Mom's in Town--

Well my mother swung by Auckland while on her whirlwind tour of New Zealand and Australia with our family friend Ann. They've been here already for two weeks now, and this was the first I have seen of her. They stayed at the fine accomadations at the Railway Campus for two nights (don't worry, not on my floor, I got them their own room!) They arrived late Monday night and I was ready and waiting with a bottle of Lindauer Special Reserve Champagne (it was on sale AND said special reserve, clearly the pick for my mom!), dried apricots, dark chocolate, and New Zealand rose apple slices. These snacks were much appreciated and we stayed up until far too late sharing pictures and stories. My mom even brought me a little stuffed sheep from the south island. He's so darn cute, he's even getting a picture in my blog. I wish I could explain just how soft and fuzzy he is. To a smell extent, it's helping to curb my desire to run out into a field and simply hug a real sheep. With 60,000,000 sheep and only 5,000,000 people in this country, the odds of sheep hugging are quite high.

The next day I didn't have class until 5pm, so we spent the whole day together. At 8:30a we went to the Mascot cafe for breakfast with my roommates. I'd forgotten how nice it was to go out for breakfast. Better yet, how nice it is to be awake before 11am. I had crepes with bananas and maple syrup, they were called pancakes, but you can be sure that they were most definitely crepes. After that we walked to the ferry building and hopped on a ferry to Waiheke Island. This island in Auckland harbor houses a large number of vineyards. The morning was positively gorgeous, probably the nicest one so far in Auckland: sun shining, light breeze, mild temps. Once off the ferry, we went straight to Mudbrick Vineyard for winetasting. We all decided that there really wasn't anything there that wowed us. Nevertheless, winetasting is always a fun affair. Why people spit the wine out in the little spittoon is beyond me. We also decided that when my brother buys a vineyard (BTW, Bob, you're buying a vineyard) it will become a family run ordeal. My mom slated herself for janitorial duty because she said that's what she did at home anyway. Ann would wait tables with her ability to talk to ANYONE. I would be the hot chick that poured the samples at the wine tasting (clearly this is a fantasy world) and Bob would hide away in the winery blending and sampling wines until he final found something up to snuff for him. Ahhhh the vineyard life....


I had then arranged for lunch reservations at the vineyard in their quaint little restaurant with a gorgeous view of Rangitoto Island and the Auckland skyline. This decision got two thumbs up (or four, really) from my Mom and Ann. The food was tasty (albeit expensive) and the atmosphere lovely. We then walked to town and looked around in shops, galleries, and supermarkets. At the little supermarket, I found a personal-sized container of Movenpick Stracciatela ice cream. Now you must understand, Stracciatela is just a fancy italien word for chocolate-chip, but this concoction deserves a fancy name. The vanilla ice cream is so rich that it's almost butter, and the hunks of chocolate far exceed "chip" proportions. My mom (the one allergic to dairy) even ventured a taste and concurred: "amazing."

We returned from Waiheke to Auckland because I needed to come back and get ready for class. My mom then stole all of my $1 coins for laundry. Bear in mind that you NEVER get $1 coins for change here, so I am going to struggle the next time I need to do the wash. I then went off to two hours of class while Mom and Ann got their things organized for their departure for Sydney, Australia the next morning. I was definitely struggling from sleep deprevation and a long day outside in the sun because that class was harder to stay awake in than class at Holderness at 5pm after skiing for 3 hours (Holderness folks, you know the kind of eyelid falling I'm talking about!) I wish I could include a scanned copy of my "notes" from class. My normally pristine, anal handwriting is flat-out illegible; I can't read a thing on the page cause I was literally falling asleep in the middle of words: oops.

After class, I came back, cleaned up and got ready for dinner at the sky tower. You'll note that I scheduled the entire day around meals; that was clever of me, wasn't it? Looking spiffy we headed out to the skyline icon. The restaurant rotates at the rate of one revolution per hour. While we ate, we enjoyed the city lights over the entire Auckland area. The food was also fantastic and given the setting, reasonably priced. We got out of there for $30NZ a person (that's like $20US) and I enjoyed roast lamb served with eggplant and potato frittes, grilled brocolini (I know my brother is salivating, now), and a mochacino. Bear in mind the trip up the sky tower alone is nearly $20NZ and that was included in our dinner cost. Sure beat a $10 kebab.

We returned back and uploaded our pictures for the day--I showed Mom and Ann how to use ofoto.com. I think the lesson was a bit lost on them, but it was worth a shot. They finally went to bed and headed off to Sydney at 4am the next morning. I was left to finish my week, write a paper, and attend class. One assignment, for my Poetry off the Page course was to do a poetic transformation, ex. take any poem and change the way it looks typographically, visually, etc. Have a look at mine at http://www.geocities.com/bpantazelos/danserusse.html I leave this afternoon for Sydney, although I almost didn't get there because New Zealand was having a super-fun time playing hot potato with my passport and visa. I tracked it down less than an hour ago, but am all set to go to Sydney now (they got my passport back to me a mere 5 hours before I leave for my flight). I am generally in better spirits now with that weight lifted off my shoulders. My roommates already left for Aussieland at the crack of dawn this morning. We will be dining with them this evening upon my arrival. Tomorrow night Mom, Ann, and I are going to see La Boheme at the Sydney Opera House. I am so excited for this opportunity. I have never been to an opera before and now I am going to THE opera (feel free to pronounce opera with three syllables and your best british accent).

I will most certainly report back with pictures and tales from Australia for the weekend. Hopefully I will get some work accomplished on the plane rides there and back.

Betsy.

P.S. I now heart blogging. I have written soooo much more than I would have in a journal, and I love that I can share that with all of you. It's such a great procrastination tool for all those partaking. I can write for however long I want, and you can read to distract yourself from whatever you're supposed to be doing. Enjoy!