Thursday, March 15, 2012

Wild Foods...Wild Time


            I’ve been in New Zealand for a month now and have settled in to my classes and more importantly my workout schedule.  After pounding the pavement around town the first few weeks my knee decided it was time for a break so I’ve been taking a lot of classes at the school gym.  My favorite is supercircuit which is like a less intense version Insanity workout but still worthwhile.  I also like the NRG (pun) class which is a more intense version of Zumba.
            This past weekend I made my first trip outside of Christchurch to the town of Hokitika on the West Coast for the town’s annual Wild Foods Festival.  The drive took about 3 ½ hours, and I finally got to see the New Zealand landscape. I wasn’t disappointed.  About 15 minutes outside of Christchurch, we started seeing hills and mountains that were incredibly green.  Whoever came up with the shade of green in a box of Crayola crayons must have just visited New Zealand.  Seeing as I am the queen of shotgun, I had the perfect view to take tons of pictures.


Finally found some sheep!


            My flatmate Mary, who lives in Hokitika with her husband Nigel when she’s not at school, gave as a small tour of town when we got there Thursday night and then we headed to her house just down the street from the town center.   We met Nigel and the three most entertaining pets I’ve ever been around: Chester the dog, and Larry and Jack the cats.  The only way I can think to describe Chester is to compare him to Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates.  He loved us on Thursday night, and on Friday morning he barked and growled like he’d never met us before.  Larry looks like a leopard and Jack weighs about as much as a kindergartener.
            Since my always prepared self left all of my toiletries on my bed in Christchurch, I got an extensive tour around town Friday morning while looking for temporary replacements.  They don’t have my Aquafresh Bubblemint toothpaste here so I was forced to buy mint toothpaste for the first time in my life.  Worst. Day. Ever.  Also, you can’t buy contact solution at the grocery store so I had to go to the chemist (pharmacy) to get it. After solving this dilemma we spent the rest of Friday morning/afternoon exploring the small downtown area and playing out on the beach.  We had lunch at Fat Pipi’s pizza, which according to Mary has been deemed the best pizza in New Zealand.  After lunch we walked back to Mary’s and pitched our tent in her backyard.  And by “we” I mean Abby and Kate did the actual constructing and Danica and I monitored.  








            By this point Mary and Nigel’s other friends started to trickle in and pitch their tents in the backyard.  After a rough afternoon of tent pitching, of course we were hungry again.  This time for fish n’ chips.  Instead of walking into town this time, Mary offered us her car, and I got to have my first driving experience in New Zealand.  After a rough start just getting the car to turn on, the rest of the trip was uneventful, but fish n’ chips is now my new favorite food.  We spent Friday night getting to know Mary and Nigel’s friends and then went to some of the bars downtown.  Danica, Abby, and I decided to make friends with some people on the beach so we could warm up by their bonfire then headed back to Mary’s to rest up for the big day on Saturday.  I’ll admit it, I wimped out on sleeping outside and ended up curled up on the couch in Mary’s living room.  In my defense though I didn’t have a blanket or a sleeping bag to keep me warm in the tent. 


            Saturday morning started bright and early with some eggs to line our stomachs for the day’s events.  Mary put a number for each stall at the festival in a bowl and everyone had to draw a number and eat whatever was at that stall.  Now, when they say “wild foods” they’re not kidding.  There were the typical venison stalls, but you also had places serving mountain oysters (bull testicles), huhu grubs, kangaroo burgers, and horse semen shots.  Yes, horse semen shots.  I drew Dutch donuts. WEAK. So I drew again and got moonshine. Yeehaw! Once everyone got their numbers and had their costumes situated (we were Tom Cruise from Risky Business—very original) we walked to the festival.  Here’s a list of everything I tasted/ate:

·      Live huhu grub
·      Crocodile bite
·      Kangaroo burger
·      Wild boar corndog
·      Dutch donut
·      Mountain oysters
·      Moonshine
·      Rabbit patê
·      And the piece-de-resistance…A SHOT OF HORSE SEMEN

Danica, me, Abby, and Kate
Mountain Oysters
Mountain Oysters sauteed with onions. NOM.
Live Huhu Grubs.
Shot of moonshine
Shot of horse semen!
Kangaroo burgers with plum sauce.

Oddly enough, other than the kangaroo burger, the mountain oysters were my favorite followed closely by the horse semen shot.
            After the festival we walked back to Mary’s, napped, and rallied...to Mary’s kitchen table where we hung out for pretty much the rest of the night with a side detour to her kitchen floor to play Thumper and then to her backyard to play Abby’s game “Say good day to Bob”.  Saturday night Abby and I enjoyed some casual pillow talk as she joined me on an air mattress in Mary’s living room…while everyone else was getting soaked in the rain outside. #Winning. 
            Sunday morning we learned the finer points of cricket before heading back to Christchurch to recover…and watch Survivor of course.

Peace, love, and mountain oysters,
Bess

New Vocab
·      Kumara-sweet potato 
·      Mountain oysters-bull testicles 
·      Thickshake-supposedly a thicker version of the milkshake, but the NZ version barely passes as a regular American milkshake 
·      College-high school

·      University-college
 

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