return of the king

i've got a new king.

which is sort of odd, as i never had a king before. or a queen. and i guess if i become a kiwi i'll have a king -- the above pictured Tuheitia Paki, and a queen, Elizabeth, since this is a British Commonwealth nation.

dude, i'm like rolling in royalty! and sheep too! i'm rolling in royalty and sheep!

for the price of an airline ticket you could be as well...

it really is far away here.

i have to say that i'm somewhat shocked at the photo the press supplied of the new king. he's described as humble and hardworking but in this photo he looks more like a laborer (sorry, "labourer") called back early from his coffee break (sorry, tea break).

no disrespect intended. just i would have thought they could have found a photo without his hands in his pockets. he is the new king, after all.

but i guess he is also the new king whose mother just died and there's nothing funny about losing your moms.

for those of you who have no idea what i'm talking about, here in New Zealand the native people are Maori and they have a new king. as far as i can figure out the king has no official role in the elected goverment which regulates both Maoris and Pakeha (the rest of us).

still. a king. all hail. vive le roi. hip hip hoo-ray your majesty!

we've been in En Zed for a week now and my impressions of the place are starting to congeal a bit. it's not nearly as foreign as i expected. it's quite a bit more deserted than pictured however. on the train down from Auckland i saw a peacock, a million cows and a trillion sheep but little in the way of people or towns. a quarter of the population lives in Auckland and it's just a million peeps.

we did not lurve Auckland. it's pretty, but not exciting.

Wellington is better. it is small but has a sizable number of interesting restaurants and bars and what appears to be a genuinely friendly populace. (guy steps on my toes in the bar, stops to apologize twice.) hopefully these factors will make up for the weather, which has been fair this week. as opposed to normal. which we're warned is windy and wet. they say, "oh yeah. this is a northerly wind. nothing really. it's the southerlies. those come from the antarctic."

ha ha ha. the antarctic!

we've tromped about the town's extensive park system. we've explored the downtown a bit. we watched the national rugby team, the All Blacks, knock the Australians for a loop. we've met a mess of interesting people through our hosts and as of yesterday we've taken over full residence of our first home in about a year.

we made dinner. watched lord of the rings.

today bartlebee is meeting with a professor at Victoria University to see if she can get into his lab this fall (read = March). if she can, we'll spend approximately two weeks going, "here? we want to live here for 3.5 years?" and then hopefully commit. if she can't, i guess we start making googly eyes at Melbourne.

i go back and forth over which sounds better.

i think it's probably going to be more interesting here and friendlier. there we'll have a much stronger community to start with and better weather and likely more in the way of work options.

'cause king is taken and i'm not sure i'd be a good shepherd.