Oh, it's Sir Edmund Hillary!
Parnell, the town where we live, made history in the past couple days by hosting the funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary. The first man to successfully summit Mt. Everest, Hillary died on January 11th of a heart attack at the ripe old age of 88. While most Kiwi's don't get their 15 minutes of fame on the world stage, a large state funeral was held for SEH that was well attended by world dignitaries, sherpas, friends and family of the Hillary's. Also in attendance was half of Auckland, who turned out to try to catch a glimpse of the goings on at St. Mary's Cathedral, hopelessly snarling up traffic at the intersection of Parnell Rd and St. Stephen's Road. Apparently not in attendance were any members of England's Royal family, which was viewed by many Kiwi's as a direct snub at SEH's accomplishments.
As if being the first to summit Everest wasn't enough, SEH also lead the first expedition to the south pole by vehicle. Because of his influence in both Nepal and Antarctica, live telecasts were beamed to these nations and were viewed by the 3% of Nepalis with TVs and thousands of penguins, polar bears and a rapidly melting glacier or two.
After 3 days of irregularities in our daily commutes, we finally put two and two together to realize what was going on. This morning, we went running and missed seeing the funeral procession by about 15 minutes. Had we done our research in advance, we could have witnessed this historic event.
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