Christmas in the summer might be less weird than having Easter in the fall and and Halloween in the spring, but it's still pretty weird...

My God, how the time flies. I have been here now for a grand total of 16 days. Which sounds like a lot more when you say "over two weeks", but it still feels long. I have been a bad blogger for the last week, so I'll have to do a quick wrap up of the weekend.

Mt Eden has been an interesting experience. Within the first hours even, I had dubbed my hostel "a haven to hipster British ex-pats and awkward German tourists", which is in ways an apt description and in others a bit unfair. In truth, I have come to like this place which I prematurely judged as unfriendly. It couldn't be further from unfriendly, especially, as I've found, when you make an effort with people and don't write them off at a glance (this sounds obvious, but the crowd here seems rather unapproachable in the beginning). I have met some really interesting people and had some great conversations with the people who've stayed for days, weeks, months in this little house. Anyway, there are a lot of Brits and even more Germans, but there have also been a few French, one Dutch, one Spanish, and one friend I was particularly fond of from Poland named Yhatzig. I have done everything from clean out the drains in the kitchen sinks and showers to lend a pair of my jeans to a (male) Liverpudlian who needed something "more presentable" to wear out, here at my hostel where I have now been staying for almost two weeks. I agreed to clean for accommodation, which is actually a rather common way for backpackers to save money here in NZ, and wanted to leave immediately when I arrived. But I am feeling differently now, and might even miss the place when I go.

Anyway, there is a German girl named Steffi who is staying in the same room with me and even arrived the same day, also to clean. She is doing the whole working-holiday scheme too, from Germany, through another affiliate organization of IEP. She is very sweet and we've become friends in our time here. It's nice to have someone to talk to, hang out with, and occasionally go places with here.

Last weekend, Steffi, Nicola (another German from IEP) and I went to a music festival in Auckland called "Christmas in the Park." It's an annual free event hosted by Auckland City Council and Coca-Cola and it's basically like a big summer party for all ages complete with music, fireworks, carnival rides and Christmas music performed by rising local and some well-known national performers. It was fun, though it got a little too cold once the sun started to go down, as it does here in Auckland.

Let me just say that Christmas in the summer is, ("a joke", suggests my singularly fellow American in the hostel), I'd say it's a weird parallel universe. I have witnessed the following and subsequently pondered the oddity of a summertime Christmas: Eating a candy cane on the beach...ice cream trucks playing Greensleeves...fireworks in the park to the tune of Jingle Bells (which many Kiwi's cannily sing "Oh what fun it is to have a Kiwi holiday, hey!") I learned the alternative lyrics to this Christmas standby in a rather adorable way. Which, oddly enough, brings me to the subject of my employment situation.

I have agreed to work in Parnell, a sweet little suburb of Auckland that is really probably the one nested mostly closely within Auckland's city center, which is cool. Anyway, I will be an au pair there until the end of April, looking after two precious little Kiwi girls, Katie, 5, and Sophie, 3. I met with the family and their current au pair over the course of my first and second weeks here and had been corresponding with them online before I left the States. I think it will be a fun job. I basically take care of them and try to maintain the smooth-functioning of their house of 4 as best I can. I will live with them, work M-F 8-5 and occasional weekend nights. The one interesting twist is that Sophie goes to a French kindergarten/pre-school 2 days of the week (and Katie was going prior to being enrolled full time at kindergarten as of last year) , so I will be required to speak some French with them during the day. It should be interesting, and I think it will be fun. Fun fact: everyone refers to kindergarten here as "kindy" (pronounced kin-dee). (And this has nothing to do with the current subject, but they also sometimes refer to sandals as "jandals" and I have not yet stopped thinking that that's strange and incomprehensible...)

Anyway, I swear that that is related to Kiwi Jingle Bells, and here's how. I did a little trial run/torch passing couple of days last week with Katie, Sophie, and Beth, the current au pair. I was giving Sophie a bath and trying to distract her from thinking that she was getting water in her eyes, so I suggested singing a song and when I began singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" she immediately objected "Why can't we sing Christmas songs???" It being summer, this thought does not naturally occur to a Northern Hemispherian, so I thought, "Yes, excellent, what a great idea!" I started out with "Up On the Housetop"...Sophie had never heard it and neither had Katie. But when it was Sophie's turn to sing that's what I got--the adorable Kiwi version of Jingle Bells (insert Kiwi accent and trouble pronouncing most of the consonants that trip up a typical three-year-old and your heart will melt on the spot).

Anyway, this story is being told all out of order, but it doesn't really matter I guess. The Christmas in the Park concert happened on Saturday and then on Sunday Steffi and I went to the Wintergardens in the Auckland Domain (also the site of the Christmas concert, though slightly adjacent to the concert ground). The Domain is the oldest park in New Zealand, though I can't remember when it was set aside as such. It is beautiful. Imagine the Cleveland Metroparks having the spirit of Central Park and then consider it being about 10 times more gorgeous than both and choked with (extremely well-kept) rainforest greenery. It really is amazing.

I reckon that's about enough out of me for now. I'm experiencing technical difficulties due to which I was unable to post any photos to break up this rather lengthy post. So please check back later for pictures!