Weather, Queen Street, and Grand Central

View from Mudbrick Vineyard (home of the sunburn)

The weather here is so beautiful, and even though nearly everyone in our group was scorched this week by the sun’s strong rays, I can’t help but dig the southern hemisphere. I’m reminded, funnily enough, of a ridiculous piece of art that I made when I was about six, which read: “Around the world there may be different weather, but we’ll always be the same in our hearts.” To me, the statement epitomizes childhood naïveté, because the older I get, the more cynical I become, and the more I start to doubt this idea. The former statement is true enough, and I’m pretty pleased to be enjoying some beach weather while my unlucky family is shoveling snow in Baltimore. The latter thought, however, is a little more questionable. Are we all the same, deep down?

I questioned this notion as I was sitting in a café yesterday doing a reading for class discussion. I’ve always had a hard time listening to music while studying, so when a Maroon 5 song came on the radio, it distracted me from the story. I thought:

“The world has become so Americanized; even Adam Levine has been spread all over the world. Wait a minute, this café is called Lavazza, and it’s a coffee shop chain based in Italy. And I’m eating a croissant, which is a traditional French food. And the man sitting next to me is speaking Korean into his phone. And all the clothes I’m wearing were made in China. This café could be anywhere in the world, were it not for my view of Sky Tower out of the window. Can the culture of New Zealand really be defined? Can the culture of anywhere really be defined?”

View of Sky Tower (looks more like a UFO in real life)

Perhaps this universal cultural confusion is what’s “the same in our hearts”, as my silly piece of art suggested so many years ago. In a strange way, I think it is. It’s easy, when you go somewhere, to want to find the place that makes you most comfortable, that reminds you most of home, and stay there. And in that place, culture will have very little meaning; in fact, it will barely exist. It’s not moving at all, but rather transplanting the same life into a new region. This is no way to travel.

In some cities, the culture is everywhere, but usually, it takes time to discover a place’s identity buried beneath the commercialization. Take Auckland, for example. Queen Street, essentially the Times Square of Auckland, is close to our hostel, and boasts every tourist trap imaginable, from chain retail stores to international restaurants to kitschy knick-knack shops. For most of our stay, I saw Auckland as a little cheesy, sort of like New York City, sacrificing some of its spirit as a metropolis on the altar of tourism. But upon our trip to The Classic, a comedy club on the very street I was so snooty towards, I realized that I had judged this place all wrong, and like New York City, it takes some time to notice the intricacies behind the sheer size.

Most of the comedians at the only strictly comedic club in New Zealand were completely hysterical, spanning all kinds of humor, from self-deprecating, to story telling, to impersonations, to the nearly indefinable. After the show, I went up to some of them to thank them and talk to them, and while they’re equally hysterical offstage, they’re also very down-to-Earth guys, eager to hang out with audience members.

The comedians led me off Queen Street to a quieter area, and after about a twenty-minute hike we found ourselves at a hole-in-the-wall called “Grand Central”. It was like I had been transported from Times Square to Brooklyn. Completely different and totally interesting, I sat with the comedians for a few hours as we chatted. They were all interested in what an American girl from the University of Maryland was doing at a comedy show in New Zealand, but I was far more interested in hearing about their lives, and Auckland. When the night wound to a close, I was disappointed, because I knew that, like most of the incredible people I have met here, it’s unlikely that we would meet again. But through their humor, and their extensive knowledge of the “true Auckland”, I realized that there’s truth to the statement “first impressions aren’t always correct”, even when it comes to places.

I’m still not sure if we’re all the same in our hearts, but when I look out my window early in the morning and see the sun rise long after it has set in Baltimore, I realize that it doesn’t matter. We’re not all the same, there are new places to be discovered, and today will be beautiful, so live it up; that’s what counts.