Road vineyard. We tasted three whites and one red for free, and found we could live without any of them. The Rough Guide said if we were lucky, we would be offered the vineyard's reserve Chardonnay. I said I liked their regular Chardonnay, so we were given a sample of the reserve for free. It was nicer, but not nice enough to part us from our money
The New Zealand election was yesterday. No one seems to care. There are seven parties represented in Parliament. Green and Maori are two of the parties. The Labour party (similar to citizen-oriented Democrats) has been in power for nine years, and the country wanted change, so now they have the National party (business-oriented, like the Republicans). Many people had told us they weren't going to vote, and no one seems very optimistic that things will change. Sounds like the U.S. in 2000.
Without exception, when people hear our accents, they say something positive about Obama's election. One man told us today the whole world breathed a sigh of relief. A man from Turkey said he is very impressed that we have a black president, and it shows that the U.S. really is the land of opportunity. Overnight, the world seems to like us again. We just hope Obama can do half of all the urgent tasks ahead of him. What a mess he inherited.
