Hello,

Well k.d. lang was wonderful. (I'm sorry, Grampa. I know you'll be devastated, but I was unable to get an autograph. Next time.) Cats was less than wonderful. It really didn't work for me. For those who haven't seen it, there is basically no story, half the words they use turn out to be made-up names, and basically nothing makes sense. Luckily both my flatmates knew all about the show and were able to explain these things to me during the intermission, so I stopped trying to understand during the second half. They did make a really neat pretend train at one point from the set pieces, though.

Strangers have been asking me a lot lately whether I'm Canadian. Now I am living with a Canadian, so it is possible that I'm picking up the accent to some degree. My theory, though, is that everyone's just being careful because they've learned that many Canadians over here seem to get very touchy about being assumed to be Americans.

The big news here over the last week has been that the Government officially apologized to New Zealand's Vietnam War veterans for the official reception they received on returning from Vietnam (which was apparently just as ungrateful and hostile as that they received from New Zealand society in general). They had an official homecoming ceremony for the veterans and their families this week. I understand about 3500 New Zealanders served in the war. 37 died.

For those who don't know, Jake and Robin are coming to visit at the end of June, and we're going to travel New Zealand. When next I write I should have plenty of tales to tell of our travels.

until then