I've been reading Angela's backposts, and I have to wonder... when does she get all the time to write these things for her blog? I love the little anecdotes and stories, told in such a casual, friendly way that it's hardly like reading at all, and I feel like she's sitting right in front of me telling me the story. I can hear her voice through the words on the screen.
And I take a look at my own writing, experiences, and I sense a difference. I guess I have to take into consideration here that she is experiencing an entirely different culture, exposing herself to such a different lifestyle. If she were actually in the room, actually telling these stories, she would be staring at me with my jaw gaping open and my eyes full of awe. Not because of the stories themselves -- they're only a small part of it. It's her courage at flinging herself into this new culture and taking every opportunity to get the most out of it. I understand how difficult that can be. Luckily she's got a bit of a support network to fall back on, but it can feel like a very thin net when standing all alone in completely new place, with everything totally foreign.
In my own travel experience, I'm not really immersing myself into a new culture. At least people here speak English (more or less, with the obvious cultural variations), and even if they don't drive on the right side of the road, the British colonization and subsequent immigration that laid the foundations for the culture give the place a familiar enough feeling.
As with most cities I've visited, Auckland has its own flavour, a pulse that beats through the movement of the people living there, of the people passing through. The different neighbourhoods with their own variety combine to make up the city's beat. In the eastern beaches where Greg is now living, I sense a comfortable, relaxed, almost Californian quality surrounding me. Cyclists and joggers zip by in their fashionable sporting clothing from sunrise to sunset, or meet in cafes that seem to be tucked into every part of a neighbourhood just so nobody has to walk more than a couple blocks for a low-fat-no-whip-mochaccino or frozen-white-chocolate-cappuccino-light-whip-topping. After dark, very few people walk along the beachfront or through the streets. They keep to their beautiful half a million dollar homes that overlook the darkness they know to be the water, watching television or reading a book or shining the silverware, or whatever it is they do in the evenings in houses like that.
And in the Central Business District (CBD or Downtown), a totally different vibe flows through the streets. Cafes are open later; the well lit streets offer more than the deserted dark shops out in the residential areas. The pulse of the city beats the strongest here, and people flow through the streets, passing each other in waves, eddying around the intersections where traffic waits for the hoards of people to cross in every direction. This is business, of every kind - from the guy begging for change to the executive in his suit hurrying to his next appointment, from the shops selling every kind of goods to the banks exchanging every kind of currency.
Learning this pulse of the city, these movements, is just a different way of learning about the people that surround me. I'm not inundated in cultural differences, but this city is as different for me as any and I want to learn how the people here live. I may not meet many people on this trip, but I will certainly have an opportunity to pursue a relationship with the city itself, and that can be rewarding in its own ways. And I can always come back and see how a month, a year, a decade has changed the city I had begun to know.
Chicken Avocado Salad
Chop the following into ~1 cm cubes into a bowl or container with a lid
- 1 Avocado (ripe)
- 1 Tomato
- 2 celery sticks
- 1 med carrot, grated
- ~2 Chicken Breast or ~5 chicken strips, cooked & refrigerated
- 1/2 cup grated cheese
In a seperate bowl, mix the following dressing:
- 1 heaping spoon mayo
- 1 heaping spoon yoghurt
- 1 small tsp lemon juice
- garlic, corriander, salt, pepper, seasoning to taste
Drizzle dressing over avocado and chicken mixture, cover with lid and shake to coat with dressing.
Makes ~4-5 side servings
Tomato Cream Sauce
A tasty sauce for chicken or any meat where a cream sauce could use a little "something more."
Once meat is nearly cooked, melt a spoonful of butter in hot pan (separate). Cook finely chopped onions and crushed garlic until the onions are clear (caramelised). Add Sundried tomato and chopped fresh tomato. In a small dish, melt a bit more butter in the microwave, add a spoon of flower, and small amount of milk. Stir until there are no lumps. Add milk to onion and tomato mixture (as much as desired), and while stirring, add milk, flower and butter mixture slowly. Add seasonings (honey, salt, pepper, chili powder) and cook until mixture begins to thicken.
Pour over cooked meat and simmer to let cream mixture seep into meat, add fresh herbs/seasonings and cook another minute or two. Serve over bed of rice.
Makes ~4 Servings (depending on amount of meat).
