Merry Christmas to all! I can assure you that Christmas is not the same in all parts of the world. First of all, it may only be Christmas Eve back home in the US, but it is Christmas Day in New Zealand. It is very much different having warm weather, sunny days, and palm trees as apposed to Christmas lights, fir trees, snowy days (or at least cooler ones), and constant holiday music. Although I must admit that I do even slightly miss the hectic shopping days and over indulgence of consumerism, I really just miss the time I would be spending with family and friends. This year is filled with new experiences instead.
We arrived on Christmas Eve at a backpackers hostel in Collingwood. It is in the Golden Bay area located on the far north of the South Island of New Zealand, with only 250 people in the community. This is a about half an hour north of where the other tourists flock to, both local and abroad, doubling the town of Motueka from 7,000 to 14,000. If you think grocery shopping on Christmas Eve is bad enough in America, try it at a grocery store in a foreign country. Although the holiday traditions may differ between the Americans and Kiwis, one thing remains the same, and that is Christmas dinner and last minute grocery shopping that goes along with it. So as Tony and I were wondering down the isles of a “New World” grocery store trying to look for recognizable holiday food items, everyone else was in a mad rush to plow by us and find the last box of prepackaged holiday puddings and minced fruit pies. Overwhelmed with the cost of their food ($80 for a turkey!), the lack of knowledge of the hostel kitchen and what cooking gear it contained, and the sheer madness of the whole situation, Tony parked the shopping cart on the dog food isle while I made errands back and forth. We chose a pre-seasoned chicken, fresh green beans, kumara (being sweet potatoes), a box of mac and cheese (not kraft I might add), a boxed holiday pudding (do as the locals), a jar of cranberry sauce, a bottle of wine, and lots of butter to go along with the bag of potatoes we had picked up at roadside veggie stand. They eat stuffing here, but they do not sell mixes for it, they eat massive amounts of pies both sweet and savory, but sell no crusts, and forget looking for canned pumpkin, although they directed us to the wide variety of canned pumpkin soup they sold.
As soon as we arrived at our quaint beach side town, Tony ran to the beach and promptly started picking up Cockles, a type of shellfish in New Zealand. Along the beach we met former resident of the town, currently their on holiday, with two other people from her campground. She decided that she would show us how to make patties with these little shellfish. After filling up and entire 9litre bin full of these little clams, we toted them to her communal kitchen at the campground and there we made new friends and tried new foods that included curried potatoes and Cockle patties, luckily this tasted better than it sounds. It was a wonderful new experience for Christmas Eve. We returned to the cozy hostel filled with an array of ages and folks from all over the world, to our mini cabin and slept in a bed for the 3rd time this month.
Christmas morning rolls along and begins with Tony almost passing out. Oh Merry Christmas! Apparently his over indulgence of cockles had led him towards a stomach ache and dizziness. While I only ate 3 patties, he ate well over 8, this is probably about 50-80 shellfish. We called a local clinic since they are having a shellfish poisoning outbreak on the north island and they rang back with a Dr on the line and determined he most likely just had a severe case of dehydration. This was caused both from his determined fishing activities from the week, and the sheer amount of shellfish salt that he consumed. Since as I am not sick, there should be no risk of shellfish poisoning, but as it is Christmas, there is no hope of finding PowerAde or re-hydration drinks today. So after 2 liters of water, and 2 liters of water mixed with sugar and salt, he is finally napping and on the road to recovery. The hostel is hosting a Christmas dinner tonight at 6:30pm and lets hope that Cockles are not on the menu.
Merry Christmas Everyone! You are all missed!
