What's Happening In New Zealand today?

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2006-04-05T17:44:00.000-04:00

I’ve officially returned to the USA!  I’ve been home for about three weeks now, and I have been going non-stop.  My flights – Wellington to Auckland to L.A. to Atlanta – were perfectly fine.  No major delays, no crying babies, comfortable seats, etc.  I had some issues with the food on some of the flights, but nothing too terrible.  I arrived in Atlanta fairly late in the evening, but I still had a nice greeting party waiting for me.  My parents were both there, along with five of my good friends.  It was really great to see close friends after being on a plane for something like 24 hours and in another country for nine months.  I wasn’t jetlagged at all, and I didn’t have any trouble fitting back in to my social circles or with my family.  I did have some trouble adjusting back to southern food and driving on the right side of the road, but I am working on those things.

Once I got on the ground, I didn’t stop to relax at all.  I had some business to take care of in Atlanta before I headed home to Dalton, and the next morning I was already working on getting my Chinese visa arranged.  I was home for only two days before leaving on another trip as well.  I arrived home on a Thursday, and my home university’s spring break was the following week, so I went down to St. Pete Beach, Florida, for five days of relaxation with some of my sorority sisters.  It was a week of sleeping in, lying on the beach or by the pool, and eating good food.

After that week, I had to go back to reality.  Since I have been gone for a year and am about to spend ten weeks in Southeast Asia and China, I have a lot of doctor’s appointments and checkups to deal with.  I had four in just one week!  It’s kind of complicated to get all of my doctors in agreement and all of my vaccinations straight, but it is worth it to be going to Asia in forty days.

One of the best things about being back is that I have started giving all of my post-return speeches.  I have given a program to the Ringgold Rotary Club and have plans to go to the Dalton Sunrise Club as well as the Dalton Club, my sponsor club.  I have spoken to the United Methodist Women’s club, and they were really receptive to my pictures and travel stories.  I also spoke to my old high school government teacher’s classes about the New Zealand political system and how and what I studied in New Zealand.  That was also a good opportunity to get potential scholars (a.k.a. high-school-to-university-student) interested in the scholarship.

And that brings me to the end of my scholarship year.  This is my last official post from my time in New Zealand.  I have a blog to cover my time in Asia, and it can be found at http://asiascholar.blogspot.com.  It hasn’t been started, and I am not sure yet how to work it from China, but I will be using it to document my 10 weeks of study in Asia.  Thank you for reading this throughout my year, and I hope you get a chance to go to New Zealand and Australia some day.

Aussie Pictures: Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation

2006-03-26T20:02:00.000-05:00

This is the Daintree River that we cruised on. Don't be fooled by its calm appearance. Like most things in Australia, the prettiness hides all of the bad stuff. In this case, crocodiles (bad, but awesome) and mosquitoes (not so awesome).

This is the freshwater area where we stopped to swim and have afternoon tea.

As you can see, the river was quite deep where we were. The current was also quite swift. This wasn't the only vehicle we saw driving across the river, and we also saw a dog swim across it.

At lunch, we stopped near a sort of kangaroo rescue programme. Most of these kangaroos are too injured or have been around humans for too long to return to the wild.

Because they are so used to humans, the kangaroos are incredibly friendly and act kind of like my dogs, jumping on you for attention.

This is Cape Tribulation from the ground ...

... and from above on the hill. Pretty, right?

In actuality, we had to swear up and down not to go near even a drop of water. Everything on this beach can hurt or kill you, from the mating cassowaries (a rare Australian bird) ...

... to the crocodiles ...

... to the ever-present deadly jellyfish. Some of these jellyfish have enough poison to kill you in six seconds sixty times over or something like that. The box jellyfish is the most deadly animal in the world. That's right, not just the most deadly jellyfish or the most deadly animal in Australia, the most deadly animal in the entire world. Crazy place, Australia. Animals evolved with unnecessarily strong defense mechanisms!

Aussie Pictures: Hot Air Balloon

2006-03-26T19:13:00.000-05:00

I am pretty sure that this is the biggest balloon in Australia, along with the one below.

This is the one that I went up in. What cute koalas!

When the first balloon flight took off, it was still semi-dark and really foggy, and so you could watch the balloons slowly disappear into the mist. Cool.

This is me about to go up in the balloon. The basket was a lot bigger and nicer than I anticipated. It was also quite difficult to climb into with a skirt on.

I am glad that there was some cloud cover because it created some cool patterns with the sunlight.

For most of the journey, we could see the other balloon. I believe we were about 1000 feet above the ground at our highest point.

I love this picture of the balloon, mountains, and clouds.

Yup, that's our shadow over the farmland! The balloon company has contracts with the local farmers so they can land in their pastures and fields. When we landed, the cows just kind of stared at us. Well, except for one curious calf who came over to investigate.

After landing, everyone was recruited to help fold up the balloon and pack it away.

Can you believe that the entire balloon fits in that one bag? It was crazy heavy.

Aussie Pictures: Great Barrier Reef

2006-03-26T18:58:00.000-05:00

This is the five of us who made it on the snorkeling and diving boat in our stinger suits.

There was a professional photographer taking pictures of us in the water. They charged more than enough for the pictures, but I think they are so funny.

Another one of me snorkeling.

This is the lineup of our diving vests. We sat down on the bench, zipped into our vests, and then stood up with the air tanks on our backs.

My SCUBA diving picture!

The next pictures are all of the fish and coral on the reef. The fish were much more brilliantly coloured, and the coral also was much brighter, but it is very hard to capture that on film.

Aussie Holiday: Cairns

2006-03-26T18:56:00.000-05:00

Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’) is on the northwest Queensland coast, the area recently battered by some cyclones. While Long Island and the Whitsundays are geographically in the tropics, Cairns actually feels like the tropics. It has the lush rainforests, hot and humid weather, and mosquitoes like there’s no tomorrow. It is commercialised while still being home to several World Heritage natural sites.

After dinner on our first night in Cairns, we headed into town to the night markets. Every night, after sundown or something like that, heaps of little hole-in-the-wall touristy shops open up to sell everything you can think of. There is a booth that sells pearl jewellery that you ‘pick from your own oyster,’ swimsuits and sarongs and all kinds of beachwear, and even a Chinese massage parlour. We shopped around, bought some drinks to suffer through the hot weather, and just wandered for awhile. We headed back to our resort after about an hour because we all had early mornings the next morning.

My big adventure that day was to go out on the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns is a popular jumping-off point to visit the outer reefs in the Great Barrier Reef. I was very excited because I had heard that I could go SCUBA diving without being a certified open-water diver. Jules had told our group that you could do an introductory dive, which means you have some short instruction before going underwater with the instructors. Seven of us signed up for the cruise, but Stacey and Leanne ended up not coming on the trip because the company told them they were not medically able to dive (even though Leanne has done it before). They had to go with another group on a different day. It was so cool! The weather wasn’t nice at all on the way out, and it even started raining a bit while we were in the water, but you don’t care because you are already wet in the water. I was in the third diving group, so I got to snorkel for awhile before getting suited up. I have been snorkelling in the Caribbean and in Fiji, but this was still amazing. The coral was so bright, and the fish were everywhere. One cool thing is that the fish aren’t afraid of you at all. There was one kind that was very interested in the snorkelers and would actually come up and peck at your stinger suit or your mask.

After snorkelling for a little while, the instructors called my group in to suit up and go over how to dive again. I had never worn a diving suit before, and it was a lot heavier then I anticipated. Of course, it doesn’t feel heavy under water, but it certainly does on land! We suited up and then jumped off of the back of the boat into the water. The company had two lines strung between the fins of the catamaran, one just under the water and one a metre down. After you were used to breathing through the tank over water, you went just under water and got used to it then. I thought it was easier to breathe under the water through the tank than above water. After you signalled to the dive instructor that you were OK, she adjusted your weights and let air out of your vest until you were one metre under water. You adjusted yourself to that while she went down the row to check everyone else. After everyone was ready and adjusted, you went down another metre and repeated the process. At this point, we left the boat and went swimming. At our deepest point, we were six metres under the water. I had a little trouble at the very bottom with my ears (I had trouble equalising them), but it was so cool anyways! When you are under the water, you, and the fish, think that you are just a part of that world, and they have no problem swimming all around you and the rest of the people in the group. Schools of fish would swim by and surround you. That’s an experience that you can’t get on the surface.

After this stop, we all got back on board and had lunch while we sailed to our next destination. At our first stop, the coral a ways under water, but it was almost at the surface at the second stop. That meant that a lot more light could reach the coral and the fish, so everything seemed brighter. I was glad that I had my stinger suit on because I saw a lot of jellyfish. We had seen one really big jellyfish while diving, but I saw heaps more when I was snorkelling, and they were the small clear kind that (I think) were a lot more dangerous. I also saw a really big shark chilling out on the bottom waiting for some food to come along. When I was back on the boat, someone told me the shark was about two metres long (I am really bad at judging distances, especially when associated with water). All in all, it was an exciting time on the water.

After this good day, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my second free day in Cairns. Our resort wasn’t on the water, and even if it was, we couldn’t swim because of all of the dangerous things lurking in the water. I was flipping through the book of recommended activities in Cairns, and I came across hot air ballooning. I was like, ‘Hm, I have never done this before. Let’s try that!’ That’s how, at 4am the next morning, I ended up in a shuttle van taking me to the balloon launching site. Apparently, in the hot weather climate of the tropics, you can only take up a hot air balloon between the hours of 6am and 8am because of temperature constraints, but I think it is nice to be up at sunrise. I was surprised at how quickly the sun rose once it started to peak over the mountain, but it didn’t take long at all. We got to the site early enough to see the balloons being blown up and everything. We split into four groups, two up at a time, and I was in the second group. This was the better group to be in because the sun had fully risen, so the light was better and the scenes more scenic. It was absolutely gorgeous. Because we were up at sunrise, it was breakfast time for the kangaroos, so we could seem them hopping around the fields below us. There was some cloud cover, but that just helped to keep the sun out of our eyes while creating beautiful pictures. Because you flow with the wind, you can’t feel it and everything is perfectly still. The flame to heat up the air in the balloon is really loud while it is on, but when it is off, everything is perfectly silent. It was a really cool experience. It’s traditional to celebrate with champagne after a successful balloon flight, so my company took us to a restaurant for champagne and buffet breakfast.

I got back to the resort at about 10am, but I had been up for over six hours at that point, so I was tired. I made some phone calls and then just caught the shuttle into town to do some errands. I hadn’t checked my email in a few days, and I also wanted to do a lot of souvenir shopping. This was our last stop, so I could load up on souvenirs without having to carry them all over Australia. For lots of people on the tour, it was their last night, so we had a special dinner and night out in Cairns.

The next day, most people’s last day, we headed out of Cairns on a quick morning trip to the village of Kuranda. This is just a little touristy village with some cheap markets and other attractions, like a butterfly sanctuary. I didn’t enjoy it that much, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend a morning. After lunch, the driver dropped most everyone else off at their new hostels (because their tours were over), and I took a much-needed nap. That night everyone on the tour was still in town because not too many flights leave from Cairns, so we all met up in town again for another ‘last night out.’

The next day, the last official day of my tour, was spent up in the Daintree Rainforest region. We took a coastal drive up the Cook Highway before boarding a 4WD vehicle to take us into the Daintree forest. We started with a river cruise (covered in mosquitoes because it was the first day without rain in weeks). Normally, there are lots of crocodiles in the river, but it is nesting season right now, so most of the crocs were hidden. We did manage to see a nesting mother, something that is apparently very rare to see, and a large dominant male. We ended with a big lunch at the mouth of the river. After this, we climbed up into the rainforest and stopped at a freshwater river for a quick swim and a tropical fruit snack. We also had a special kind of tea that the old outback explorers could make quickly and easily and with minimal equipment. On the way home, we made at stop at Cape Tribulation. We couldn’t go anywhere near the water because everything about the beach could kill us almost instantly, but it was gorgeous.

And that was the end of my trip! I spent that night at a big hostel called Gilligan’s. It was huge, clean, and lots of fun. I had to get up early the next morning for my flight back to Wellington. I had a great time in Australia, but it was also nice to be back in Wellington for my final week. I could definitely go back to Australia again.

Aussie Pictures: Long Island

2006-03-26T18:26:00.000-05:00

After Fraser Island and the Capricorn Caves, we were very happy to be at our new resort.

The sunset was over the mountains, but because the tide went out so far, it still created some amazing scenes.

The resort we stayed at was really nice. It had lounge chairs all along the beach as well as by the pool.

The signature drink on Long Island: a Long Island Iced Tea!

This is our retired racing catamaran, the Camira. We sailed around several of the islands on this boat.

In the morning, the weather wasn't nice at all, but it cleared up by our first stop and was absolutely gorgeous in the afternoon.

This is Whitehaven Beach. It is widely considered to be the most pristine beach in the world, and on a nicer day I can see why it is also considered the prettiest.

This is the sunset on the second night.

Because the tide went so far out, the water left on the sand looked great in the sunlight.

Yeah, that's me.

This is a picture of all us girls. The two in the middle were the two we dropped off in Airlie Beach the next morning before continuing on to Cairns.

Aussie Holiday: Long Island

2006-03-26T18:25:00.000-05:00

After leaving Fraser Island, we were headed for Long Island in the Whitsundays. This was a little too far to drive all in one day, so it was split into two days. We crossed over the Tropic of Capricorn and stayed in a small campground. The main attraction here was the Capricorn Caves. You could go on a two-hour caving adventure through them and up to the top of the mountain, or you could just do a one-hour walkthrough of the bigger caverns. I had recently done a more spectacular caving adventure in Waitomo, so I took the opportunity to organise my life and repack my backpack (we had only been allowed one small bag on Fraser Island, so I had to consolidate my clothes again). There wasn’t much else besides large insects at this stop, but we did see some more wild kangaroos, including one mother with a joey.

The next morning we finished our drive to Airlie Beach, the port to catch our ferry to Long Island. We had picked up two more passengers in Surfer’s Paradise, Zoe and Catherine, and we picked up one more in Airlie Beach, Leanne. This was the largest our group at any point, but it didn’t stay that way for long. About half of the group, eight people, left for a two-day two-night cruise around the Whitsundays. Instead of doing this cruise, I stayed at the Long Island Resort. We relaxed that night at the island bar (long islands on Long Island) before crashing out.

The next day, some of us had booked on to a day cruise around the islands. We met our ferry at 7.45am, and it took us to the dock where we met Camira, our 85ft bright purple retired racing catamaran. Everything was included on this cruise: morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, drinks, stinger suits, and snorkelling equipment. We visited Whitehaven Beach, often called the most beautiful and pristine beach in the world, and another snorkelling cove. We didn’t have very good weather in the early morning. It was overcast, and as we made our way around some of the islands, it began to pour. This ended up being OK because the crew put on Finding Nemo and brought us inside for talks about snorkelling and the coves we were going to visit. The weather had cleared up entirely by the time we got to Whitehaven Beach, and we had fine weather for the rest of the day. It was even nice enough that us girls laid out on the nets strung between the fins of the catamaran to enjoy the warm sunshine and stay cool with the air rushing below us.

We spent the next day relaxing on the island. We were originally planning on taking out the free kayaks out on the water, but by the time we checked on them, they had already been taken out for the day. We compromised and hung out by the pool instead, taking advantage of the swim-up bar and café. One interesting thing did happen poolside. I was the first one from my group out there because I couldn’t sleep, and once I was awake I didn’t want to waste sunlight. There were about seven girls, roughly university age, taking up the next chairs down, and they all sounded distinctly American to me. Once I heard them mention ‘spring break,’ I got really interested and started trying to figure out where they were from (especially because I thought it was quite early to have a spring break). Later on, when they were getting ready to go back for a nap, I saw a girl walk by me wearing a University of Georgia t-shirt! These girls were all UGA students over in New Zealand and Australia on a study abroad. (In case you’re a reader not from the USA, Georgia Tech – my home university – is a rival of UGA, and we’re both state universities in Georgia.) It was even cooler because the girl in the t-shirt was actually the roommate of Emily, a girl who was on the GT study abroad in Wellington (we travelled together to Rotorua). I travelled all the way around the world just to run into a group of girls from my same area.

This was the last night that the entire Connections group was together. Two of the girls who had been with us from the beginning were ending their tour (they were only doing an 11-day tour, Sydney to Long Island), so we took our group photo and had our celebrations that night. There were 16 of us plus our driver and hostess. We enjoyed the pool, hung out on the beach at sunset, and did karaoke one final time (we did that fairly often throughout the trip). The next morning we got up early to catch our ferry, dropped the girls off in Airlie Beach, and headed north again to Cairns.

Aussie Pictures: Fraser Island [2]

2006-03-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

This is a selection of my best pictures from the sunrise on Fraser Island. The light in the first picture is from a car driving down the beach, which was used as the highway on the island.

Aussie Pictures: Fraser Island [1]

2006-03-25T10:05:00.000-05:00

On the way to Fraser Island, we stopped for about an hour in Brisbane. That was all the time I spent in Brisbane, but at least it was a nice day!

The required picture of me in Brisbane.

We made it to Fraser Island in time to catch the sunset. We were staying on the east side of the island, so we couldn't really see the sunset, but it was still really pretty on the beach.

Since I didn't go on the 4WD tour, I spent a lot of time at this pool. You can see how there aren't any stairs or anything, the pool just gradually slopes down to be deeper and deeper. It wasn't heated, but because of the air temperature it was warm enough to be wonderful.

There are no sealed roads on Fraser Island, so even the transfer busses are 4WD vehicles!

We had a birthday party for our tour company on the beach on the second night with champange and 'nibbles' (strawberries, cheese, crackers, etc).

You can't swim in the waters off of Fraser Island not only because of strong currents and sharks but because of the number of deadly jellyfish at the shoreline. These are some that got washed ashore in the morning.

I love this picture. I took it when I was up for the sunrise.

Aussie Pictures: Surfer's Paradise

2006-03-25T09:54:00.000-05:00

On the way to Surfer's Paradise, we stopped at the Natural Arch, a rock formation that is, basically, a natural arch (creative naming, right?). You could walk into the cave in the back where all of the bats were and see the waterfall from different views. The walk through the rainforest to the arch was really pretty as well.

Surfer's Paradise has a really pretty beach. I didn't think the waves were any better than anywhere we had been, but it was a really nice beach. This area of Australia is known as the Gold Coast for its golden sand.

Yeah, more beach.

Now, it was a nice beach, but you were definitely warned very clearly NOT to go swimming in the water, not only because of the currents ...

... but because of the jellyfish! As you can see, though, many people disregard these warnings. I think most of these people must be native Aussies because those people seem to not be wary of any of the thousands of Australian creatures that can kill you pretty much instantly.

I was walking along the beach because I was trying to find this hotel. This is the Palazzo Versace, the only Versace hotel in the world. Meredith had found out about it from a Rotarian (I think), and it did take awhile to find, but it was really cool to see.

This was the last holiday Meredith and I took together. It was really cool that she was able to make it to Surfer's to hang out before she started school again, and we had a great time.

Aussie Holiday: Surfer's Paradise and Fraser Island

2006-03-25T09:52:00.000-05:00

Our next stop was Surfer’s Paradise, the famous beach on the Gold Coast, about an hour south of Brisbane. On the way there, we crossed over into Queensland, which means that we had to set our clocks back an hour. Earlier, we had been in New South Wales, which recognises daylight savings, but Queensland doesn’t (or the other way ‘round, I forget which). So, even though Brisbane and Sydney are geographically in the same time zone, they are an hour apart.

Our first stop was at the Natural Arch, a geologic formation that is pretty famous. Some of the people on the tour (Jenny, Laura, and Ali) had left us in Byron Bay to go on a two-day ‘Eco Hike,’ and the Natural Arch was one of their stops as well. It was really pretty, with a waterfall and everything. We walked through a bit of the forest as well, and Clinton told us about all the different kinds of trees and birds.

Once we got into Surfer’s Paradise, I immediately set out to find Meredith (flatmate from Wellington). We had decided several weeks prior that she was going to join me in Surfer’s for one last holiday before she had to go back to university. She had actually flown over on Wednesday as she was planning to meet another friend there, but that didn’t work out. She did meet some really cool English girls in her hostel, though, so we went out with them on the first night. We wandered around the night market for awhile, just browsing, before going out to a good Italian dinner. Surfer’s Paradise is very commercialised, complete with movie theme parks and a ‘sea world,’ and it also has a very vibrant night life.

The next day was a free day. Some people had activities scheduled, but I wanted a free day to explore the city and hang out with Meredith. She was actually checking out of her hostel and moving into our spare bed (her hostel was a bit dodgy, and our resort was much nicer), so while waiting for her to get over to our room I did my washing. After she got here, we gravitated to the sunshine by one of the three pools. Paradise Resort, where we stayed, is a family-oriented resort, with several kids’ pools and toys, but there was also a more ‘adult’ pool around the corner. We stayed there for some time, just enjoying lying in the sun, before deciding that we were being lazy.

Meredith hadn’t done much else in Surfer’s Paradise, and I had only just gotten there, so we decided to take a walk down the beach. She had heard somewhere that the only Versace Hotel in the world was in Surfer’s Paradise, so we set out to see what we imagined to be a beautiful hotel. The hotel was a lot farther away than we anticipated, but in the end we made it. It was a really nice hotel, and I really liked watching the cars out front (nice ones, like my Z4). We got smoothies and then began our walk back. That was interesting because we didn’t really know where to get off of the beach to get back to the Paradise Resort, but we are resourceful Ambassadorial Scholars and managed to find our way. We took showers, had dinner, and then went out to celebrate my last night in Surfer’s. Lots of dancing and socialising was involved, and it was a great night.

The next morning, we had to wake up at early-thirty to get on the bus for Fraser Island. It wasn’t actually very far to drive, but we had to make sure that we could catch our ferry. We all made it on to the bus and promptly fell asleep again. We woke up for a stop in Brisbane quickly. Not much was open because it was about 8am on a Sunday morning, but we all managed to find snacks and coffee shops open. I am sad I didn’t have much more than an hour in the city because it looked beautiful, but it wasn’t a large stop on our itinerary. By the time we got to the island and got all settled in, the sun was beginning to set. I took the opportunity to walk on down to the beach and watch the sun set over the trees. We were on the east side of the island, so I could only watch the colours over the trees, but it was still beautiful. Later that night, after dinner, some of us went out on the beach to stargaze. The sand dunes were lovely for lying in, so we sat down, leaned back, and were amazed by the shear number of stars we could see. The Milky Way was so clear and so large that it seemed like all we had to do was reach up to swish our fingers through it. I have never seen so many stars or seen the Milky Way so clearly.

Now, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, and its sand is a gorgeous golden colour and very fine. It’s a good thing that the beach is so beautiful because you can’t even think about getting close to the water. First of all, it is the summer season, so jellyfish like to hang around the shores. Secondly, the sand bank drops off very sharply, creating a perfect environment for sharks to breed and hunt. Thirdly, the current is so strong that if you got in the water, you need to remember your passport because you’ll probably end up in New Zealand. Basically, you don’t go near the water. There is an amazing amount of fresh water on the island, though. Vegetation falls on the sand dunes, eventually becoming meshed together to form a lake bottom, and rain water fills up these pools. Some of them are spectacular, especially the ones where the sand dunes are right up against the edge of the water. It’s quite a hike into the interior, so there are lots of 4WD tours that you can go on and explore.

I, however, did not feel like seeing more sand, being active for an entire day, or moving in general. Rather, I woke up that morning to see the sunrise. This was the last opportunity that we had to see the sun rise over the ocean, and I didn’t want to miss it. There were only a few of us who woke up to see the sunrise, and only Ali and I remained to take heaps of pictures. It was absolutely gorgeous. I just counted my pictures, and I took 72 pictures and 2 movies that morning. The colours were perfect, and there isn’t much that is nicer than the sun rising over the ocean in the early morning air. Ali and I stayed on the beach well after the sun was fully raised taking pictures of the ocean, the sand, our footprints, etc. We were trying to be artistic, and I am happy to say that we got some amazing shots that morning.

After all that time in the sun, I couldn’t even think about going back to sleep. We still didn’t have breakfast for about two hours (it was around 6.30am or 7am at this point), so we went to the pool and had an early morning swim. The pool was gorgeous. Rather than steps or a ladder leading down into the water, it was designed like a pool where the depth gradually got deeper and deeper and the water lapped up at the edge. This meant that you could lay in the water with your towel for a pillow and sunbathe while keeping cool. I am sure it was designed for ease of entry, but our use was much better. I was originally planning to spend the day on my own like that because everyone was either on the organised 4WD tour or had plans to rent their own 4WD. It turned out, though, that all of the 4WD vehicles on the island were broken (that’s an island attitude for you), so I had some company poolside.

That evening, we had a big party on the beach. It was a birthday party for our tour company, and Jules had bought several kinds of champagne and nibbles for the occasion. We even had birthday hats! We had the party as the sun was setting, and it was a lot of fun. That night we had some karaoke after dinner. There was another Connections group who was doing our itinerary the other way (Cairns to Sydney), so we got to meet and hang out with them for a time as well. Then, Fraser Island was over, and it was time to move on to the next spot!

Aussie Pictures: Byron Bay

2006-03-25T09:33:00.000-05:00

This is my little cottage that I stayed in in Byron Bay with two other girls. I had picked up this sarong in Fiji, the hat in Sydney, and the sunnies in Byron Bay, and when we put them all together we joked that I looked like I fell out of Hollywood or something. We had to take a picture.

On our first night, we went to dinner at a local restaurant / bar that had live music. On this particular night, it was a guy who sang, played the guitar, and played the didgeridu (that long bamboo looking thing to his right in the picture). The didgeridu is a traditional aboriginal musical instrument that is made by letting termites hollow out a specific kind of wood and then adding some wax to create a sort of mouthpiece. Different sizes and thicknesses and wax types make different notes and sounds.

The beach at Byron Bay. It was a really nice beach, but the waves and currents were a lot stronger than in Sydney. Boogie boarding was kind of crazy, what with us getting thrown around everywhere, and the people who learned to surf here definitely had some big waves to deal with.

This is a pretty self explanatory picture. Actually, it is the continuous most easterly point of the Australian mainland. I think there is a point where during low tide you can walk further east, but this is the most easterly most of the time.

We hung around here for a long time watching the waves crash and taking pictures of the changing patterns of the sun on the water.

When we first walked down to the water, it was raining, but by the time we had gotten out of the tree cover it had stopped raining. There were still some dark clouds around, and it was raining off in the distance over the water, but these things only made for more interestin pictures.

Stacey and I both tried to work around our time delays on our cameras to take pictures of the waves crashing, but this was the best that I got. There were some spectacular crashings, though.

Aussie Pictures: Blue Mountains

2006-03-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

If you drive about an hour west of the Sydney central business district, you are still considered to be in the city of Sydney, but you find yourself in the middle of a gorgeous national park area called the Blue Mountains. It is pretty big and just fabulous.

As I thought it was gorgeous, I took lots of pictures of me on the edge with huge expanses behind me. I made some of the older ladies in my tour group very nervous with my proximity to a very long, steep drop, but they are great pictures!

I liked this waterfall the best of the ones that we saw. I like how it was a double waterfall.

Along with posing on cliff edges, I had a habit of taking pictures on the wrong side of the guardrails, also making the ladies in my group very nervous. Hey, at least I am near a guardrail this time!

Just a warning ...

At our afternoon tea break, we ran into all of these wild kangaroos. I think that I look photoshopped into this picture, but I promise it's real!

And another picture of a kangaroo ...

This rock formation is known as the Three Sisters, and it is a pretty popular draw to the Blue Mountains. I took heaps of pictures of them from all kinds of distances and angles, but this one is my favourite.

Aussie Pictures: Taronga Zoo [2]

2006-03-17T20:49:00.000-05:00

One cool thing about the Taronga Zoo is that the giraffes have the best view of the Sydney harbour.

I have absolutely no idea who these elderly men are, but I came across them feeding the peacock and was highly entertained.

The koalas weren't very active when I was at the zoo (they sleep something like 20 hours per day!), but they did wake up enough to climb around a little before I left.

I stopped by a bird show while I was at the zoo. It was the coolest show I have been to at a zoo because the birds were trained to flight right above your head - as in, their feathers ruffled your hair. Look at the eyes on this owl!

I don't actually remember the name of this climbing animal, but he has a great view of the city.

I must have spent at least half an hour watching this chimp play around in his area. He was a playful little bugger, and he kept annoying all of the adults in the cage. He would climb up in trees and jump down on the adults, or he would run and tackle another kid, or he would just roll around on the ground, just having a good time. He was great to watch.

