on the weekend

All of a sudden, summer weather is here and the city has decided to
throw a party every weekend.
Two weeks ago, Wellington hosted the X-Air fest, a free outdoor
extreme sports festival. Temporary indoor and outdoor bicycle,
motorcycle and skateboard ramps and courses were set up, along with a
stage for the free bands and tents for the not-so-free merchandise.
I hadn't seen a crowd like that since coming to New Zealand. The
sidewalks and space between venues was packed, the lines for the
indoor venues stretched a few blocks. The events spread out over a
couple blocks and everything was happening at once, but it was
impossible to actually move from one place to another to actually see
what was going on. Still, we managed to take in a little something
from most of it.
By the end of the day, most of the events had wrapped up and the
crowd packed in even more along the waterfront, where a 40-foot ramp
was set up over the water. Bikers, skaters, rollerbladers took turns
getting airborne and making a splash. I missed the final trick of the
day, when one of the crowd members tried to replicate the feat off a
pedestrian bridge, and instead face planted into the sidewalk.
This past weekend I took my sunburn back out into brilliant sunshine
and another crowd. The Wellington Cup horse races are kind of a
1/10-scale model of what I assume the Kentucky Derby experience to be.
About 30,000 people were out at the course, most of the female
species dolled up in formal dress. (The side fashion show got nearly
as much coverage in the local paper as the race).
We had a bit of luck for my first horse race - one of the locals I've
met here works for the New Zealand Thoroughbred Board and got us comp
entrance to the course and the VIP areas. Mostly it felt a little
like the sports festival - there were a lot of different places to go
and things to see, but too much of a crowd to move about easily.
No luck betting, although we did back one horse late in the day that
nearly brought the final tally to even. Another horse that Kirsten
nearly backed ended up winning, paying out $125 per $1 bet - next
time I'll be throwing down a few bucks on some long-shot hunches.

As long as the sun holds, the next month and a half should be fun.
Every weekend until the end of March has some festival or free show
on. And if not, there's always the beach.
Enjoy your winter, all you up there. I'll bask in the summer here in
the Bizarro Hemisphere.