Wellington Eats

New Zealand Breakfast!  Start.  My.  Day!

That tea, along with the Spiky Melon and the Man Yogurt, was scored at the grocery store.  Along with magnificent peaches, plums, and avocados...  It was beautiful summer, so everything good was in season.  The tea is more mild than English breakfast, and has a little bit of bergamot.  Like English Breakfast and Earl Grey had a mild-mannered baby.

I also picked up some kiwi berries.  These you can find at home (at least in Philly) at the fancy-pants farmer's markets.  I've had them before.  Just like kiwi fruit, but with no fuzzy exterior.

There is obviously some British influences in New Zealand - they are a member of the Commonwealth and Queen Elizabeth is the head of state.  Even without seeing her face on the money, you'd still know of New Zealand's close historical ties with Britain.  I mean really, meat pies, sausage rolls, everywhere.

I even had a meat pie at the Te Papa cafe.  I think it was venison?  It tasted good, but the insides looked awful.  The girl who gave it to me was like, want ketchup?  I said no, and then she shrugged and said people usually did, so then I said yes.  I wanted to experience my meat pie the New Zealand way!  Which is apparently with Heinz 57.

Based on the advice of a local Wellington dude who was working the conference table, post-day of our talk, luggage resting comfortably in our hotel room, Rachel and I headed to the Mighty Mighty to people watch, catch some live music, and have a well-deserved drink.  Our Wellington contact said it was a divier place, but it seemed wonderful - bright and clean - to us!

New Zealand's close (relatively, compared to Germany for instance) physical proximity to Asia also means that there is a fair amount of Asian eats in Wellington.  Malaysian, Indian, Chinese, Korean, etc. I did have the World's Biggest Sushi for lunch one day.  I tried to put the chopsticks in as a size reference, but it didn't really work.  Let's just say they were regular sushi the size of futomaki.  Salmon rolls on steroids.

Night Market!  In the summer, every Friday off of Cuba Street in downtown Wellington!  Yes please!  A whole passel of us young'ins went and ate Szechuan noodles and a variety of dumplings, cooked as you watched.

Dumpling boat!  Dumpling fork!

Wha-ha-ha!  Starburst sucks!  It totally does!

But in all reality, a suck is actually what Kiwis call lollipops.  Rachel and I have extended this terminology to include hard candies, and spent all of last week jet-lagged, wandering around the lab asking people if there were sucks anywhere that we could have.

J'ai trait une vache! Or, Ottawa!

Ages ago, when my friend Canada Justine (girlfriend of former roomie Canada Steve) was in Philly for a conference, we started chatting about one of our mutual favorite (Canadian) musicians, and how a new record was out, how lives shows were so awesome, etc.  In the course of that, I said something along the lines of, "If he's playing at Bluesfest, I'm coming up to go to the show with you."

Of course, the list of musicians playing Bluesfest pops up, and guess who is playing the main stage a couple days after the early July holidays?  City and Colour.  So I start looking for airplane tickets...

Luckily for me, something intriguing popped up at work, which didn't necessarily require a visit to Ottawa, but which certainly was helped by a visit to Ottawa.  In short, some art showed up and I had questions about the artist's materials and techniques.  The artist was Canadian and was represented in all the major Canadian museums.  The National Gallery of Canada had some written references on the artist, and a couple speedy emails to Supervisors Greg's wife, the Lovely Anne, and I was set to visit the conservation labs at the Library and Archives Canada.  

So my visit was justified!  I had to do some research, close my Canadian bank account (like Mitt Romney, I too had an overseas bank account - but that's where the resemblence ends), and go to an awesome show at a massive outdoor venue with a friend!  Yay Canada!

First stop: the library at the National Gallery.  I was a little confused how to get into the library as a regular patron: as an intern, we had a clever little back door we could use.  And we were allowed to wander directly down into the compact shelving to browse.  But it all worked out!

How delightful.  Stuck to the back of the paper towel dispenser in the bathroom off the stair-ramp at the Gallery.  People: when you visit the Gallery, the bathroom to go to is the one off the stair-ramp, right at the middle.  There is never a line and it's always tidy.

The old roomies only had green tea.  Since I require stronger stuff in order to function, I hiked it down to the Loblaws to pick up some Tetley.  Note: now in Canada the British Blend has become Tetley BOLD.  It's a nouvelle allure.  Canada's a Commonwealth Nation after all.  Colonies are out, as it British Blend.  BOLD is in.

Even though the States have long since thrown off the Yoke of the Oppressor, our strong Tetley continues to be called British Blend.  This is nonsense: we should have Tetley BOLD south of the 49th parallel as well!

Anyway, the art research went even better than hoped-for.  And the concert was fabulous.  It was perfect weather for an outdoor show.

We sang along with Dallas (which is how Justine refers to the singer/songwriter of City and Colour, like they're besties).

My flip flop broke on the way out afterwards, so I had to ride the bus home looking like that drunk girl, even though I wasn't remotely drunk.  I ended up taking both off and walking barefoot back from the bus stop to the International House of Pancakes.  Which is something I would contemplate only in Canada, as it is so very clean there!  

Justine and I ate crumpets back at the house and recapped the show to a friendly but ultimately uninterested Canada Steve.  Oh well!

Trying New Things: Tea

Number one tea: Tetley.

I buy like two 80-bag boxes of Tetley every three months or so, and it requires a special trip to a slightly more-inconvenient grocery story, because the number one Tetley Tea is the British Blend.  (My life is soooo hard!  First world problems - wah wah wah.)  The tea bags are round, have more tea in them, and are even better at brewing darker and are thusly more effective at staining your teeth.

The corner convenience grocery by my apartment doesn't have any form of Tetley, so the other day I decided to branch out, but cautiously, with PG Tips.  PG Tips has a ridiculously awesome name, and is apparently England's number one tea.  Truth - I have actually heard/read of real-life English people drinking it, though when I was in England it was Tetley for me every morning!

Anyway, the PG Tips is good.  It will be my number-two tea.  Emergency run-out-of-number-one-tea or take-to-work tea.

So imagine my surprise when I did a little internet tea-stalking and discovered that the people that make PG Tips are also responsible for Lipton!

Ugh - Lipton.  Why is America okay with Lipton?  So bland, so weak, so nasty.  The tea of conferences - offered by those who only drink coffee, usually with water heated in a coffee pot, so it come pre-sullied with a nasty burnt coffee flavor.  The only thing a cup of Lipton is good for is watering plants: it's so gross.  You might as well just steep a cup of random sticks and leaves that you found in the park.

Interesting side-note.  Tetley British Blend was easy to find in Ottawa.  Once British people get to Canada, they become 250% more British than they were back in the home country, so they need the British Blend to survive in North America, even after they've become Canadian citizens.

There was a second British tea that was all-over Ottawa: Ty-phoo.  I never purchased any Ty-phoo, because the name is too close to Ty-phoid, and it made me think that either a) the tea was only good if you were sick, or b) the tea would infect you.  I did drink some Ty-phoo, and it was okay.  I didn't get Ty-phoid, but then I think my vaccination for that is still good.

Disclaimer: this is all my opinion, clearly.  You might totally love Lipton.  Whatever.