November - Summer is coming! Pendulum, Rugby League, 'Justice Meal', Awhitu Peninsula

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I’m getting really slack at keeping up with the blog so will try to do my best at remembering the last month!

I spent most of the month in Auckland, enjoying some pretty good weather as we come into summer! A typical weekend at the moment is spent at the park or beach. The closest beach – Mission Bay – is about a 15 min bus ride away (plus 20 min walk to the bus stop), so I have been chilling at the beach, topping my ‘xmas tan’. Although by Sunday evenings, there is usually a bit of red to accompany this. I can’t get over how strong the sun is. Regardless of the temperature, if the sun is out all day, you can get burnt anytime of the year. The sea is just about warm enough to swim. Pretty cold at first but once you’re in, it’s nice to cool off on hot days!

Pendulum played in Auckland (this was back in October) so it was good to see them again. Typical crazy Pendulum concert, where you come out feeling like you’ve just had a shower!

It would have been great to see the All Blacks play but unfortunately the Union season was coming to an end when I arrived, so hopefully I can get tickets in the autumn. However the League season was still underway and I saw the Kiwis play Australia in the Four Nations at Eden Park. It was the first League game I’ve been to, (still prefer Union) but a good game, with a few big hits. This was the last group game and both teams had already qualified for the final, which was the following weekend in Brisbane, so Australia had rested a few big players, but still managed to beat the Kiwis convincingly. It was really good to see the Haka. It was a different version to the usual Ka Mate, and some players reportedly said they were concentrating on getting the Haka right, that they lost focus on the game. But to be fair, they went to back to the Ka Mate version in Brisbane, and won the final as big underdogs.

After that weekend (game in Auckland), the main headlines were about crowd trouble! There was a game on before and it was a pretty hot day so a lot of people had a few beers by the time the Kiwis got on. It started with the Kiwi fans booing the Aussie national anthem and after an hour when the game was pretty much dead, there were a few fights and arrest. There was an Aussie fan on his own, and every time they scored he stood up on his chair, turned around and just waved his flag with a massive grin on his face to all the home fans. So it was inevitable that there would be problems with him! The Mexican wave got going, and quite often people throw scraps of paper in the air, but this time bottles (plastic) were being thrown, which was quite funny at the time, but apparently there were a few injuries!

Kim invited me and Tim (other intern) over for dinner which was pretty nice. Quite a unique household with her being half Swedish, half English; her husband – Japanese; her Mum – Swedish, two Japanese au pairs and five dogs! The au pairs cooked a Japanese curry which went down well with some NZ white wine. Admittedly, white wine is starting to grow on me!

As for the cricket, it’s been nice to actually benefit from the time zone for the first time! Play starts at 1pm over here, so I managed to watch the first half hour of the The Ashes, albeit not a great one, with Strauss going out 3rd ball! But I saw the evening session on the 4th day with Cook and Trott dominating the batting, whilst enjoying a free pint and fish & chips.

Story behind the free meal: rewind to my birthday when Chelsea and Arsenal played at 4am, Monday morning. I found a pub (Fox’s) which said they would play it (on their website). Turn up at 2am to catch another game on before, but they were shut! So we just went to the casino and watched it. But I thought I’ll email Fox’s to complain as it could be worth a free compensation pint. They were very apologetic and sent a $50 (£25) voucher, which paid for two of us to have a pint and dinner, cheers! (I like to refer to this as my 'Justice Meal').

Also during November, a few of us spent a day at the Awhitu Peninsula. It was nice to get out of the city, especially as we heard it was overcast all day there and sunny where we were (Auckland microclimates). It was just a really nice place to drive around and explore, with a few beaches and hilltop views.

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