And finally, this is the view from the gondolas on the way back to the harbour. It wasn't the clearest day, but at least it wasn't too hot to walk around the zoo!

Aussie Pictures: Taronga Zoo [1]

2006-03-17T20:41:00.000-05:00

This kangaroo is massive. He really seemed like he could just hop over the barrier. There were some Asian girls watching him with me, and he was playing hide-and-seek with us. He would go down where we couldn't see him and then hop back up quickly.

I believe these are the wallabies.

Sea turtles! I came back by here about an hour later, and one of them had moved to the other side of the pond. I only saw one briefly in the wild.

There is a great commerical for a long-distance telephone company (I think) that features these animals in New Zealand. There's always at least one standing up keeping watch while the others are digging tunnels.

Lions ...

... and tigers ...

... and bears! Oh my!

Aussie Holiday: Byron Bay

2006-03-13T15:34:00.000-05:00

After Sydney, I had a 15-day trip planned up the east coast of Australia. Because I was travelling alone, I had booked in with a tour group called Connections that had everything pre-planned. I had all of my accommodation, travel, and most of my food already planned before I even left New Zealand. I also had a built-in group of people to travel with, which is nice when you are travelling alone. I met my group at 7am on Wednesday morning to head out of Sydney. There were about 15 of us in all, which is small even for the tour company. Apparently it is because we left mid-week and from Sydney, whereas most people leave on Saturday from Cairns. After a few minor mishaps (not being able to find the hostel, having to turn around to pick up people who missed the bus), we were on our way!

Our first stop on the tour was in Byron Bay. We drove for ages on this day, but it was our longest day of driving so it was nice to get it out of the way. We had a large coach, and because there were so few of us, we all got to spread out and sleep. We also watched movies and had plenty of 'comfort stops.' On this first ride, we were also getting to know each other. Connections tour groups all have one driver (Clinton) and one host or hostess (Jules). The hostess is responsible for organising any activities that we want to do, making sure we have our hotel keys, and cooking our meals. She also encouraged us to get to know one another, so on the first ride we had to go up to the front of the bus and give a short speech about who we were, where we came from, and why we were on this holiday in Australia. There weren't too many people. We had:

Jenny and Laura from the UK
Kat and Chris from the UK (Kat had been living in Australia for about 9 months)
Ali from the UK, beginning a year of backpacking around Australia
Alex from London, travelling before uni
Michael from Germany, a small business owner
Clare and Adam from the UK
Juerg and Bettina from Switzerland
Stacey, a Canadian paramedic

Like I said, our first stop was in Byron Bay. We stayed in little holiday homes away from the main drag. Ali, Stacey, and I shared one, and we had the biggest one by far. I was expecting dorm rooms and backpacker hostels, but all of our accommodation was wonderful. This home had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, a kitchen, and a dining room. It was fully furnished, and it even came with little packets of milk for tea and coffee (if you can have milk, that is). That night, Clinton and Jules took us into town for dinner at a local popular pub. There was live music which consisted of one guy playing the guitar and the didgeridu. It was a really cool sound, something very Australian. Several people went out to one of the nightclubs afterwards, but after not sleeping in Sydney it was all I could do to make it back to my bed!

Byron Bay is a small, hippie-ish surfing town. The beach was beautiful, and the waves are stronger than they were in Sydney. We all went to the beach the next morning armed with boogie boards (free from our homes). If you had never been on a boogie board before, you would have been intimidated with the waves because they could definitely pull you under and toss you around if you weren't careful. We had a blast, though. The current was stronger than it had been in Sydney, so we had to keep watching that we weren't drifting too far down the beach. After a good ride in, you had to get out and walk back to where everyone else was. That afternoon, many people had signed up for a surfing lesson. I had just done that in Sydney, so I ran some errands in town and then headed back to the beach. It was so nice to just lay around on the beach, listening to music and reading occassionally. That night, Jules cooked us dinner, and everyone was so exhausted from surfing that we all fell asleep early.

The next morning was our last day in Byron Bay. We headed up to the lighthouse, which is the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. (Technically, there is another point farther east, but you can only walk out there at low tide, so it doesn't count.) Three of us - me, Stacey, and Michael - decided to walk back. It started raining on us almost as soon as we left, but thankfully that didn't last long. It was totally worth it because the views from farther down the beach were much better. We hung out down there for a long time watching the waves crashing in on the rocks (and trying to capture the big ones on film). Then we walked back on the beach, did a little shopping, and met at the bus to leave for our next stop, Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast.

Wellington Update

2006-03-11T17:59:00.000-05:00

This will just be a quick update. I am leaving to meet Meredith for brunch and 'cultural acitivities' in about 20 minutes, but I just wanted to get a few things online first.

Yes, I am back in Wellington. Australia was amazing - and warm - but that 20 day holiday is over. I knew it was over as soon as I stepped off of the plane and felt the chilly wind blasting in through the gaps. It was 28 when I left Cairns and 11 when I landed in Wellington. Big difference. The weather has apparently been really cold and rainy lately. I missed the worst of it while I was in the tropics (ha HA!), but I really hope it gets better for my last few days in New Zealand.

I had to move out of my old flat, so I am currently bumming with a friend who just moved here from the States. It's somewhat frustrating not having a real place to live and keep my stuff, but it is also fun living with her for a week. I keep losing things in the flat because I have no real place to put them and am always tripping over my suitcases, but it's only for a few more days. Yesterday was a beautiful day, so we did some errands and shopping in Wellington before driving out to Paekakariki to go walking through Queen Elizabeth Park. It was a perfect day once I realised that I could make my GT cap tighter so that it wouldn't blow off of my head. We also went to a movie last night, Brokeback Mountain, after she cooked me a good dinner. I am usually eating meals out not only because I want to go to my favourite restaurants one last time but also because I can't be bothered to buy groceries for the little time I have left.

Like the restaurant thing, I am in the process of all of my 'last time in New Zealand' activities. I am trying to hang out with my friends as much as possible as well as go to my favourite restaurants, shop for all of the things I haven't gotten yet, and visit the museums and sites that I haven't been to yet. I have my last Rotary meetings this week and a goodbye dinner / party planned for Wednesday. It should be a lot of fun as long as I stop thinking about it as a 'goodbye' dinner.

I will try to be good about posting about my Australia trip as well as putting up pictures (I have so many, and they are all so pretty!), but this will probably be one of my last New Zealand posts. I have had a great time here and done more than I ever imagined I would. I am going to have to use my previous blog entries to remember everything that I have done!

Aussie Pictures: Sydney [2]

2006-03-10T03:10:00.000-05:00

I took this picture in the Olympic Village in Sydney. This is the Olympic Flame / Torch from the 2000 games.

Bondi Beach! It is a gorgeous beach, but check out how crowded it is. The foreground is more spread out than the background. This is because the swimming section is in the background, so it had a higher concentration of sunbathers. In Australia, they have so many surfers that all of the beaches are segregated. Swimmers have to swim between certain flags so that they are not run over by surfers.

In contrast, this is the beach where I learned how to surf. So much more relaxed and empty!

One thing I really wanted in Australia was a world map with Australia in the middle and at the top, so I was a frequent visitor of map stores. One in Sydney really took me by surprise because it had this whole section of USA maps! The red ones are state maps (Florida, Georgia, etc), and the blue ones are city maps (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, etc). I was amazed that the demand for these maps was such that they were actually stocked!

Sydney has heaps of tourists, and in order to keep them safe the city has painted which way to look on the ground of every intersection. Very handy, but I have never felt more like a tourist than I did taking a picture of a street.

This is the Rocks Market where I spent so much time shopping. Lovely!

I saw this ad on all of the TV stations and throughout all of the cities in Australia. I was intrigued by the idea of advertising for people to inform the government of potential terrorist attacks, especially in Australia.

Aussie Pictures: Sydney [1]

2006-03-10T02:58:00.000-05:00

The world famous Sydney Opera House by day ...

... and by night ...

... and with me in front and the bridge in the background ...

... and a close up view! (Yes, I know I took a lot of pictures. Imagine how many I actually have on my computer!) Check out the panels and you can see how they are tiled and not smooth like they seem from far away.

This is the Sydney Tower. I am laying down on the ground in a park while taking this shot.

This isn't the Sydney skyline as normally seen on postcards. This is actually the skyline in Darling Harbour, a section of Sydney that is close to where my hostel was.

And of course, the Sydney Harbour Bridge! I climbed from that pylon on the left to the peak in the middle and back down.

Aussie Holiday: Sydney

2006-03-09T23:07:00.000-05:00

I woke up at 3.30am – yes, 3.30am! – to make it to the airport by 4.30am for my 6am flight. That was incredibly early, and probably the earliest I have woken up in New Zealand, but it was a good flight because I arrived in Sydney at 7.30am, ready for a full day of tourist activities. I had some crazy mishaps, such as not finding a shuttle and all of the ATMs in the arrivals centre being out of money, but I eventually made it to my hostel in downtown Sydney. My first objective was to find the Georgia Tech students. They had arrived the day before me in Sydney, but tracking them down was easier said than done. There are apparently two Ibis Hotels in Sydney, and I was looking for them at the wrong one. The lack of mobile phones made this whole situation even more difficult. After about two hours, I had finally tracked them down, and we set off to explore the new city.

As we were all new to the city, we just took off in what we thought was the general direction of China Town for some exploration. We ended up at Paddy’s Markets, a really cheap marketplace with every sort of souvenir or gift you would want. Because none of us had mobiles, we all ended up getting separated. I stayed with Patrick, and after we couldn’t find anyone else, we grabbed some lunch and then left for some more exploration. We walked in the general direction of Darling Harbour and decided that as it was extremely hot (we were used to the cool climate of Wellington), it was time to check out the air-conditioned Sydney Aquarium. I was probably more excited than many of the little kids who were going in at the same time. We spent the next couple of hours watching all kinds of fish, finding Nemo and all of his friends, and walking through the underwater tunnels. It was excellent!

By the time we had come out of there, we were exhausted and ready for some food. We went back to the hotel where the Americans were staying to find some people to get food with, but most people had already eaten. We just ducked across the street, bought some groceries, and made some good old American PB&J. That night was a Friday night, so we all got somewhat dressed up to go out to some of the pubs and check out the night life. After ages of dancing and hanging out, many people headed back home, but some of the diehards (aka three boys and me) went out to the casino. You only have to be 20 to gamble in Australia, so the boys were anxious to get rid of some of their money. It was my first time in a casino, so while the boys played blackjack I wandered around, people watching and checking out the décor. I ended up practically falling asleep because I had been up for so long (we left around 3am, which is 6am in Wellington, and I had been up since 3.30am – do the math, that’s in the neighbourhood of 27 hours!).

As tired as I was, there was no sleeping in for me! No time for sleep on this ‘holiday.’ One thing that I wanted to do in Sydney was shop at the Rocks Market, and it is only open on Saturday and Sunday. I was booked in for an all-day surf school on Sunday, so I had to go shopping on Saturday. Patrick was nice enough to go with me, but I am afraid he got rather frustrated in an amusing way at my indecisiveness. There was a pattern to my shopping – one circuit to check out everything, another to pick out what I really liked, and a third to make the purchases. In the end, he started taking pictures of me trying to choose which purse I liked more or which necklace to buy my mom. I took the hint, made my decisions, and we left. The market is in an area of Sydney known as ‘The Rocks,’ and it isn’t very far from Circular Quay and the famous Harbour Bridge and Opera House. We acted like the tourists that we were and took about a million pictures of the landmarks.

After all of out pictures, we somehow found our way to the bus station and began our adventure to Bondi Beach. Bondi is a famous beach known for its surfing and surfer / party culture. I had originally wanted to go to Manly Beach, but most of the Americans wanted to go to Bondi, so I just joined up with them. Since we had been shopping, Patrick and I were on our own to find our way there. We figured out which bus we needed to be on, but after boarding we realised that we had no idea at which stop we had to get off! We kind of ‘guesstimated’ for awhile, following the crowds. There was a large group of surfer-looking people, so we got off when they got off, only to discover that we were still about an hour walk to the beach! Disastrous. We didn’t want to get back on the bus, so we started walking. We ducked into a locksmith for directions to make sure we were going in the right direction, and a couple overheard us explaining our story and offered to drive us to the beach in their convertible! It was an incredibly nice thing to do. Aussies, like Kiwis, and very considerate and helpful people. They drove us in on a very scenic road and dropped us off at the entrance to the beach.

I am sure I have been on a beach as crowded as Bondi on a perfect Saturday afternoon, but right now I can’t remember when. As Patrick said, it is entirely possible that there were more people on Bondi Beach than in Wyoming! We walked the length of the beach, but we couldn’t find the Americans we were supposed to meet. We found another group, so we put our stuff down with them and went to go play in the surf. The waves in Australia are really strong. They throw you around every which way, so playing in the waves is much more exciting than in Florida. It is rather tiring, so we didn’t stay in very long. Patrick and I laid out to dry off, got dressed, and then started walking again. The couple who drove us to the beach told us about a really pretty coastal walk, so we headed in the direction. We walked for a while and ended up finding several other beaches that were just before Bondi. The rocks were incredible, cliff faces dropping off into crashing waves, and surfers catching some huge waves. We had another bit of an adventure getting back into the city. We had to catch one bus and then switch to another to get back to the city. Normally, this wouldn’t be complicated, but we couldn’t find the bus depot to save our lives. We finally found it, got on the right bus, and made it into the city. By this point, we were completely exhausted and starving, so we immediately found some food, even before showering and changing out of our swimsuits.

The next day, I headed off on my own. Before leaving Wellington, I had booked an all-day surf school. I met my group at the YHA downtown early in the morning, and we left for the beach. The company is based out of Tamarama Beach, which is very close to Bondi, but we went to a much more secluded beach about an hour away from the Sydney CBD. You have to have 4WD to get to the beach, and it is also protected by the Environmental Department, so there weren’t very many people there. It was a much nicer place to learn to surf than some place like Bondi because you didn’t have to worry about all of the other surfers and swimmers. We learned how to get on the board while on the sand and then headed into the water. If you have never surfed before, let me let you in on a little secret: it is incredibly difficult. It’s a little complicated, but it also uses a lot of muscle power. There is a lot of paddling, and then you also need muscle strength to get up on the board. Waves are very powerful, and all of the motion is also difficult to deal with. I had some pretty spectacular spills and nosedives, but they are half the fun of learning how to surf. In the morning I did a lot of the one-knee-on-the-board surfing, but after lunch I finally got the hang of it and managed to stand up a couple of times and surf in to the shore. It’s an incredible feeling to be riding the front of the wave and letting its power carry you in to the shore. If I lived closer to water, I would probably keep practising, but I may have to settle for only trying again on holidays. It is easy to feel how people become addicted to surfing.

The next day, Monday, was my last free day in Sydney. The Georgia Tech kids started their new classes, so I was on my own in doing everything that I still wanted to do. I began the morning with a bridge climb on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is the bridge that you see in all of the photographs, usually with the Opera House in the foreground. It was a very easy climb, not very adrenaline-pumping, but there was a spectacular view of the city and Opera House at the very top. It was a really fun way to spend the morning. After I came down off the bridge, I headed over to Circular Quay to catch the ferry to Taronga Zoo. This is the famous Sydney Zoo. Out of everything that I had planned for Sydney, I was pretty much most excited to go through this zoo. They had some really cool animals. There was one kangaroo that was playing hide-and-seek with us, coming up against the edge, ducking down to hide, and then jumping back up at us. There were some cute koalas, echidnas, lemurs, and everything else. The giraffes are really cool because their paddock overlooks the Sydney CBD and Opera House, so if you angle your camera correctly you can get a shot of a giraffe gazing out over the city. I also watched the bird show, which had all kinds of trained birds flying right over your head.

I would have liked to spend more time at the zoo, but I also had a pre-booked Pub Tour through the historic Rocks district. We went to three different pubs, all of which had a long history in Sydney, and our guide also talked a lot about the history of the district itself. It was really cool to hear the stories about the original settlers as well as walk through all of the alleyways and back roads of the Rocks that I never would have found otherwise. After my tour, I headed back towards the CBD to meet up with the Americans. That night we had a mini-adventure. In order to see more of the city, we would close our eyes, point to the map, and then go wherever we pointed. Once there, if someone saw a cool sign, we could go there; otherwise we would just point at another spot on the map. It was a good way to see more of the city, and we somehow made it back to where we started!

The next day (if you’re keeping track, it’s now Tuesday) was my last day in Sydney. I had booked in a tour to the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains, otherwise known as the Great Dividing Range, are west of Sydney and originally prevented any white expansion. I was on a full-day tour to see all of the highlights. We drove out of Sydney and stopped at lots of lookouts and landmarks, including a good vantage point of the Three Sisters, a famous rock formation in the Blue Mountains. We learned how to throw boomerangs and also got to take some up-close pictures of wild kangaroos. Morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea was all included. I had a good group of people to travel with. There were two older couples on the trip, and one of the women designated herself my ‘watcher’ for the trip. I have a habit of standing on cliff edges and the wrong side of railings in order to take awesome pictures (no worries Mom – I’m still safe!), and every time I did this woman would tell me to come back on safe ground. It was really funny. We also went on the most vertical railway in the world. We were pretty much straight up and down but facing back towards the ground on this train. It was actually more exhilarating than I anticipated!

After this long day, you think I would get some rest, but then you would be wrong. I arrived back in the city only to start rushing even more! That night several of the Americans were planning on buying rush tickets to an opera at the Opera House, and I really wanted to go. I got back at 5.55pm and was supposed to meet them at 6.30pm! I virtually ran all the way back to my hostel (normally a 20 minute walk – I made it in 10), took the fastest shower of my life (save for our two-minute showers in choir tour days), dried my hair, got dressed, did accessories and a bit of makeup, and was back in the lobby by 6.30 to meet Patrick. He had picked up dinner for us on the way (Burger King because it is pretty much the only thing we both could eat on the run), and we walked as fast as we could while eating back to the Opera House (where I had started out). I still can’t believe that I actually made it in time to buy my tickets.

When we got to the Opera House, we had a bit of trouble finding the other Georgia Tech people, but we finally found them and got in line for our tickets. Our tickets were A$50 because they were rush tickets at student prices. This doesn’t sound like a lot anyways, but we got literally the best seats in the house. Three of us were second row centre in the first balcony and everyone else was on the first row of the first balcony. These seats are A$270 at full price! We were very impressed with our money skills regarding this show. The opera was in Italian. It was a version of The Elixir of Love, set in the country and with Coca-Cola as the elixir. The finale was all done around a lit-up Coca-Cola machine, which we felt was very appropriate for a group from Atlanta. I love going to shows, and I really enjoyed this opera. As it was in Italian, subtitles were provided, and they were incredibly amusing. There would be several minutes of beautiful singing in Italian, and the translation would be, ‘G’day mate!’ Other words used in translation were ‘sheila,’ ‘bloke,’ and other colloquial Aussie words. Highly amusing!

If that wasn’t good enough, the night was about the get even cooler. After the show, we were walking out of the Opera House, and a huge fireworks display started going off in the harbour! I still have no idea what it was for, but it was incredible. It was probably about eight minutes long or longer, and it was definitely 4th of July worthy. The fireworks were huge and colourful and brilliant, and they lasted forever. After it was over, we took some pictures of the Opera House at night and then met up at Gelatissimo for some gelato. (Some pretty amazing gelato, too, mind you. Definitely rivals Paulo’s for my favourite!) All in all, it was a perfect last night in Sydney. I had an amazing time while I was there, as whirlwind as it was, and while I wanted even more time to enjoy the city, I was excited about the next leg of my Aussie holiday.

Valentine's Day update

2006-02-13T16:01:00.000-05:00

My scholarship year is winding down, which means that everything is moving twice as fast as normal. I keep alternating between feeling overwhelmed with all that I have to do and want to do and being sad about leaving Wellington. I suppose it is a good thing that I am so busy because I don’t have much time to think about actually having to leave New Zealand.

I hit the ground running after RYLA. I took summer papers at Victoria University, but I only took the intensive papers that met pretty much all day for a short period of time. RYLA was over on Sunday, and on Monday I started my last paper in New Zealand. It was PASI 101: The Pacific Heritage and it met for twelve days straight from 9-3 each day (with an hour for lunch). We even met on weekends because we had cultural field trips. We would have lecture and videos in the morning, a wrap-up in the afternoon, and student seminars in the last hour. We went on four field trips:

A walking tour of Victoria University to check out some of the Pacific cultural stuff

A trip to the Mana Pasifika and Culture Moves exhibits at Te Papa

A visit to a Cook Islands church on White Sunday

A visit to the Papua New Guinea High Commission to meet the High Commissioner

It was a good class overall.  I was incredibly busy because I was in class so often, and sometimes I really wanted to be out enjoying my last days in Wellington, but I did like the format of the class.  It was all internally assessed, which means that I don’t have to worry about a final exam.  I did have a 2,000 word paper to write that I managed to churn out yesterday (start to finish, including research).  I have an exam for my other summer paper tomorrow, and as soon as I finish writing this post I will begin my studying for that.

I have had a pretty busy time with Rotary lately as well.  Meredith spoke to the Rotary Club of Hutt City last Wednesday, and she was invited to attend their ‘Long Lunch’ on Sunday.  We tend to invite the other one along on our Rotary events, so I got invited as well.  ‘Long Lunch’ is an annual event organised by some of the Rotarians.  This year, about 80 people attended (Rotarians and their families, mainly).  We got on a train at 9.30am to head up to Featherston.  Meredith and I, along with the organiser’s children and a few other people, were acting as servers on the train, so we got all of the champagne and morning tea together.  It was nice meeting all of the Rotarians on the train and explaining who I was and why I was there.  When we reached Featherston, the Rotarians headed off to a museum while the servers drove on to the winery to get lunch together.  We had a huge spread of salads, breads, meats, and seafood, as well as wine from the winery.  It had been overcast early in the morning, left over from a big storm the night before, but it cleared up in mid-morning and turned into a brilliant day.  Lunch lasted about two or two-and-a-half hours, and then it was into Martinborough for some shopping and ice cream.  A little while later, we were back on the train with the leftover drinks and food.  All in all, it was a long but fun day, and I got to meet a lot of enjoyable Rotarians.

Last night I had another Rotary event.  President Ben of the Pencarrow Rotary Club (my host club) wanted to have a going-away dinner for me before I left, and as he is going to be in China when I actually do leave, we decided to do it last night.  Mark, Anna, Ben, and Meredith, along with a couple more Rotarians, made it to Cobar in Eastbourne.  I was informed that Prince William ate here while he was in New Zealand, so that was quite exciting.  This restaurant was really nice and had a great view of the harbour back towards the Central Business District.  We had good food, good conversation, and good company.  Mark and Anna picked Meredith and me up at home around 6 and we didn’t get home until about 9.30!  It was a very nice going-away dinner, and I am very appreciative of the Rotarians making my stay in New Zealand so pleasant.

I think it’s about time for me to get some studying done.  I have the exam tomorrow (Wednesday), I am moving out of my flat on Thursday morning, and then I leave for Australia at 6am on Friday morning.  I won’t return until March 9th, late at night, and I will probably be disconnected from everything while I am travelling.  I don’t intend to waste a lot of beach time in an internet café!

More Rotorua Pictures (plus two randoms)

2006-02-05T21:04:00.000-05:00

The two pictures above are from the inside 'Mexican village' in Cactus Jack's Backpackers. It was open air, so it was quite nice to sit outside in the swings and chairs in the evenings. This village was in the centre of the surrounding square of rooms, although with all of the expansions, some of the hostel was a lot like a maze.

Back at Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland! A lot of the people on the GT study abroad trip are Greek, so we have a running joke about doing the sorority girl pose. Emily, the girl on the left, isn't even in a sorority, but (left to right), myself, Mallory, and Nikky are all in sororities. We are doing this pose because we made the four boys do it right before us.

Yes, go on and sigh and make fun of the cheesiness of me and Patrick, but it is nice to actually be together again.

This teeter-totter might have been the most fun Emily and I had on the trip. I wish I had a sound recording of how much we were giggling. Blake (pictured above) and Patrick also jumped on the teeter-totter bandwagon by surfing in the middle.

Now for the randoms! It was Nina's (Swiss flatmate) birthday not too long ago, so a bunch of us went out to dinner and a movie to celebrate. Claudia unfortunately was not back from her surfing trip, but we got three flatmates together (myself, Meredith, and Nina)!

This is me hanging out with the GT crew at a local pub on a nice evening in Wellington. I am really going to miss wandering down to the waterfront on nice days and just enjoying Wellington culture. Why doesn't Georgia have more water!?

Once again, another sorority girl pose. My flat had a party last weekend during the Sevens tournament, so a lot of the people came dressed in crazy costumes. (For those of you who aren't Kiwis, the Sevens tournament is a two-day tournament with 10 or 11 hours of rugby each day. The halves are shortened, and the Kiwis go nuts. It's like their version of Halloween! Crazy costumes everywhere. It's really one big party, and if you get tired of the party, you can just turn around and watch the rugby [to paraphrase my friend Doug, pictured above in yellow] ).

Rotorua Pictures

2006-02-03T01:00:00.000-05:00

The whole crew outside Cactus Jack's. This is the only themed hostel in Rotorua, and it is the coolest fake Mexican town. I think there's about 14 of us total.

One of the first things we did in Rotorua was go zorbing. This is a crazy Kiwi invention where you dive Superman-style into a big plastic ball partially filled with soapy water and then proceed to slip and slide down a big hill, as pictured above. It's probably the closest you can ever get to being spun around in a washing machine. To put the ball in perspective, I was inside it with Patrick and Blake, and there was more than enough room for us to stand up (not that we could; we were too busy sliding everywhere!).

After zorbing, we headed off to the AgroDome. Not surprisingly, there was no dome involved, but we did run into these sheep on steroids.

Later that afternoon, we went rafting. That's Krista in the front on the left. Patrick is behind her, and I am across from Patrick. The other three people are three randoms who were put with our group.

Here we are going over the largest commerically rafted waterfall in the world! It's somewhere in the neighbourhood of seven metres or so, and it was amazing. I was really nervous to go over it when we started, but once we got on the river there was no backing out. Our raft went completely under water before popping up again, but we were awesome and stayed right side up!

Of course, every good rafting guide will stear his boat back into a waterfall or two so that he can absolutely soak the people in front. At this particular moment, it is Krista and myself who are getting drenched.

The next day we all piled in our cars to go caving in the Waitomo caves. Our particular tour had lots of abseils, especially over waterfalls. It was cool to need a light and wetsuit and everything in the cave, but I would not recommed wearing gumboots to rock climb!

Part of our caving tour involved crawling through a shallow part of the river under some low-lying rocks. Turns out there was an alternate dry route, though, as our guide met us on the other side!

RYLA

2006-01-30T22:04:00.000-05:00

Rotary keeps getting better and better. Every time I think I am done being amazed with all of its programs, something else comes along to amaze me all over again! This time, it was the Rotary Youth Leadership Association (RYLA). RYLA is a program that was begun in New Zealand and then spread throughout the word. According to the official programme, RYLA aims to encourage leadership of youth by youth and to provide an effective training experience by giving an opportunity to:

Develop leadership skills;

Increase self confidence;

Gain exposure to a variety of issues and people;

Make new friends;

Obtain information and skills useful in life and/or work.

I know it sounds very official, but this was the best leadership conference I have ever attended (and I have attended my fair share).

I was originally not planning to attend RYLA at all.  Amy had attended right after she arrived last year and loved it, and Meredith was planning on attending this year, but I didn’t think I would have enough time and so did not apply.  Everything works out for the best, though.  I got a phone call from the program director on Friday, 13 January, asking me that if someone had to drop out at the last minute, could I drop everything and attend?  Meredith was very excited about attending, and I never say no to good opportunities, so of course I said I could go.  At this point, it was only about a 50/50 chance of someone dropping out, but I kept my fingers crossed.  I got a phone call at about 2PM on Tuesday asking me if I could still go the next day.  Yes!  Success!

Meredith and I got all packed that night (which was very difficult to do because we weren’t sure what we were going to be doing) and then drove out to Silverstream at 2PM on Wednesday.  Silverstream is a suburb of Wellington, only about 20 minutes out, and my host counsellor kindly drove us out there.  When we arrived, Meredith and I almost turned around and went home.  We might have tried to hide in the boot if the programme hadn’t been so highly recommended!  We were housed in an old asylum-turned-prisoner-of-war-camp (or the other way around, I can’t remember).  The majority of the buildings have not been refurbished and are tumbling down.  It was shocking.  Thankfully, the reception area was in a modern building, and once we finally found our accommodation, it was not in shambles.  I was still very wary at this point, though.  I hadn’t been excited about this for as long as Meredith and wasn’t quite sure if this was how I wanted to spend the next five days of my life.

