Ethnicity: Undetermined

Leaving the US for New Zealand, Bryan and Jane knew that there would be some cultural differences in their new country that might be jarring. Unusual phrases and words, for instance, like "good on ya'", "no worries", and "jandals" were only to be expected in a land that not only separated from Britain centuries after the US did but also existed in relative isolation. Different geography, different people, different culture. The one thing they did not expect was having to try to figure out how to define themselves in relation to this new culture.

Like good British descendents, Kiwis are obsessed with their familial and ethnic identifications. Knowing that your grandfather came from County Cork and settled in New Plymouth while your grandmother came from Glascow and settled in Wellington are your tickets to a past that a country as young and as muddled as New Zealand can't offer you. Once you've figured out your half-Irish, half-Scottish, all-Kiwi identity, though, you then have to reconcile that with the fact that there are 4 million people living around you who are not that at all. After all, New Zealand wasn't an escape just for former Brits and Irish but also for Germans, the Dutch, Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Samoans, Tongans, Fijians, and many others. There's also the native Maori populations to consider. With all of this diversity, it is no wonder that the simple nature of the human mind demands some kind of categorization, some way for people living, for the most part, in a foreign land to figure out who is just like them and who is not. That is where the unique Kiwi classification system comes in.

Bryan and Jane were first introduced to Kiwi ethnic categories when they went to sign up for a medical center. New Zealand, being a proper Socialist state, provides health care to all of its citizens, residents, and people with work visas, but you must register with a particular medical practice before you can reap the minimal benefits of your extraordinarily high taxes. So one day while Bryan was at work, Jane wandered up to a medical practice located in a little house just a few blocks from their home to sign them up. Just like signing up with any doctor, there are forms to fill out, detailing your basic medical history and other relevant information that your medical care provider might need - like your billing address. Jane dutifully ticked the boxes related to family and person medical history but became stumped when asked to check off her's and Bryan's ethnicity. There were only four choices: European, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Maori.

Of course, taking into account the source of this question, the correct response for the Smiths would be European. The medical centers in New Zealand ask this question because the current medical opinion is that different ethnic groups experience disease differently, and so your doctor needs to know what your genetic background is so he/she can treat you appropriately. But the broader implications of such a question made Jane not automatically tick the European box. Hadn't Americans proved through centuries of war and political policy that they were not Europeans? Couldn't Bryan and Jane have different medical problems than Europeans since none of their family had lived in Europe for at least three generations? What about the fact that they were both mutts, both a cornacopia of European ancestries? What if some Native American, Middle Eastern, Asian, or African genes had slipped into their genome at some point in the distant or not so distant past? Would they still be European? After all, whether or not they knew it, all Europeans are actually mutts, the products of a torrid history that many of them would like to forget.

With all of this in mind, Jane decided that it would be irresponsible of her to label herself and Bryan as Europeans, and so she took advantage of the small space at the bottom of the form to draw an arrow from the Ethnicity heading and write in "American."

The Southernmost Capital in the World

Though Bryan's office is located in Parnell, Auckland, the major offices of IRL are in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.  Even to the people of New Zealand, Wellington is not considered to be a city - "more of a big town," is how Bryan and Jane most often heard people describe it.  Wellington is situated at the bottom tip of the North Island along the coast of the Cook Straight and nestled among a ring of volcanoes, making landing a plane a very interesting experience.  To this big town of a capital Bryan took his first business trip in early April.

The big bosses down in Wellington wanted to meet Bryan and his fellow new hire Biswajit.  Upon their arrival on a Thursday, they were given a tour of IRL's offices and labs and introduced to their Kiwi counterparts there.  Later in the day they gave twenty-minute presentations of the work that had gotten them hired, or to Bryan's mind, gave mini dissertation defenses.  On Friday, after a day of meetings, Bryan was met in W

ellington by Jane who flew down to spend the weekend with him there.

People had told Bryan and Jane that Wellington was a great town when the weather was nice, but unfortunate

ly, they wouldn't know because it rained and was windy practically the entire time they were there.  The rain and wind, however, did not deter them for getting in a great Wellington experience.  

