Walking in a vintner wonderland

So this was our first Christmas in the summer. It was a bit unsettling as there were people outside by choice.

 
We stayed in Napier, which is a town known for its Art Deco buildings.   Actually it was known as a seaside town of no real note, until it suffered a devastating earthquake in 1931, which erased much of the town as it was.   The subsequent rebuild in the contemporary fashion remade the town into a capital of Art Deco architecture in New Zealand.

We, like many, were staying in a hotel on the town’s beachfront.  Like many of our accommodation choices in NZ, it was a motel-type suite with a kitchen and cooking facilities.  Mind you, just because we have them, doesn’t mean we use them - Christmas Eve was marked by us getting fish and chips from the local chippy. It was an acceptable facsimile of the greasy motherland staple.

There are communal barbecue facilities in a lot of public parks and picnic areas here.  They’re these electric, stainless steel flat top devices rather than the grill-and-solid-fuel contraptions that we’re all familiar with, but it was outside and hot and so would suffice.  Thus provided for, and as a matter of principle because it was a viable option for the first time in my life, we cooked our Christmas dinner on the barbecue across the way from the hotel, overlooking the beach.

It felt weird just how busy it was outside.  In the UK, Christmas day falls just the other side of the shortest day in the year; here it is the opposite.  So while in Blighty you’ll maybe see a few kids braving the cold on their new bikes, micro scooters or latest Chinese perambulatory contraption prior to it exploding in a shower of cheap plastic and burned copper wire, here people are outside with their family because it is nice.  It’s all wrong – you’re supposed to be inside watching terrible television, overindulging on chocolate and booze and falling out with each other three-quarters of the way into a game of Monopoly when people start going bankrupt.  It says so in the scriptures.

What 04:30 in the morning looks like.  Bah humbug.

But it was differently pleasant.  We had a variety of meat, ate a figurative amount of salad, and I had my Christmas pudding back in the room.  They were running a Marvel film marathon on the film channel, so that part was catered for, too.   We had to get up at 04:30 on Boxing day, however, to Skype my relatives after their dinner the previous day. The temporal maths are a pain sometimes.

Boxing Day we spent (after a few hours more sleep) doing a little shopping and with some wine tasting in the New Zealand Wine Centre.  We couldn’t get out to the local wineries in Hawkes Bay as they were shut for the holiday, so this would have to do until we got to Marlborough.  They had a very useful ‘Aroma room’, which had examples of all of the individual fragrances to be expected when drinking the different varieties of wine, which was actually quite helpful.  Personally, I was unaware of what hawthorn smelled like before, so now I can pretend that I’m getting some of that in the nose, but with  lemongrass and lavender on the palette, but also with some secondary notes of leathery drawing room and hints of social discord.

The tasting was done in the auditorium, watching a film with representatives of the various winemakers talking us through each glass.  My objectivity was tested somewhat, as I started  marking them for charisma, pretentiousness and camera lighting.

I'm getting random noun and a hint of adjective 

We also had a chat with the proprietor and had a round of dessert wines and sweets, while she was closing up for the day. We did learn that the land of several of the vineyards from whom we had tasted wines were actually underwater prior to the earthquake, which gives you some impression of the scale of the quake such that the ground was raised 4-5 meters.  And they promptly turned the miraculous creation-from-destruction into alcohol.  Brings a lump to the throat, it does.

The weather held up, which we assumed was a given but this was apparently not an entirely safe bet.  I’m writing this on the 3rd and it’s lashing down outside and reports are that the north island is pretty swamped, with several campsites abandoned and holidays called off.   There are some traditions from the motherland they could've left behind.

Anyway, belated season's greetings to you all.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir hatten Weihnachten im Sommer, die sonderbar war. Weihnachtsessen war auf einem Grill gekocht und wir dann sahen fern wie zu Hause. Es hat eine Weinprobe am zweiten Weihnachtstag (26. Dezember).Eine angenehme Erfahrung. 

Wir wünschen allen Lesern frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr.

Tennessee Bemusement

After the battlefields and before Nashville, we stopped in Pigeon Forge, TN.
Chan and I struggle to describe this place.  It’s in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains and seems to exist as a tourist town, being predominantly constructed of novelty hotels, themed dinners and other attractions. They have a Titanic museum with half a scaled-down Titanic outside, which was unexpected. The overall feel of the place is a bit Vegas-y without the gambling or maybe a bit like Blackpool minus the burnt chip fat and post-apocalyptic barbarism.  We also drove past a bible-themed dinner show. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the cuisine.

If you like bread and fish, it could be a winner

Naturally we stayed in a hotel where it’s Christmas every goddamned day of the year.  This could be described as either magical or horrific depending on whether Chantelle or I write this post, respectively.

    
Delightful, I’m sure

There is perpetual glockenspiel Christmas music playing in the foyer and played over the rest of the hotel via the PA system.  It’s like insanity is waiting to claim you around every corner if your vigilance wanes for even a second.
They do have free cookies by the front desk, though.  My soul can be bought.

Don’t look the dolls in the eye

Demented hotels to one side, the big reason we were here was so we could go to Dollywood - Dolly Parton’s own theme park, for the  unaware.  Frankly I had no idea what that would look like and could say in all honesty that I had no preconceptions to confound.  I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, however.

  

It’s a theme park, with your standard ride and concession setup, only people were really, really nice.  The whole place feels so pleasant.  Chan was smiling like a simpleton the whole time because she liked how the locals talked. 
We did catch the park at the back-end of the season so it was relatively quiet, and many of the attendees were of an age and condition such that they were unlikely to congest the queues for the rollercoasters, so everything could be got on with minimal waiting.  Once we had elected to get wet at the end of the day, they let us ride the log flume until we had to politely ask to get off. The rides were of a decent standard too, with at least a couple of rollercoasters in the Busch Gardens league.

 

Food was very southern, and not bad at all for that:

 
Pictured: Obligatory Chicken-fried steak. Look it up.

It’s the first theme park I’ve seen with a church, too.

This was not a shock to find

There is a shop where you can buy any of Dolly’s outfits in ‘Your size’.  I did not see any of the inevitable horrors birthed by buffet-lines and blind optimism, but the facility is there if you need it, ladies.

Just imagine

They also have an eagle sanctuary (which is apparently very successful and has released several breeding pairs into the wild, which is nice) and a steam train for rides into the hills.  And since I can’t punch Mother Nature directly in the face personally, I’ll have to settle for this trip’s recurring theme of burning solid fuel to get nowhere in particular.

Dioxins, y’all

So yeah, I was largely baffled this whole couple of days. Although, aside from occasionally waking up in a 3am cold sweat with Santa/Satan’s own festive tinnitus haunting my dreams, a good time was had.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Dieser Staat ist seltsam.