We had received our schedules that afternoon, and I don’t think they could have fit anything else in this extended weekend.  We were that booked.  We began each day at 6.30am with exercise and we went full on until between 10pm and midnight every night.  Now, just because the official programme was over at, say, 11pm doesn’t mean that we went to bed at 11pm.  Rotary is first and foremost a service organisation, but it is also very social, and its conferences reflect that fact.  Every conference I have been to with Rotary has built in time for social activities.  One night we went into Wellington to some establishments, and the other nights the facilitators set up a small bar for us to enjoy in the evenings.  This led to some late nights followed by early mornings!  (For reference, Meredith and I calculated our amount of sleep over the conference when we arrived home.  We determined that we slept for roughly 17 hours between Wednesday morning and Sunday night.)

Our schedules were so packed because the RYLA team put together a phenomenal programme.  Our first speaker was the Chief Executive of NZ Post, and it took off from there.  We heard from medical researchers about burnout, MPs about having a vision and what it’s like in Parliament, workers from the Human Rights Commission about cultural diversity, and young entrepreneurs.  We were split into seven teams and had building challenges and races.  We had team building activities that included a ropes course, traversing all over the camp and dodging obstacles (including crawling through a pitch black old sewer pipe), racing around Wellington in ‘The Amazing Race,’ and building a raft and sailing around a part of Wellington Harbour in cold rain.  One night we played the International Strategy Game, which is where we were split into countries and we had to trade commodities and space in factories to meet our objectives.  One of my favourite speakers was from a company called TetraMap who helped us learn about our specific leadership type and how to effectively communicate with other types.  Another good session was about how to set goals and achieve them.  Many conferences will focus on setting the right goals, but we also learned how to take the action steps to achieve our goals.  I could have done with a few of the sessions being shorter, but overall it was an incredible inspiring weekend.

Now, most of my leadership conferences that I have attended in the past have been through Georgia Tech, and this means that the same sort of people attend all of them.  It may be people in my major or people in my social circle.  The conferences are also quite short, taking up just a day or two.  RYLA is completely different.  We had youth from all walks of life.  There were 18 year olds who had just graduated from high school all the way to 24 year old dentists.  There were people who weren’t planning on going to university, people who were in university, and people who had graduated university.  We had builders, teachers, world champion athletes, engineers, and students.  Some were married, and some had children.  Many had never really heard of Rotary before or had not idea what it was all about.  The only thing that we all had in common was a drive to learn more about our own leadership styles, about how to be a better leader.  We all came from different paths, and none of us knew each other in the beginning.  Another different thing about RYLA is that we lived together for five days.  We socialised together, learned together, broke through barriers together.  It was the longest, most intense conference that I have ever attended.  Something happened to all of us right around the end of the second day / beginning of the third day.  We all seemed to come together as a group, and the friendships really started to form.  It was very odd for me to get so close to these people right before I leave, but I don’t regret it at all.  Everyone was amazing and has such drive for whatever it is that they want to do.  We have a reunion coming up in about two weeks, so I get to see everyone one last time before I go.

Altogether, it was an amazing weekend.  I never thought I could do that much for that long on so little sleep, but when everyone else is pushing themselves that far, you do too.  I am still exhausted because I have only just realised how much I have left to do and how little time I have left to do it.  I began my two week intensive class yesterday, so that takes a good chunk out of my time.  I also have heaps of reading, catching up, errands, etc, to take care of.  I am preparing for finals, for my trip to Australia, and for leaving the country to go back to Atlanta.  I got a little freaked out the other day when I put in notice to cancel my gym membership because it was the first official ‘I’m leaving Wellington’ act.  Cross your fingers that I can keep going till Australia before crashing!

Extended Weekend

2006-01-23T18:51:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday I walked over to the Weir House around 1PM to meet the crazy road trippin’ GT kids.  Because they are only over here for about 6 weeks, they go on road trips pretty much every weekend to see another area of the country.  14 of them were heading up to Rotorua for a variety of activities, many of which I had wanted to do since before arriving in the country, so I decided to tag along.

We had a caravan of three cars, five people in each car, but because no one had mobile phones, we never really stayed together.  Sometimes we stopped in the same places for food, but those were chance meetings.  Road tripping like that is a lot harder without communication!  My car was the only one with a CD player, so we got to collect all of the mix CDs everyone else had made for the trip.  Listening to those was fun because you never knew what was coming up next!  We stopped in Taupo for dinner and a stretch break before continuing on to Rotorua.  We were staying in Cactus Jack’s, the only themed backpacker’s in Rotorua.  It was amazing.  It had its own ‘Mexican village,’ swing, hot tub, and entertainment / lounging areas.  We had a lot of fun in this hostel.  Our group took up two big rooms, including one that was brand new.  It had exploded the previous year, so they had just finished remodelling it.  It was nice to be travelling with a big group of fun people as opposed to travelling on my own again.  That night we lounged around and checked out the local nightlife.

We all slept in the next day.  That’s not something you can do often in Wellington, so it was nice.  The original plan was to go see the geothermal areas before being picked up for white water rafting at 3PM, but we ended up running out of time.  Our group was so large that it took awhile to get everyone mobilised, so we didn’t have enough time to eat breakfast, drive to the hot springs, see them, drive back, eat lunch, and change before 3.  The new plan was to go zorbing!  Zorbing is a crazy Kiwi thing that involves rolling down a hill in a giant plastic hamster ball type apparatus partially filled with water.  I went in one with Patrick and Blake, and it was insane.  We couldn’t stand up at all.  We were just rolling over and over down the hill.  It was some of the best money I have spent in New Zealand.  After everyone zorbed and was sufficiently soaked, we headed off to explore the rest of the Agrodome area.  We went in the chocolate store, took pictures with large statues of sheep and moa, and chased / herded some sheep around a paddock.  Basically, we were just wasting time with some farm animals!

We headed back to Cactus Jack’s for some lunch at the Mexican cantina next door before getting ready for this white water rafting.  I hadn’t had Mexican food the entire time I had been in New Zealand, so I really enjoyed my dairy-free chicken nachos.  River Rats picked all 15 of us up around 3, and we were off!  We rafted the Kaituna River, boasted as being the “Grade 5 Ultimate” in the brochure.  This was a fun river.  We rafted over a 7 metre waterfall, which is the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world.  There were lots of rapids and other exciting adventures.  Krista and I happened to be in the front for most of the time, so we got soaked when the guide kept us in the waterfalls.  I was really nervous before starting the trip, way more nervous than I had been for skydiving.  I kept imagining going over a 7 metre waterfall, keeping in mind that I stand at 1.66 metres.  None of us fell out and our boat didn’t flip, so we did very well.  We had three boats (mine went first), and the other two almost flipped but successfully straightened up.  Jim was the only American to fall out of a boat, but it was his own fault as he wasn’t holding on to anything in a waterfall.  That evening we all came back and camped out in the hot tub.  The hot tub is actually heated with thermal water, so it was also a cool Rotorua experience.  We went out again later in the evening to check out some local pubs and whatnot.

The next morning was much earlier than the previous day.  We woke up around 6.30AM to leave for Waitomo at 7.30.  We were booked in for the Haggas Honking Holes caving trip, which included three abseils (rappelling into caves and down waterfalls), rock climbing, a glow-worm cave, and crawling along a subterranean river.   It was a bit of an adventure getting there because we got slightly lost and ended up arriving later than expected, but it all worked out well in the end.  We were all in wetsuits with helmets that had lights and everything.  We must have looked like we were from outer space as we tramped along pasture land to get to the cave entrance.  This was a great experience.  We were all incredibly dirty once we got out and very grateful for the hot showers back at the base.  I am not the best rock climber, especially not wearing gumboots full of water, but I still did OK.  Our group was too big to go at once, so we split into a group of 5 and a group of 10.  I liked being with the smaller group because some of those spaces were very tiny.  I heard that the big group sometimes split into two groups of 5 simply because there wasn’t room at the bottom of the abseil for everyone to fit!

Once again, back at Cactus Jack’s, we did the whole hot tub / hang around / eat dinner / explore the nightlife bit.

The next morning (Sunday morning) was our last in Rotorua.  We got everyone together, took some pictures of Cactus Jack’s, and moved out back towards Wellington.  We stopped at Wai-o-tapu to check out the geothermal pools.  I had been to this place on my last trip to Rotorua, but it was still fun to see it all again with the Georgia Tech crew.  We also stopped at the boiling mud pools, which is what I really wanted to see.  (I didn’t get the chance the first time around.)  We definitely took some videos of all the boiling mud.  I don’t remember seeing pools like that at Yellowstone, so it was really interesting.

One thing about road trips is that the ride is usually about as adventurous as the destination.  My car was a lot of fun.  It was me, Patrick, Blake Henderson, Catherine York, and Emily Straus (a non-GT person; she is a UGA student on GT’s study abroad).  We had an absolute blast telling crazy stories and enjoying the drive.  One of my favourite things we did was on the way back to Wellington.  We had heard about a sort of ‘adult’ playground that students had stopped at in the past.  We missed it on the way up but caught it coming back to Wellington.  Emily and I had a great time on a teeter-totter, we all ran inside the giant hamster wheel, and I went down the zip line more than the little kids did.  Unfortunately, Blake and Patrick had a race, during which Patrick potentially broke his toe (still waiting to hear about that one), so we had to cut our time short.  We stopped for dinner and continued the drive back into Wellington, arriving probably around 8.30 or so.  It was nice arriving so late because I really enjoy the motorway coming into Wellington.  It is a gorgeous city by day and even more incredible by night.  The harbour is lit up very nicely.  Our driving adventures were nothing compared to one of the other cars, though.  Their car broke down somewhere more than 3 hours north of Wellington, so they had to wait for 6+ hours to catch a 3AM bus back into Wellington.  They arrived at 7.30AM for 8AM class.  Whew!

My weekend didn’t really end there, though.  Monday was Wellington Anniversary Day (I think – I know it was a public holiday), and there were a lot of horse races on.  Meredith, coming from Kentucky, is a huge horse racing fan, and her boyfriend had 4 tickets to the Kiwi version of the clubhouse through his cricket connections.  They invited Claudia and me along because we had never been to a horse race before.  It was so much fun!  We got all dressed up to head out to the track.  Meredith taught us all about how to read the stats on the horses and how to place bets.  I am proud to say that I won $5.30 on a $2.00 bet, so I think that is a good thing.  We also got a special tour through the owners’ rooms because we got introduced to a guy on the race committee, so that was pretty cool.  We saw the jockeys weighing in, saw the race replayed for the owner’s, and heard a speech by the committee guy.  It was a really cool afternoon.  I wasn’t expecting to go when I woke up in the morning, so it was a fun spontaneous activity.  Now if I could only make editing my essay that much fun!

Family Vacation Pictures: Part 1D

2006-01-17T20:28:00.000-05:00

Our cottage / hotel that we stayed in had a bunch of hot springs / thermal pools disguised as Victorian era baths, and they all had signed with 'radium bath' and the like. I thought it was so funny!

Family Vacation Pictures: Part 1C

2006-01-17T20:25:00.000-05:00

Our Skyline gondolas coming up over Rotorua. I really do love being in the air.

Family Vacation Pictures: Part 1B

2006-01-17T20:22:00.000-05:00

It seems I have to do this one by one ...

This is part of the tracks that you go down on (obviously - you can see that in the picture). I took this picture from the chair lift on the way back up.

Family Vacation Pictures: Part 1A

2006-01-15T01:04:00.000-05:00

I apologise for this week's pictures being so late. I got distracted last Sunday night unexpectedly and have been having trouble with this post ever since. I am posting these pictures in two parts because I can't get all seven in this post for some odd reason. These are my weekly pictures from 15 January.

On our way to Turangi on our 'family vacation,' Mark, Anna, and I stopped in Taupo to see some of the bungee jumping people. This is the main bungee jump from what I understand. No way am I doing this, but if you have to go bungee jumping, isn't this a beautiful spot to do it? You can see the little hut at the top of the cliff where you jump off the side.

Rotorua from the air on the gondolas. Anna is scared of heights, but Mark was really excited about going back up on the gondola. I did scare Anna a little more than anticipated, though, because I sort of leaned out the window to take this picture, and then I noticed the huge warning instructing me to stay completely inside the gondola.

These are the bobsled type things that we took down the track. I am sure these are all over the United States (I have already been informed that there are several tracks in the sparsely populated far west), but this one is cool because it is in New Zealand and I had never done it before.

This was also my first time on a chair lift! I love being up in the air, so I had to take a picture to commemorate.

Friends, Parties, and Long Classes

2006-01-14T02:32:00.000-05:00

If we go in chronological order, the first main thing that has happened is that Wellington has been invaded by a bunch of crazy kids from Georgia Tech.  They arrived a week ago, all 43 of them.  Georgia Tech has a really popular study abroad program that comes to Wellington for six weeks, followed by three weeks in Sydney and three weeks in Brisbane.  Since I have been away from home for more than six months, it is very weird to be around so many Americans that I know, to run into them around town, but I am really enjoying it.  Because I have lived here for so long, I don’t feel like a tourist any more.  I don’t necessarily find out about free concerts on Tuesdays or go out to The Brewery on the waterfront just because it is a nice evening.  These kids do.  They only have six weeks in New Zealand, and their weekends are spent travelling around the country, so they have to enjoy Wellington while they are here.  It is very nice to be able to hang out with people who are exploring the city for the first time.  It also doesn’t hurt that Patrick, my boyfriend, is with the group.  I missed him a lot, so it is nice to be able to be in Wellington with him (basically, be in the same hemisphere, country, city, etc).

Next, Meredith came home!  She has been on a cruise with her parents since about the 18th of December, but she is finally home!  It’s nice to have her back again.  It’s been just me and Nina since she left, so now the flat is filling up once more.  Claudia stopped in for a few hours to refuel and do some laundry before continuing her journey up the north island (she’s been travelling around the south island since mid-December).  She should be home early next week, and then the flatmates will finally be together again!  We’re currently planning on having a “Girl’s Night In” sometime right after Claudia gets back to catch up on all of our adventures during the time we have spent apart, and I can’t wait.  I love living in this flat, and I couldn’t ask for better flatmates.  I really am going to miss living here when I have to go back stateside.

I’ve had a couple of parties to go to this week.  One of them was for my friend Dave who has decided to move to Melbourne.  He only knows one person there and has never been out of New Zealand before (not even to the south island), but he has decided that it is time for him to explore, and that means moving to Melbourne.  He currently plans to stay there for roundabout 18 months or so and then perhaps move on to Europe.  This was very weird for me to hear about because Dave was one of my first friends in New Zealand.  I met him very early on, and he has been a good friend to me while I have been here.  I couldn’t really contemplate the fact that someone I met from Wellington is actually moving to another country.  I am very excited for him, but it took some getting used to that people I know in Wellington don’t always stay in Wellington.

The other party was for my flatmate Nina’s birthday.  She turned 23 on Friday, so we had a little party to celebrate.  Meredith, Nina, and I, along with several of her university friends, went out to a big Chinese dinner.  Nina is enrolled in an English-as-a-second-language summer course to help her prepare for class work in English, so all of her friends from this class are not native English speakers.  This made for quite the multi-cultural dinner!  We had Swiss, American, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indonesian, if I remember correctly.  Sometimes it was a strain to understand what the other person was saying, but after trying to interpret “Kiwi English” for six months, it wasn’t too hard.  It was most interesting toward the end of the meal because we got into more cultural discussions, such as how different cultures still approach marriage and romance (and particularly the difference between Asian and Western societies).  Also, this meal was HUGE.  One of the girls has a Chinese boyfriend, so she knew all the best things to order, and we just split everything.  We even had a whole fish that Nina almost couldn’t look at.  My big accomplishment for the evening was eating my entire meal, rice and all, with chopsticks.  It has been a goal of mine since I got here to learn to eat with chopsticks (especially since I am spending 10 weeks in Asia this coming summer), so I felt really good about this.  I won’t starve in Asia!  After the meal, Nina, Meredith, Ara (from Korea), and I saw Just Like Heaven (a complete chick flick) and then went out for kiwifruit martinis at a cool little bar just off of the main district.  All in all, it was an excellent evening and a good birthday for Nina.

Now, I would be travelling with the Georgia Tech kids right now except that I have class all weekend.  I don’t feel I can complain too much since I haven’t had class in over a month and tomorrow is my last day.  After tomorrow, I just need to write one essay and then study for my final (which is two days before I leave for Oz).  We went over the outline for the essay today in tutorial, and I was once again struck by how different it is studying here compared to the United States.  In Georgia, I used the same referencing and citation format from 6th grade straight through university (although it got more complicated along the way).  Here, it is not only a completely different style; it is different in each department.  The History department requires a different style than the Politics department, and these are both different then the Language department.  When you take classes in four different departments, it becomes quite difficult to keep track of which kind of essay you are expected to write.  Do you need footnotes or headers, a bibliography or a works cited list, a clear cut outline or a regular essay, etc.  It turns my mind in circles!  Looking on the bright side of having to leave Wellington, I won’t be sorry to only have to deal with one main style guide when I return home.

I'm going to Australia!

2006-01-12T04:51:00.000-05:00

I am going to Australia for 20 days!

Yes, it is amazing. I am so excited about this trip. It is going to be my last trip based out of New Zealand, and it is going to be an incredible way to end my time down under. I couldn’t come to New Zealand without going to Australia, and I have been planning on going at this time since before I arrived.

I start with 5 days in Sydney. I was originally going to start in Melbourne, but I ran out of time and had to cut it out. I am pumped about being in Sydney. I have heard that it is a fun city to explore, and the more I think about it, the more excited I get. While in Sydney, I will be (among other things):

Checking out the aquarium and zoo. You get to the zoo by ferry across the harbour, so I am also going to do a harbour cruise at the same time.

Learning to surf! I am booked in for 2 2-hour surfing lessons (it’s a day long surf school) about 45 minutes outside of Sydney.

Getting in touch with nature. I am spending a day on the Blue Mountains Day Tour enjoying Australian nature. This includes bushwalking, views, kangaroos, and other Aussie things. It also includes a river cruise.

Exploring the local heritage night life. The Rocks is a historic district in Sydney that is also home to many bars and pubs, and I am taking a Pub Tour through the area.

Viewing the whole city from the top of the Sydney Tower. Self explanatory.

After this time in Sydney, I leave for a 15-day trek up the east coast to the Great Barrier Reef. I am on a tour, so I stay with the same people the whole time. This company is highly recommended by the same STA advisor who helped me with my Fiji trip, so it should be really good. If I was old enough to rent a car and had someone to travel with, I would definitely be more independent and just go at my own pace up the coast. However, I am travelling on my own, so this is a better option. I already have all my accommodation booked in, most meals paid for, and I have guides and travel companions built in. It’s a really good option for me. Now, the breakdown. A map might be helpful while reading this.

Day 1: Sydney to Byron Bay.

Day 2: Byron Bay. This city has a lot of water-related activities and seems to be a popular destination. I currently plan on doing some sea kayaking here and either lying on the beach or checking out some local craft shops.

Day 3: Byron Bay to Gold Coast. We get into Queensland on this day, going through a city called Murwillumbah. Man, the Australians have some crazy names. This area is also known as “Surfer’s Paradise.”

Day 4: Gold Coast. Apparently, this whole area is becoming quite commercialised and has a lot of activities for the many holidaying visitors. I envision this to be a sort of Panama City, so I’ll keep you updated. I might get away from the crowds on this day and head into the national park, but chances are the beach will draw me to it.

Day 5: Gold Coast to Fraser Island. We stop in Brisbane for much of today, as well as Kangaroo Point.

Day 6: Fraser Island. This is the world’s largest sand island. It is supposed to be spectacular, with picturesque and pristine beaches.

Day 7: Fraser Island to Capricorn Caves. We stop in the beef capital of Australia today, something I think will make great trivia one day.

Day 8: Capricorn Caves to the Whitsundays. Apparently, we have breakfast with kangaroos in the morning at the caves before leaving for Airlie Beach on the Whitsunday Coast. I have heard that these beaches are amazing, so I am looking forward to some serious lying in the sun. We’re staying on Long Island.

Day 9/10: The Whitsundays. Two complete days just to chill out on a beautiful beach. I can’t wait for this vacation.

Day 11: The Whitsundays to Cairns. Cairns is a pretty popular launching point for going to the Great Barrier Reef.

Day 12/13: Cairns. I am absolutely heading out on a snorkelling trip to the Great Barrier Reef. That is one thing I have wanted to do the entire time I have known that I was moving to New Zealand. There’s good shopping here as well as countless other activities to interest the tourists. I might also do some horseback riding here.

Day 14: Cairns. Rather than hanging around the beach, we turn inwards to the rainforest. We get to check it out on the Skyrail, which is gondolas floating above the rainforest, before exploring some of the local villages.

Day 15: Daintree World Heritage Area. It’s an early start this day, but it is sure to be one of the most spectacular days. We hope on 4WD vehicles for a trip up the scenic coastal Cook Highway before getting on a river cruise at the Daintree River. The cruise takes us into the rainforest, where we will go swimming and exploring. We go on to Cape Tribulation for another chance for swimming and just enjoying the sights as the rainforest meets the tropical waters of north Australia.

The next morning I fly from Cairns to Sydney and then on to Wellington. Every time I describe this trip to someone, I get a little more excited. I can’t imagine that I could be more excited, but it happens! I can’t think of a better way to cap off my time down under on the Ambassadorial Scholarship.

King Kong premiere pictures

2006-01-07T19:53:00.000-05:00

This is me hanging out in the grandstands at the end of Courtenay Place and the red carpet with my appropriated sign. Some quick thinking allowed me to get it from one of the cleanup workers, and it is currently hanging above my closet door in my room.
The only other time I have seen Courtenay Place this crowded was my first weekend in Wellington when the Lions were playing the All Blacks in Wellington. For this premiere, people were anywhere and everywhere. I saw adults who were most definitely more than 60 years old climbing trees to see above the crowd. All of the bars lining the street were filled by 3PM for the 5.30PM premiere, especially the ones with upper balconies. Claudia and I just got lucky with our seats because they were amazing even though we got down there so late.

This marquee was built to look like the NYC theatre in the movie. The Embassy does amazing work transforming the decor for every premiere that it hosts.

And now some cast members!

Adrien Brody (writer Jack Driscoll)

Andy Serkis (Lumpy the crewmember and the big ape himself, Kong)

Naomi Watts (Ann Darrow) [Side note: one thing I really enjoyed about Naomi Watts is that she was taking her own pictures up and down the red carpet with her digital camera.]

Claudia and my seats were right next to this stage where everyone important gave the big premier speeches. This is Peter Jackson with his daughter talking about it film, and if you look closely enough, you can also see them on the big screen.

Colin Hanks (Preston - and also the son of Tom Hanks)

This is Karl Urban. He isn't actually in King Kong, but he was an invited guest. He has starred in a number of films, including The Bourne Supremacy, but I know him best as Eomer in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Family Vacation

2006-01-03T05:30:00.000-05:00

In early December, Mark and Anna mentioned the idea to me of taking a holiday between Christmas and New Year’s.  I told Anna that I hadn’t been to the east coast yet and really wanted to, so it was decided that we would visit the area.  So began our family vacation!

Mark and Anna picked me up around noon on Boxing Day.  We weren’t driving too far on this day, only to somewhere between Taupo and Rotorua.  One of our rest breaks was at the Taupo bungee jumping site, so we watched some people plummet down towards the water off of a cliff for awhile.  Don’t worry, I haven’t done it!  We stopped for the night in Turangi, a small town where they had previously stayed.  Mark and Anna had reserved adjoining rooms, which was very nice.  I got my own room, bathroom, even my own kitchenette.  It was getting to be about evening time, so we walked into town to buy breakfast foods before dinner.  Mark is very interested in fishing, so he was drawn across the road from the grocer to the local fishing shop.  Once inside he got to talking with the owner and found out that the owner was also a guide, meaning he could take us out fishing in the morning.

This is how I came to be on a boat at 6AM on Tuesday morning on Lake Taupo.

I didn’t know we were going to be fishing, so I wasn’t too well prepared in the clothing department.  I had on short sleeves, a lightweight jacket, jeans, and my GT baseball cap.  Not too warm in the pre-dawn wind!  Once the sun started to come up, it got steadily warmer, but man, that first bit was cold.  It was quite fun to be on the lake that early, though.  I got to see the early morning mist rising up off of the lake, and I always have liked morning light better than afternoon light.  I also had never been fishing as far as I could remember (although I do have some slight recognition of my grandfather teaching me to cast once, so I must have been on the water sometime), so the new experience was broadening and kept my attention.  I caught the first fish of the day, and that started me on a roll.  Lake Taupo is full of American trout which was introduced just so people could fish for it.  It is illegal to sell trout in New Zealand, which keeps it open to only sport fishermen.  We threw back most of what we caught, but we did keep two good-sized fish.  The original plan was to have it professionally smoked and vacuum-packed to ship back to my parents in the USA (sort of proof that I actually did it), but no one was open because of the public holiday.  We cooked the fish for dinner that night in Rotorua, one with herbs and one with a sweet chilli sauce.  They were delicious!  It was quite cool to be eating the fish that I had caught earlier in the day.  I have never done that before.

After the fishing, we took quick showers, packed up, and took off for Rotorua.  Rotorua is in the middle of the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ) of New Zealand and has a LOT of geothermal activity.  It’s sort of like a commercialised and civilised Yellowstone National Park but with fewer geysers and more thermal pools.  Mark was really excited about taking me on a luge ride, so that was the first stop.  We drove a little outside of Rotorua and pulled up to what was most definitely a tourist attraction.  What with the school holidays and Christmas and everything, there were a ton of tourists, the most I had ever seen in one place in New Zealand.  We took a gondola up to the top of the mountain and got in line for the luge rides.  I wasn’t too sure what to expect, and Mark wasn’t alleviating my nervousness.  He kept describing it as a sort of sled at really fast speeds down a concrete track.  In my mind I am thinking, “Yeah, and what happens when we crash?”  It’s just one of those things that you have to do, so I put on my helmet and settled in to the luge.  It’s basically a sled on three wheels with a steering concept that is very simple: push forward to stop and pull towards you to go faster.  You use your body mainly to steer, but you can also turn the steering rod a bit to help.  The first ride down I took the “scenic / beginners” track and had a great time.  It was weird at first and took some getting used to, but it was great fun.  The next time around I took the “intermediate” track which included the “Little Dipper” and some other large drops meant to kill your stomach and make you fly off of the ground a little.  I remembered something my dad told me when I was learning how to drive – “You can’t steer if you’re breaking” – and decided to go a lot faster down this time.  It was way easier to go faster because you hugged the curves more and it was a smoother ride.  I didn’t attempt the “advanced” track as I heard it had a jump in it, similar to a ski jump, and was glad that I didn’t when I heard a story the next day from a friend who broke her ankle when she fell off on the landing.

The next day I spent a little bit of time catching up with a friend who lives in Rotorua while Anna did some shopping.  I joined her after awhile and then kept Mark company outside while she continued to shop.  That afternoon we headed out 27km outside of town to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland.  A little commercialised, but there weren’t as many tourists as at the thermal pools closer to town.  It was a really cool trip.  I was pretty young when I went to Yellowstone, but I remembered enough to know that this place was totally different.  Wai-o-tapu smells different, probably because there are several mixtures of sulphurous gasses, as well as a lot more colourful.  One pool, the Champagne Pool, has a brilliant ring of orange surrounded the edge, and the Devil’s Bath is an electric green colour that I didn’t believe existed in nature.  We went on the longest walk possible, going all the way out to a waterfall at the edge of the park.  I got a slight headache from all the sulphur in the air, but a bottle of water afterwards helped a lot.  We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around looking at the scenery and other hot spots in Rotorua.

That evening we also took a walk in the park close to our cottage.  One thing that amazed me about Rotorua was that it existed at all.  Everywhere there are wooden fences blocking off a small square of land where a hot pool has emerged.  These pools are all over the city.  Everywhere you can look in the distance and see steam rising above somewhere.  While we were wandering in Wai-o-tapu and around the park, I kept thinking, “This earth under my feet could collapse into a hot pool any second.”  It’s a bit of a crazy thought that Rotorua exists at all, much less as the commercialised tourist destination that it is!  (Rotorua is often called “Roto-vegas” by Kiwis to accentuate its commercialisation, its shopping and entertainment, and its attempts to become a tourist destination.)