On the first night, they climbed the highest volcano in Wellington, Mt. Victoria (named for

the queen, of course), and looked out over the city and the Cook Straight toward the South Island.  

The next day, upon waking up to discover that it was again raining, Bryan and Jane spent the morning at Te Papa, the national museum, which bore much in common with the Auckland Museum, just with an emphasis on New Zealand earthquakes instead of on New

Zealand volcanoes; it seems that a fault line runs right through Wellington.

In the afternoon, the sun came out for a bit, and so Bryan and Jane decided to check out the some of the bush surrounding the city.  It only took thirty minutes of walking from the center of the capital to get to the middle of absolutely no where: no buildings, rural roads, and trees as far as one could see.  Could you do the same in Washington, DC or London?

The particular bush walk that Bryan and Jane embarked upon took them over a canopy walk

(a bridge that passed through the canopy of the bush), past a couple waterfalls, over some 

streams and through dense areas of bush.

Deep inside the forest, Bryan and Jane even got to see and touch the North Island's oldest Kauri tree. 

 

When they had completed their circuit through the

Wellington bush, Bryan and Jane caught a bus back into the middle of the capital.  They got off a little before the bus got back to their hotel so that they could check out the

government building, known affectionately (and not so affectionately) as the Beehive or just the Hive.  The Capital Rotunda or the Halls of Parliament it was not, but those buildings wouldn't have fit in in this big town of a capitol.

Beware of the Tides

Having moved into their new apartment in one day and looking forward to two days of vacation, Bryan and Jane decided to head out on Easter Sunday morning to the beach town of Piha.  Located about thirty minutes west of central Auckland, Piha sits on the eastern shore of the Tasman Sea, the body of water that flows between New Zealand and Australia.  People at Bryan's office told him that Piha was the place to go for a day at the beach.  There's even a fairly popular TV program in New Zealand called "Piha Rescues" about the life guards at the beach.  Where could be a better place to spend a late-summer day than there?

The drive out to Piha involved narrow roads that wound up and d

own a series of volcanoes and hills.  Bryan enjoyed whipping their new station wagon around

the bends, while Jane held on to the door for dear life while peering out her window at the jagged ravines below them.  Once they had reached the apex of a particularly

 high hill, Bryan pointed out to his left and said, 

"There, that must be the beach."  And indeed it was - the seemingly endless Tasman Sea roaring out to the west.  Bryan, Jane, and the Corolla curved down the hill toward the black sandy beaches of Piha.

At first sight, it seems that there is something terribly wrong with the beaches of Piha.  Waves crash in three cycles - one about 100 yards out to sea, one about 50 yards out, and one on the shore itself - a product of the mighty waters of the ocean coming into contact with the giant rock formations standing sentinel just off the shore.

Pools of water about 2 or 3 feet deep form along the beach, and little children splash and play in

these mini, waveless oceans.  And then there is the sand: black.  Volcanic material in the soil

around Piha turns the sand into a soft ebony color that heats up intensely in the summer

Southern Hemisphere sun.  Bryan and Jane keep their flip-flops (of jandals, as they are called in New Zealand) as they walk from the parking lot to the beach.

Piha offers much for the visitor.  Bryan and Jane spend the next five hours wading in the shallow waters near the shore to climb the foremost rock formation, riding the powerful waves of the Tasman and attempting to avoid the s

trong currents, and putting on their socks and sneakers to hike the trails through the bush that surround the main beach.  As day slips into dusk, Bryan and Jane get back in the car and head to a more secluded beach, where they walk the wide open vastness of New Zealand's western shore as the sun sets.

Moving In

Driving along American highways, it is not unusual to see billboards ostensibly written by God, proclaiming things like, "Don't make me come down there."  A few days before Easter, a billboard of this ilk appeared in downtown Auckland.  On it was written "I took three days off at Easter too."  Kiwis, you see, get a nice four-day weekend at Easter: Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays.  As Bryan began work on the Monday of Holy Week, his first week of work was only four days long followed by a four-day weekend.  Bryan may have thought that this made him God-like, but it must be remembered that God's first week of work was six days long followed by one day off.

