Home for the holidays...

Christmas is always a magical time and it can be quite weird living in the southern hemisphere for us northern hem folks. Growing up with snow and christmas trees and all the trappings of the winter christmas aesthetic can be quite disorienting when you find yourself in the middle of summer having BBQs and hanging out on the beach. To make it weirder they still have xmas trees and all the wintery decorations down here.

This year we decided to come home for a bit of christmas cheer. Jen and I will be in Chicago from Dec 17-23. MN from 24-30. Chicago again for New Years. Jen flies back to Auckland, New Zealand on the 7th of January I think. I fly to San Francisco on January 9th and back to New Zealand on the 17th (to arrive on the 19th).

Should be a blast and hope to meet up with any one that happens to be in these cities.

Cheers,

Matthew + Jen

Visitors, Visitors and more Visitors!

Hey,

Well after almost 2 and a half years, we finally had some more visitors. First off Rebecca came for 2 weeks (woot!). We had a great time and travelled all over the place including a big trip to the south island. We went to Dunedin, Queenstown, Glenorchy and on the north island, Wellington, Auckland and lake Taupo. A bunch of other stuff in between of course. Great time.

Runi and Walter came out for their second visit (what's everyone else's excuse for not visiting now?). They just left yesterday and hopefully are safe back in Florida by now. They brought their friend Charlie from New York who rocks and we all had a great time. Our friend Ed also visiting from Sydney in the middle of this trip and we all had a blast.

Thanks again to all who came out to visit and hope you some experiences to remember for a lifetime.

Cheers,

Matthew + Jen

Archaeological survey, my ass

I have retired to the cozy couch under a blanket after a ridiculously long day of survey at Whatipu this fine spring day. A few learnings today:

1. I rented and drove my first car in NZ, right hand drive, through traffic and then ridiculously windy gravel roads. I know kung fu. Err, or wait I know how to drive!! Think left, think left think left. Turn signal on the right, WIPERS on the left, duh!

2. More water is not enough water. Silly rabbit, a little water bottle is not enough water for this kind of work. Especially when the tap at the carpark says "boil or treat all water before drinking" and it's 15k to the nearest store. +1 for thirst.

3. Don't choose the Giant Probe. It's heaviest, and even a bit dangerous when the operator is tired. Even if it does go deeper, it's just not worth +2 exhaustion.

4. Gratuitously large GPS devices that can zap your loc AND check your email while you are also editing your thesis in Word are stupid. +1 exhaustion for each extraneous piece of software on the damn thing.

5. Walking in sand is hard. Walking muddy, shitty flooded trails between dunes and the hills is harder. Somewhere upland, a cow is looking down at me and laughing.

6. When the trail ends in a little swampy lake, for goodness' sake Stop Walking. Don't roll up your pants and try to boulder hop through it with a pack full of electronic gear. Repeat: a probe is not a stabilizer. Heed the warnings of the geese who are honking at you from across the swamp, and Go Back.

7. Oh, Toto. Heed the little dog who barks at you to Come Here, there's Something Cool Here. He will lead you to a lovely little pa with terraces, and show you how to shimmy through the gorse to see the eroding midden.

8. Being someplace beautiful makes everything okay somehow. -25 exhaustion for serene beauty, black sand, bird calls, ocean waves, cool caves and green.

40th Annual Auckland Film Festival

Well for those that know me, you'll be shocked to hear I am going to see a screening from the festival today. I generally don't "do musuems" and definitely don't do "art". I actually do, but usually in my own way and in accordance with my own style which is usually a lot "less cultured" than what other people consider art.

Any ways, here's the website for those film geeks out there: http://www.enzedff.co.nz/

Some pretty cool stuff playing actually. Today I am seeing "King of Kong" which is a documentary about the world champion of Donkey Kong, which you will probably remember as an old 80s video game.

Recently I have even seen 2 foreign films (and you can't blame Jen as she is still in American Samoa for another week). I saw My Best Enemy (an Italian film and I don't recall the actual Italian name) and Camille Fauque
... aka Hunting and Gathering. I really like the Italian one. Hunting and Gathering was decent but a bit slow for my taste and I didn't feel the motivation of some of the characters.

So who knows maybe I will become an art movie buff, but don't hold your breath :)

Matthew

Coming to America

If its good enough for Eddie Murphy, then I guess its good enough for me.

I sent out an email to most everyone I could think of, but I am sure I forgot someone.

Anyways, I am coming to the US to visit for 2 months. New Zealand is going great, but it will be nice to visit friends and family again.

