At the end
of April, Sara and I flew up to New Zealand's capital of Wellington and stayed
with our friend Michelle until our dinner on Tuesday evening. Monday was a
holiday and Sara remotely work and I worked from our Wellington office on
Tuesday.
During the
day before the dinner, I remembered I still needed to get back with the Embassy
with the make, model and plate number of the car we were driving. This was to
allow us to park on the Ambassador's residential compound.
Dressed up before heading out. |
Walking up,
we could see the Ambassador and his wife chatting with a few other people in
the foyer. We noticed a large abstract painting of President Obama through the
window that sat on the wall just behind them. The Ambassador sees us through
the window and opens the door where he and his wife, Nancy greeted us with a
firm handshake and a cheek air kiss. We were then handed glasses of California
red wine - ahhh tastes of home. You don't find California wines in New Zealand
much.
We chatted
with Ambassador Mark and Nancy and met the other guests that had already
arrived including one staff member, Rob, the Public Diplomacy Officer at the
embassy and whom we've met before at the 9/11 ceremony last October in
Christchurch. While waiting for the other guests Nancy informed us about all
the paintings on display and how they are all in loan as part of a Department
of State program of show casing original pieces of art. Sara and I walked
around looking at the paintings and photos hung around the house. Examples of
paintings are an abstract painting of Uncle Sam, one of a bison and one of a
box of Circus Animal Cookies. Some of the photos we saw: Ambassador playing
one-on-one basketball with President Obama, Ambassador and Bill Clinton,
Ambassador and Nancy with Vice President Biden all in mid laugh.
Ambassador
Mark is a former Chicago White Sox player and turned to the financial sector
afterwards. He was a supporter of the Obama presidential campaign. He is also
what is called an "appointed ambassador", this is different from a
"career ambassador" where "appointed ambassadors" are
directly appointed by the President and confirmed by the US Senate. In contrast, "Career Ambassadors"
are Foreign Service officers that moved all the way up to position of full
ambassador and move from one ambassadorship to another. "Appointed
Ambassadors" have to be appointed each time by the US President. This is
Ambassador Mark's first ambassadorship.
Dinner was
announced, Sara and I walked into the dining room where the large dining table
was set up for 14 people. The table was set up with white china with gold rims.
The Seal of the US was branded at the top of all the plates, glasses and even
tea cups. We found our seats by the names cards that were placed on the table.
The cards even had an embossed Seal of the United States above our names. This
is the same table and setup where visiting dignitaries ate at.
Besides the
Ambassador and Nancy, couples were separated at opposite’s ends of the table
and we sat in a boy-girl-boy-girl pattern. To the right of me was, Annie, the
wife of an American professor at the University of Canterbury who is also on
the US Fulbright Scholarship Board. To
the left was the Ambassador's daughter, Liz. Sara sat between the American
professor himself, Trevor and Rob. Some of the other guests were Will, an
Eisenhower Fellow whom I've met before as we both were speakers at a Connecting
Young Leaders Conference last year in Christchurch, and his wife. The guest of
honor was six-time Oscar winner, Richard Talyor and his wife of Weta Workshop.
Richard worked on many movies including The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit
trilogies and most recently designed the Anzac exhibit at Te Papa National
Museum of New Zealand for the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC forces landing in
Gallipoli (in present-day Turkey), which was the previous weekend and what the
annual holiday on Monday was for.
Dinner was
quite fun, the conversations ranged from light topics of Nancy sharing embarrassing
moments of Ambassador Mark and Liz's addiction to some TV show called the
"Game of Thrones" to more sobering topics of the recent devastating
earthquake in Nepal (for the recorded was introduced by Nancy and not me).
At the end
of dinner, Ambassador Mark brought the kitchen staff out where we were able to
praise them for the amazing dinner and then Nancy handed out small parting
gifts to us. We mingled a bit before leaving, where the Ambassador saw us off.
What an awesome night?!