That those particular Friday and Monday were holidays

 worked out well for Bryan and Jane for the Saturday in between was their move-in day.  For nearly two weeks they had been living out of their suitcases in hotels around Auckland, first in the cramped Hotel Formulae 1 right downtown and then in the student apartment complex Columbia nearer the University.  They were both looking forward to having a place of their own again, somewhere to come home to, even though they wouldn't have much to decorate the place with seeing as most of their worldly possessions were packed in a container on a boat floating along somewhere in the Pacific.

Most of the shops in town were closed on Good Friday - Kiwis may, over all, be a secular people, but they know how to legislate for a religious holiday.  Bryan and Jane spent much of the day packing up their hotel room, taking a break at 3:30pm to attend services at the Catholic Church in their new neighborhood, St. John's of Parnell (not that the patron St. John was from Parnell but that that is where the church stands - there is no St. John of Parnell, as far as we know).  The church was tiny, holding probably 100 people at most, and that would be pushing it.  The Good Friday service only attracted 20 to 30 people, though, so there was no fear of being overcrowded.  Satisfied enough with the congregation there, Bryan and Jane decided to join them again the next day for Easter Vigil.  As Bryan pointed out, there's was probably the first Easter celebration in the world - 5:30pm in the first time zone.

On Saturday morning, Bryan and Jane awoke early to check out of their hotel (at last!) and run some necessary errands before meeting their new landlord at 4

pm to move into their apartment.  First on the list of necessary things that must move into the apartment with them was a TV followed very closely by a grill.  They also made a stop at the Kiwi Wal-Mart equivalent The Warehouse to pick up some sheets and towels as well as a few pieces of plastic dinnerware and some cleaning products.  Their new landlord had told them that they could use an old futon mattress of his to sleep on, and the previous tenants were leaving a few things that they might also find useful.  At least they knew that they wouldn't have to sleep on the floor.

Scott and Sarah, the previous tenants, were slow movers, and so Bryan and Jane ended up parking their car, laden with everything they had in the Southern Hemisphere, at their new place and

 walking to Easter Vigil Mass.  Had it been a regular Sunday Mass, Bryan and Jane would not have been too surprised to be leaving the church just over an hour after entering, but for an Easter Vigil, which generally takes two or more hours, blinking into the sun at 6:40pm was not what they had expected.  Filled with the light of Easter, Bryan and Jane made their way the mile back to their new home.  Scott and Sarah were shoving the last bits of their material lives into a beat-up Fiat as they walked up the street.  With those two gone, their new landlord Greg led them into what was now, officially, their place.

*For those interested in the truly unusual, check out either the Wikipedia entry or the web page of Bryan and Jane's landlord Greg Hallett.* 

9 to 5 or 6

After nearly two weeks of apartment hunting, car shopping, and sightseeing, it was time for Bryan to start his first job. His father had joked with him that he thought that he would never live to see the day when Bryan would no longer be a student, but twenty-two years and six months after he first set foot in a classroom, Bryan was about to embark upon his first day of work. He had had summer jobs, of course, but this was his first permanent job - one that he had to report to nine hours every day, five days out of every week. He would now have to get up early every morning and sit at a desk all day; quite a change from his easy, flexible days as an applied math graduate student. One consolation that Bryan had, one thing that helped him ease into the working world from the grad school world was the informality of his new office's dress code. His jeans would not have to be reserved for the weekends, and tucked-in shirts would not be required, a small comfort.

Much like Jane imagined he acted on his first day of school, Bryan woke up very early on March 17. His first day of work was St. Patrick's Day, surely an auspicious sign of the good things to come. He dressed in a new outfit that he had bought in Chicago weeks before he had left: a polo shirt, khaki pants, and a new pair of dress shoes. The dress code at Industrial Research Limited was a loose one, but Bryan wanted to look nice on his first day. Jane reminded him as he dressed of a Dilbert cartoon in which someone informs Dilbert that customers don't trust an engineer who dresses well - the worse dressed you are, the smarter they think you are. Bryan tucked in his shirt anyway.