Here's the rough itinerary (I have my NZ->US tickets bought, but not my interior travel yet, so this may drift by a day or two)

September 8th Fly to San Francisco from Auckland (Mon)
9 - San Francisco (Jet lag)
10 - San Francisco
11 - San Francisco (Thursday: 1984 club night? )
12 - San Francisco (Friday: burritos at Marachis/El toro and drinks at Zeitgeist?)
13 - San Francisco
14 - San Francisco
15 - San Francisco
16 - San Francisco
17 - San Francisco
18 - Fly to Chicago (Thurs)
19 - Chicago
20 - Chicago
21 - Chicago
22 - Chicago
23 - Chicago
24 - Chicago
25 - Chicago
26 - Chicago
27 - Chicago
28 - Chicago
29 - Chicago
30 - Chicago
October 1 - Chicago
2 - Chicago
3 - Ft. Wayne, IN (Ben Folds Concert) (Fri)
4 - Drive to Boston (Sat)
5 - Boston (Sun)
6 - Boston
7 - Boston
8 - Boston
9 - Boston
10 - Boston (Fri)
11 - Boston - Lots of people going to be in Boston for wedding (Sat)
12 - Boston
13 - Boston
14 - Boston
15 - Boston
16 - Boston
17 - Boston (Fri)
18 - Somers, CT
19 - Somers, CT
20 - Somers, CT
21 - New York
22 - New York
23 - New York
24 - Philadelphia (Fri)
25 - Philadelphia
26 - Philadelphia
27 - Drive from East Coast to Chicago
28 - Chicago
29 - Chicago
30 - Chicago
31 - Chicago (Halloween) (Fri)
November 1 - Chicago
2 - Chicago
3 - Drive to MN
4 - MN (Jen's family)
5 - MN (Jen's family)
6 - MN (Jen's family)
7 - MN (Jen's family)
8 - MN (Jen's family)
9 - MN (Jen's family)
10 - Drive to Chicago from MN (spend night there)
11 - Fly to San Francisco (spend night there)
12 - Fly to New Zealand

SF - 9
MN -6
Travel Days - 9
Chicago - 20
Boston - 13
CT - 3
PA - 3
NY - 3

Sir Elton John

Well, I went to see Elton John last night.

The tickets were so expensive I am embarrassed to say how much I spent and that was for the nose bleed seats. The good seats were double what I paid. Even in NZD this was still alot. The concert was pretty cool and was on May 14th, 2008 at Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand. There was no opening act, which in my opinion is always a good thing. Also he played for about 3 hours which is awesome.

He was very modest and friendly and kept thanking various parts of the audience after each song. He also stopped to sign about 70 autographs before his encore which I thought was cool.

The crowd was pretty old and mellow during most of the show, but people started to get up and dance towards the end of his set.

His set started off kind of wonky with a lot of slow whiny songs and a few old slow songs. Then in the middle there were these 10 minute jazz jams made out of every song which started getting annoying. Most of his songs are cool pop ditties that are over in 3 minutes and leave you wanting more and hearing a 10 minute version that builds and wanes and builds again gets annoying after a while. I think he could have mixed it up a bit more and played the crowd a bit more as well. It is hard to work the crowd when you have to sit down to talk in your piano mounted microphone... maybe he should have worn a headset too.

The piano playing was awesome! The music was awesome, and had some really interesting guitars (including a banjo for one song). All the "traditional" instruments like strings and brass were from a synthesizer and weren't that good. It would have been awesome to have one more band member playing various instruments during different songs. The drummer was the original drummer and for an old guy, kicked ass.

Here's a few songs I remember from the play list:
Tiny Dancer (awesome)
Levon (Awesome)
Daniel (awesome - hi Clare!)
Bitch is back
Sorry is the hardest word
Crocodile Rock
I'm Still Standing
Saturday nights alright for fighting
Candle in the wind
Someone saved my life tonight
Honkey Cat
Rocket Man
Benny and the Jets
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
I guess that's why they call it the blues
Take me to the Pilot
Pinball Wizard

Encore---
Don't Let the Sun go Down on Me
Your Song

=======================
One song I wanted to hear was "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" but he didn't have a female duet for it. Also I remember a few 80s songs "Nikita" and Sad Songs Say So Much which he didn't play. I think he played most of his hits other than those though.

All in all a good show, a chance to see a legend play, some great piano work and some awesome pop music!

Cheers,

Matthew

Wellington

Hey all,

Just got back from a solo trip down to Wellington for the weekend to just have some fun.
I flew down Friday and had a Reiki treatment. I then saw "Across the Universe" movie at the Embassy theater (that's where they premiered the Lord of the Rings movies... beautiful old theater). I think
I sat in a seat where one of the hobbits sat for the premiere as each seat still has name plates.

