On Saturday, Chris and I went to an Auckland event that’s been going on for the last 17 years – Christmas in the Park…

This is a free concert sponsored by Coca-Cola and featuring several NZ artists, both old and new.  Since we’ve only been in NZ for about 7 months, every artist was new to us 🙂

It was definitely the place to be in Auckland!

What you don’t see is the big crowd to the left, to the right, and on the hill by the museum.  Lots of people!  We wove our way through the crowd and picked a spot surrounded by parents and strollers.  I figured it’d be a safe bet that no one around us would be getting too tipsy or crazy-drunk.  This was true till about 20 minutes into the show, when some teens sharing a few bottles of vodka parked it right behind us.  One of them, inexplicably, had a soiled nappy with him.  Did he place it in the rubbish bin a few meters away?  Of course not!  Instead, he dropped it on the ground, where it rolled within kicking distance of yours truly.  Chris and I scooted away, but not before I took the following to offer up as photographic evidence:

Little did I realize that this photo caught not one but two visual gems :-/

Thankfully, the teens wobbled away from us about 20 minutes later.  They looked like they were between 14 – 16 years old and were well on their way to becoming even more drunk than they already were.  The drinking culture amongst teens in New Zealand is sad – so many unhappy stories and deaths have been featured in the news recently.  I’m still not completely clear on the drinking laws here, but I’m fairly certain that it’s  illegal to purchase alcohol if you’re less than 18 years old.  However, teens {and maybe children, I guess?} can drink at any age before that if it’s supplied by a parent.  There have been several stories this year about birthday parties and after-balls {similar to after-proms in the States} where parents supply the booze and one of the kids ends up dead from alcohol poisoning.  Tragic.

Anywho, enough of that!  The rest of the night was really nice.  We didn’t stay for the entire concert, but I snapped a few photos of the gigantic Christmas tree before we headed home.

We were able to watch the firework display from our apartment.  I don’t know if we’ll go to Christmas in the Park again, but if we do, we’ll be sure to remember a few things: (1) get there an hour early, (2) bring folding chairs, (3) pack a picnic, and (4) bring a garbage-picker-upper to dispose of any stray dirty nappies that roll our way!