Next, it was on to the east coast.  We had picked a highway through a national park as opposed to the highway that went through Taupo because I had been there a few months prior.  (Quick note about New Zealand state highways: they are not that big.  They are small two lane roads with occasional room for passing, and oftentimes you encounter roundabouts and stoplights along the way.  They are a lot like local highways back home, especially in back country areas.)  We planned on it being about a 4 hour journey to the coast.  Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into!  This road included roughly 105kms of unsealed road (read: gravel road) winding through mountains around a lake.  Well, we got our scenery!  The four hours turned into more than six, but it didn’t matter much to me.  This was the most gorgeous scenery I have seen in New Zealand, or at least the north island (the awesomeness of Mount Cook and Milford Sound cannot be overlooked).  This lake was absolutely amazing.  About halfway around, I finally opened up my Lonely Planet to investigate this route (something I should have done at the beginning; then we would have known what we were in for!) and found that we were circling Lake Waikaremoana (Sea of Rippling Waters).  This lake was huge, gorgeous, and awe-inspiring.  It really is one of New Zealand’s best kept secrets, partially aided by the fact that it is so difficult to get there.  There are some great tracks around it, and I would love to kayak around the border.  It had rained the night before, so everything was new and green and magnificent.  Close to the end, we came across a huge waterfall, and once we got to the other side realised it was part of a pair of waterfalls.  I am happy that we didn’t know how far it was going to be, or that we would have to travel so far on unsealed road (in the Jaguar!), because the scenic drive was more than worth it.  There aren’t sufficient words to describe how beautiful this area was.

After exiting the national forestry area, we were almost on the coast.  I have long wanted to explore this Hawke’s Bay area, not least because it is where much of the award-winning wineries are located.  We were staying in Napier, the art deco capital of the world.  In 1931 or so, Napier was completely destroyed by an earthquake, and the entire town was rebuilt in the style of the times; hence the current art deco capital status.  It’s a really cool city, and it really feels like a beach town.  The weather was crazy warm, especially after living with the cooler Wellington winds for six months, and I enjoyed every second of it.  After dinner we took a leisurely walk along the beach, and I felt like I was back in Florida on my annual family vacation.

The next day was devoted to wineries.  I got to pick all of the ones I wanted to visit, which was very exciting as I have become very interested in New Zealand wine during my stay here.  I got to visit several, including Mission Estate, Church Road, Te Mata, and Craggy Range.  The landscaping at these wineries is incredible, especially the bigger ones with impressive main buildings (such as Mission Estate’s old seminary).  I did wine tasting at each winery and took a history and building tour at Mission Estate.  I am a chardonnay drinker usually, tending to stay away from sauvignon blanc and the reds, and my tasting stayed mainly to that line.  I found some good rieslings, some good pinot gris, and I even discovered a new type of wine that is now my favourite: viognier.  It’s lighter than chardonnay and has only begun to be grown seriously in the region.  Very good!  The drive around to all of the wineries was also good, and we went to the beach at the end of it all.  The water was cold to me still, around 16 degrees, but that is apparently warm for the Kiwis who were splashing around.  I dipped my toe in to say that I did and then escaped back to the dunes to sit with Anna.

The next day (New Year’s Eve day) we drove back into Wellington, making sure to stop in Martinborough and at Palliser Estates, and really good and well-awarded winery in the region between Hawke’s Bay and Wellington (one that also exports to America!).  It was a fantastic trip in all.  I got to see a lot of the north island that I had wanted to see and was worried I wouldn’t have time to visit.  Mark and Anna were absolutely fantastic, paying for everything like it was a real family vacation.  They were really great for taking me around, for treating me to the trip.  I was really tired when I got back, too tired for a big New Year’s party, but it was worth it!

Holiday Season

2006-01-02T15:34:00.000-05:00

This was the first holiday season that I have spent away from home.  It was pretty much as different as it could be!  It is summertime here, which firstly means that it is warm here, not cold as it is back home.  It also means that the days are very long, not leaving many dark hours to turn on Christmas lights.  I didn’t see any real Christmas decorations anywhere in town or in people’s houses.  Because it is in the middle of the summer, there are many other things to think about, and the holiday season gets somewhat lost.  Back in the northern hemisphere, any holiday time we have at this time of the year is pretty much completely focused on Christmas (or Kwanzaa, etc) and New Year’s.  Here, people are thinking about summer jobs, and summer holidays, and summer school, etc.  Christmas just doesn’t seem to be a big deal in most places here.  Also, in the United States, we have Thanksgiving about a month beforehand, and that preps us for the holiday season.  I found myself missing the massive amounts of outdoor Christmas lights put up by overeager residents, the electric candles in the window of my house, and the candlelight service at my church.  Basically, all of the things you do in wintertime when it is dark.

After all of that, I did have a very enjoyable Christmas Day.  Even though it’s not dark enough for Christmas lights, I really have never been a fan of cold weather, so I am enjoying having another summer.  I also got to have a family Christmas, even if it wasn’t my family.  Kay Phillips, the president of the Harbour City Rotary Club, had invited me over to her flat for Christmas Day.  She was hosting her family this year, so it was a big get together.  The guest list included her father, her two children, her daughter’s partner, her sister and brother-in-law, and a friend.  And me!  I got over there fairly early in the morning, around 10.30, and didn’t leave till after 5.  I got to spend the whole day experiencing a real Kiwi Christmas.  I got to pop a Christmas cracker, and then all of us attempted to play music with our plastic whistles that came inside.  We had a huge feast, eating ham, lamb, turkey, stuffing, and more vegetables than I can remember.  Since it was their “real” Christmas, there were also a lot of presents to pass out.  I had a Santa hat with me, so I got to pass out all of the presents.  It was a really nice day, hanging out with her family, having a real Christmas.  It was also incredibly windy, as if Wellington had to remind me that I was actually still in Wellington.  I had a really good time that day, and it was amazing for Kay to invite me in to her family like that.

After I left Kay’s, I went home to hang out with Nina for the rest of the day.  It was just the two of us for Christmas, since Claudia and Meredith are still travelling, and we did what we do best – watch movies!  There were a lot on that evening, but we spent most of it watching a commercial-free Shawshank Redemption.  So good!  Not really a Christmas movie, but good all the same.  Nina and I go see a lot of movies together.  We saw King Kong a little while ago, and we have already seen Zorro and The Family Stone this week with plans to also see Narnia and Broken Flowers.  Man, I love movies!

Skipping ahead now to New Year’s, it was like no New Year’s I have ever had before.  New Zealand is in the first time zone to get the New Year, which means that when we celebrate it, no one else has.  I didn’t get to watch the celebrations in Sydney, Singapore, Beijing, London, Paris, New York City, etc.  There weren’t any countdown programs like Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, although several programs were interrupted with a countdown 10 seconds before midnight.  I had just gotten back from travelling for six days (more on that in the next post), so I was exhausted anyway.  Nina and I split a bottle of pinot gris over the course of the evening and sat up until midnight just to say that we had.  We hung out with some of the guys from the flats around us for a couple of hours earlier in the evening, and also had gotten our last meals at Satay Kingdom in 2005.  I baked chocolate chip cookies as well.  It was a very chill evening, very relaxing.  Not too much partying on our account (although I did hear the guys that we had been hanging out with earlier come back around 7AM).  It was a good night, all in all.  I saved the big partying for next New Year’s when I am A) 21 and B) back in New York’s time zone.

By the way, this is the year that I turn 21.  Feel old yet, parentals?  (

Horse Trekking and Collingwood pictures

2005-12-31T22:27:00.000-05:00

This picture is actually still from Marahau. This was outside some sort of small-town museum/gift shop, and it reminds me of the tree from the Disney version of Pocahontas.

Me on my horse! I can't remember the last time before this trip that I went horseback riding, but it would have just been around a paddock - nothing like this. We were up in hills, climbing through sheep tracks, and running full speed up 45 degree + cliffs. It was so much fun!

While we were out trekking in Golden Bay, we didn't meet anything but sheep. It was amazing to be so far out, so far removed from everything. The hills kept on rolling on and on and on to one side, and on the other they dropped down straight to the sea.

This is the way that we followed the tracks into the hills. That bit of land that extends into the ocean is called Farewell Spit, and it goes on for 26km. It is growing every year, rising more and more out of the sea due to changing tides.

You really have to watch yourself on these Golden Bay roads.

Collingwood has about three streets and covers roughly three city blocks of land, but even a small township like that has its own claim to fame.

Every guidebook I ever looked in about Nelson made one thing quite clear: every chocoholic must, under any and all circumstances, visit Rosy Glow Chocolates. I was very disappointed that I never made it there. So, imagine my surprise when I arrive in little old Collingwood and find that the original Rosy Glow Chocolates is located there! The one in Nelson is owned by the daughter of the woman who owns the one in Collingwood. I think that explains the overkill of pink in the house. The chocolates, by the way, were amazing.

I am not sure what it is about this area of the country, but they seem obsessed with life-size chess boards. Nelson has one in the town square; this one was at my hostel in Collingwood.

As small a township as Collingwood is, they still have magnificent sunsets.

Abel Tasman Pictures

2005-12-31T15:59:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! In honour of 2006, you get two picture updates today AND a post about my recent holiday (if I have enough time). Just so you know, I was really annoyed with my slow internet last week and in a hurry because I was packing, so that is why there was no picture update.

Abel Tasman National Park is at the northernmost part of the south island, and it is gorgeous. I went tramping and kayaking over a couple of days at the end of November, so the weather was starting to warm up but there weren't many tourists yet. The water was just amazing.

The mountains in the background are in the vicinity of Nelson, just to give you some geographical perspective.

Now, of course this bird doesn't have just one leg. It was chilling out on a rock and had just brought its leg up when I snapped the picture. But it is so cool!

Me in my official kayaking gear. I ended up taking off that yellow jacket windbreaker thing because it was pretty warm, really sunny, and I had good layers on underneath. It was a small group; the guide, a guide-in-training, and two other couples. I had a great time and realized that I love sea kayaking just as much as I love regular kayaking.

It was a bit of a complicated process to get from the kayak company to our kayaks. First, we put on all of our gear, and then we all loaded into the boat that was attached to a tractor. The tractor pulled us down the road for a while before reaching the beach. We had to cross a wide expanse of the beach because the tidal difference is HUGE (all of that beach shown above will be covered in water in a few hours), and then our boat taxiied us out to the smaller cove where we picked up our kayaks. The whole process was repeated on the way back in.

Our kayaks! We fit an amazing amount of gear into these kayaks. All of our food, cooking utensils, water, sunblock, shoes, extra clothes, everything! I was in a kayak with the guide-in-training, a girl who was my age. We had a blast.

This is a shot of the beach where we stopped for lunch. We stopped for an hour, maybe a little longer, and during that time, all of this ended up under water. The tides were huge in Abel Tasman. The beach had a lot of big "climbing" rocks over to the left, and in low tide you could walk around the point on the right to the next beach over. There was also a sort of lagoon in the back that was just sand when we arrived and had enough water in it to kayak when we left.

There are several small islands right around the coast, and most of them have lots of seals chilling out in the sun or playing in the water. We kayaked around them and got as close as we could, but A) the Department of Conservation has strict guidelines about how close you can get to the seals and islands and 2) seals are dangerous! After we kayaked around this island, we caught the breeze on the other side and "sailed" back into the initial cove. So much fun!

OK, that's picture update numero uno. I promise another one later today!

Pre-Christmas update

2005-12-23T00:55:00.000-05:00

It’s just me and Nina in the flat right now.  Meredith has left for her cruise around New Zealand with her parents, and Claudia has left for her month-long trip around the south island with one of her friends from back home.  With only me and Nina, the flat is a lot quieter than with everyone else here.  This is also because Nina has had class every morning from about 9-1, so I have the flat to myself a lot.

We have spent the week somewhat bumming around the flat and just getting ready for Christmas.  We saw King Kong yesterday at the Embassy as a celebration of her class being over until early January.  The weather has been absolutely fantastic, so we have been out enjoying the sunshine and low winds.  Well, until today, that is.  It was bright and sunny when I walked into the grocery store, and by the time I walked out, the winds had shifted, and it started to rain just as I reached our front door.  After being home for about 10 minutes, the rain shower turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm with rain coming down sideways.  It was raining so hard we couldn’t see into town.  It’s cleared up significantly, but we are still wary of what might happen tonight (we have a 21st birthday party to go to and don’t want to be caught in the rain).  Oh, the joys of Wellington weather!  It’s actually kind of exciting, never knowing what’s coming next.

I have been trying to do some work on my paper this week, but I discovered today that the library is closed until January 4th, which means that at most I can just do some research online.  I won’t have access to the theses that I need to complete my research, so I have to wait until the new year to write my paper.  This was more disappointing than it should have been given that I am living in the coolest city ever.

Mainly, I am just adjusting to having a summertime Christmas.  It is a lot more different than I thought.  I didn’t think about the fact that we are in the middle of summer, so the days are long.  Therefore, it doesn’t get dark until about 9PM, which means no one really decorates their houses with Christmas lights because there is only about an hour or two to turn them on.  There are no decorations in town, very few Christmas trees, etc.  Not much spirit anywhere that I can see, except of course for the plastic tree in the main room at Les Mills and other various places of business.  The one exception would have to be Kirkauldie & Stain’s, New Zealand’s version of Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s.  They have an excellent Christmas décor, and I find myself wanting to hang out there simply enjoying the decorations.  Also, this holiday season isn’t just about Christmas.  It’s summer vacation, which means family trips to the beach and barbeques and summer jobs.  Back home, the only reason we have vacation right now is for Christmas holidays, so I feel like there is more of an emphasis.

All of this doesn’t matter because I now officially have presents under the Christmas tree thanks to my friends back home.  I would have had more, but I am like a 5-year-old child in that I have to open things I get in the mail immediately.  I was specifically instructed not to open these presents until Christmas, though, so I will honour that promise.

That’s about everything going on here.  It’s been a slow, relaxing week.  Nina and I are going out for a nice Christmas Eve dinner before I head to church, and then I am spending Christmas Day at Kay Phillip’s home.  I will also be travelling with Mark and Anna from the 26th-31st, so I will be sure to post about all my adventures when I return home!

Christmas Pictures

2005-12-18T01:56:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays from Flat 7!

We moved all the furniture around so that people had space to move and stand. Meredith, Claudia, and I had fun decorating the walls with wrapping paper. We had a great time getting into the spirit of Christmas, and they party was also a good way to meet our neighbours that we don't often run into.

The infamous 4-ft. plastic Christmas tree! Complete with a gold tree topper, lots of tinsel and mardi gras beads, plastic Santas, and fruity mini candy canes.

This lighted Santa Claus is my favourite Christmas decoration that we picked up. Sadly, he was relegated to the corner on top of the TV because it was darkest and next to a plug, so he wasn't well noticed, but I love him anyways.

Proof that I can bake! It doesn't feel like Christmas because it is summer and light outside and warm and all, but it would really not feel like Christmas if I didn't have any of our traditional Christmas cookies. These are a batch of S cookies, and I made butter cookies as well. The cookies don't taste quite the same as at home because New Zealand flour is heavier than American flour, but they taste good all the same.

And finally, the roommates (minus Nina who wasn't dressed up in Christmas clothes and therefore was not allowed to be in the picture)! Claudia was a reindeer, I was some sort of Santa's helper/elf, and Meredith is looking lovely in what might be the most hideous shirt to come out of China. I am sad I don't have a direct shot of it; perhaps she got one, and I can post it after stealing it from her. It's made for a small Chinese person, so it fits incorrectly all over and comes complete with plastic beads knitted into the front, puffed sleaves, and some sort of exploding plastic flower adornment.

The Twelve Days of a New Zealand Christmas

2005-12-16T20:06:00.000-05:00

Adapted by Kingi M. Ihaka

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me
A pukeko in a ponga tree.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Two kumara and a pukeko in a ponga tree.

On the third day: three flax kits …

On the fourth day: four huhu grubs …

On the fifth day: five big fat pigs …

On the sixth day: six pois a-twirling …

On the seventh day: seven eels a-swimming …

On the eighth day: eight plants of puha …

On the ninth day: nine sacks of pipis …

On the tenth day: ten juicy fish heads …

On the eleventh day: eleven haka lessons …

On the twelfth day: twelve piupius swinging …

King Kong Premiere

2005-12-15T03:16:00.000-05:00

King Kong has already had its worldwide premiere, but it also had a pretty big red carpet premiere in Wellington yesterday.  The entire movie was shot in and around Wellington – even the shots of New York City are actually the Hutt Valley.  Because it is such a local movie, Peter Jackson made sure to have a big Wellington premiere.  I have never seen a premiere before (nothing premieres in Atlanta, only New York), so I had to go and check it out.  Neither did I have time to camp out all day nor was I too excited about the actual stars, but I did want to see the crowds and the red carpet.  Claudia felt the same way, so we headed down to Courtenay Place around 5.30.

There had been entertainments such as singers and dancers since 3.30, and the New Zealand celebrities were set to arrive at 5.30, followed by the cast stars at 6, so Claudia and I weren’t expecting to be able to see anything after getting there so late.  The streets had been closed since the night before, and a couple of diehards had even camped out overnight.  Recently, the winds have for some unknown reason died down in Wellington, so the temperatures keep rising, and it legitimately feels like summer now.  I think the warm temperatures encouraged the outdoor sleepover.  By the time we arrived, the streets were packed.  People were climbing trees, hanging over balconies, everything.  I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the world premiere of The Return of the King.  I hadn’t seen anything like this since the Lions test match in Wellington back when I first arrived.

Claudia and I made our way through the crowds down the street, trying to catch a glimpse of the red carpet through stacks of people 4 rows thick, until we got all the way down to the Embassy Theatre where the movie was being shown.  (As a side note, this wasn’t the actual premiere.  It was shown at 12.01AM that morning all around the country.  For some reason, the official premiere was at 7PM.  Who knows?)  There was a small stage set up for speeches, lots of TV newscasters around keeping their eyes on the people walking by, and some grandstands set up behind the stage for ticketed guests.  We found our way to the barrier behind the stands because there was a money view of the theatre entrance and it was in the shade (sort of).  It was also not very crowded for some reason.  We decided to hang out here for awhile so we could see the stars as they entered the theatre.

This was the best decision of the day because we happened to be standing next to what may be the nicest, coolest security guard ever.  After being there for about 15 minutes or so (it could be longer, I have a poor sense of time), he came up to me and asked if it was “just the two of us,” meaning me and Claudia.  I said yes, of course, and then he said that there were two seats available at the front of the stands and would we like them?  Shocked, we made our way through the barrier and right onto the front row.  It was so cool!  The stage where the speeches were made was only about 6 feet from me, and all of the stars (minus Naomi Watts) in attendance made their way over to sign autographs.  I got to meet Karl Urban (Eomer in the Lord of the Rings trilogy), Jamie Bell (Jimmy), Andy Serkis (King Kong in King Kong and Gollum/Smeagol in The Lord of the Rings), Adrien Brody (Jack Driscoll, and also the star of The Pianist), and Colin Hanks (Preston), among other people.  I must also mention my prime view of Dan Carter as he walked down the red carpet.  (Dan Carter is the All Blacks rugby player with whom I am most obsessed.)  I got to see the Wellington mayor make her speech, as well as Trevor Mallard, the Economic Development Minister.  And, of course, Peter Jackson!  I got to see Naomi Watts up on the stage as well, so that is OK even though she didn’t come over to sign autographs.  The cool thing about her was that she was taking pictures with her digital camera the whole time, holding it up to take pictures of her co-stars and Peter Jackson as well as the crowd.

After everyone had gone inside who was allowed to go inside, Claudia and I hung around the take some more pictures of the grandstands, red carpet, and theatre.  This meant we were around when the guards started the take down process, and I jumped in to get an official King Kong sign that had been hanging in front of the grandstands.  It’s really cool, but we don’t know where we are going to put it yet.  We’re still looking for a prime place in the flat.

So, that is my first red carpet experience.  They were doing pick-up filming in Wellington when I first arrived, so I am happy I was still here for the premiere.  I originally wasn’t going to see the film, but after knowing that it was filmed entirely in Wellington and that it has been getting amazing reviews, I think I may make it down to the theatre and catch a showing.  I do hope that my next red carpet experience involves me actually going INSIDE to the premiere after walking down the red carpet, but we’ll see how that works out.  I just have to figure out how to be important enough to be invited to one of these things.  You can send all suggestions to me at my gmail account, thanks.  (

Maori 216 and Rotary (round II)

2005-12-12T17:15:00.000-05:00

I am 2/3 of the way through my Maori studies class now.  My group had our 90-minute presentation last Sunday, so I am happy to get that over with.  The assignment was to pick a presentation topic that relates to the Treaty, and we decided to focus on the Maori language, specifically the revitalisation in recent history of the language and culture.  We came at it from several viewpoints, and because of my background, I got to focus on the Crown reaction to the language and what the government is doing / has done to promote or suppress the language.  Overall, it went really well.  Apparently classes here don’t have many presentations because the girls in my group didn’t know how to go about doing a presentation.  Several had never used PowerPoint.  I have done a ton of presentations, so I got to teach them about PowerPoint, how to give a good presentation, etc.  It’s a good thing I have had classes on that back at GT!  We meet again in mid-January, but I am going to try and get my essay written before Christmas.

Last night was my host club’s Christmas Party, so I got to spend another evening at Pencarrow Lodge.  Mark couldn’t come because he was detained in Auckland on business, so Anna and I were each other’s dates.  It was a very enjoyable evening.  I got to get dressed up again, and I wore my sparkly Santa hat all evening, and of course the meal was very, very good.  As a student, I don’t often get good meals like that.  Rotary Christmas parties are great fun because everyone is full of holiday cheer and out to have a great time.  There was dancing at this party as well, and I don’t think I will ever forget how amusing it was to see all the Rotarian men dancing around, slapping their knees and acting like cowboys, singing along to ‘Rawhide.’

Speaking of Rotary, I had a speech up in Paraparaumu last Thursday as well.  That went really well.  I had given a speech to the Paraparaumu club a few months ago, but now I was speaking to the Kapiti club, which actually meets in the same building as the Paraparaumu club.  It’s amazing how clubs that live in the same area, even meet in the same building, can be so different.  I really enjoyed both clubs.  There were a lot of people in attendance – 37 if I remember correctly.  And 23 apologies!  That’s a pretty large club for this area.  I had some computer issues, but everything worked out OK, and my speech went really well.  They were all very friendly, of course.  Meredith was also giving a speech in the area to the Otaki club, so we caught the train back to Wellington together.

That is about all that is going on in my life now.  Even though Christmas is approaching, everything is slowing down, especially since I have gotten my presentation out of the way.  I just have the essay and my readings to do.  I also have another speech tonight to the Rotary Club of West Hutt.  Meredith and I are going to a Christmas concert on Friday at the Town Hall, and we are having a Tacky Christmas / housewarming party this weekend in our flat.  We have decorated our flat now.  We raided the Warehouse for the tackiest decorations and came back with a PVC Christmas tablecloth, a 4-ft plastic tree that we have loaded down with tinsel, gaudy plastic Santas, and Mardi Gras beads, and a hanging ornament thing.  We still don’t have mistletoe, but we’re working on it!

South Island Pictures: Nelson, Picton, and Wellington

2005-12-12T16:09:00.000-05:00

The two of us at the geographic centre of New Zealand. How many geographic centres have you been to?

It seems that everyone I travel with has a habit of taking pictures of public restrooms. First Amy and Meredith started the trend in Taupo, and my mom has continued it in Nelson. She was fascinated with the 'Superloo.'

I love this picture. I took it inside the cathedral in Nelson. It's just very peaceful.

This is what downtown Nelson looks like. Everything is bricked over, the buildings are well restored, and it has a pleasant small-town feeling while still having a good amount of shopping and eateries.

This is Mom and me on our wine tour. This is about the third vineyard (pronounced vin-YARD) we visited. You can see the grapes in the background. It was a great day for a wine tour, with lots of sunshine and warm weather.

I have to include a picture of the dive-bombing birds of Picton. It looks like a very pretty bird, but don't be fooled. It's actually a terror in disguise. This bird is so bold that it won't wait for you to leave your food before it swoops down to steal the scraps; it will dive bomb you at your table while you are trying to enjoy a pleasant meal at an outdoor cafe. If you're ever in Picton, watch out. Just a warning.

Yes, my mom did get swallowed by an elephant accidentally. No, not really. We found this sculpture thing in the Botanic Gardens in Wellington, and we still can't figure out what it really is. It makes an interesting picture, though. Feel free to submit your own captions in your comments.

A nice picture to end the trip. This is on the cable car on the way back down to Lambton Quay.

MAOR 216 and Rotary update

2005-12-06T04:15:00.000-05:00

All of my updates recently have been about the trips I have been taking, so I haven’t had much chance to talk about my life in Wellington!  Don’t worry, I am still alive and doing well!

I am in the full swing of things with my Maori Studies class.  This class, MAOR 216, is all about the Treaty of Waitangi, or the treaty signed by the European settlers and many of the indigenous Maori tribal leaders.  (I think that the Maori studies department would kick me out for such a short appraisal of the significance of the treaty!)  There are many issues facing the treaty today, including translation errors, ignorance, and dissatisfaction with the handling of the document by the government.  The treaty was written in both Maori and English, but the accepted English translation of the Maori version doesn’t match the original English, and the Maori translation of the English version doesn’t match the original Maori.  Therefore, there are 4 working versions of the treaty, and this is causing problems in the area of guarantees (i.e. what is guaranteed under the treaty, what is protected, etc.)  Also, this document was signed in 1840, but it was promptly disregarded and ended up in a filing cabinet in the National Archives where it was rediscovered in the late 1900s, half eaten away by rodents.  Now, the Waitangi Tribunal hears claims put forth by Maori for lands taken and damages incurred, etc.

My class deals with pretty much every aspect of this treaty.  We think about what it means to discuss the treaty as intellectuals, different frames of reference for the treaty, what it means for Maori and Pakeha (European settlers) societies, and more.  This class is pretty challenging for me because it is so far out of my frame of mind.  I am an engineer.  I don’t do women’s studies, I don’t do religious studies, I don’t do liberalism in a classroom.  So, when I am confronted with people who have marched on the capitol in protest, with people who are far left liberals fighting for a cause that isn’t even in a language I understand, it is very challenging.  Although knowledge of the Maori language isn’t a prerequisite for this class (they would never have let me in if it was), my ignorance of the language and Maori background makes the class very challenging and interesting.  My tutor in the tutorials is also very intimidating.  She is the kind of person who is very into her cause, who marches and protests and demonstrates, and who demands a high level of competence in her tutorials.  In the first tutorial, we had to introduce ourselves, say where we were from, what our mountain is, what our river is, and who our iwi (Maori tribe) is, all in Maori.  That was highly challenging as I have never spoken Maori that much in my life, but I am working on it.

We split into groups based on our home locations for our presentation project.  My group has all females (we’re the Kelburn/Kilburnie group), and our presentation is about the revitalisation of the Maori language after it became an official language in 1987.  Before that point, it was a punishable offence to speak Maori in New Zealand.  We have all split into different sections, mine being the Act itself and the Pakeha reaction and mindset surrounding the act.  This is a good topic for me because it is what I identify with (namely, the European perspective on the treaty and treaty-related issues) as well as bringing in another good perspective in the presentation.  I have had some trouble finding information, basically because there is no information due to a lack of interest in the Maori situation at that point in time, but that in itself is a point of interest in my presentation.  I have had to go back and search through microfiches and Parliamentary debates, getting very dusty in the process.  The presentation is Sunday afternoon, so wish me luck!

Next, a Rotary update!  This is a fairly busy Rotary month for me.  I finally got to meet Rodney Wong, the district governor, at Pencarrow’s farewell dinner for the Finnish GSE team about a week ago.  I also got to go to Meredith’s club’s Christmas party this past Sunday.  Well, I say party, but it was really more of an outing.  It was a mystery tour involving two types of transportation and several different venues.  This club has been so nice to me, inviting me along to many of their activities and really including me in the Rotary world.  Meredith and I met up with everyone at the Dominion Post ferry at 3.30 on Sunday afternoon, ready for all the excitement.  We went across the harbour to a small park, where we had a couple of glasses of wine and some peanuts and socialisation.  Later, we took a bus around the coast to Pencarrow Lodge for a sit down dinner, a bit of golfing (Meredith has a fantastic drive, let me tell you), and some more socialising.  I got to talk to many of the Rotarians I had only seen at the one meeting I had been to or briefly met through Meredith, so that was enjoyable.  I really do love getting to know all of the different Rotarians because each club is so different.

