Despite being sick I have been VERY busy - both at work and in my off time - so that's always a good thing, right?
I guess since I last posted, I've been snowboarding again - and realised just how different it is to snowboarding in California. First and foremost, I've never really worried about the weather at Big Bear - not so on Mt. Ruapehu. My plan was to travel to the base town, Ohakune, on the Saturday, arriving in the late afternoon, and therefore too late to make it worth my while to go up the mountain that day, but leaving me all day Sunday. As my bus was leaving on the Monday at 2pm, it also meant that if I was feeling up to it, I could snowboard in the morning on Monday. Well, Saturday's weather was GORGEOUS (so everyone who came off the mountain that day informed me). Sadly, this was not the case on Sunday - the mountain was closed because of gale forced winds, which left me trapped in Ohakune, by myself, in the pouring rain and raging wind at a backpackers lodge called the Hobbit Lodge (which was renamed b/c Mt. Ruapehu was used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as Mt. Doom).
It was also when I awoke on Sunday morning that I first realised that I was getting sick....not good. So spent the day chilling and woke up to a beautiful day on Monday - but felt like CRAP. Did this actually stop me from going up the mountain? Hell no! And it was totally worth it! Especially since the last time I was at Turoa, you couldn't see anything, I was able to enjoy some amazing views!
View going up the ski lift
View from the top....or as close as I could get that day :)Now, aside from thoroughly enjoying my morning on the mountain, I did learn something else about NZ that's kinda interesting:
Being sick sucks. Being sick when it's cold, wet and rainy, sucks even more. Being sick when it's cold, wet, rainy and nobody heats their houses - UBER suckage!! my lungs still hurt!
Additionally, as I've mentioned in previous posts, I was involved in preparing the bones of the racehorse, Phar Lap, for his trip to Melbourne on loan. Well, we took him down, with the media watching carefully (gotta watch out for those microphones, they are sensitive little suckers!!) - got him back to the lab and then spent the entire rest of the week doing the condition assessment. Do you know how many bones a horse has? Lots! (more than 200) - and we had to assess each one individually. Well, when I got back from snowboarding the following Monday - you guessed it! Too sick to actually take part in the treatment! (which, granted, involved only some minor overpainting, but still!!)
Another lesson learned? New Zealanders get REALLY upset if you come in to work when you're sick. My supervisor was NOT impressed with my determination and insistence that I was just fine, when really I was about to keel over - so I ended back home in short order, which is where I spent nearly the rest of the week.
Back on work, FINALLY on the Thursday, I went back to work finishing off the treatment of a plunket scale (used to weigh babies) from the 1940s, which was part of the 20th Century exhibit.
On the following Monday, I finally started taking my Maori Te Reo classes (Maori language). Very cool! I've learned some basic conversation starters:
Kei te pehea koe?
How are you?
Tino pai/Kao pai/pai
Very well/okay/fine
Morena!
Good Morning!
Ata marie!
Peaceful day (can be used for good morning, but only if it's nice out!)
There's a bit more, but I'd have to double check my notes to make sure I'm spelling things right!
The end of the week (Weds-Fri) was spent in the smaller town of Palmerston North (still bigger than the town I grew up in!!), which is a couple hours north of Wellington, where, working with Nirmala Balram, another conservator at Te Papa, we did condition assessment, and stabilisation of five huge wooden Maori carvings (these were used as palisade posts on Maori meeting houses). An added bonus? The people of Palmerston were so excited to have us that they called the local paper! So here's the link to the actual article - and yes, I look VERY focused - which is hysterical, b/c I was told to pose for the photo, so really, I was just really focused on not looking at the camera!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/4020688/Precious-carvings-getting-special-care/
My one point of contention with the article? They stated that I was from the States - which was truly ironic since in the actual paper article, there was a small box article RIGHT next to our article talking about how Canadians hate being mistaken for Americans!!
Sadly, we were only able to deal with the fronts of the carvings in the time that we had, but Nirmala will be returning in May to finish the backs while they are being put back on display.
Photo taken from another website of a Maori meeting house - note the carved posts on the eaves - that's the kind of object that we were working on, just to give an idea of scale...Coming up this week at Te Papa, I'll be taking part in the take down of an exhibit - so more to come on that soon! (ish)
