Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday!  Well, it is in New Zealand, where I am.  It's still yesterday where most of  you are.

I'm 25 today.  I don't usually talk about my age because I always seem to be running with a crowd much older or younger than myself, but 25 seems significant.  A quarter of a century!   And I'm in Wellington,  which is pretty exciting.  No Conchord sightings yet.

The trip to Aussieland and NZ has been whizzing by, and I can't believe I'll be in New York on Monday.  We were in Melbourne for almost a week, but it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was in Australia as we were kind of constantly on the move. 

We were there for Dr. bf's brother's wedding, which was in Mornington, just south of Melbourne.  The wedding and reception were good, and I busted some awesome moves on the dance floor, earning me the John Travolta Saturday Night Fever Award.  Yes, this was a real thing, and I did win it.  And it wasn't fixed!  A friend of the bride's (no acquaintance of mine) judged the competition, and we didn't even know it was happnening at the time.

We've been in New Zealand for the last week and a half.  The GD and I stayed with his lovely mum in Christchurch for several days before heading off on a brief roadtrip around the South Island.  We went to Dunedin (where he went to university), Te Anau (beutiful lake and trails for hiking), and Milford Sound, which is part of Fiordland (not a typo, just a silly spelling choice) National Park, where we kayaked with a guided group on the sound. 

We also spent a good deal of time with the GD's sister and hubby and their three adorable boys.  Needless to say, his family is awesome and we had a great time.

We got into Wellington two nights ago, and it looks like it's shaping up to be a slightly sunnier day than yesterday, so some exploration into town is in order.  We stayed with friends of Mark just outside the city last night and were treated to delicious (birthday) French toast for breakfast. 

We've done so much in the past two and a half weeks, and I can't possibly cover even a fracture of it in this short post, but I wanted to check in.  One more night here, then it's up to Auckland for two nights, then off to NYC!  I can't believe how quickly it's all gone, but that's the way with vacation.  More detailed accounts of adventures to follow.

Finny Finn Finn

So my bf, being a New Zealander as well as a Good Doctor, has introduced me to some pretty awesome/classic Kiwi tunes.  If you're going to have a conversation about music that includes New Zealand, you can't really avoid the Finn Brothers.  In fact, I think that might be the whole conversation.

Neil and Tim (Finn) have played together, fought, broken up, and reappeared in many musical incarnations as New Zealand's chart-toppers (all this before the introduction of my true favorite Kiwi musicians, Bret and Jemaine).  So I guess I kind of knew that one song by Crowded House, but I didn't that realize Neil (younger bro) had started the band after the disbanding of Split Enz (Get it? nz? Like New Zealand? Thanks, Wikipedia), Tim's much less commercially successful endeavor*.  Just check this out.

So Neil was all, "Thanks for letting me be in your college band when I turned 18, bro, but now I'm on to better things!"  They sort of re-collaborated in the early 90s, again under the name the Finn Brothers, but then Neil kind of took the songs they had written together and gave them to Crowded House and then had to let Tim in the band because he worked on the songs and it would be awkward (slash copyright violation) otherwise.  But then Tim peaced out when they were on tour in Europe.  Brotherly rivalry much?  I'd be pissed, too, if my younger brother was a better song-writer and knew how to play an instrument.  

I think that's what I love most about that Split Enz video, though.  Tim is knee-bending and two-stepping his way around that weird makeshift set (I wonder if that was their university theatre department?) and his elbows seem to be anchored to his ribcage as he "dances" with his arms; then, right at the end, Neil bops up behind him on a guitar and they harmonize and you're like, "Who's that cute, bouncy guy seems way less awkward than the guy singing?"  

I do legitimately like that song, so no diss on Tim.  I also enjoy that New Zealand, or, you know, just its music scene from the 80s and 90s, has some kind of a dramatic history.  Yeah, yeah, there was other dramatic history in how the English tricked the Maori people into signing over all their land and rights (silly mistranslation of documents), but there's no grainy 80s footage of that exchange, and it doesn't make me smile.  I'll stick with the Finns for now and leave the evils of colonialism for another day.

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: I was totally wrong.  The singer in that video was Neil not Tim; Tim came bopping up at the end.  So I guess Neil was even more openly upstaging big bro than I thought.  Lead singer in Tim's band!  What gumption.  I still like that video, though, and the song.

*I guess they were actually quite successful in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, but who even goes to those places?