One question in particular was very thought-provoking for me.  One Rotarian asked me how I would describe this experience when I got back home, namely drinking with a bunch of Rotarians on a wind-swept beach/park in the middle of December, but also meaning the whole experience.  It got me thinking about how I could never really have anyone else understand what this experience has meant to me.  I can tell you about it, show you pictures, try to have you understand the culture, but you won’t ever be able to understand the impact it has had on my 20-year-old self.  The best that I can do is bring back all of my knowledge and experiences and try to exemplify my scholarship year through my actions.  We also talked about the fact that in 30 years, when I am explaining this to younger family members, it is going to be an ‘oohing and ahhing’ effect when they find out I lived on my own in New Zealand for a year!

Now, after that philosophical note, I believe I will go curl up with a new book.  I have a couple more Rotary speeches coming up in the next week and class all weekend, so I should have another update soon.  I am also adjusting to a summertime Christmas, so I will let you know how that is going.  Let’s just say that, for now, Christmas cookies aren’t the same without cookie cutters to make Christmas shapes and when they are made with a Nalgene bottle as a rolling pin!

South Island: Day 7/8/9/10

2005-12-03T18:29:00.000-05:00

South Island: Day 7

Day 7 was the day that my mom and I spent in Nelson.  We had arrived very late the previous evening, so we didn’t see much of the city before going to bed, but I had high hopes.  Amy had told me that this was the city that she and her parents enjoyed the most.  So, the next morning we woke up early once more and set off to explore.

Nelson is a very cute little city.  It was one of the first ones settled in New Zealand, and it enjoys some very nice weather as it is sheltered from the southerly winds (for the most part) as well as the rain.  Mom and I set out with our trusted Lonely Planet as well as some advice from Amy.  One thing I was particularly interested in was the Botanic Gardens.  There is a trail leading up the mountain in the gardens that brings you to the exact geographic centre of New Zealand, and I wanted to stand on that spot and have my picture taken.  The trail was much steeper than I anticipated, though, so we got a bit of a workout on the way up.  My dad had also chosen this particular time to call us to check in on our trip, so he got to talk to my mom as she huffed and puffed her way up the hill.  The view at the top was definitely worth the climb, as was being able to say that I have been to the geographic centre of New Zealand.

We climbed back down and headed back to the city centre.  We passed some gardens on the way, so we went in to explore.  These were the Queen’s Gardens, and it was a lovely spot.  It had a small river running through it, with fountains and walkways and well-placed benches.  After wandering through there for a time, we headed further in to town to go check out the cathedral, something else I wanted to see.  We didn’t have too much time for exploration, though.  We had a schedule to stick to!

While the Nelson region isn’t as famous as some other parts of New Zealand for wineries, it does have several good ones, and this was where my mom and I did a wine tour.  This was my first wine tour, and I was really excited about it.  I love New Zealand wine, and here we were at the source!  The tour company, Bay Tours, was excellent.  Not only was the driver/leader very friendly but she also took us on a bit of a sightseeing tour around the city on the way to the wineries.  Tasting all the wines was good fun.  The first place was a combination of two smaller wineries, and we also had a food compliment platter so we could test how changing the food you eat affects the taste of the wine.  We had a good group, good to talk to, and I discovered that I enjoy un-oaked chardonnay best (chardonnay that has been made in metal barrels as opposed to oak so that it doesn’t have any of that taste).  I really want to go up to the Hawke’s Bay region, or Napier, and do some more wine tours up there as that is where most of the chardonnay is made.

The next day was really just our travel back to Wellington.  We took an early bus over to Picton to catch the Interislander Ferry across the strait.  This was the major concern of the trip as Mom tends to get seasick, and the waters across the strait can have some major swells, but a little Dramamine and everyone was OK.  This was the biggest boat I have ever been on, as I have never been on a cruise, so I definitely explored around.  Mom wasted no time getting settled in the bar area, crunching on some nut mix and watching Dr. Phil, before falling asleep on the benches (which also helped her not to be seasick, I think).  After travelling so much for so many days, we tended to sleep whenever we got the chance.  Mark picked us up at the ferry terminal, and we went out to a nice dinner at Shed 5 with him and Anna so that my mom could actually meet the people who are somewhat responsible for me here (in case you forgot, Mark and Anna are my host counsellors here in Wellington).  I hadn’t had a meal in a place as nice as Shed 5 the entire time I have been here – I am a student, don’t forget – so that was highly enjoyable.  The big excitement for my mom that night was that there was an earthquake during dinner.  It was about a 4 or 5, if I remember correctly from the papers the next day, and it was actually the first one I had really felt in Wellington.  They happen all the time, of course, so none of the other diners paid any attention to what was happening, but you would have thought the world had come crashing down to hear my mom talk about it later.  It was funny.  The whole earthquake situation in Wellington is actually quite funny in that I will pick up the paper in the morning, read about how a such-and-such strength earthquake was felt in Wellington the night before, and think, “Wait!  I missed it again!”

We’re now getting into the homestretch of my mom’s trip to New Zealand.  We spent the next two days wandering around the city, exploring the shopping districts and figuring out what was really different between New Zealand and the USA.  Mom was as amazed as I was at how expensive cosmetics are.  We met up with Meredith for lunch at the Backbencher, a restaurant I have been meaning to go to, so it was nice for Mom to meet someone who I am around quite a lot in Wellington (especially as I now live with her!).  We also spent a good deal of time in Kirkaldie & Stain’s, New Zealand’s equivalent to a Macy’s, exploring their Christmas store.

This was also the evening that we had tickets to the ballet!  We went back to our hostel, got all dressed up, and headed over to the theatre to enjoy The Nutcracker.  Don’t be fooled, though.  It was a contemporary version of The Nutcracker, complete with dancing invalids and Clara having severe head trauma rather than a dream.  They even got rid of Drosselmeyer!  I really enjoyed watching it, and the changes were rather funny.  This was the first time I had seen The Nutcracker since actually dancing in it ages ago, which means it is the first time I have seen it all the way through.  Because the ballet was at 6, we had skipped dinner, so after it was over we went down the street to a really flash bar to have small nibbles for dinner and some good drinks.

The next day was the last day Mom had in New Zealand.  She didn’t fly out until that evening, though, so we basically had the whole day.  We checked out of our hostel, moved all of her stuff back to my flat, and spent about an hour packing up some of my stuff to send home with her as well as ship.  The big plan of the day was to go to the Botanical Gardens because they are really nice in Wellington.  The last time I had been in the gardens was in mid-July, so none of the flowers were flowering.  Now, in early November, most of them were out, and it was great.  We spent a lot of time in the rose garden because my mom loves roses.  There are all kinds of different species and varieties and cross-overs, and of course we checked out each one.  We also ended up with some very interesting pictures, the best of which would be my mom being swallowed by what looks like an elephant trunk.  We also got to play around on the cable car for awhile, which is always fun.

So, that’s the end of the South Island Expedition!  It was a great 10 days and my only family visit the entire time that I am here in New Zealand.  We saw lots of cool stuff, and I really enjoyed being able to tour around the South Island.  I never did make it down to Southland, so we’ll have to work on that still!

South Island Pictures: Fox Glacier, Punakaiki, and some Nelson

2005-12-03T17:41:00.000-05:00

You can see here how the Fox Glacier is surrounded by temperate land and rainforest. The glacier spills down the valley to the sea and is one of only two other places in the world where this happens.

A view from the top! It was a quite misty, rainy day, but we didn't let that stand in our way!

Our guide is the girl in the front in the red, and she is using her ice pick to re-cut the stairs that we climbed up the glacier that you see up to her right. You definitely need to have crampons on your shoes to climb this ice.

I cannot for the life of me remember which lake this is, but it is between the Fox Glacier and Nelson. Whenever the water is still, you get great reflections in the water around this area because of the minerals picked up by the glacial waters.

I was highly excited to stop at Punakaiki just so I could see these aptly named 'Pancake Rocks.' You can see how they seem to be pancakes all stacked up on themselves. This of course has a logical weathering explanation, but they don't seem as cool once you understand the science behind it all.

The view from the geographic centre of New Zealand. This is Nelson, and the land across the water right underneath the clouds is Abel Tasman National Park. It's a gorgeous area of the country.

Climbing the steps to the cathedral after climbing the track to the geographic centre ...

... makes for one very tired mother!

South Island Pictures: Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook, Queenstown, and Milford Sound

2005-11-26T18:36:00.000-05:00

This was a gorgeous day for viewing Lake Tekapo. On a perfect day, the mountains are reflected in the lake, but the water was moving too much for that on this day. Mount Cook is in the background.

The Church of the Good Shepherd is on the bank of Lake Tekapo and has a fantastic view behind the alter.

Mount Cook is all its glory ... actually, to be honest, Mount Cook is just out of sight of this picture, just to the right of the frame. The entire view was incredible, though.

This was a view I saw often during the trip. I don't think it would be possible to deny that me and my mom were tourists!

This is Queenstown early in the morning when we left for Milford Sound. There was a little more light than this, but I fiddled with the setting on my camera and changed it around so the blues were highlighted. I like this picture better than the automatic ones we took, although my mom disagrees with me.

Mom strategically placed me in this photo so that it seems as if the waterfall behind me is bouncing off of my head. Way to be, Mom.

The beginning of Milford Sound. It cleared up as we sailed out to sea, but the misty clouds actually made for a great landscape.

And, of course, me on the Pride of Milford cruising the sound! [fjord]

Abel Tasman

2005-11-26T17:04:00.000-05:00

I know I haven’t gotten the rest of my South Island trip up yet, but that is already in the past, so I wanted to write this up while I remembered it so well.

I took off on Tuesday for a five-day trip around the Abel Tasman area.  I had walked into STA Travel about a month earlier and said to the agent I always use, “I want to go sea kayaking, tramping, and horse trekking somewhere.  Let’s plan a trip!”  I did this trip by myself, and I am happy that I went alone.  It was great to not be responsible or accountable to anyone, to be free to walk the track as fast or as slow as I felt like, and to be able to take random detours without asking anyone if they wanted to go with me.

On Tuesday I flew to Nelson and then caught a series of busses to Marahau, a settlement on the edge of Abel Tasman National Park.  I arrived in mid-afternoon, so after I dropped my bags in my room, I headed off for a brief walk into the park.  I was struck by how many people I passed coming out.  The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is one of the “Great Walks” of New Zealand, and it is also one of the easiest, so it is popular with hikers and campers.  It is also popular because there are so many ways to do the track.  You can do any combination of tramping, kayaking, and taking a water taxi to see the park in different ways.  I didn’t want to be out there at dusk, so I just headed about an hour in and an hour out.  Abel Tasman is part of Golden Bay, so named for its golden beaches.  The rocks that make up this part of the land are mostly granite and sandstone, so they form the traditional sand colour with very fine beaches.

Wednesday I was booked to do a full-day sea kayaking trip.  This was an amazing day for being on the water.  I really love kayaking; I love being on the water, and paddling through the water, and being able to look out over the horizon and be level with the water.  We had a small group.  It was me, an elderly Canadian couple, and a younger couple from the Netherlands, as well as our official guide and a guide-in-training.  We took a water taxi to Torrent Bay and then got in kayaks there.  I was in a double kayaking with the guide-in-training, a 21 year old girl named Sanne who moved here from the Netherlands about two years ago.  I enjoyed sharing a kayak with her because she talked often and was very friendly and open.  We kayaked around a couple of bays and rocks, including a small island where fur seals liked to hang out in the sun.  There were even a couple playing around in the water as we paddled past.  The sun was shining, the water was a deep green, and there was little wind to impede our kayaks.  The only real swells came from the water taxis as they powered past.

We put in at Mosquito Bay for lunch a little after 1.  Don’t be fooled by the name; I think it was named such so that it would keep everyone else away.  Lunch was included in this little excursion, and you would not believe what a good lunch it was.  We had apples, apple juice, tea, coffee, banana bread, kababs (think pita bread with beef and Turkish salad), chocolate, and more.  These kayaks held so much!  We even had a little gas grill!  Anyways, we hung around for awhile, exploring and eating and enjoying the sunshine.  KP, our half-Maori guide, was waiting for more of the tide to come in before we took off.  The tides in Abel Tasman are amazing.  They go out for a long ways, and when high tide comes in, it forms all kinds of lagoons you would never realize are there.  Case in point: during my explorations, I found a large sandy area around the backside of the bay.  When we left, the tide had come in enough to flood it deep enough to kayak in!

The wind had picked up in the afternoon, so that combined with the water taxis’ wakes made the water a bit choppier.  Turns out this was just what KP had in mind.  We kayaked out to the fur seal island again, but this time we went on the ocean side and all came together, side-by-side, to form a raft shape.  KP pulled out a giant sail, which we held up by the paddles, and we sailed back to Torrent Bay!  It was very relaxing.  I was in the front of my kayak holding on to the front of the one next to me, which of course meant that I was splashed a lot as we cut through the waves.  I got to sit back and enjoy the sunshine and conversation with the other kayakers, though.

We had a bit of a wait when we got back to Torrent Bay, but that wasn’t too bad as I didn’t have anything else planned for the evening.  The water taxis were remarkably understaffed to handle transporting all the kayakers back to Marahau.  This is getting into the high season for tourists, so the water taxis should have been more prepared.  There were a lot of kayakers, but my guide was really good and always steered us clear of the pack.

That evening was a lazy evening with dinner, a walk on the sand dunes, my book, and chatting with the other backpackers in the hostel.  You can meet some extraordinary people as your travel around.  I finally met someone with that strong north England accent, so north English that it starts to sound almost Irish.  I met several older women who were all travelling alone, even camping alone.  I don’t think I could do that, camp alone.  Let’s be honest, being outside in the dark still creeps me out.

I was leaving the next day for Motueka at 5:30 PM, so I had basically the whole day to explore the park.  The big plan was to take a water taxi up to Torrent  Bay and walk to four hour track back to Marahau, stopping at all the little beaches and cliffs along the way.  I had booked the taxi when I first got to Marahau, so I figured I was all set to go.  I still went, but it wasn’t exactly what I had planned on.  I woke up to rain, and as the morning went on, it started to pour harder and faster.  Needless to say, I was soaked (even with a raincoat) within about 10 minutes of walking the track.  I had decided to cut across Anchorage Bay because it was low tide, but the rain had still started to flood the lagoon.  Also, my jeans just seemed to soak up every drop of moisture I encountered, which was a lot.  There were still some amazing views, and I did enjoy my walk, but the thought “Get me off this bloody trail!” definitely ran through my head once or twice.  I ended up doing the trail in a little over 3 hours.  I wish it hadn’t been raining and I had had a chance to really stop and explore more of it, but there you go.  Of course, my clothes were soaked and I was chilled, so I had to change as soon as I got back to my backpacker’s, but with the constant rain I stayed chilled and a little soaked for the rest of the day.

Motueka was a little bit better.  Let’s be honest, I was glad to leave Marahau when I hopped on the bus.  It had cleared up in Motueka, which made it all enjoyable, and I had a room to myself, which was especially nice.  My backpacker’s was a really good one, but it was fairly far out of town, which meant I needed to track down a ride to go in for dinner.  I caught a ride with two guys heading in to play touch rugby, and then the guy from the office came and picked me up on the way home.  I ate my ‘burger and chups’ in the back living room while catching up on the news (this backpacker’s owners live in a separate section of the hostel).  Then the owners came back, so I talked to them for a little while.  They spent 11 months in ’99-’00 touring around America in a campervan, and we talked about that for awhile.  I also realized that it was Thanksgiving Day, so my Thanksgiving consisted of me walking in the rain and eating a hamburger and fries for dinner.  Yum.

I only stayed in Motueka for the one night and headed off to Collingwood early the next morning.  I was going here to do my horse trekking around the Farewell Spit area.  This was amazing.  I am hard-pressed      to decide which was better, horse trekking or sea kayaking.  Farewell Spit was amazing in that it was practically deserted; none of the hordes of travellers like in Abel Tasman.  The horse trekking was completely awesome.  I love horses, even though I don’t ride too often.  It was me, the guide, and a young couple from Hong Kong.  (Incidentally, the lady was so short she had great difficulty getting on her horse!)  Don’t be confused, this was not just us riding horses around a field or something like that.  We were up on cliffs and running along mountain ridges, sometimes following the trails sheep had cut into the side of the mountains because there was no other way to go.  Farewell Spit is a 26km piece of land that is basically just rising out of the ocean.  We were running the ridges at the beginning of the spit.  It was amazing because it was so remote.  We didn’t see anyone up there, and it didn’t seem like many people came up there, anyway.  We were travelling through sheep country.  The sheep aren’t as scared of the horses, so you can get a lot closer to them than you ever would on foot.  I felt like I was exploring unknown hills in Wales or something like that, but then we would reach a ridge and you could see the sea on both sides.  Sometimes we would find ourselves in deep valleys, and the horses would have to run full-out to get to the top.  It was a great way to spend the better part of the day.

I was driven back into town, so I explored Collingwood a little while.  It is a pleasant settlement.  I really did enjoy its quietness, its small-town simplicity.  I was excited to discover that they had the original Rosy Glow Chocolates, a homemade chocolate company that has a sister store in Nelson (I found out that the store in Nelson is run by the woman’s daughter).  There was a nice beach and some pleasant walkways.  After being so active for four days, I enjoyed a nice sunset overlooking the town with a glass or two of wine.

I had a leisurely time the next morning because my bus didn’t leave until 11 AM, so I hung around the beach reading my book until time to go.  I caught no fewer than three different coaches and transfers back to the Nelson Airport and flew back to the windy, wet, and cold city of Wellington.  Not so good to be back in that kind of ever-changing weather, but lo and behold, I had a surprise waiting for me back home.  Nina had waited for me to come home before going to go see the new Harry Potter movie, so within an hour of arriving home we were heading into town to see the movie.  I enjoyed it so much!  It was legitimately creepy and a bit nerve-racking, and this is from someone who knows exactly what is going to happen!  I am really happy that she waited for me to come home to see it.  We had fun walking down there and then discussing the movie on the way home.  By the time we arrived back, Claudia had come home from her tubing trip, so we all sat down and discussed our trips and watched a movie on TV.  (Meredith is still in China.)  I love having real flatmates again!

South Island Pictures: Christchurch

2005-11-20T19:12:00.000-05:00

The Christ Church Cathedral in the Town Square. About two weeks after we were here, Green MP and co-leader Rod Donald's funeral service was held here.

The town square also has a life sized chess board. I wish there were some people in the picture to compare to, but trust me, the pieces are much bigger than your typical table-top set.

After exploring the museum and grabbing some hot tea, we took a stroll through some gardens downtown.

It was springtime while we were in the south island, and all of the flowers and trees were budding. Gorgeous gardens!

This is the most expensive part of Christchurch (I think). It is a beautiful private drive than follows the River Avon for a time, and there are big houses with English and Greek style gardens and private boat docks. You can see that the house here has a private island connected by a bridge. How about that as a chipping green?

Our sightseeing tour took us right up to the top of the closest mountain, so the view behind us is Christchurch and - beyond that - the sea. As an interesting point, this outlook is maintained and orginally erected by a local Rotary club.

This is the infamous Hagglund truck thing that we rode in at the Antarctic Centre. Mom and I were in that back cabin (the one on the left), and there was a camera connection so that the driver in the front part could check on us to make sure we were all still OK and hadn't fallen out or anything.

Me and the penguins! This is one of my favourite pictures from the trip. The Antarctic Centre Museum had cold-weather clothes you could dress up in and had some little scenes for taking pictures. I hate to burst your bubble, but those aren't real penguins, and that isn't real snow.

South Island: Day 4/5/6 (Queenstown, Fox Glacier, Bushman's Centre, Punakaiki)

2005-11-19T00:47:00.000-05:00

Day 4 wasn’t too terribly exciting.  It was one of our days of travel.  We left Queenstown early in the morning and arrived in Fox Glacier Township mid- to late-afternoon.  We did have a couple of interesting stops along the way.  We visited the fruit orchard again, and this time we purchased some amazing fruit leather.  We stopped at a random beach, and I took a picture of a really cool tree.  The one big stop was at Bushman’s Travel Centre.  This is the kind of back country place that exists purely as a truck stop.  There is no town; there are only the two buildings and some fenced-in animals to occupy the tourists.  I must also mention the ginormous bug that graces the outer wall of the building that my mother insisted on photographing, although I have no idea why any human would desire to see that bug ever again.  This place also serves possum and has a policy of ‘You catch it, we’ll cook it.’  I understand this includes roadkill.  A very interesting place.

Anyways, we make it through this back country and arrive at our hostel at the Fox Glacier.  This was a really nice hostel.  It was raining and there wasn’t anything to do in town, so after having a really good meal, we borrowed some movies from the front desk and settled in to have a movie night.  (Because of the weather and our lack of transportation, we did the same thing on the next night as well.)  This was an excellent plan because I finally saw Whale Rider, a movie about the Maori culture and how it affects a girl.  It won all kinds of awards and is a very good movie.  We also saw Wag the Dog, which I find hysterical.  It’s a satire on the American government, and everyone should see it as well.

Day 5 was considerably more exciting as it was the day of our trek up the Fox Glacier.  It was still pouring, so we borrowed waterproof boots, pants, and jackets from the company.  My boots didn’t fit correctly, so I ended up wearing three pairs of heavy socks to fill up the empty space.  This was good in the end as it prevented the base layer of socks from getting too wet (those socks being my own).  We piled into a rickety bus that had considerable trouble getting started, and off we went!  There were two guides, a guy (from America) and a girl (from not New Zealand, I don’t remember where).  My mom and I ended up with the girl, Becky.  It was a fairly easy hike up to the glacier, taking only about 45 minutes.  We had to climb over the terminal moraine (the rock debris pushed down the mountain by the glacier), and while that was somewhat difficult, I really enjoyed it because I love climbing around on rocks.  Right before we reached the glacier we stopped to put our crampons on our shoes, and off we went!

I should point out several things here.

First, the Fox Glacier is an amazing geological piece because it is a glacier that is surrounded by rain forest and ends only a few hundred meters from the sea.  This only happens in two other places: the Franz Joseph Glacier (about 30 minutes from the Fox Glacier) and somewhere in Chile or something like that.  It is pretty cool.

Second, I don’t do well on ice.  I grew up in the south, far enough south to where if anything even resembling frozen water falls from the sky or appears on the ground, everything shuts down.  I don’t know how to ski well, I don’t ice skate with any kind of skill, I don’t enjoy walking on ice, and I certainly don’t know how to drive on it.  I would be fine if I didn’t get so nervous because then I wouldn’t tense up, and being tense is what makes ice so dangerous.  But there we have it.  I was seriously outside my comfort zone on the glacier.

My mother, on the other hand, is apparently descended from Eskimos or penguins or something, because she was practically jumping around on the glacier and seriously disrupting my sense of balance.

No, it was not as bad as that.  I really enjoyed hiking up the glacier, and it is cool to be at the highest point and be surrounded by ice and still see the forest beyond the edge.  It was raining the entire time we were hiking up the moraine, but as soon as we got to the ice, the rain let up, and by the time we reached the end of our trek, it had stopped completely.  Of course, as soon as we had our crampons off, it started again and was even worse than before, but at least we were done with the ice.   The trek down was more treacherous than the trek up because all of the rain had made the ice melt faster, so the stairs that had been cut into the ice were all but gone, and we relied on our crampons much more.

When it cleared up that afternoon, I really wanted to go do the tramp around the lake, but we couldn’t because it was too far away to walk, and we didn’t have a separate means of transportation.  We settled for an early dinner and another good movie night before crashing into bed.

Day 6 was our longest day of travel.  We left at something like 8 in the morning and didn’t get to Nelson till about 7:30 at night.  We had a ton of stops during the day, though, so those took up a lot of time.  I have only just realized that we visited the Bushman’s Centre on this day, not Day 4, so transplant everything you read about it on Day 4 to Day 6.

Our major stop on this day, the stop I was most excited about, was the stop at Punakaiki.  This is a little town near some national parks on the coast, and it is famous for its Pancake Rocks.  These are limestone layers that have been eroded away over the years so that it looks like columns of ‘pancakes’ all stacked up on one another.  There are some really cool ‘surge pools’ where the water crashes up during the tidal flow against the walls of the rocks.  It was way cool, and I had been talking about this stop for roughly the entire trip.  I was so happy we finally got to stop there!

Quick [long] Update

2005-11-13T23:15:00.000-05:00

I am now officially settled in to my new flat. We've been here for more than a week now, and everything is coming together. Meredith isn't here often because she works such long hours and then goes to the gym, and Nina has class all morning long, so it is often just me and Claudia hanging around. I spent the week finally catching my breath from everything going on and re-organizing my life. I've also been catching up on my movies. Nina worked in a theater for something like 5 years, so she is always ready to catch a movie in town. That's a convienent kind of person for me to share a flat with!

I have also been cooking real food as I am no longer catered, and what an experience. We all know that I am not the best or most enjoyable cook in the world, and my issues are magnified by the fact that I am unfamiliar with our kitchen equipment. (For example, we have now learned that our stove heats up very quickly and gets very hot. We never turn it more than halfway on now!) Don't worry, I am still eating well, not starving, but it is a little intimidating when Nina comes down to cook the equivalent of a 5-course meal and you are having basic chicken and vegetables. No, not that drastic, but she is a great cook. We are also trying to eat together as a flat sometimes. Last Friday night Meredith cooked us all mexican food! It was my first burrito since being in Wellington, and it was great. That is the only kind of food I miss being here - mexican/cuban. Man, what I wouldn't give for a meal from Bridgetown!

That was a good start to the weekend. We all sat around and watched movies together that night because Saturday was our big night. Meredith and I started off with a cocktail party at 5PM. Kay, the president of Meredith's host club, had announced that she was going to have a cocktail party around her place for the Rotarians and their guests, and she nicely extended the invitation to include me. We had a great time. Kay had a wide selection of champagne, wine, spirits, and munchies, and get this - I even tried some shellfish. To be fair, I still don't like the texture, but hey, I tried it again at least. I also got to talk a lot about what I am doing with my education and the Kiwi and American political systems, so much so that I ended up on my soap box about the Supreme Court again and stayed longer than I thought I was going to. Meredith had to remind me that I had plans to meet Claudia and Nina at 7:10!

I was meeting Claudia and Nina at Sandwiches for a drink before we headed out to - get this - a fashion show. Claudia had found a flyer earlier in the week about an up-and-coming New Zealand designers' show that would showcase several new summer lines, and as none of us had ever been to a fashion show before, we decided it would be a great experience. It was really cool, but the host and hostess were a bit too cheesy for my liking. Also, the models were 'real' people, not just stick thin Barbie wannabes. We definately liked seeing what Kiwis were going to be looking for in the summer. Meredith couldn't join us because her social schedule was already too booked; she had not one but two birthday parties to attend that evening.

After the show, the three of us grabbed some quick dinner before heading out to the clubs. We hadn't been out as flatmates, and all of us wanted to go dancing. Meredith was supposed to meet us in town later in the evening after the parties, but we never caught up with her because we were already inside and she didn't feel like waiting in line. Very understandable! Claudia and I ended up dancing mainly at one club that we like a lot, and I kept running into people that I knew there. I love how Wellington is small-town homey like that; usually, people run in about the same circles, so you run into people all over the place! The only sad part about the evening is that I hadn't realized that the All Blacks were playing Ireland in rugby, so I missed the game. Very sad! No worries, though; the All Blacks won.

Sunday brought my second Rotary engagement of the weekend. Paula Smith is the head of the committee that basically brings scholars to New Zealand, and she invited the rest of her committee, all of the scholars, and our counselors out on her boat for an afternoon of sailing and food. Unfortunately, we ended up not being able to go out on the boat, so we went to her house for a nice lunch instead. (New Zealand just sank HMNZS Wellington as a dive attraction off of the coast of Wellington. It was set to sink Saturday, and Paula's husband, a lawyer, was taking clients out on his boat to see the explosion and sinking. High winds prevented the event on Saturday, and when it was moved to Sunday, we lost our chance to go out on the boat ourselves.) This was the first opportunity I have had to meet all of the scholars. Of course, I knew Amy and Meredith, but I also met Chris Petersen (who is leaving sometime in the next couple of months) and Carrie Oelberger (who just arrived about three weeks ago). It was nice to have all of the scholars and counselors in one room to socialize and share stories, not to mention finally meeting some of the members of the committee who are responsible for us getting to Wellington. Paula's house is also beautiful. She has a home on Oriental Parade with big bay windows facing the harbour and city. It was amazing how she opened up her home to all of us for the afternoon.

