ATAAHUA ORA

Last night I was whisked away to see Royal NZ Ballet’s take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This was meant to be a surprise but as soon as I was told we were going to a “surprise ballet date” about a month ago I was on the lookout for any ballets happening in the near future. My bets were on Dracula and I was right! Still, it’s the thought that counts and I loved that Lukas came up with this idea.

© http://www.nzballet.org.nz

Never before have I been to a ballet. Even though this wasn’t a classical ballet it took me a while to fully enjoy it. The first thing that struck me was that they didn’t talk to each other! This must be a Hollywood skew. But as soon as I was past the no-talking I really enjoyed the show. The choreography and decorations were amazing, the dancers very graceful and a lot of attention was paid to little details, which I always seem to appreciate more than the average person. For example, in one scene, when Dracula gate crashes a dance party to seduce his first victim, the spotlight was on Lucy (the victim-to-be) and everybody else was in the shadows, falling to the floor IN SLOW MOTION. They even took one of the tables with them IN SLOW MOTION. I loved it.

The fact that there was no blood until the last act made the first bloody appearance more striking and the scene where Renfield is sacrificed and the hordes of Nosferatu smear themselves with his blood was a real shocker! However, the winner in the shock stakes was the entrance the good guys made into the crypt where Mina and Dracula were getting married. They literally blasted their way in! I wasn’t the only one to jump in my seat.

I really enjoyed the show and wouldn’t mind seeing something else from the contemporary ballet offering. I don’t think I would like to see a classical ballet though. Two guys dancing together when one of them is missing a shirt felt (and looked) unnatural.

Finally! We spent the weekend in National Park and got a full day of excellent snowboarding weather. It snowed for most of the week before so the conditions were amazing - maybe even the best we ever had on Ruapehu! Soft snow and lots of it, a thin layer of powder and slopes, which weren’t too crowded made for a beautiful day. Even the odd passing cloud couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm. We spent the day riding up and down the Waterfall Express, having so much fun we didn’t even think about the T-Bars. My new board turned out to be too fast for my own good but by the end of the day I think I got the hang of it and could control it. Still, both I and Dw0rm need new boots - his are “overgrown trainers” and mine make my feet go to sleep. Tomek’s snowboard finally gave up at the end of the day and he lost the little patch from one of the edges. He’s still deciding whether he wants a new board or maybe he should fix it again and get another season out of it.

In the evening we crashed around 8pm (this never happened before - are we getting old?) and woke up to a miserable day on Sunday. After viewing the snow report and a leisurely breakfast we made it to Turoa just before 10am. This still got us a spot in the first parking right at the top, which wasn’t that much of a surprise considering that we didn’t really see much of the mountain or the surrounds - the visibility was maybe 500m tops. Still, we decided to have a coffee and venture higher up to check out the upper mountain. First run down the Boneyard was painful to say the least, the visibility closing in and the wind blowing in our faces. Still, we had to try and took the Giant to the cafe at the top. This chairlift ride was enough to convince us to give up - our clothing literally froze on the way up. On the way down we did have fun and managed to thaw a little bit but the visibility closed in even more and by the time we made it to the base the Giant was already closed. Took no photos - couldn’t be bothered wasting time on Saturday and on Sunday it just wasn’t worth it. Besides, we already have lots of photos of little dots on white background.

Lukas’ new job, Solnet Solutions has invited us to Taupo for the weekend. They were celebrating the end of a successful financial year and kicking off the new year. To prove that it was successful, the weekend was an all expenses paid affair. The accommodation and food was provided by the Wairakei Resort in Taupo. On Friday night there was a general knowledge quizz, which was a lot of fun. On Saturday we had a bbq at the Taupo Hot Springs Spa and later in the evening a themed event: Black and White. It was very impressive to see that a huge majority of the 170 people had costumes! We went as a Black Samurai and White Geisha, and got lots of compliments on the costumes, which took me quite a few evenings to create. After dinner the DJ was VERY bad, so we didn’t stay too long - we were looking forward to a day on the mountain on Sunday. This didn’t turn out too well, Sunday was a rainy and generally miserable day but at least there was some snow dumped on Mt Ruapehu! On the way back home we stopped in Waingaro Springs and had a blast on the Big Splash water slide. Even today my shoulder blades are still tender!