I met a woman that lives here with her family via another friend that came out to visit and we have kept in touch a bit. She was nice enough to invite me to stay over at their house and I took her and her 7 year old son to see the Hurricanes play Australia in rugby. It rained cats and dogs, but we all had a blast! She works for Telecom here and they had an office party before the game based on an Austrian theme. Had tons of food and games and stuff. A lot of fun and good to see some people with Team Spirit!

On Saturday I saw two fringe plays and saw another friends Gypsy band play live. That was awesome. He is also in a Ska band which I saw on Sunday morning at the TePaPa museum. I also got to go one of my favorite restaurants "Sweet Mothers" which is a New Orleans style southern restaurant!

Sunday I mostly hung out with some other friends I met via Runi (Nikkie and Frankie) and we had Malaysian for lunch and wandered around Cuba street for a bit and went to a friend of theirs place for tea. Sunday night I found a place called the Malt House which has about 40 different beers and has some really good selection, although nothing from America. I talked beer with the manager for a while and tried a few new ales out, then saw a comedy at the cinema. Also got in a few workouts at the hotel gym over the weekend and lots of walking so all in a great time other than crappy weather.

Cheers,

Matthew

New Friends

Hey all,

Just a quick update to say Jen and I finally made some good friends here. We met a nice couple from of all places New Hampshire (hi Ben and Kate!). They rock and have helped us meet some other cool people here that they have come across. We also met some other new people via Jen at school. It's weird that she is the more social one for once. I have met a lot of "acquaintances" here, but haven't met a lot of close friends yet.

One thing we have found is that kiwis are harder to get close to. It can take months to a year to lay the basic foundation of a relationship without scaring the other person off or rushing the relationship too much. This makes it really hard to meet people fast and definitely creates a preference towards meeting international people that live or are visiting here.

In other news my birthday is coming up again. For those of you who know me, you know that means birthday "month"! I think I will whittle it down to birthday week this year since I don't have that much I want to do, but I am hoping to go out with some of our new friends for dinner/drinks and then to the international comedy festival in Auckland. Should be a good time. Oh, and Jen is taking me out for a steak dinner. We found a place called the Angus Steak House that just serves steaks... how perfect.

Matthew

Dig two!

I just returned from my second dig. This one was a lot closer to home, about 2 hours from Auckland. We camped for two weeks in a sheep paddock, and were rained on for several days (though thankfully we did not have to dig in the rain!). Good news: the tent is waterproof. Bad news: I have no interest in camping for months to come. The landscape was incredibly beautiful, and it was sad to think that the area is being turned into a landfill next year.

This dig was with a local CRM firm (associates that dig archaeological sites as a business, as opposed to those that dig for academic research). I have been toying with the idea of working for one of these firms when I graduate.

This learning experience was brought to you by the Business of Archaeology. Not all it is cracked up to be, there are no neat squares and fussing over stratigraphy. A backhoe comes in, scrapes off the turf, and then someone with a probe (big metal stake) runs around as he continues to scrape, trying to identify features and decide whether we know enough to change to manual excavation (ie, get out the spade & trowel and move more dirt). It's a big, noisy, massive dirt moving operation. There are also time and budgetary concerns - not that academic archy doesn't have to deal with that, but in general I feel those excavations are a bit more thoughtful. I'm still pondering whether I really want to be involved in this type of archaeology...

Jen and Matt's photo album

The firm trucked in hot showers, which totally saved the day. The sun was hot (as it always is in New Zealand!), and I turned a new shade of brown I've never experienced before. By the way, I found out that it is not the fault of the hole in the ozone that causes all this hoo-haa about sun exposure down here. It's the massive reflection of the water surrounding this narrow country. So says Dr. Rod Wallace, and he's pretty much an expert on everything.

Tomorrow, school starts again. Gosh, it was a long summer break!

Lake Taupo

Hey all,

Jen and I just got back from a 3 day trip to Lake Taupo here in New Zealand. Basically if you have ever been to Lake Tahoe it is pretty similar although a bit smaller and most of the activity is on one side of the lake. There is also a lot less mountain/forestry and more water related activities.

We rented a small house for a few days and just tried to chill out mostly. We went to some geothermal hot springs for some soaking, played some mini golf, got some food, watched School of Rock, read books, just basically hung out. It's about a 4 hour drive each way and the trip is pretty. We rented a car for the duration which was nice... also gives us a chance to hit the grocery store without needing to take a cab.

While watching Tv we also saw that Duran Duran is playing here in March! Woot! I rushed out to the local internet cafe the next morning (tickets went on sale the next day luckily) and although I was a bit late, we got awesome seats (Row 23!)
Really looking forward to Duran Duran as they put on a great show. I saw them in
Boston a long time ago and even though the sound was out for 75% of the show, I still
had fun!

Well that's about all for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

Matthew