As fun as the afternoon was, it became more emotional at the end. This was the last time Meredith and I, as well as everyone else, would see Amy in New Zealand (at least for a long time). Her scholarship period was up, and she left today to go back to Kentucky. I know that she has some amazing experiences to take back home with her, and I am sure she is already out there sharing as much as she can. I imagine it will be hard to go home. I will be excited to be home, but it is difficult to really explain everything you have experienced to people who have never been to where you have travelled. I will do my best, armed with an arsenal of memories, pictures, and blog posts, to convey the Kiwi was of life in my speeches and stories. It will be very odd being in Wellington without Amy. She was here when Meredith and I first arrived here. She already knew her way around, she already had a network of contacts, she already knew what was going on. Her information and instant friendship was invaluable in our first few weeks here in New Zealand. I hope that Meredith and I can be the same for the new scholars who are arriving while we are still here.

More flat pictures

2005-11-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

I have been trying to add these four pictures to my post from Sunday ever since I put up that post, and the computer gods of this world and the next have thwarted my every attempt. I gave up and decided just to put up another post. Have fun!

Welcome to the world of aluminium. My window is that one on the top in the middle. The building is built into a hill, which is why it looks like the car is tipping over. That is actually my flatmate Claudia’s new (very old) car. She’s a big surfer, so it seats two and has loads of space for her gear. She is going to put a wooden platform in it so she can store her gear on the bottom, sleep in her car, and store her surf board on the underside of the roof.

A proper closet! I have so much storage in this room. There are also the boxes above the desk, which is nice. And look at those drawers in the closet! Really, this is like the Ritz after what I have been living in.

Check out all the space! I have to walk several paces between the sides of the room now. No more being able to touch two opposite walls at the same time.

And another corner of my room. It’s a real bedside table with shelves for books! And of course, I have a nice green duvet cover and blue and green pillows. The pillows are currently more comfortable, but I also think my mind frame that I love this room has a lot to do with that.

New Flat pictures

2005-11-12T22:48:00.000-05:00

Ahhh, the joys of an external window. I can never explain to you how excited I was about the external window unless you have lived without one as I have. I don’t even care that it opens out to the construction.

This is the view of the kitchen and front door and half of the living room. It is nice having a dining room table and a real kitchen and a microwave again. A lot of times the flatmates will be eating at the same time, and it is nice to be eating with friends again.

My new furnished living room! Everything you see (minus the Tui poster) came with the flat. I have lounging couches again!

This is the view from our living room window. I don’t typically advocate cutting down trees, but if we lost those on the left, we could see straight down to the harbour, and the view would be perfect. Either way, it is amazing.

South Island: Day 2/3 (Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook, Queenstown, and Milford Sound)

2005-11-11T01:37:00.000-05:00

All of our days on this south island trip started early. We kept catching busses at 7AM (towards the end we did catch one as late as 8:30 or 9). The problem with catching busses so early is that we both had to shower, get ready, pack, check out, and walk to wherever we were catching our bus. It really took a lot out of us, having to get up that early every morning. It didn’t help that nothing was open that early for us to get coffee/tea and breakfast. Every time we came across packets of instant coffee, Mom would stash them away in her suitcase for our next stop!

Day 2 had us leaving Christchurch and ending up in Queenstown. This trip took all day because we stopped in so many different locations. Newman’s, the bus company that we used, has a policy that a driver can only drive for so many hours. This translates into a LOT of rest and ‘comfort’ stops. I felt like we were just getting off of the bus every hour! Some of the stops were quite nice, though.

Our first big stop was Lake Tekapo (pronounced teh-ka-po, with the emphasis on ‘teh’). This is a gorgeous lake with incredible views of Mount Cook in the distance. All of the landscape in the south island seemed to be magnified in one way or another. The mountains were huge, being a part of the Southern Alps. The water was clearer and bluer and more dramatic because of the glaciers. Even river beds were more dramatic because they had once been carved out by glaciers. Anyways, so we stop at Lake Tekapo, take lots of pictures, and then wander over to the Church of the Good Shepherd, where we take ever more pictures.

I should mention here that on this day, all of our stops were deluged with Asian tourists. There was a huge double-decker tour bus filled with Asians who were following our same timetable, so they were always at every stop we made. It was nice in that it gave us plenty of people to ask to take pictures of the two of us, but it was annoying because everything was crowded and loud.

The next time we got off of the bus, we were at Mount Cook (or as close as we were going to be getting). My mom and I had lunch reservations in a really flash dining room at the hotel, the Hermitage. One whole wall was giant multi-story windows facing the mountains, Mount Cook in particular. After being on the bus for so long, it was really pleasant to have a real meal and not just a toasted sandwich in some random stop. We hung out here for a good while, wandering around and taking an obscene amount of pictures of the snow-covered mountains. The air was so clear, everything was still and pretty, the weather was even comfortable. It was a good stop.

A couple of random stops later, we ended up in Queenstown. I really liked Queenstown as a city. It is a lot like I imagine Tahoe or Aspen is. (Actually, a delegation from one of those cities – I forget which one – recently visited Queenstown and warned the city council to make sure Queenstown doesn’t end up like those cities: unaffordable for the average Kiwi, a city of rich holiday-ers.) It is set in the mountains on a lake (carved out by glaciers, of course), and it is incredibly picturesque. Great lighting on the street for the evening. Mom and I had a light dinner (wine and bread with dips) in a café/restaurant. We had two seats at a bench that opened up to a window overlooking the street, so we got to people watch while we ate. Of course, this is the south island, so everything started closing down, so after wandering for awhile, we headed back to try and get some sleep. (I emphasize try. This was the night we had some big group of late-teens/twenty-somethings running back and forth between rooms until about 5AM, and they definitely did not let us sleep.)

It was a shame that we hadn’t gotten any sleep because our next day was one of our longest. It was our Milford Sound excursion! As the crow flies, Milford Sound is really close to Queenstown, but you can’t drive straight there. You have to circle around the mountains, so it takes ages. Milford Sound is on the west coast of the south island, which means it rains something like 250+ days a year. This is because it gets the warm air currents that come from Australia and have picked up water over the Tasman Sea, but as the air starts to climb the mountains, it dumps the collected water as rain and snow. But anyways, this isn’t supposed to be a meteorology lesson. The point is that is was raining when we were at Milford, but that was really good in a way. When it rains, thousands of waterfalls appear all over the sound (which, by the way, isn’t really a sound. A sound is carved out by rivers, and this was carved out by glaciers, making it a fjord. But that is once again beside the point). They appear when it starts to rain because the running water has to find somewhere to go, and within 30 minutes of the end of the rainfall, the waterfalls have disappeared again. It was really cool. Mom took a picture of me with them as the background, and she conveniently positioned me to make it seem like a waterfall was bouncing off of my head.

Of course, the actual boat ride was awesome as well. We took a 3 hour tour of the sound (fjord), going all the way out to where it meets the Tasman. Mom did great on the boat ride; thank goodness for seasickness medication. As we got to the sea, the waves started getting a lot bigger. Also, there was some crazy wind out there! I was on the top deck with this lady, and the captain comes in the speaker, saying, “I would just like to warn our passengers on the top deck that we will be experiencing high winds for about the next half hour.” As soon as he said that, the winds HIT, and hit big time. It was so crazy because you could actually see the gusts as they travelled to you. They would make the water swirl up above the regular sea level. Very cool. I got a really good picture of the ‘water tornado.’ One other cool thing was the dolphins that followed our boat as it left the dock. They were so playful, playing it up for all the tourists with cameras. They would race alongside the boat, jump in the air, and just basically seemed to be having a lot of fun.

The ride back was pretty uneventful. Mom and I were both exhausted and fell asleep. Well, slept for as long as you can when you keep being tossed around sharp corners in the New Zealand bush. Back in Queenstown, Mom got very happy when she bought herself a REALLY NICE New Zealand souvenir, and then we went out for dinner. I was very excited because Mom actually went to an Indian restaurant with me. I love Indian food (partly because of the non-prevalence of dairy products), and Mom isn’t particularly fond of spices. She had chicken korma, though, and even tried some of my more spicy food. It was a very enjoyable dinner.

South Island: Day 1 (Christchurch)

2005-11-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

I woke up at dark thirty in the morning to catch my 6:30AM flight to Christchurch.  My mom landed there about 45 minutes before me, but what with customs and her hiking boots, I ended up waiting for her.  There was no time for jet lag.  We hightailed it from the airport, dropped our luggage at the YHA, and made it to the town square by 9AM to meet our tour guide.

Our tour only had two other people scheduled in it, so we went by foot around most of the city.  Christchurch is really beautiful in the springtime.  It is known as the most “English” city in New Zealand, and the architecture and landscaping reflect the title.  Everything is done in a mainly Queen Anne style, and there are cute English gardens and parks everywhere.  There is even a river than runs through town and cuts across the Queen’s Gardens.  This was the prettiest town we were in on the whole trip, I think.

After this sightseeing tour, we got dropped off at the Antarctic Centre.  The majority of the Antarctic explorations leave from Christchurch, and several countries – including the USA – have permanent laboratories and stations in Christchurch.  There is a really cool museum that Mom and I explored.  I got my picture taken with the fake penguins, played with all of the little-kid-inspired exhibits, and checked out the gift shop.  The museum also had a “blizzard room” that Mom refused to go in.  It was a room that got as dark as it does in Antarctica and then high winds kicked in, simulating a snow storm.  Mom said that she had enough blizzards up north and didn’t need another one in New Zealand.

We also did a Hagglund Ride while we were at the museum.  This was a model of the vehicle that they use while in Antarctica, and we went around a track out back.  We were jostled around, plunged under water (the vehicle, not us personally), and pulled over hills and canyons.  This vehicle can take anything Mother Nature throws at it.  Mom was very nervous before we got on.  She kept saying to me, “What have you gotten me in to?!”  I think she had fun, though.  There was a kid about five or six years old in the cabin with us, and I don’t think she could get too scared if they little kid was having fun.

One thing I noticed about Christchurch – and the south island in general – is how late things open and how early they close.  I have been living in Wellington, a city where you can go out to dinner, then go to a bar, and then get your coffee in the morning, all without going home.  This is not so in the south island.  Cafes don’t open until 8AM at earliest, with many not opening till 9AM.  Everything shuts down at night, and unless you are going to an actual bar, you can’t really find anything else going on.  I was expecting something more like Wellington.  I hadn’t really visited other big cities outside of Wellington before (with the exception of Taupo, and that doesn’t count because I was sick), so I expected them to be all like Wellington.  It caused me to be a little irritated before I realized that everything is not Wellington.  I ended up still having a fabulous time in the south island of course.  This is only Day 1!

Wai-te-ata and Guy Fawkes

2005-11-06T18:34:00.000-05:00

OK, I am officially back in the connected world.  I have been so busy lately that I finally have a chance to relax now!  I took a tour through the south island with my mom (look for more detailed posts on that later), and ever since I got back to Wellington I feel like I haven’t even had time to sleep.

One reason I have been so busy is that I have officially moved out of my old flat to a new one.  I am so happy about this change.  My old flat was fine, but it was small and dirty and not well furnished.  Also, while I was friendly with my flatmates, we weren’t friends, and it was weird for me to not live with real friends.  Now, I am in a much bigger flat.  It is more like a townhouse.  The first level has the kitchen and living room, and they are a huge upgrade from Mckenzies.  It is completely furnished, so we have furniture and a TV and pots and pans and cooking utensils.  There is also a TON of storage space for food and a large storage cubby for all of our luggage.  The next level has two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the third level also has two bedrooms and a bathroom.  The bathrooms are nicer, and my room is twice as big as mine in Mckenzies.  I am on the top level, and I share it with a Swiss student named Nina.  Claudia and Meredith, two of my friends from Wellington, live on the second floor.  It is so nice to live with friends again.  This flat is also above the Terrace, so it has amazing views of the city.  My room doesn’t look out over the city (it faces the carpark), but it is OK because it is a little bigger than the rooms on the other side.  Also, I get to people watch because everyone walks by my window.  I love it.  We all moved in yesterday, and we are planning a housewarming party eventually.

Of course, my address has changed.  Also, I don’t know my new landline, but you can still reach me on my mobile.  My postal address is:
Katie Roan
Flat 7
15 Wai-te-ata Road
Kelburn
Wellington
New Zealand

Send me mail!

Between moving out of Mckenzies and into Wai-te-ata, it was time to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day here in New Zealand (and England, too, I think).  Now, this is the story.  Back in 1605, Guy Fawkes, among others, concocted a plan to blow up the British Parliament building.  It was intended to be the beginning of an uprising by the English Catholics, who were distressed about the religious laws of the time.  The local police were informed of the plot by an anonymous letter and thwarted the effort, and the fuse was never lit, so Parliament remained standing.  In New Zealand, the day used to be celebrated with bonfires and the burning of Guy Fawkes in effigy.  There would be contests to see who could make the best Guy Fawkes, and children would take him around town in wheelbarrows to collect donations to a local charity.  (“Penny for the Guy Fawkes.”)  Nowadays, bonfires are outlawed in an attempt to lessen the dangerous activities, so people celebrate by setting off fireworks.  Fireworks are only sold in the week preceding Guy Fawkes Day and are only legal for that time period.  The city also has a huge 15-minute display in the harbour.  I went with Mark and Anna down to the waterfront to watch it.  If you are around a radio, there is also a synchronised soundtrack broadcast.  It was like having the 4th of July in November.  I decided it was good to finally have a 4th of July celebration as we started class on 4 July this year.

OK, that’s it for now.  Detailed south island descriptions and pictures to be up … eventually.  And, of course, pictures of the new flat!

Whanganui Pics [Part 2]

2005-11-03T07:52:00.000-05:00

Amy took this picture of me on the trail up into the bush to Mt. Damper Falls.

The one and only Mt. Damper Falls, the tallest waterfall in the North Island at something like 86 metres. It was well worth the hike in.
We were really back into the New Zealand bush. We had seen the rolling hills as we drove up to Taupo, but nothing like this. The hills just went on forever until they disappeared into the horizon. And, of course, you have the mandatory sheep perched on every cliff and in every gully.

Credit where credit is due: Amy (I think) took this picture, and it is so fantastic that it deserves to be on my blog.
Proof I am still alive (or was as of 16 October 2005). This is outside the church in Jerusalem on the Whanganui River Road. This is a prime example of the Maori artwork adorning the Catholic church in Jerusalem. What a mix of cultures!

After dropping our luggage at the Whagamomona Hotel, we decided to venture a little further on for some exploration. We turned down a side road, and what do we see? An entire row of pig skins! Apparently, wild pig hunting is a big sport in the area, and some of the men will leave the skins out as proof of a catch. Not so appealing; many of the people in the van thought Amy was crazy for jumping out to take this picture. I am happy she did!

And for the last: driving along, we found some little piggies (roughly one day old!) by the side of the road. Momma Pig is to the right, just out of sight of the picture. Amy and I being the livestock tourists that we are, we had to jump out of the van to try and attempt a picture without sending them too far down the road. My zoom helped out a lot in this picture.

I am a Farm Girl Aviator

2005-10-24T02:03:00.000-04:00

Right before we left for Fiji, Meredith and I received an email invitation to go speak at clubs in the Palmerston North area.  I ended up going to the Woodville Rotary club, and my speech was last Thursday evening.  I took the bus up there (no commuter trains head that direction) and was met by a Rotarian, Bob, at the bus stop.  He works at the dairy plant that I had passed the previous weekend on my Wanganui trip as the Health and Safety manager.  Because my bus got me to Palmerston North by 2:30 or so, we had plenty of time before Rotary, so I got a personalized tour of the dairy plant.  I saw the plastic milk jugs being made, the milk being tested and processed, and yogurt and cottage cheese being made.  It was like getting to know the enemy, getting to know my nemesis.  (In case you didn’t know, I am lactose intolerant.)  I was all dressed in coveralls, white gumboots, hairnet, ear plugs (loud machinery in a dairy plant), and safety goggles.  Too bad I didn’t have my camera in there!  Afterwards, we went back to his house so that I could change, and then we headed off to Rotary.  Woodville is a real farming community, so this club reflected that in its laid back attitude.  It is a smaller club, about 11 members or so, and another one joined the night I gave my speech.  It went very well, was very well accepted, and the whole evening was very pleasant.

Bob and his wife Margaret were leaving early the next morning to visit their son (I think), so I stayed with a different couple, Joy and Jim.  (Joy was the new Rotarian from the evening.)  They were so nice!  I know I say that every time, but I haven’t had a bad experience with Rotary yet.  They had a whole room set up for me, my own shower, bathroom, everything.  The bed was so comfortable that I felt like I was staying in a hotel!  I even had little mini soaps and shampoos.  Joy had also left the fire going because she knew Americans typically found New Zealand to be cold due to the lack of central heat.  We had a nice evening, sitting by the fire and talking, but I was exhausted and went to bed early.

I had a bit of a sleep in the next morning, thank goodness.  Finally, some good sleep!  Joy and Jim had a great breakfast laid out for me, and after breakfast and talking and showering, we drove in to Fielding for some real Kiwi experiences.  This area is big in livestock farming, so to introduce me to it all, we went to a Stock Sale.  The farmers bring in their livestock to be auctioned off on specified days.  It is a great social outing as well for the older farmers.  You can tell that they are not there to bid on any livestock; they are there to catch up with their old farming buddies, much like younger women go shopping with friends without any intention of making purchases.  We watched paddocks of sheep being auctioned off outside before making our way out of the rain into the cattle auction.  This consists of a large warehouse with stadium seats along one side and a sort of boardwalk on the other side.  The cattle are driven in through one door, weighed on the scale, driven into the next pen, auctioned off, and then driven out the other side by dogs.  It was quite entertaining to see about how much different cows are sold for, what is a good price per kilogram, and why some cows are worth more than others.

After this, we drove into Palmerston North for lunch and a bit of shopping.  I really want a small map of New Zealand and a larger map of the world, but one with Australia at the top.  I haven’t been able to find one that I like yet, but I am still looking!  We had to be home by 3:30 so Joy could get dinner started, but we drove home past the wind farm, which was cool.  Windmills are huge, by the way.  I got out to take some pictures and was really cold and almost blown over, as well.  Engineers really placed that wind farm in a strategic position.  Anyways, we got home and curled up by the fire with cups of tea, reading the paper and relaxing indoors.  Two friends of Joy and Jim’s came over for dinner, which was amazing.  Roast lamb and vegetables and all sorts of other yummy stuff.  Their friends were really nice.  We had good political conversations that turned to a discussion about good advertisements we had enjoyed.  I was talking about how I love the Tui billboards.

[In case you don’t know: Tui is a beer brewed in New Zealand.  They have billboards where the left half is black with white type, and the right is red with ‘Yeah Right’ and the Tui symbol on it.  They change the left side to go with whatever is the current mood in NZ.  For example, ‘It’s getting too cold for a beer’ or ‘The perfect body in 3 minutes a day’ would be on the left, followed by the ‘Yeah Right’ on the right.  I think they are hysterical!  They have been going since 1997 or so, which is quite long for an advertising campaign, but the brilliant thing is that they can change so quickly based on NZ society.  They had some great ones during the election.  The one nearest to my flat now says, ‘We didn’t think Winston Peters was a sore loser’ or something like that.]

Jim and Joy’s friends had just purchased a magnet where you could change whatever was written on the left side with magnetic letters that came with it.  I was super excited about it, so they gave it to me!  I also got to go to the brewery the next day and have a look around.

After this, I was transferred to my next host family, Jim and Jenny.  They are an older couple who live on a farm, so I got to experience farm life.  I got to bottle feed baby lambs that didn’t have healthy mothers.  I got to drive a quad bike (4-wheeler in America) around the farmland.  I helped set up a new fence and moved cattle from one paddock to another.  Jim drove me over to a friend’s dairy farm so I could see cows being milked.  I hadn’t seen it industrialized before.  This guy can milk 160 cows in about 1.5 hours with his machinery.  Jim and Jenny also have two cats, so I got to play with them.  I have missed having cats around.  That night was the big rugby final (Auckland trounced Otago, just so you know), so they had some friends over for dinner and to watch the game.

The next morning the weather finally cleared up.  There had been a cold snap, a last ditch effort by Mother Nature to hold on to winter, and it had been raining for three days.  I was so happy that it did decide to clear up because it meant that the best part of my trip would actually get off the ground.  Michael, another Rotarian who I have never met (he is in another club, I think), has some sort of job with planes.  I am not entirely sure what he does.  Anyway, he set it up for me to go flying over the Palmerston North area!  Jim drove me to the Fielding Airfield, where we met up with Andre, our pilot who looked like he was about 26 or so.  He took us up in a Cessna, me in the front co-pilot seat and Jim in the back taking pictures.  We are up in the air, and Andre hands the controls over to me!  It was fantastic, being up there and flying the plane.  I loved being above everything.  There was a fog settled down in Woodville, so it was very cool to be above the clouds and seeing them from above.  The skies were clear enough to see Mt. Taranaki and Ruapehu.  I have seriously been bitten by the aviation bug.  Anyone want to sponsor me getting my pilot’s license?  It was also very cool because Michael set it up to be a free flight, no cost to us.  Rotary is amazing like that, opening up so many opportunities that you wouldn’t normally get.  You aren’t experiencing New Zealand as outsiders and backpackers; you get in to see what the Kiwi way of life is like, to eat what they eat, and to tour as locals would.  Very cool!

So, after that excursion, it was time for me to head home.  Jenny was amazing and sent me home on the bus with cakes and pies and chocolate.  No getting hungry on the way home!  I got back into Wellington around 3 on Sunday and having been running around ever since then.  I am leaving at 5:10AM tomorrow morning for my south island trip with my mother, and I have a lot of things to take care of before that (not the least of which is pack, something I have not even begun).  I won’t be back until November 4th, so I will pick up on my story then!

Whanganui Pics ... finally! [Part 1]

2005-10-22T23:08:00.000-04:00

Now, I have been terribly remiss in getting these pictures online. I had a final last week, and then I was out of town Thursday-Sunday, so that is my excuse in not posting these pictures. I have so many, though, that they are going to come up in two posts! Way to stretch out my pictures ...

Our entrance into the Republic of Whangamomona. We definately hopped this sheep fence to get in close enough to the sign.

This is the infamous Country Pub where we stayed. Amy, Meredith, and I stayed in the attic room, which was pretty cool. We took our showers downstairs, though. Our shower came with instructions and warnings about the lack of hot water and water pressure, so we played it safe and took over the downstairs bathroom.

I showed you a picture of the Whangamomona Hotel; here is a picture of the rest of the town taken from the hotel. I told you there wasn't much to it! To be fair, there is one more building, a cafe of sorts, that is across the street from the hotel.

Upon entry into the Republic of Whangamomona, it is required that you make a stop at the Border Control. There is the one pictured above as well as the one at the other end of the street, about 500 metres away. This particular one is a bit rickity, so when you stepped in you thought the entire structure was going to tip over sideways!

Close to the end of our evening, a former mayor/president of Whagamomona presented the three of us with our black Whangamomona passports. We are also all drinking our Tuis on the house in celebration of the newly won awards. The people in the pub were so friendly to us!

After leaving Whagamomona Sunday morning, one of our first stops was up to Mt. Damper Falls. To get there, we had to hike through some farmland at the beginning of the trail, which is where we ran across these cows. I am not sure if they thought we had some kind of food or were just really interesting, but we had a bit of a stand-off with them before continuing on our merry way.

As tourists, we will do anything for pictures of more sheep, including climbing around on fences! But check out that New Zealand pure bush in the background ... it was amazing.

A very good example of the sheep of which we were so desperate to take pictures. Because it is spring, there are little lambs everywhere, so we were especially anxious to take pictures of the families. Our sheer number of sheep pictures was definately the runninig joke in the group.

A picture of (most of) the girls on the trip! Left to right: Ann, me, Amy, Kay, and Meredith. Taking the picture is Noel, and missing is Gillian. That's right, Noel spent all weekend in a van with six women! He survived in spectacular fashion.

New Zealand Boondocks

2005-10-18T03:31:00.000-04:00

I am typing this up as a well-deserved study break.  I have my final on Wednesday morning at 9:30 AM, so I have been studying for about two days straight now.  I am going away this next weekend, though, so I wanted to get a post up about last weekend before I got it confused with the next!

OK.  Meredith’s host club’s President, Kay Phillips, has a sister (Ann) and brother-in-law (Noel) who live in Whanganui.  Noel is semi-retired.  He has a rural mail run and small tourism business, but he is looking to expand his tourism into more trips into New Zealand bush (otherwise known as the boondocks, or ‘womp-womps’ here in New Zealand).  He needed some guinea pigs for a test run, so Meredith, Amy, and I, along with Kay, travelled up that direction for the weekend.  It was going to be a great opportunity to get out of the city and see rural New Zealand.

I head over to Stafford House (where Amy and Meredith live) around 3 on Friday afternoon to meet them and Kay.  Meredith and I go outside to meet Kay, and what an entrance she made!  It was a beautiful day, and here comes Kay, speeding along in her bright red top-down convertible!  Meredith and I were not expecting that, let me tell you.  The four girls piled in to the convertible, and we were off down the open road, top down, sun streaming in, with some good old Frank Sinatra on the stereo.  It was an excellent beginning to our experience.

We arrived in Whanganui a little later than expected because of traffic, but no matter.  Ann and Noel were very gracious and accommodating.  They have a very nice house.  Very homey, very welcoming.  Everything was brightly coloured and coordinated.  Additionally, Ann is an amazing cook.  She enjoys cooking for other people, and you can tell.  We students ate very well!  We sat around talking and watching the NPC (rugby) semi-finals that night (just so you know, Otago – the underdog – won and will be playing Auckland this weekend in the final).  We turned in rather early because we knew we had a big day ahead of us.  Six people having to get ready to leave by 8:30 with one bathroom meant that there were some very early risers.  I have been waking up early recently, so it didn’t matter, and it was quite nice to wake up to a delicious cooked breakfast.  Gillian joined us, we packed up the car, and rolled out!

Our first stop was the Tawhiti Museum.  This is a great historical museum with lots of vintage artefacts and a detailed Maori history of the area.  We spent about an hour wandering around the museum, learning about early New Zealand life and inspecting a history of tractors in the ‘barn’ section.  We drove in to a city called Stratford, had a quick lunch in a café, and then began the next part of our journey.

State Highway 43 is known as the ‘Forgotten Highway.’  It connects Stratford with Taumarunui, and it takes about 2.5 hours to drive the whole way through.  There is between 10-20 kilometres of unsealed road.  It has lots of historic stops along the way, some political, some environmental.  As guinea pigs, we were just expected to say when we wanted to stop, to shout out when we thought there would be something interesting ahead.  This was really a test run so that Noel could get an idea of what kinds of things people would want to see and what the timing would be like along the road.  Some of the places were run down and not really worthy of a stop, but there was some really beautiful lookouts when passing through saddles.  We were really in the middle of no where on this trip.  I had seen rolling New Zealand hills from the main highways when driving to Taupo and back, but I have never seen anything like this.  The hills just kept going on and on and on.  You would see sheep and goats and cows perched on all kinds of outcrops, some blatantly defying gravity.  There was a running joke between the Kiwis (Ann, Noel, Gillian, and Kay) about how many pictures Meredith, Amy, and I wanted of sheep.  Think along the lines of, ‘Now, there is Amy with a sheep.  Now, Katie with a cow.  Now, Meredith with another sheep.’  I will be interested at the end of my time here to see how many pictures of sheep I actually have.

We stopped about halfway through in the Republic of Whangamomona.  This is a village with about 40 residents, but it has an award-winning country pub and hotel.  You can start at the top of the main street, walk two minutes, and reach the end of the main street.  And by main street I mean only street.  It is called a Republic because in 1988 the area was redistricted from Taranaki to Wanganui, and the residents were extremely upset about not being consulted.  In protest, they formed a republic, elected a president, and now celebrate their independence day every January.  This is a big event, drawing in about 6000 people to experience such activities as gumboot throwing, sheep shearing, passport stamping, and voting in the presidential election.  They have had several presidents over the years, including ‘Billy the Kid,’ a goat who won by eating all his opponents votes, and a poodle who, after an assassination attempt, resigned.  As this was in the middle of October, we didn’t expect much to be going on.  I anticipated a nice dinner and a quiet evening with my book.

