Fire Pixie in New Zealand

I'm in New Zealand!  So far it's been awesome.

We had a mostly uneventful flight in spite of some Southwest screwups (which the subsequently fixed with no harm done).  I discovered that Ambien on the plane is just about the best thing EVAR and I'm never flying a long long way without it, ever again.  :) 

We're staying with my friend Josh just outside Wellington.  He's got an awesome crazy industrial warehouse space converted into ManCave(tm) and we've got a little Pixie Lair set up in one corner.  This means I've got a kitchen and unlimited internet access, which is awesome.  He's also got an aerial rig point, 3 Tesla coils of varying sizes, a theremin, a vastly overpowered hand-built electric go-cart, and an incredible vast array of geek paraphernalia.  (Yesterday he spent the afternoon making his own screws)

Josh is Mr. Google New Zealand, and used to be our Fire Safety guy when he lived in the bay area.  Incredibly interesting people keep dropping by.  He's friends with what he assures me is most of the circus community here in Wellington, and now we're friends with them too and planning a day of fun and circus training tomorrow, followed by a fire jam on Tuesday night.  Yay, Circus People!!

Last night Josh had a party at which we performed.  I did my newest tissu piece, which went off without a hitch despite the alarming proximity of a built-in bookcase with very pointy corners and the fact that I was on an unfamiliar and VERY stretchy tissu.  Evidently that's just how they are, down here.  Like, you reach up as high as you can and take your first climb, and you find you are still standing on the ground.  I had to do a few modifications to some of the moves I was doing (on a stretchy tissu you can't just "grab higher" on the pole because as soon as you let go it rockets upwards and you reach but then end up grabbing *lower*) but with a little practice, it worked out just fine. 

Andrea (the tissu artist whose tissu I was using) did a performance next which was gorgeous, and then we did our fire show and it was really well-received.  The rest of the night was meeting all Josh's fascinating and highly geeky friends.  It was a perfect mix of wacky circus people and geeky tech people, which really works better than you'd think.  :)

We've got plans to hang around Wellington this week and then visit the south island next week, where we will take plane rides and go canyoning and possibly bungee jump and ride the luge and have all kinds of lovely adventures. 

YAY new Zealand!