St. Paddy's Day in the City of Sails

The end of my second week of "orientation" ended with two Auckland events on the weekend. First was the celebration of St. Patrick's Day with a parade down Queen Street. There were shamrocks, kilts,and bagpipes as you might expect.

I was a bit surprised when the parade ended with the holy man himself, blessing the crowd, chasing out snakes, and acting the host much like his fellow-beatified legend St. Nick does  in December.

That same day, the racing yachts in port with the Volvo Ocean Race (mentioned last posting) had an in-harbor sprint for a few points prior to resuming on the next leg from New Zealand to Brazil around Cape Horn.

Earlier in the week we even got to board the Kiwi entry in the race, sponsored by Camper, a Spanish shoe company.

These boats are really lean, mean, racing machines. The galley cook can only boil water so the meals are all dehydrated food,

and the head is likewise quite basic.

We took a ferry across the water to a small neighborhood in North Auckland, Devonport, to get a better view of the goings-on.
  Devonport is a a charming seaside community that feels a world apart from the CBD even though it is only 15 minutes away. When the ships came about and headed down-wind and hoisted their spinnakers it was quite an impressive sight.

After a full day, we retired before the drunken excesses of the one-day-a-year Irish, but not before seeing the Sky Tower bathed in green light, a fitting tribute.

Sunday we moved into our long-term apartment, and Monday work started for real. More on those topics later.

Week One- Getting Reacquainted

My first two weeks here are designated for “orientation”, a loosely structured time of becoming familiar with the basic layout of Auckland City Hospital and the various personalities involved. I will go into detail about work after I go live” in a few weeks. Since I spent 11 months here a year ago, it is partially a matter of familiarizing myself once again with Kiwi ways. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed ginger beer and L&P soda, the fresh coffee cafes every 20 paces, the various biscuits on the shelves.

Previously, we had visited Auckland briefly three times. (I will link the previous blog posts at the bottom.) If you look on the map, it straddles a very thin isthmus between the large Tasman Sea and the gigantic Pacific Ocean. As a result, the weather changes often and rapidly, not hot or cold but much more humid than California. At 36.5’ South latitude, it is similar to San Luis Obispo in the north. The metropolitan area has 1.3 million people, or 30% of the population of the country. The topography is dominated by 50 extinct volcanoes, part of the Auckland Volcanic Field, so San Francisco-like, there are lots of hill and valleys.
I suspect if they could, city planners would want to take a mulligan on Auckland. I’m no expert, but there is no coherent style to the architecture. If not for the iconic Sky Tower (which Parthenon-like, looms over-head throughout the city), I would have no idea which city this is. See the montage below.

The highway system manages to slice up the CBD (Central Business District) so that walking across town is a challenge and yet it is still is not possible to drive in from the airport without meandering from one road to another through freeways and city streets. Even the historic Symonds Street Cemetery and final resting place of the first governor of New Zealand Captain William Hobson is transected by roadways.

Halfway across the Grafton Bridge between the CBD and the City Hospital there is a small sign and porthole pointing out the artwork in the median strip below.













Before we left the states we tried to tie up all loose ends but one was left hanging. For five months, we have been trying to complete re-financing our Richmond, CA property.  Despite our bet efforts, the final papers came through 24 hours after we left the US. No worries, they say here. Not so. What a huge hassle! I did not realize the US uses different sizes of paper than most of the rest of the world, and standard 8.5” x 11” and 8.5” x 14” legal paper is nowhere to be found in Auckland. They use A4 and A3 size paper here. I thought it was a result of the US refusing to bow to international metric pressure, but it is not that simple. A4 is 21x29.7 cm, and A3 larger at 29.7 x 42 cm.

Paper sizes- clockwise from upper left: Standard, A4, Legal, & A3

It has something to do with a German system from the 1920’s involving the square root of two (I kid you not). Wikipedia has a fascinating (for nerds) discussion of paper sizes here.
So what I had to do was print them up on the A3 and trim them manually to size. The next challenge was to get them notarized with a US notary, available only through the US Consulate at $50 US a pop. Post 911, the Consulate is not a warm and fuzzy place, but we got that down the shipped back express mail to Ukiah. Not easy or cheap, but we should soon hear if our efforts were successful.
The weekend was pretty relaxed, but we had to move from hotel #1 to #2, and hope to be in our more permanent place next week. The highlight was a walk down to the harbor for great fish and chips (“fush and chups” in Kiwi) at the fish market and to take in the festivities celebrating the stop of the Volvo Ocean Race stop. This is a most prestigious round-the-world yacht competition held every three years. There were a host of activities along the viaduct, including a colorful parade with sea creatures and mermaids.