I could not have been more wrong.

First of all, I didn’t take into account the fact that this is the only establishment in the area.  All of the locals come in to the bar and lounge area (complete with pool table and also colouring books and toys for the children) to hang out after a hard day’s work.  Also, the second rugby semi-final was being played (Auckland vs. North Harbour), so even more of the residents were out to see it being broadcast.  Finally, they have live music on Saturday, something we were not expecting.  It ended up being a great night.  We got to talk to a lot of the locals and find out how they lived.  They are mainly shepherds and farmers, which was very interesting to me because I have never met a shepherd before.  There was one guy who is my age and in charge of something like 20,000 sheep.  He and his brothers can shear 400 sheep per day!  I was talking with their uncle, and he said they had all gone out the previous day to go pig-hunting, which involves catching wild pigs, cutting off their tails for proof, and letting them go again.  Not something I ever thought I would experience!  Also, I learned a random fact – you don’t typically eat pork from a pig that weighs more than 100lbs because it is too tough.  Anyway, enough about pigs.  We spent the night mixing in with the locals and other guests, enjoying a couple of bottles of wine, and cheering on the rugby teams.  After the semi-final was over (won by the expected team, Auckland), the headmaster of the school set up his speakers and laptop and started in with the live music.  Meredith was busy becoming a pool shark (she and her partner won every game after about 9:30, I believe, no matter who challenged them), and Amy was drawn to the microphone, getting up there to sing with the headmaster.  The hotel owners had just won their awards for ‘Best Country Pub’ and ‘Best Re-Furbished Hotel,’ so there was even more cause for celebration.  We danced and celebrated right up until about 1AM, at which point the ‘second to last drinks’ call was announced.  Towards the end of the night, the first mayor approached Kay with the news that he had heard we were visiting Americans and that he wanted to present us with our official Whangomomona passports.  That was very special and generous of him.  The locals were really great to talk to, to learn about their experiences and impressions.  I heard that normally the bar closes down between 11 and midnight, so this was an extra special night, buoyed by the semi-final, the awards, and the excellent mix of company.

The next morning was the beginning of a long but beautiful day.  We rose early to be dressed and ready for breakfast at 8AM to leave by 8:30 (which turned into 9).  The first thing we did was turn off the highway to go see Mt. Damper falls.  These are supposedly the highest falls in the north island.  It was about a 20 minute drive off of the main road and then a 20 minute hike through farmland and bush.  We had a standoff with some cows across the river, but not other major events.  Several pictures of sheep and lambs later, we entered the bush and hiked down along the trail to the platform overlooking the falls.  It was gorgeous and well worth the hike off the main path.  The morning was bright and sunny, very warm, which made it that much more pleasant.  We observed for awhile and then headed back out, taking pictures of lambs the whole way.  Amy was especially excited about the lambs and sheep.  She is leaving soon, so I think she is feeling like she is experiencing everything one last time.  Last class, last time catching a coffee with someone, last time doing something very New Zealand.  I know I am going to be feeling that way when my time to leave comes around.

But off topic.  Back to the Forgotten Highway!  This day, Sunday, was going to be very long driving-wise, so we didn’t stop at very many historic spots, and none off the road.  We went through some amazing saddles and valleys, got to check out rivers and historic railway tracks, and – of course – take more pictures of sheep.  We reached Taumarunui and stopped for lunch in a café that we had heard was good.  We had some amazing views of the mountains on this day.  We could see Mt. Ruapehu, Mt. Taranaki, Mt. Tongariro, and Mt. Ngauruhoe all from the same vantage point.

After this stop, we took the River Road back to Whanganui.  Rather than being an often-used state highway, this road was more rural and skirted the Whanganui River.  This is the road along which Noel has his rural mail run.  He doesn’t only bring mail to the people in the settlements along the road; he will bring in their shopping (one person had him bring in a double bed not too long ago, and he has had women hand him credit cards, pin numbers, and their shopping list!) as well as transport passengers from one point to another.  This road is very typical back-country New Zealand; it is mainly one lane, although it is two-way, and much of it is unsealed.  I was sitting in the front seat at this point, and I was very nervous sometimes!  Noel is a local driver, so he knew what he was doing and where he could go fast and where he had to be more careful, but I was always nervous going around blind corners, especially after we suddenly met another couple coming the opposite way!

We made a couple of stops along the road.  There are several Maori settlements, each with their own marae and worship area.  We stopped at one of the cleaner, well put-together ones.  This was just a quick stop, with only Amy and me leaping out of the van to take pictures of the traditional Maori figures and the church.  We were a bit pressed for time.  The pakeha (= white Kiwi) settlements along the river had interesting names: Jerusalem, Corinth, London, etc.  Someone had an obsession with cities of historic importance.  One of our last stops was in Jerusalem.  We stopped at a small convent/church that Noel frequents on his mail run.  The church is a catholic church, but it was built for the Maoris, so there is a definite Island influence.  There is a Maori statue, Maori paintings on the wall, and the other wall decorations were not like any catholic church I have been in.  Meredith is catholic, so it was especially different for her.  On our way out, we ran into Sister Sue.  This is the most modern nun I have ever met.  She had just come up from the marae, saying they had been making a lot of noise that day and she had to see what was going on.  She told us stories about her and her sister in the pub drinking beer-and-lemonades.  She was very friendly and very interested to meet the postman’s wife (Ann).  As we were driving away, Meredith noticed that Sister Sue was wearing gumboots, and made a comment to the effect of, ‘I just saw I nun wearing gumboots who was drinking in a pub.  I love this country!’  We really enjoyed meeting Sister Sue.

We made it back to Whanganui sometime around 7 or so.  This was too late to pick up Kay and Ann’s father to bring him to tea (he is 96 years old and still lives independently!), but we made the best of it.  Ann made some great curried sausage and vegetables, and even used silver something-or-other because we had mentioned over the weekend that we hadn’t ever had it before.  She was so nice for accommodating us so well and just taking us in.  Roundabout 8 or so, the four of us Wellingtonians piled into Kay’s convertible (top up this time) to begin the trip back into town.  We had some great conversations in the car on the way home.  Well, Amy passed out for awhile, but she contributed her bit, too.  We talked about everything from music to car wrecks to police systems and the ACC and suing people.  Very varied, very interesting.  I ended up home somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10:30 or so.  Exhausted, I unpacked, responded to urgent emails, and collapsed into bed by 11:30.

I have spent the two ensuing days holed up in the library studying for my final tomorrow morning.  Don’t worry, I am not being crazy; I took an excellent 3-hour shoe shopping and sun-bathing break yesterday, and today I went and got tea and coffee with my friend Dan and sat by the waterfront for about an hour, enjoying the sun and good conversation.  Nevertheless, I will be glad when my final is over tomorrow.  I already have a lunch with Amy and Paula as well as some celebrations with my flatmate V (who also has her last exam at the same time as me tomorrow) planned, and then I am also going out with some friends later that night.  Then off to Woodville on Thursday!

All you Techies: I hope you are enjoying your fall break!  Take advantage of the relaxation; I know I wish I had some when my life is crazy like it has been recently!

Quick update:  I have just read the beginning part of the paper, and it seems that New Zealand has an official government.  Helen Clark will be the prime minister leading a fractured Labour-led government.  Jim Anderton and his Progressives continue to be coalition partners, and he remains in Cabinet.  Winston Peters (leader of the 7-seat NZ First) has received the prestigious Foreign Affairs Minister position, and Peter Dunne (3-seat United Future) will be Revenue Minister.  Both parties will support on confidence and supply.  The Greens have been shut out of cabinet by these two parties but will most likely still support policies.  The Maori party remains independent, voting issue by issue, and National and ACT comprise the Formal Opposition.  The big fracture in this is that Winston Peters promised to stay neutral and not go after the bauble of office, and the fracture runs deep enough for NZ First President Doug Woolerton resigned, apparently in protest of Winston Peters actions (so says the Dominion Post).  We’ll see how this all works out!

Carterton, La Traviata, and The Women

2005-10-13T06:32:00.000-04:00

I spoke at the Carterton Rotary Club last Monday night.  Carterton is a little under an hour and a half away from Wellington, so I did what I did with Paraparaumu.  I took the train and then spent the night with a Rotarian’s family.  I took the train out there, met two Rotarians at the train station, and went straight to the meeting.  I love how each club is so different.  This club is significantly out of Wellington, so it seems much more relaxed, none of this city-pace business.  The club was very sociable, like a group of friends who had gathered for a party.  I had a great time giving my speech.  I was closer to the Rotarians than I usually am, so that fostered even more of a sense of community.  They also gave me a great bottle of cabernet sauvignon merlot with the Rotary Centennial label.  Way cool.

That night I stayed with Helen and John Hayes at their home in Greytown (which I believe is the first planned city in New Zealand).  They are both Rotarians, but Helen has been a member for only about a year.  Helen was the woman who had set up me speaking at the club, so that was a treat to be able to meet the woman behind the emails.  Also, it was especially nice to meet John.  John is the newly elected National MP from the Wairarapa electorate.  He has spent years working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade; has represented New Zealand in Singapore, India, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea (as High Commissioner), and Iran (as Ambassador); and he played a significant role with Don McKinnon to solve the Bougainville conflict.  Needless to say, this was very interesting for me as an International Affairs student.  He’s done so many awesome things!  He drove me in to Wellington the next morning (he had to attend a caucus meeting at the Beehive), so I got to spend a little over an hour talking to him.  It was a great time.

That night I did something else exciting.  I went to the opera!  I have never been to an opera before, and my friend Alex thought that this one would be a good one with which to begin.  It was La Traviata.  The main plot is that a prostitute, Violetta, and a rich man, Alfredo, fall in love and run away together.  Alfredo’s father convinces Violetta to leave Alfredo for the sake of his family, so she returns to her previous life and marries the baron.  Both Violetta and Alfredo are heartbroken, and in her grief, Violetta’s health takes a turn for the worse.  She dies at the end, but not before Alfredo returns to her and the father apologizes for the wrongs he has committed.  Except for the leads, this was a Kiwi cast, and they were phenomenal.  The Russian woman who played Violetta was just amazing.  Her voice was so clear, so pleasant.  She could sing loudly, softly, high, low, everything.  Of course, I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was amazing anyways.  The entire thing was in Italian, with some surtiles on the sides.  I loved hearing that language.  I don’t see how an opera could be in anything BUT Italian.  It’s like someone created Italian so that opera singers would have a language to speak.  It really was an enjoyable evening.  I got all dressed up, the most dressed up I have been since being in New Zealand.  Very Wellington.

I have spent the majority of my time between now and then holed up in the library studying.  I have my geology final next Wednesday, so I am trying to learn an entire semester in four days.  The class is not structured very well, which makes it difficult to study.  We had lots of different lecturers, and there is not even an assigned textbook.  There are ‘recommendations,’ but the main professor said that any introductory geology book would do well.  Also, I have not been good about going to lecture.  Mike and I split the lectures (i.e. I went on Wednesday and Thursday, he went on Monday and Wednesday), so we really need to get together to put our notes together.  He is out of town until Saturday, and I am until Sunday, so we shall be getting together on Monday hopefully.  I have spent a good time going through all the online lectures yesterday and today, as well as reading most of the book and looking at the notes that I do have.  I am not too worried.  I am not in New Zealand to be worried.

I don’t want you to get the impression that all I have been doing for two days is study.  Perhaps at home this would be true as I crammed for GT exams, but I am in New Zealand!  I don’t want to have my nose in a book all the time!  One of my friends here is moving to Auckland to take a job in mid-November, so I won’t get to see her much any more.  We met for a coffee/study break yesterday, and I met my friend Dan for a coffee/study break today (he works in the library on marketing business).  I also claim a good seat in the library.  I study in Wellington Central Library, not the Vic Uni Library.  I pick out a desk that overlooks Civic Square, right in front of the huge windows, so I don’t have to look at a book the whole time.

I also enjoy my evenings.  Tonight was absolutely amazing; I needed it after studying all day.  Meredith, Claudia, Lauren, and I met for dinner and then went to a show.  We ate at Strawberry Fare, which was just amazing.  You walk in planning on eating an incredibly small dinner so that you can enjoy their amazing desserts.  The presentation is incredible; I took a picture of my homemade sorbet.  It was incredible food after eating hostel food so often (although, I think it would be incredible anyways).  Next, the show.  We saw The Women: Sex, Sin, and the City.  This show was a riot.  It is billed as ‘These are the ladies who lunch, but who lunch on each other.’  Imagine Sex and the City in play form.  I was literally laughing out loud.  This show had such female stereotypes (it even had a fast-talking valley-accented big-mouthed blonde manicurist) but was still very witty, very clever.  I would see it again; it was that good.  We saw it at The Downstage Theatre, which is a very intimate setting.  I counted 12 men, but there were probably about 15 – I couldn’t see everyone.  Meredith saw one group of women troop in, all sit in the same row, and then the lone man sat at the end.  We decided that he had been recruited as the DD for a Girls Night Out.  I think that the men enjoyed this show as well, though.  It was just so well done that you couldn’t enjoy it.  It’s like How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days – the men won’t see it without a woman, but they don’t mind having to see it.  I would absolutely go again.

And that brings us up to the present.  I am going to the gym tomorrow.  I am going crazy not running.  Then off on another adventure this weekend!  Ciao …

Bridge Swinging and Abseiling

2005-10-09T02:38:00.000-04:00

The random sketchy bridge. No, not sketchy. Just worn down and a little ... rustic.

The bridge came complete with this lovely sign warning us of the dangers of standing next to one another. Comforting thought when you are depending on the bridge to keep your harness together.
Speaking of the harness, this is what it looked like. Not too bulky!

So, here I am, all strapped in and waiting to jump off of the edge. You can see how your back is to the ground below. You can hear the river rushing beneath you, and it was fairly higher than it has been because of all the rain that day. Don't be fooled by my smile, I really am a fair bit nervous.
But of course, I got over it and jumped off the bridge. I'm in New Zealand, I don't have time to be nervous. Scared people don't do anything fun, and this was fun!
And finally, me looking hot in my stylishly battered old wetsuit. Not really complaining, though, it did keep me warm in the river!

Tricky Wellington and Otaki

2005-10-09T01:53:00.000-04:00

I had this entire post typed up yesterday, and then it suddenly disappeared.  An hour’s worth of writing gone, gone, gone.  Disastrous!  I hope this covers everything as well as it did yesterday.

Wellington has once more proved to be a tricky place to live.  I fully expected a downpour all day long yesterday, and what happens?  I wake up at 8AM to perfectly clear skies and bright sunshine.  I took advantage of the morning and went down to the waterfront to listen to a podcast and enjoy the water.  I love sitting down by the waterfront.  The Wellington coast is so pretty.  The water was an exceptional colour, not quite blue but not quite green, just a great aquamarine colour.  I went over to the café in Te Papa for a chai tea latte and sat in the sunshine, reading the weekend paper and feeling very ‘Wellington.’  I wandered around Oriental Bay for a bit, enjoying my favourite spot on that side of the harbour, before heading home.  I am glad I got out when I did, and went home when I did, because the clouds started rolling in about 20 minutes after reaching Mckenzies.  It was then cloudy and cold and rainy for the rest of the afternoon.

The weather in the afternoon was a lot like the weather on Friday.  It was cold, windy, rainy, etc, but it didn’t really matter to me.  I was already wet and in a wetsuit!  How come?  Well …

Last Tuesday I was checking out a potential new flat with Meredith and Claudia (I am going to try to move out of the hostel that I am currently living in; the one we looked at is nicer, and I would get to live with Meredith and Claudia over the summer, which would be nice) when Claudia starts talking about some activity thing she had signed up for at the Rec Centre on Friday.  I don’t have class on Friday, so I decided to go along.  I just signed up for it, not really knowing what I was getting myself in to.  I figured it wasn’t a big deal because there isn’t much I won’t try or attempt, seeing as how I jump at every opportunity available.  I just put my name down, paid my money, and showed up at the Rec Centre at 8:15AM on Friday morning.

Turns out our first activity was bridge swinging.  This involved going to a random dilapidated bridge somewhere about an hour outside of Wellington and jumping off into the canyon and river below.  First, we were strapped in to a small harness.  Then, you climb over the side of the bridge, facing inwards.  Next, you jump backwards as far as you can into nothingness, fall until you reach the length of the rope, and commence swinging back and forth under the bridge like some big swing.  This was so much more nerve racking than skydiving in my opinion.  You really had to work up your nerve to jump backwards over the river off of the bride.  It is hard because you can’t see what you are doing, where you are going, and the harness isn’t particularly bulky or large.  It was a great experience, though.  I got a little bit of whiplash, nothing near as bad as I did in my car wreck, but it was worth it.  There is a second ‘guide’ down on the ground under the bridge, and she caught your foot to stop you swinging and pulled you down to the ground.  We all did this, clambered back up the hill through the bush, piled back into the van, and drove off to our next destination.

We drove a little longer along the Otaki River until we got to a campsite type place.  We piled out into the structure/hut thing to eat lunch.  Our leader from Vic definitely made a comment to the extent of ‘Wow, so the stereotype is true!’ when I pulled out my peanut butter and jam sandwich.  After lunch, we all pulled on our wetsuits and put on our protective helmets and harnesses.  I had never worn a wetsuit before, so that was an experience.  Keep in mind that I still had no idea what I was in for!  I am happy that Claudia over packed and had some extra clothes and things for me to wear under the wetsuit.  Her surfing gear really helped keep me dry, especially considering the fact that my wetsuit had several holes in it and was really worn down in others.

After we were all decked out in our protective gear, we began our short tramp up to the top of a part of the river.  This is when I discovered that we were going to be abseiling (that’s rappelling for you Americans) and trekking down a river that led into the Otaki River.  This was so cool.  I hadn’t abseiled in ages, and then just on indoor rock walls and the like.  The water was freezing, my shoes are still soaking wet, and I am all bumped and bruised from slipping on rocks, but it was such a cool afternoon.  We abseiled down three different waterfalls.  It was so different from being inside because you had the water pushing you down, splashing you in the face, and it was hard to get a good grip with your feet sliding all over the wet algae-covered rocks.  If you slipped too hard, you crashed into the waterfall wall.  This only happened to me once.  When we were just trekking down the river, not abseiling, we would still get bruised and soaked because of the changing depths of the water.  The level would suddenly go from your mid-calf to above your waist, effectively dunking you in the water, and then you would stumble on rocks and the level suddenly became shallow again.  There was one other cool thing, too.  At one point we had to do a ‘flying fox’ type thing.  Of course I was closest and ended up going first.  You strapped your harness to the rope, climbed down about a meter or so, turned so that your back was to the rock wall, and jumped out over the waterfall into the air.  There was nothing around you; you just zipped down the line until almost running into the tree at the end.  After you had slowed, the guide at the top lowered you down until you could step on the triangular rock sticking up out of the pool.  That was very fun.  Before we knew that was what we were going to do, we had been joking about flying down over the waterfall like on a zip line.  Crazy experience!

Of course, we all pretty much passed out in the van after that.  I kept it a quiet night.  Dave cooked a really good meal for me and two other friends, Bex and Louise, so I just went over to his house, enjoyed the roast chicken and vegetables, and watched part of a movie before heading home to pass out.  I was more active last night, heading out to a party out in Kilburnie.  It was thrown by Meredith’s boyfriend’s friend, which meant that I didn’t know anyone except Meredith, Lauren, Jay (the boyfriend), and Ash (Jay’s brother).  No matter, though.  Lauren didn’t know anyone either, so we stuck together in the beginning, and by the end I had met some really fun people.  It was an entertaining night.  After the party began to wind down, we all grabbed a cab and headed back into town to go dancing at Jet.  Fun evening all around.

Before I leave you today, I do have some random closing thoughts.

It may not be popular in America, but texting is the way to do things here. I have gotten maybe 8 phone calls the entire time I have been here, with only one of those from a non-Rotarian non-insurance related person. Texting is such a big part of life here that even government officials are savvy into this. I was reading in the paper last week that a current government minister who was tipped to have an even more prominent position in the next (likely to be led by Helen Clark) government took himself out of the race through a text message to Helen Clark’s phone. It really is the way to do things here.

I know why Victoria University can have such a small cleaning budget. The tons of pigeons wandering around are like super vacuum cleaners, slowly finding every crumb dropped by hungry students. I was hanging out on the bridge, reading the paper and studying, when I got distracted watching a pigeon as it methodically ate every little crumb on the ground around the benches closest to me. The pigeons are always everywhere because doors and windows are always open (no central air conditioning means that you have to circulate the air somehow), and they follow the students. I have finally become used to pigeons in the classroom and hallways.

Procrastination

2005-10-02T01:50:00.000-04:00

I should be studying right now, but I feel that I need to take a break. I am going to go run and pick up some dinner, but I wanted to get these up while I was thinking about it.

These three were taken at Scorching Bay, right outside of Wellington. Meredith, Amy, Lauren, Claudia (a German law graduate student), and I had a late lunch at The Chocolate Fish, which is a trendy cafe on the coast outside of the city centre. I was amazed at how nice and helpful the wait staff was. They really took care to make sure my food and hot chocolate had no milk in it, and they didn't seem at all put out for having to do so. Apparently, this cafe was a big favourite with the Lord of the Rings cast, so that was cool for me. More LotR stalking going on there. It was a great lunch. We ate outside, the weather was very fine (as you can see), and it was even warm in the sun when the wind stopped gusting. We sat around for a long time, just talking and enjoying being out of doors.

This whole weekend has been enjoyable. I spent a good part of Friday night catching up with a friend I hadn't seen since Fiji, and that was great. After Chocolate Fish, I did some work before heading over to Stafford House to chill with Meredith, Amy, and Lauren. We hung around and talked over some wine for awhile, and then we headed out on the town. The big goal was to do some karaoke, and we were successful. We went to Club K, a karaoke bar right in Courteney Place, and it was a lot of fun. Yes, I got up there and sang, but I sang with Amy. We did "I Love Rock and Roll." Great song, great energy in the club. Then we went out to meet some friends in another bar, I ran into some friends that I knew (this being Wellington and all), and we all danced the night away. I stayed out ridiculously late, slept til 1:30 this afternoon, and have been trying to do work ever since.

One other factoid. Daylight savings time started here today, which means we sprang forward an hour. I am now 17 hours ahead of the East Coast, not 16. This will change to 18 hours once the USA ends daylight savings on October 30th and you fall back an hour. Crazy confusing time zones! Another interesting way of putting all of this: at the end of the month, once everyone gets their clocks sorted out, I will be 3 hours short of being a full 24 hours ahead of the West Coast. How crazy is that! Almost an entire day!

Taupo, among other things

2005-09-30T00:48:00.000-04:00

Yes, this is a week overdue, but what can I say? It's nearing the end of the semester, and I am becoming very busy. I ran into one of my friends last week, and we were both like, "We HAVE to sit down and catch up - but not before next Friday!" Next week is the last week of class, and then the finals period begins. I have three tests next week (one on Monday, two on Thursday), so I will be working hard. Thankfully, I only have one final (on October 19 at 9:30AM), so that won't be terribly stressful.

Unrelated note: electronics woes are (hopefully) behind me! I have my mobile back, all repaired, and I have a new camera! Insurance finally released the purchase orders for both the camera and memory card, so I picked both up today from Camera House. I am so happy to finally have a camera again. It was very annoying to 1) not have one and 2) have to deal with the insurance company about replacing it. Crazy thiefs, I wonder if they ever think about that side of it when they steal something. Do you reckon they think, 'I am going to cause this unknown person so much irritation at having to deal with the insurance company for 6 weeks.' Irritating.

Anyways, to the topic at hand. Last Friday I journeyed up to Taupo with three other girls (Amy, Meredith, and Lauren, an AustraLearn student from Wisconsin), where we met Alicia, another Ambassadorial Scholar from Texas in Auckland. The drive up was crazy. First, our rental car was a bit dodgy. Meredith drove, and she said that she had never put her foot all the way to the floor before. This car had no acceleration whatsoever. It smelled like a smoker's car, as well, so that was a bit irritating. Also, because of logistics (dropping off cars, classes, etc), we couldn't leave Wellington until right before 5PM. We hit a huge traffic jam, and it took us an hour and a half to get to just Paraparaumu! We made a lot of jokes about there being only one road to go anywhere in New Zealand , that's why there was so much traffic. We stopped in Bulls for a kebab and made it to Taupo around 11:15PM. We found the YHA, piled out of the vintage (as we began affectionately calling the white car), and found our room. Alicia was already there, so we did what all girls do and sat down to have a big gossip/catch-up session. Apparently, we were a little loud and got a knock on the wall from our neighbours, but it was fun all the same.

What nobody would talk about was the fact that less than 12 hours from seeing each other, we would be jumping out of a plane. Yup, that's right. I went to Taupo to jump out of a plane, and it was amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better day on Saturday. It was fairly warm, perfectly clear, great sun, everything right. We used a highly-recommended company called Skydive Taupo, and I say everyone should use them. They were so friendly. They picked us up at the YHA in a pimp 80s-style limo and took us to the metal shed that they use as a base. OK, so it is more than a metal shed, but that's about all. They were really cool, really relaxed, and made it very enjoyable. We decided to jump from 12,000 feet. We went in two groups: Amy, Meredith, and Alicia went up first, and Lauren and I went second. We had a lot of fun putting on our gear, striking poses, and generally hanging around. We all also got the personalized DVD. One of the cool things is that you can pick your own music, and they have you talking on the ground and in the plane and in the air and everything. I have the Top Gun theme, the "Whoohoo" song by Blur, and Alive by Pearl Jam on my DVD.

I never got nervous about jumping out of the plane. I was never thinking about not doing it. It is just something that I have always wanted to do, that I have always known I would do, and I went and did it. Now, let's be honest here, are any of you actually surprised that I did it? I love flying, and this was an extension of that love. I never thought about not going out of the plane. That's the thing about doing a tandem skydive; you don't push yourself out of the plane. One second we were in the plane and the next we weren't. The first time you go skydiving, it is a sensory overload. I am so happy I have the DVD so that I can look back on it and really remember. You are going so fast, up to 200kph,the wind is rushing by, your face is freezing cold, and everywhere you look, you see such a beautiful landscape. Skydiving over Taupo was an excellent idea because you get the lake, the mountains, and the city, all at once. It was exhilerating and peaceful all at the same time. It never crossed my mind how I was (basically) plummeting to earth. I was drinking in the scenery, the feeling of flying through the air. After the 45 second freefall (12000 to 5000 feet), the parachute opened, and we floated down for about 5 minutes. Everyone should do this at least once, if not multiple times. Find some amazing scenery, hop in a plane, and then jump out of it. The girls who were more nervous about doing it said they would do it again; it is that awesome of an experience.

After skydiving, my weekend took a turn for the worse. We went out for lunch, and crazy people put some sort of milk in my eggs, even though I requested no milk. I think what happened is that they put cream in the eggs. You would be amazed how many people think that cream, or cheese, or other dairy products, are not made with milk. I can't tell you how many times I have had to explain that, and it seems fairly obvious to me. Well, whatever, there it is. I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed or in a chair reading back at the YHA while the girls went up to Huka Falls and explored Taupo. Aside from being sick, it was an enjoyable afternoon. I had a new book that I was excited to read, so that was nice. Also, the view from the deck was magnificent. I felt somewhat better the next day, so, although I didn't eat anything substantial, I was able to walk partway along the Two/Three/Four Mile Walk around Lake Taupo.

We finished the walk, and then tried to leave Taupo. First, the battery was dead, and we were saved by some very nice Kiwis with jumper cables. Then, Lauren had left her jacket on the ground, so we doubled back to retrieve it. On the way home, we stopped for dinner in Palmerston North. This was a little out of our way, but we wanted to see the city. It really is quite charming, even on the Sunday evening when most things are closed. A funny thing happened in the cafe. Amy has a sparkling, radient personality, and she attracts people to her, even people who don't even know her. This manifested itself in the cafe when an unknown person joined us for dinner. It's the sort of thing that always happens to Amy, and it makes for a good story now. It wasn't an unpleasant meal, chatting with someone from a different walk of life, and it is entertaining now. We made it back into Wellington in the rain on Sunday night at some undetermined hour (meaning I can't remember).

