A Christchurch Education

“Well, you're the only one who got to sleep in this morning!” The long-haired dude was right; he was the only one in the hostel dorm room, busily packing his stuff up. I groggily reached for my phone to check the time.

8:10. What? If I was home, this would still be a few hours before Dad would knock on my door and tell me that half the day was already gone.

At any rate, I dragged myself up and was on the move in the sunny Christchurch morning. After window shopping at the Re:START mall and getting a fresh fruit ice cream, I went along the Red Zone until I came to the memorial exhibit 185 Empty Chairs. Pete Majendie, a local artist, conceptualized the display, taking all different styles of white chairs, each representing one of the victims of the February 2011 earthquake. It's right in sight of the Cardboard Cathedral, an ongoing construction project to build a temporary replacement for the ChristChurch Cathedral, entirely out of weather-proof and fire-proof cardboard.

It's a fitting tribute area, a place to reflect on what was lost, but to look ahead to the hope of a new future. From there it was off to the Canterbury Museum, right on the cusp of Hagley Park. The exhibit was surprisingly large, going from Māori artifacts (and the huge skeleton of a Moa, an extinct flightless bird that the early settlers would have hunted) to the European settlers, arriving first as whalers before setting up permanent shop here. Lots of remnants from the Canterbury Association, which was responsible for getting English families in this particular area of the country.

One of the coolest, quirkiest parts of the Canterbury Museum was Fred & Myrtle's Paua Shell House. Paua are these big sea snails that have a shell about the size of a cantaloupe cut in half. When the shells are collected and polished, they have a dazzling sheen of blue and purple, and they're used a lot for ashtrays and jewllery – collectively, paua is considered Kiwiana, a group of kitschy items that define New Zealand culture, like hokey pokey ice cream and the silver fern emblem. Fred and Myrtle Flutey were an elderly couple living in Bluff, who rose to fame as they started nailing these shells onto their living room walls. Over a thousand of them, eventually opening up their home to over a million visitors and attaining something of a celebrity status over 30 years. They even starred in a few bread commercials in the early 90s, which is how I'd know I made it to the big time.

They're the kind of Nan and Pop characters that you'd have no choice but to call “some sweet.” They passed away within a year of each other about a decade ago, but their remarkably distinct living room layout, complete with upbeat organ music, was relocated to the Canterbury Museum.

After a few hours roaming the museum, I still didn't feel like a big enough dweeb, so I meandered to the Christchurch Art Gallery, a huge, glass-walled building that's part of the city's cultural hub. Like many sites in this vicinity, it's closed to the public, but there are some displays on the lawns, labelled Outer Spaces.

 

Even now I didn't quite reach the dweeb quota, so I went through Hagley Park and started heading towards the University of Canterbury campus. It was a bit of a hike, but I stopped at Riccarton House and Bush along the way – the actual house, a remnant of early Victorian settlement, is closed, but the walk through the protected forest is good to go. To get in, you have to go through a sealed chamber between two gates, each one only opening if the other is closed – I was pretty sure I was entering the arena from The Hunger Games. Instead of things trying to kill me though, there was a lot of dense greenery, and a grove of ancient (600 years and counting) kahikatea trees in the middle that shot up some 30 metres.

The University of Canterbury was founded by some of the b'ys from Oxford in 1873, which makes it New Zealand's second-oldest university (the University of Otago in Dunedin takes the number one spot by a few years). The main campus is about the same size as Memorial University, both in terms of students (around 15,000, so a bit smaller) and general area. Walking through, it was tough to get a decent feel for the campus, as the buildings were all close together and blocking each other, but the rush of students was something universal.

My buddy once made an observation about undergrad girls, now that we're finished our degrees. I don't need to go into too much detail, because it's almost certainly offensive . . . but he was right. Especially in New Zealand, where the semester is well underway but it still feels like the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

 And this. It was just like this.

I don't know where the compulsion came from, but as I was walking through one of the buildings, I got stuck in a flow of students, and as I got sucked downstream, wearing a backpack and shorts like all of them, I thought, “I could totally be part of this group.” So, when they all funnelled into a lecture theatre, what choice did I have?

I felt like Frank Abagnale, Jr. at his absolute lamest. Geology 111 was in a massive lecture hall, where you're one amongst a few hundred. The class was on the crap that shoots out of a volcano, the pyroclastic rocks, if you want to go all geologist on me. The prof showed a few YouTube clips on eruptions, and gave the class some discussion questions for group work – I turned to the bro next to me, ready to talk about lava or whatever the hell they were learning about, and he pretty much ignored me. “Uh oh,” I think, “what if we get in trouble?” So I did that thing that students do where they pretend to read over their notes really thoroughly (except I was reading the PowerPoint questions, because I didn't have any notes) instead of doing whatever they're supposed to be doing, and as soon as the prof turned on the next video, I got out of there. I'm on vacation, I don't need this kind of stress.

By the time I made it back, I figured my shoes are going to need some insoles. I must be doing something right.

It's my last day in Christchurch today, a warm but cloudy afternoon where I plan to get some lunch and do as little as I can to have a relaxing afternoon. This evening I've booked a ticket to go to Scared Scriptless, the longest-running improv show in the country, here at the Court Theatre. Thanks to Mary Walsh, in three months I went from an infrequent flier at the Arts and Culture Centre to a theatre snob (not even Shakespeare or the National Theatre in London were safe from scorn), and the pretension hasn't worn off – I've got to warm back into this thing by seeing something that's totally free from being taken too seriously. Should be good fun.

From there, I'm getting picked up by an Irish guy tomorrow morning to head to Methven for the St. Paddy's Day Weekend, and then a few hundred clicks further south on Monday, full steam ahead for Dunedin. A university town with the world's steepest street, a chocolate factory, and the Speight's brewery – should definitely be good fun, especially once I figure out how to combine all three.

Cheers,

rb


PS I was a bit disappointed that I never ended up with a picture of me swimming with the dolphins in Kaikoura the other day – this just came in from Pasadena, and it's the next best thing. Enjoy!