Admiral Akbar's wife?

 I especially liked the jellyfish and sea anemone costumes, and would love to see someone rip-off the concept for the Mendocino 4th of July parade.

The racers were delayed in stormy weather coming from China and arrived in port later. More next week.

Prior Auckland posts: Introduction to Auckland and NZ, Topp Twins and Hot Beaches, and Finished and Unfinished Unfinished Business  (Auckland at the end of the posting).

The Road Back

Mom's 84th BD Party

It has been one year since I last worked in New Zealand and nine months since the last posting on my first blog (johnandfaynessabbatical.blogspot.com). A lot has happened since we returned to the US in June,2011 and we find ourselves headed back to NZ for six months.

What has happened?

1) I was able to spend a fair amount of time with my mother in the last few months of her life. It was a difficult time for her as she faced the slow deterioration of her physical condition and the final transition to whatever comes next. I take comfort in the facts that she had some measure of quality in her life up until the very end, that her suffering did not drag on, and that I was able to be with her in her final days. It was a very difficult time for everyone who knew and loved her, but I know she had a full, rich, and long life. She enjoyed her 84th birthday just one week before her death September 14th.

2) After she passed, a lot of my time has been taken up with duties as the Trustee of her Estate. There have been so many details to attend to, I won't bore you with the details, but I am proud to say that 90% of it has been sorted out in less than six months. My condolences to anyone who has had similar responsibilities.

3) My lovely granddaughter Kimarra, under the wing of her doting mother Sofia Maria, continues to grow and develop at a frightening pace.

Although they live in Phoenix, AZ, we have been able to spend time with them over Thanksgiving (in Albany, NY with Fayne’s family), both of their birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s, and both our birthdays.This week we had a 48-hour trip to Phoenix. Sofia lives a five minute walk from the spring training site of the Dodgers and White Sox.

Tommy Lasorda Holding Forth

Time for one more US of A hot dog! The kiwi version of the American hot dog is inedible.

Hot Dog!

4) I have worked exclusively as a hospital-based doctor in Fort Bragg. Given the current economic times, anyone who is employed has reason to be thankful. As I leave, Mendocino Coast Hospital is enduring some very tough economic times. For the sake of my community (and for my future employment), I hope that is sorted out when I return in September.

5) Dr. Nestler’s 90^th birthday party in Watsonville was a grand event. It is always great to spend time with my surrogate family.

The Birthday Boy

6) On February 26^th, I was able to claim the Arnold, Oscar’s lesser-known Austrian cousin.

The Arnold-2012

So why go back to New Zealand at this time? Mostly because I feel I have some unfinished business professionally. While there last year, I enjoyed my work so much, I applied for a permanent medical license. I was told if I worked a few more months, at least part of the time in a larger hospital like Auckland City Hospital, I could qualify. I also looked at returning to Timaru, but there wasn’t really an opening, and I didn’t want too much time to pass before completing my task.

The situation is different in many ways from May, 2010. I had no expectations and no experience in NZ before, and coming was part of a grand adventure, 50% work and 50% touring exotic lands. We found that everything about New Zealand far exceeded anything preconceived ideas. This time the decision is more pragmatic. If possible, I plan to work at least 5-10 more years as a physician because I still enjoy it and find it challenging. Maybe I will end up splitting work time between here and Fort Bragg.

We don’t plan to move. Fort Bragg is our home, and I don’t think NZ Immigration is looking to add permanent residents of our demographic profile. But having options is a good thing, and having the opportunity to be valued as an experienced doctor and mentor others feels good to me.

As always, there was a crescendo of details we needed to attend to, and most (but not all) got wrapped up in the week before we flew off March 1. We appreciated beaucoup David Nishikawa driving us to SFO, as well as the many hours he spent converting my prior blog into a printable book the size of a footstool. (If anyone is interested in a hard copy, let me know: it may be doable.)

Many people have encouraged me to take up the blog in order to keep track of us and vicariously travel to faraway lands. I choose to think these requests are sincere and not just humoring me. The new blog will probably be different too. We will have less free time to travel in NZ as we are taking two weeks at the end of June to return to the US for various events. We have already given the country a pretty good look-over, and we are not provided with a car. There are still many interesting nooks and crannies within a day of Auckland, and we can always take public transport or rent a car. I am open to any suggestions for the new blog as to content, tone, etc.

My contract ends in August, and we will be home in early September after passing through Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and the Galapagos, so that will be exciting.

We will miss our friends and family, and our blossoming daughter and granddaughter and our aging cat Saturday, but we will stay in touch and be back soon.