After a two-week hiatus to visit friends and family back in the States, I have returned to Dunedin, where late fall weather turns out to be significantly nicer than midsummer weather. Yesterday I had an awesome bike ride on the Taieri River plain under sunny skies, with only a moderate breeze and temperatures in the twenties. Saturday was ANZAC day, which commemorates the 8,000 Australian and 2,700 New Zealand soldiers who died during the invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in World War I. On ANZAC day Australians and Kiwis remember their countrymen with a dawn service. I decided to attend the Dunedin edition of this service.
I woke up well before dawn and rode to the Queens Gardens, which has the Dunedin war memorial and was the location for the service. Thousands of Dunedinites were gathered before the service even began in the pitch dark, demonstrating how seriously they take the service, which consisted of multiple gun salutes, prayers, a solemn address, a wreath-laying ceremony, and the singing of the New Zealand national anthem. The gunfire and the timing of the service, which coincides with the initial Gallipoli invasion, really brought war close to home; it was a very moving event.
ANZAC day is only half a holiday, however, as most of the city shops are open by the afternoon. I took the opportunity to do some shopping for a potluck dinner and poker night that we were hosting at our flat Saturday night. I made a Korean vegetable and tofu stew; other dishes included barbecued beef, lamb medallions, sushi, salad, an entire fish with soy sauce and scallions, and hamburgers. I was on the verge of winning poker--it was just me and one other guy--when our guests decided it was suddenly time to leave. We had one last showdown round, cards face up, for everything, and the other guy beat me with just a high card. I never should have agreed to that.
Today I had a peek at the new mass spectrometry machine, which I may be using if we can get the thing to work. This has the potential to be very cool indeed.