Without his usual Sports Center to watch, Bryan had to content himself with a New Zealand morning show on TVOne. It being St. Patrick's Day, Breakfast had a roaming reporter stationed at an Irish pub in Auckland that had begun selling it's first Guinnesses at 7am that morning. This reporter even talked to one man who had already had three pints of Guinness and was preparing to head off for his day of work. It seems that every part of the Irish diaspora celebrates in style . . . or at least drunkenness. Bryan's beers would have to wait until the evening, though, because he was off to work by 8am.

Little Red Wagon

Since they had landed in Auckland, Bryan and Jane had been told that they would need a car. The city of Auckland is a sprawling metropolis, or at least as sprawling as a city can be with only 1 million people in it. With only a mediocre bus service and ferries connecting the two sides of the city together, Bryan and Jane knew that if they wanted to see more of the city than what was within a mile or so of their apartment, they would need a car. And so they spent several days walking through used car lots trying to decide on their right-hand-drive car.

Before coming to New Zealand Bryan had been enchanted with the idea of owning a vintage Mini. As if his American Miata wasn't a small enough car, the compactness and character of the original Mini intrigued him and now that he found himself living in a former British outpost, it became the car that he decided would be his next toy. Every time a Mini crossed their paths, Bryan always pointed it out and said, "Now wouldn't that be a great car to drive around in?" Of course, he recognized that it wouldn't make a very practical every-day car; for that, Bryan and Jane went to the Asian importers.

Because of strict emissions laws, most Japanese car owners replace their cars every four years, selling their old car to Australian and Kiwi importers. Like the former British colonies, the Japanese also drive on the left, so their cars are perfect for the ANZ market. The one thing about Japanese cars that Bryan found a bit disturbing was the tendency of Japanese drivers to trick out their cars: big stereos, race-car seats, spoilers, and lots of other little extras that made almost every car look like it had been on an episode of "Pimp My Ride."

Car lot after car lot, Bryan and Jane circled around the Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, Holdens, Fiats, and Fords peering in the windows to see the car was automatic or manual. Before they were married, Bryan had warned Jane that her Saturn would be the last automatic she would own, and she had sold that car off on a snowy night in Chicago in late February.

They were at first looking for a Subaru (pronounced Sue-bar-ou by Kiwis), but it turned out that they did not age well in the Pacific. The last Subaru they test drove was missing chucks of its body, and Bryan felt that it did not handle well. It was all rather unfortunate for the salesman who had been helping them, for he thought that he was going to have a sale that day, but as they drove back to the lot, Bryan and Jane both knew that they would not be going home with that car. All of the car salesmen they had met thus far had been pleasant, non-aggressive people - so unlike American used-car salesmen. They allowed Bryan and Jane to walk around their lots and did not pressure them to buy a car they did not like or try to get them to look at cars outside their price range. The salesman at Buy Right Cars was no different, but he had been looking forward to selling a car to the two Americans. Not to be defeated, the salesman invited them to look around a bit more and see if there was anything else they might like. "We've got a manual Toyota at the edge of the lot that you might be interested in," he informed them.

Mostly to humor the friendly salesman, Bryan and Jane checked out the red Corolla wagon. Bryan had been of the opinion when they began their car search that there were only two types of cars worth owning: a two-seater or a wagon. As they neared this particular wagon, Bryan and Jane also noticed that it had a sunroof, another one of Bryan's car desires. It was also not as tricked out as many of the other Japanese imports they had seen had been. During the test drive, Bryan further found out that this little wagon had a lot of power. Bryan and Jane left the lot after the test drive, but they returned four hours later to buy the red Corolla wagon. The Mini would have to wait.

Waiheke Island

As the day for Bryan to begin work drew nearer, Bryan and Jane decided to spend some of their remaining free time exploring the more resortish aspects of Auckland. Finding a beach or a bush to walk through are not difficult even from the center of town. Go fifteen minutes or less in any direction, and you will be in the middle of nowhere with nothing but lovely vistas around you. On one particularly sunny day, Bryan and Jane decided to head a little farther afield than they had thus far been and hop a ferry to Waiheke Island.