The following week (i.e. this past week) was mainly about schoolwork. I had a speech in Heretaunga on Wednesday, and that went well. This was the most male-exclusive club at which I have spoken, and it made for a different feel to the club. When you visit so many different Rotary clubs, you become sensitive to the different variations and nuances that seperate one club from the next. It was a fun evening, and I enjoyed the ride with Ian (the Rotarian who picked me up in Wellington). We ended up being early, so he gave me a brief tour around Hutt City before arriving to the meeting.

That's about it for here. I probably won't be posting much over the next week because I will be so busy studying for my exams. Then it is all over, though! Of course, I have the exam, and I am taking summer papers, but in my mind, summer starts next Friday.

Weekly Pictures (delayed)

2005-09-27T03:48:00.000-04:00

This is from my speech at the Paraparaumu club on the Kapiti coast. I am exchanging my Rotary flag for theirs with the president, Geoff Gregory.

I stayed the night with the Gregorys, and the next day they took me around for a bit of sightseeing. One of the places we went was a wildlife sanctuary and native flora preserve, and it had fantastic views of the mountains to the east.

Of course, being a wildlife preserve, I got to see things like kiwi birds and swans and owls, but there was a fair amount of ducks waddling around, as well.

Now, Paraparaumu was two weeks ago, on 12 September. This past weekend I went up to Taupo. This is a mountain nearby Taupo (I don't believe it is Mt. Ruapehu, I believe Ruapehu is a little to the left), and Lake Taupo seperates us from the mountain in the picture.

Now, what did I go up to Taupo to do? To go SKYDIVING of course! This is me and my 'tandem' Phil right before jumping in the not-so-stable plane to fly up to 12,000 feet.

I don't have any pictures of me from really high up (although I do have a fantastic DVD), so this is the best we are going to get. We had 45 seconds of free fall from 12 to 5000 feet, and then we floated down on parachutes. I believe here we are actually spiraling down quickly to lose altitude.

Working Backwards

2005-09-22T07:44:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted much about my life recently, and I do have a lot to tell. I am going to work backwards through my week; hopefully I won't forget anything.

First thing, I have once again realized tonight what an awesome organization Rotary is. I was just chilling in my room when this Asian kid knocks on my door. Turns out he is a former multi-year Ambassadorial Scholar who is also living in my accommodation. He recently visited the Tawa Club, a club I have been to twice, and he rode out to the meeting with Brian Blacktop, the same guy who drove me. Brian mentioned that I was an Ambassadorial Scholar in Wellington, and Harufumi looked up my information on the district website. Since he lives in my dorm, he recognized my phone number and found my room based on my extension. Smaller world? One of his friends here, Colin something-or-other, who lives on the floor above me, is a Georgia Tech student as well. He is here for the trimester. Crazy, huh? There has been a GT student living above me all semester, and I had no idea. This kind of thing is what makes Rotary so amazing; it brings together random strangers from all over the world who happen to have the same organization in common. I have all my Rotary banners of the clubs I have visited hung up on my wall, so we got to talk about where each of us have been and what the clubs are like. It was very cool to make that unexpected connection.

Earlier this evening, I went to the World of Wearable Art Awards Show with Amy, Meredith, and Lauren. I don't think I can sufficiently describe WOW without pictures, but I will try. Imagine a fashion show crossed with Cirque de Soleil. Crazy costumes, amazing choreography, great lighting and sets, but no acrobatics or circus tricks (at least, not many, and not the focus). The costumes are astounding. So original, truly walking works of art. Please check out http://www.worldofwearableart.com. Amy and Meredith had gotten some sort of email about going, and luckily they included me as well. We got all dolled up and went down to the events centre on Queen's Wharf. It was a good enjoyable evening. This show was just so cool!

Backtracking even earlier in my day, I heard a speech from Terrance O'Brian in my POLS 244 class today. He is the former New Zealand ambassador to the United Nations. Typically, this wouldn't warrent a post. I know about how the UN works, and while it would be interesting to hear about how exactly NZ has been instumental in the 80s and 90s as a UN Security Council member, it wouldn't be first on my list to include in a post. So, here I was, halfway paying attention in class (you know, taking notes with a wandering mind), when I suddenly become very focused on what he is saying. This was supposed to be a speech about the workings of the UN and how NZ fits into that model, but it ended up being a speech about how badly the United States is behaving. The United States is bringing down the UN, leaving to work unilaterally (not incorrect, at least), not willing to work for the common good and compromise its interests, etc. The bad boy of the 193 member states. I am glossing over a lot of what was said, but it was a very anti-american speech. Typically, when I am prepared for anti-americanism, I can handle it pretty well; I was prepared for it when I heard Keith Locke, an MP for the Greens, speak, and I was ready with questions. I wasn't expecting it from Terrance O'Brian, and it really unsettled me, more so than any anti-american speeches have before.

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Hutt Valley Rotary Club. Hutt Valley meets at 7AM on Wednesday mornings, and Mark was outside Mckenzies waiting to pick me up at 6:20. So early! That is officially the earliest I have woken up since coming to NZ (5:10AM, by 1 minute). I was crazy tired for the whole rest of the day, despite a nap around 11:30, but it was worth it. The people of Hutt Valley were incredibly nice and welcoming, more so than I would expect at 7AM in the middle of the week. My speech went really well. Mark came with me because he had not seen my presentation before (he was away on business), and I am glad that he did because not only has he now seen it but he flipped my slides for me! I was too far away from the computer and projector to do it myself. This was also the first time I have not had my computer right in front of me, so I couldn't see the powerpoint while I was giving the presentation. Even with all that, I feel like the presentation was one of the better ones that I have done, and it was very well received. It was a good morning, even if it was really early.

The next thing prior to that meeting is the wrapping-up of my technological troubles. In case you forgot, my mobile phone broke almost immediately after my digital camera was stolen. I sent my phone off to get fixed, but it took forever. My landline doesn't have an answering service, so the mobile fone repair (MfR) company never talked to me so I could give them the go-ahead to fix the phone or tell me when to pick it up, even though I had asked them to email me. So, it takes about a month to get the phone fixed. I get it back earlier this week, and when I check my messages, low and behold, the insurance company had left me messages about two weeks prior saying that they had forwarded my claim to a camera store in Lambton Quey (a shopping district in Wellington), and could I please contact them to follow up on the claim? The camera store also left me messages, asking me to follow up. I call, tell them yes, I still want to claim the camera, and they order it! That simple! They said it should be here in a few days, so I am really hoping it will be in tomorrow. I am a little irked that everything took much longer than it should have, but at least my technological woes should soon be resolved.

As a sidenote, my international students' insurance is really coming in handy. It was $445 for the entire time I am here, including travel time. So far, I have claimed $25 for a doctor's visit, roughly $449 for replacing the camera, $129 for the 512mb memory card, and I just sent in a $140 claim for fixing my cell phone. Thank goodness for insurance!

I believe the only thing to say came before all of that but after the last time I posted was the chilled weather earlier in the week. Spring came rather early, so everything was in bloom, it was getting warmer, and the lambing had begun. Then, SNAP! Cold weather is back. Crazy frosts, bone-chilling southerlies, and gusting winds. Yes, I almost got knocked over one day when I wasn't paying attention. It was also really rainy in the beginning of the week. Thankfully, that has cleared out some, and the sunshine has made it warm up some more.

Also, tonight was a really nice night, one of those nights that makes me realize all over again how much I love living in Wellington. I walked home down Lambton Quey and Willis Street, and it was nice, all the stores were closed by the cafes were open and inviting. I stopped in to New World Metro to pick up some dinner (I hadn't had a chance to get it earlier), and the late-night grocery people were so nice. I really do love living in Wellington.

Also, in other news, I have an awesome little little sister now. My little is happy, and others approve, so I am happy. Sadly, I can't spill the secret of her identity just yet (Revelation is still a week away), but it is going to be great. A real rockstar addition to the coolest Alpha Chi family. :)

Now, off to bed. I am tired and still need to clean and pack. I am going to Taupo for the weekend, so I won't be around til Sunday night at the earliest.

There's something about MMP ...

2005-09-20T00:47:00.000-04:00

There is something about the MMP (Mixed Member Parliament) system that is leaving countries deadlocked in elections this season. Both New Zealand and Germany have heads of political parties fighting to be strong enough to form a stable government.

Before I get into this whole election thing, I want to say that it has been a very entertaining election. The campaign period is 6 weeks long, and it has been a crazy six weeks. There have been leaked emails, secret meetings, accusations of National policies being dictated by American think-tanks, a candidate betting his left testicle on the outcome of the election (which led to National leader Don Brash asking his candidates to not mention their testicles), harrassment charges, another candidate threatening to run naked through the streets of Epsom if Rodney Hide was re-elected, and so much more. It went right up to when the ballots were being counted! On election night, someone stole a plane from an airfield in Auckland, theatened to crash it in to the Sky Tower (the tallest building in Auckland), before crashing into the harbour, all supposedly in an attempt to get his wife back. Staying home on Saturday night to watch the results come in was very entertaining.

One more thought before I begin. New Zealand is all in one time zone, which means all the polls open and close at the same time. I think this is much better than in the United States. First of all, there can be no campaigning on election day. All billboards must be covered up, all bumper stickers removed, all leaflets trashed, etc. Supporters can only wear the party colours, not specific names. Also, all media coverage starts when the polls close. I think it is a bad situation when, in the United States, you have coverage beginning three hours before people in California stop voting. If I was a left-leaning Californian who heard that Bush had carried most of the East Coast, it would possibly get me out to the voting booths whereas before I wouldn't have voted. It can also swing the other way. If I was the same voter and saw the Bush had carried so many states that mine probably wouldn't matter, I may be discouraged and stay away from the polls whereas before I may have voted. Therefore, media coverage before polls close skews voter turnout. I believe everyone should vote (especially because I say you can't complain if you don't vote, and everyone always wants to complain), but I also think the media should lay off until the polls are closed.

Now, on to MMP and New Zealand (and Germany).

For those of you who don't know (and that probably includes the majority of you Americans!), MMP is a style of government which, in practice, allows the smaller parties to play a larger role in politics. Every Kiwi has two votes; one vote for the party you most wish to see in control of the government and one vote for who you want your political electorate representative to be. This means that you can vote for two different parties in the same election. All elected representatives are guarenteed a seat in Parliament. Each party also receives seats proportional to its percentage of party votes. So, if there are 100 seats in Parliament, and Party A got 20% of the national vote, it would get 20 seats. Now, pretend that 10 candidates from Party A won their electorates. This means that Party A gets to pick its next 10 highest party members (called "list candidates") to take the remaining allotted seats in Parliament. Additionally, in New Zealand, a party must poll at least 5% of the vote or win at least 1 electorate seat to take a place in Parliament. Otherwise, its votes are discarded. (The Greens had a close call with this, polling something like 5.07% and winning no electorates.)

One thing about MMP is that you can vote strategically, as many Kiwis did. Let's say that Party A is in control of the government, and you want a Party B controlled government. However, you support your local Minor Party C candidate and want them back but know that nationally the party won't poll 5% of the vote. This is what happened in Epsom. The people of Epsom voted to return Rodney Hide, a member of the ACT party, to Parliament, but overwhelmingly used their party votes to support National (National would be linked to Republican, Labour to Democrats, Labour is the incumbant controlling party). The Epsom-ites knew that without winning their electorate, ACT would be out of Parliament, thereby reducing the number of coalition options for National. Mr. Hide, despite being written off early in the election, swept Epsom and will be returning to Parliament.

New Zealand Parliament has 120 seats. There is an overhang, though, because the Maori party won 4 electorates but only enough percentage of votes for two seats in Parliament. This means that there are 122 seats in the new Parliament. A stable government needs to have at least a majority of 62 seats or a minority coalitions where it has support from the smaller parties without a formal coalition. Labour has held a minority coalition with the Greens (think way left wing tree huggers) in the last Parliament with support from NZ First and United Future. This worked because National polled its lowest percentage ever (I think) in the last election.

Now, there are problems similar to what has happened in Germany. Here is how it stands:

Labour squeaked by with 50 seats.
National more than doubled its MPs with 49 seats.
NZ First, led by the boisterous Winston Peters, saw a loss and returned with 7 seats. (Incidentally, this is the first time in 21 years that Winston Peters did not win his electorate.)
The Greens are next at 6 seats, all from list candidates.
The Maori party is a new party and showed well with 4 MPs, all winners of electorates.
ACT has two MPs, Rodney Hide and someone else based on polling percentages.
Jim Anderton's Progressives are still in with just one seat, Jim Anderton.

Now, these numbers may change a bit. Nearly 200,000 "special" votes (meaning votes cast outside home electorates) have not been counted and will not be released until early October. They will probably end up leaning more towards the left as they have done in past elections. This is because most of those votes cast outside electorates are students away at university, a sector that traditionally votes left (Labour and Green).

Clearly, no one has a majority. Labour is probably keen to continue to work with the Greens and the Progressives, both of which have clearly expressed interest in a formal coalition (the Greens even want cabinet seats). This gives Labour 57 seats, still far from a majority. The next option would be talking to NZ First. Initially, this sounds OK, seeing as how Peters has pledged to support whichever party garnered most of the votes, but our problem lies in the fact that Peters and the Greens don't get along at all, and NZ First probably wouldn't support a formal coalition with the Greens, especially not with Green members in cabinet positions. The Maori party would be more likely to go with Labour than National, although it has had its differences with both. Helen Clark even snubbed the Maori Party during the election, referring to it as 'the last cab off the ranks' in coalition potential. ACT will work with National, it can be assumed, and although United Future said it would talk first to the party with the most votes, it looks more likely to 'cozy up to National' than Labour, to quote the daily newspaper, The Dominion Post.

In my opinion (and I am no political strategist, I am getting a lot of this from what I have read), with that one extra seat, Labour has more momentum and potential to form a stable government. Helen Clark (the current PM and leader of the Labour party) could form a minority government with lots of confidence and supply deals and agreements from the different parties, much as she has done for the past three years. However, I don't think Labour won the election. Don Brash, the leader of the National Party, just led a revitalisation of his party, doubling the number of MPs it is bringing to Parliament and creating a lot more support than it has had in previous years. National will be a formidable foe in the next Parliament and a strong opposition member.

From what I understand, this is nearly exactly what is happening in Germany right now, just with different parties. Angela Merkel beat Gerhard Schroeder by less than one percentage point, and now the race is on the be able to form a stable government. I personally want Angela Merkel to win based on the fact that she would be the youngest chancellor, the first woman chancellor, and the first chancellor to have grown up in East Germany. I don't pretend to know the policies of either of the major parties, nor what would be best for Germany, but it is amazing that Ms. Merkel could rise so far, so fast (15 years), from political anonymity.

I will keep you updated on whatever happens, no worries. Consider this your world politics lesson for the day.

Fiji Pictures: Bounty, sailing, and Beachcomber

2005-09-19T03:39:00.000-04:00

Alas, we have reached the end of the Fiji pictures. As I do not have a replacement camera (still working with the insurance company on that one), I don't know when I will be posting pictures again.

In other, better news - I have my old mobile back! +64 021 0795178.

This is the 'Pirate Ship' on ... Bounty, I believe. It was rather nice. You could walk out to the end and watch the bazillion schools of fish swim around and underneath the boat. It added to the atmosphere of the island.

I took this picture after breakfast on our first day with Amy's camera. I really like how it turned out. The huts provided some nice shade when needed, although we weren't on Bounty long enough to need it.

I thought you needed a picture of me, so here you go. Me, in my sarong, with the random Fijian-culture-for-tourists statue.

This is what Beachcomber, the 'party island' of the Mamanucas, looked like, It wasn't as nice as Bounty, but we lucked out and got a good room, so it worked just as well for us. This island had good electricity since it was so close to the mainland; it even had a live band.

I just realized this is the only 'sailing' picture I am posting. Our sailing trip had several stops, one of which was to a 'traditional' Fijian village. We participated in the kava ceremony, shoppped at the market, then went back to the beach to wait for the dinghy to transport us back. While waiting the three of us climbed around a bit, hence you have the above picture. :)

You Know You're In Wellington When ...

2005-09-15T06:32:00.000-04:00

Two posts in one day. I came across this in the Mount Victoria Rotary Club bulletin for 14 September. I have been meaning to put it up because I think it is really funny. I hope that you can still find it funny even if you have never been in Wellington, and trust me, it is funnier when you live here.

You know you're in Wellington when:

you can wake up during an earthquake and think that it's just the wind that's shaking your house.
you can say, "Wellington is full of ferries" and not be considered homophobic.
you can recognize half the city's population when walking down the street.
you can afford a $1000 suit but still flat in a house that requires three sets of clothing and two dehumidifiers to stay warm.
you see someone traveling 100kph on the motorway and you complain how fast people travel these days.
you walk from the Railway Station to Willis Street without ever checking for traffic.
"Just turn left at the first Star Mart [think Golden Gallon or other convienence store], walk down the street till you get to the third Star Mart, turn right, go 3 Star Marts up, and you're there."
seeing the Brooklyn Wind Turbine not turning is a newsworthy event.
it takes you 20 minutes to drive around the block in peak traffic due to the 'one way system.'
boarding a Stagecoach bus is a hazardous activity.
you take a bodyguard down Courtenay Place in case you bump into a drunk politician.
the centre line is negotiable, especially on the Brooklyn and Hataitai hills where parked cars can take up 80% of the road.
you get altitude sickness going from your car to your front door.
you have to leave the city to do your shopping.
any wind that doesn't threaten to take your roof off is just a 'bit of breeze.'
you can detect 27 different shades of black suit.
when an earthquake hits, instead of hiding under your desk, you hold a bet with your workmates on the force, focus, and epicentre.
when giving directions to tourists, you point up.
you go out for your $5 coffee with friends and complain about how expensive Auckland is.

Scheduling, Elections, and WWOOFing

2005-09-15T03:11:00.000-04:00

Very characteristically, I have spent a good portion of the past few days figuring out my schedules for both Vic Uni and GT. This may also have something to do with me diligently avoiding my work.

Anyways, the good news is that everything I am doing in New Zealand can be transferred back towards my INTA minor, and I am on track to graduate December 2007. This is partially due to the fact that Molly Cochran, the director of the INTA program, is amazing and a hero in my world. Currently, I am taking POLS 244: International Relations and New Zealand, POLS 248: Conflict Analysis (with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region), and GEOL 113: Fundamentals of Geology. I am going to take MAOR 216: The Treaty of Waitangi and PASI 101: The Pacific Heritage next term. I emailed Molly, and she said that both POLS courses, MAOR 216, and PASI 101 can all be transferred back as INTA 3xxx. Also, I am taking HTS 2602: China and the Modern World next summer when I go to Singapore/Beijing, and Molly said I could count that towards my INTA minor as well. This means that when I get back to the states, I have fulfilled all the requirements of my minor! Now, assuming that everything is still working out for me to do Singapore/Beijing next summer and the German LBAT during summer 2007, all I have left at Tech are PHYS 2212, MATH 2602, CS 4400, ISYE 3044, 4009, 3133, and 4106, three engineering sciences, german 3xxx, and a global economics. That's only 12 classes, easily broken up into three semesters. This means I get to graduate in 4.5 years on the International Plan with a major in Industrial and Systems Engineering, a minor in International Affairs, a certificate in German Studies, and four semesters of study abroad.

Needless to say, this information completely made my day earlier this week. It will all probably change, but it seems to be a good plan now.

On a different topic, the national election is in two days (Saturday, 17 September). I have been enjoying reading the reports on the candidates, watching the polls, and learning about the different voting and parliamentary style of New Zealand. It has been entertaining to watch the different elections promises, such as Labour saying they will scrap all interest on student loans without there being too much cost to the government. Without showing too much bias, I think that is economically unsound and unsustainable.

(Sidenote: It has also been interesting for me to learn about the school systems here. The testing is different, the way courses work is different, and the range of degrees is different than what I am used to. Student life is also very different. Universities back home have a mostly on-campus feel, with many social acitivities happening on campus. Here, students typically commute in, so social acitivities are planned through hostels. This may be different across NZ, but that is how it is at Vic.)

Anyways, back to the election. The election is on a Saturday here, which actually makes more sense because then business-people don't have to take time out of their day to vote. Also, there is a more in-your-face campaign to get out and vote. There are people on the streets telling you to enrol to vote, heaps of commercials encouraging you to enrol to vote (featuring a Cingular-esque Orange Man), notices all over campus, fliers, everything. The atmosphere seems to be more politically charged here than back home. It reminds me of when I was in California near the election time. There have been rallies up on campus and everything.

I think that the size of New Zealand has a lot to do with this politically charged atmosphere. It is easier for candidates to be in your face and personally known here because the population is smaller and they have less distance to cover on the campaign trail. It is an hour from Auckland to Wellington, 45 minutes from Wellington to Christchurch, and another hour or so to get to the tip of the south island by plane. Not a very big country. It has a population roughly the size of the greater Atlanta metropolitan area. Everything is more personal. The campaign is also much shorter, lasting only 6 weeks.

Final change of topic: WWOOFing. Let me preface this with describing my summer term. My last class of this semester is on 6 October. I have a final on 19 October, several Rotary speeches planned, and my mother is coming to visit from 25 October to 3 Novemeber. MAOR 216 meets on 19/20 November, 10/11 December, and 15 January from 9 to 4:50. PASI 101 meets from 30 January to 10 February from 9 to 2:10. I am scheduled to leave New Zealand on March 16. Aside from Rotary appearances, I have nothing else to do! I am very excited about all of this free time because I get to travel and do everything I want to do, but I don't have the finances to sustain traveling that much. I heard about this WWOOFing program (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). This is a program where, in exchange for food and accommodation, you work on organic farms for a couple of hours a day, helping out in the day to day chores. There are over 800 wwoof farms in New Zealand, and they are situated in every area. I have been looking at a few up in the Bay of Plenty and Auckland regions. I have never worked on a farm, and this would be a good way to experience something I doubt I will be able to again while traveling around New Zealand. Many of the farms are bed and breakfasts, so they have amentities like kayaking, horseback riding, etc, that you can use in your 'off' time. I am sure that my parents are shaking their heads right now, with thoughts of "Katie? On a farm?" running through their minds. This will be a cool experience, and besides, I need some way to pay for travel all over the place! I have talked to some people who have done it or heard about it through word of mouth, and it seems to be a very positive experience. You can check it out at http://www.wwoof.co.nz.

That's about it for my end. This post ended up being longer than expected, so I hope you read all of it. 'Til next time!

Paraparaumu

2005-09-13T04:06:00.000-04:00

I was invited to speak at the Paraparaumu Rotary Club on 12 September. It is about an hour outside of Wellington, so it was arranged that I would take the train from Wellington to Paraparaumu and then spend the night at the president's home so that I could do a bit of sightseeing the next morning.

I can't remember the last time I have been on an actual train. I think it was the train we took on choir tour from D.C. to somewhere in Georgia, the overnight train. I was very excited about taking the train. Michelle, my friend in my POLS classes, was laughing at me in our tutorial on Monday, saying I shouldn't be excited because the trains aren't that nice. I caught the 3:20 train, and it was a 55 minute ride. I was on the correct side of the train to see the gorgeous scenery as I traveled up the west coast. I had my mp3 player and my daily newspaper and had a very enjoyable train ride.

Geoff met me at the train station (I am happy I made it off at the correct stop!) and drove me back to his house. We dropped off my overnight bag and chatted for awhile before leaving for the rotary meeting. My presentation went very well, and the club was very inviting. It is an older club, so it was a bit quieter than some of the other clubs I had seen. They get a lot of speakers from Wellington, so the speaker is nearly the first thing on the program, before the fines and everything. This is so people can make the drive back to Wellington and not get home too late.

After the meeting, we went back to Geoff and Ann's house. They were so nice and accommodating for me. They even went out and bought some soy milk for breakfast, just one meal! I couldn't have asked for nicer hosts. They had recently purchased a Nikon 4600 (the kind that I had stolen from me), so I taught them how to use some of the cool features. We sat around with hot chocolate and coffee and tea and talked for a long time. They have a daughter and her family in Springfield, Missouri, right now, so they talked about their last trip over there. We talked about what I had done in New Zealand, what I wanted to do, and a whole lot of other random things. I started to get tired early, so we all went to bed around 10.

We left the house at 9:30 this morning to do a bit of sightseeing. Paraparaumu is basically New Zealand's version of a retirement beach community. It is on the Kapiti coast, and it is gorgeous with a mild climate. As we were driving around, I was strongly reminded of my grandmother's retirement community in Florida, The Villages. There were subdivisions that looked exactly like the maze of identical houses that makes up the areas of The Villages. More and more people are retiring to the community to live full-time, but there is still a large portion of people who just come up for the weekend.

The first thing we did was the drive over to the Otaki Gorge. There is a one lane bridge that goes over the river, so first we drove over it. I wanted to take pictures, so we parked the car and walked back onto the bride. Some Lord of the Rings scenes were shot here, mainly from the first film (leaving Hobbiton, etc). While we were standing on the bridge, a woman came driving along. She stopped to chat with us, and when she found out I was a tourist, she told us to continue on up the lane to go wander around her gardens. She said the rhododendrons and magnolia trees were magnificent right now. This is a lady we had never met, who had never met us, inviting us to basically tour her home. "Just ask for Pierre," she said, "He's cutting down trees outside." Well, we went on over and toured around her 'gardens.' What she really has is a couple of acres planted with grape vines, apple trees, lemon treets, tomato trees (yes, there is a kind that grows on trees), an olive grove, etc. It was beautiful. It was high enough up so there was a nice view of the sea as well. She had a large house, and it was very quiet and peaceful; no sounds of the city here! This is a prime example of how friendly Kiwis are. This woman had no worries about a group of strangers wandering around her gardens while she was at her pilates class. It was very nice.

After this stop, we continued on down to follow the Otaki river. We were in an old (late 80s?) Corolla driving on gravel roads that would have been more comfortable in a 4-wheeler, but no matter. We drove right down to where the river forks (rather, comes together from three seperate streams). It hasn't rained in over a month and a half in this area, so the river was the lowest than Ann and Geoff had every seen it. I still enjoyed the drive, though. Everything is so green in New Zealand. I was told today that in the height of summer, the grass will die in some places and turn brown, so it is just about the opposite than my grass back home.

After driving back out, they took me to a nature and wildlife reserve. It was very nice. I saw all kinds of birds and native flora. There was a nice bush walk around the whole property, and I climbed to the top of the lookout. The view reminds me a bit of the views I saw in Wyoming, with rolling farmland meeting tall mountains. I also saw a real Kiwi bird! Strange little animal, waddling around. There were ducks and geese and eels and owls and all kinds of other animals. When we were leaving, a lamb had gotten loose from the adjoining paddock and couldn't figure out how to get back in. That was an experience, trying to get a scared lamb to climb through a wire fence!

We drove Ann back to get her car (she had a prior community service commitment), and then Geoff and I went out to lunch. We ate a cute little cafe, the Beach Deli, right on the coast. The sun was streaming in the windows, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and we got to watch the people walk by. After lunch, he drove me back to Wellington. He does part-time freelance work still and coincidentally had an engagement in Wellington that day, so I didn't have to take the train back.

Overall, it was a very nice overnight trip. I would definately enjoy going back to the area and exploring more of the coastline, perhaps visiting Kapiti Island. The entire island is a conserve, so you have to get permission to visit, and you have to go with a specific service because only so many people per day can visit the island.

In other news, I have been working on my schedule for this summer. It looks like I will have plenty of time to explore areas of New Zealand, so I am happy with that. I also sat down and figured out what courses I have left before graduating. My major has recently undergone revamped itself, so there have been a lot of changes there. I have also been accepted into an International Plan program, so I have new requirements for my degree. Oh, well, I will graduate eventually. Let's just travel around 'til then!

Fiji Pictures: Kuata

2005-09-11T20:54:00.000-04:00

I know I usually post pictures every Sunday, but Hey! It is still Sunday in America! I was so busy yesterday that I just wasn't in my room enough to post. I am at university, so I can't upload more pictures (I am not on my own computer) which means you have to be satisfied with these three. We're still on the Fiji pictures, as you can tell.

This is from our first night on Kuata. The western side of the island had some amazing rocks to go climb on, and the sunet was perfect. The cloud cover kept a lot of the reds out of the sunset, but the yellows and blues and grey colours were stunning.

This is the sunset on the next day from about the same point on the island.

I know this seems like a sunset, but don't be fooled. Meredith, Amy, and I got up at 5:40 to hike up a mountain to see the 6:30 sunrise. The hike was more challenging than we had expected, but that may have perhaps been because we were not quite awake. It was a great experience to be so high above everything so early in the morning, to be able to see the sun rise like that. I will never get over how amazing the sun and moon look rising and setting over the ocean.