Waiheke Island lays about 17 km across the Hauraki Gulf from the city center, just beyond Rangitoto Island. Heavily populated for a Gulf Island, Waiheke boasts a thriving art community and is a popular destination for international tourists looking for a couple days on the virtually deserted beaches. To get there from Auckland, Jane and Bryan boarded a ferry in the harbor along with what seemed to be a traveling cadre of British biddies. These women (it could be gleaned from their conversations) had left their husbands behind in Bristol, Kent, and Sussex to come out and enjoy the tail end of New Zealand's summer. What a post-imperialist would have to say about them! They all worried out loud about how their men back home were getting on and laughing that at least they didn't have any washing up to do while in their own private paradise.

The ferry ride lasted for about half an hour, moving swiftly through the salty water passed inferior islands that don't have ferry docks. Landing on Waiheke, Bryan and Jane picked up a map and decided to take the two mile walk to the Mud House Winery. Waiheke, it turns out, is home to several wineries. Though not as prolific as those in Hawkes Bay or Marlborough, the Waiheke wineries put out decent wines at fairly reasonable prices, but their main attraction is their magnificent location. Following a series of deserted roads up the mountainous terrain of the western edge of Waiheke, Bryan and Jane came upon the Mud House Winery. The humble entrance to the winery belied the beauty that existed within. Walking up the dirt road surrounded by grape vines, Bryan and Jane came to the heart of the Mud House: two house-type dwellings, one offering wine tastings and the other a restaurant. Bryan and Jane entered the first of these buildings, blinking as their eyes adjusted from the sun, and were greeted by a friendly woman behind a counter. This woman then proceeded to tell them a little about the winery and got them all set up for a wine tasting. Having never done a wine tasting before, Bryan and Jane were a bit self-conscious as she poured out the seven different wines, describing the scents and flavors that could be found in each as well as a bit about the process that went into making them. To Jane, at least, they all just tasted like wine, some better than others, but she could not pick out the many things she knew she was supposed to be sniffing and sipping for. Bryan, however, did not seem to be as flustered, offering up comments to the woman behind the counter after each glass.

Having drunk their $5 worth of wine, Bryan and Jane reemerged into the sun and walked around the winery and its vineyard, the beauty of which can really not be described. Up a hill to look out over the entire island and back down again, passing fully ripened white and red grapes as they returned to the path that would lead them back to the road.

As they had walked up to the Mud House, Bryan and Jane had noticed a sign tucked between some bushes that announced a tramping path to Blackpool Beach. Intrigued by this sign and the indiscernible path that was promised behind it, Bryan and Jane left the main road and set off into the bush of Waiheke. It turned out that this tramping path was not for the faint of heart. It went first straight up the same hill that Bryan and Jane had climbed in the winery only to immediately send them back down it. On the way down, they encountered obstacles in the form of barbed wire fences and horses; it seemed that the path had lead them onto someones private property. Trying to rectify the situation, Bryan and Jane set off down a muddy path alongside a wooden fence that looked as though it headed to something that looked like a beach. Knocking brambles off their socks and pushing past palm branches, Bryan and Jane found themselves on the promised beach. They walked the length of this beach back to a main road, which took them to the center of town.

Now to say "center of town" is a bit misleading, as the center of Waiheke consisted of two cafes, a video store, three real estate agents' offices, a vegetable stand, and a cleverly-signed butcher shop. But there was a sign prominently displayed along the main street that pointed in the direction of a beach. Bryan and Jane decided to check this beach out as well, and so headed in the direction indicated by the sign. Little did they know that this sign would lead them down the steepest walking hill known to man, with switchbacks periodically placed on the way down so that you could actually walk it. The beach at the bottom, however, made up for the difficulty in getting down to it. White sandy beaches, only a few people dotting the shore, and about a dozen boats anchored about 100 yards out to sea. As they walked along this beach, Bryan and Jane saw that the British biddies had also found this hidden treasure (though they probably took the bus to get there).

With the sun beginning to set, Bryan and Jane took the road back to the ferry. As they traveled back to Auckland proper, it began to sprinkle. "We left just in time," Bryan said. And indeed they had, for it began to rain harder as they made their way from the harbor back to their hotel.