New Zealand Holiday: Post 2

Hello everyone!
Sorry I haven't put up a post in a while. The last few weeks I have had a lot of big assignments due. Unfortunately those take priority over blog posts. Anyways, back to business. 

Adorable little puppy we met in Wellington. I thought I'd start off with a picture to make everyone smile.

This will be my second post about my amazing New Zealand trip. As I said, it was so jam packed full of fun things, I could not summarize it in one sitting. I last left off with us in Rotorua, so let's pick it right back up shall we?

Tongariro Crossing/Mordor

The view from the top of our little "hike."Mt. Ngauruhoe is in the upper left hand corner, though you can't see it very well.

Well we departed from Rotorua, scraping the side of the rental car in the process, and headed straight for Tongariro National Park. A little history about this park. It is world famous for its treacherous Tongariro Crossing, a 12 mile hike across volcanic landscape that takes six to eight hours to complete. Although it is a very difficult track, it is one of the most popular tramping tracks in New Zealand. It passes over the active volcano Mount Tongariro and through the eastern base of Mount Ngauruhoe. Most of you would recognize Mt. Ngauruhoe. This peak plays the part of Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. In fact, the Tongariro Crossing is the set for Mordor in LOTR. So, being the nerd that I am, I can officially say I have hiked through Mordor like Frodo and Sam!

Hiking up the crossing

Because none of us were really morning people, and because a recent volcanic eruption had blocked off the majority of the hike, we actually did not hike the entire crossing. But to make the hike more interesting, we went off the beaten path and made our own trek through the landscape. We actually ended up climbing up a steep slope to a patch of small cliffs at the top. Now if I was not young and reckless and was not enjoying the best trip of my life, I would say that this was probably not the best thing for the landscape, or us for that matter. But then again, we all need to have crazy stories to tell. The scenery was beautiful. From the top of our conquered rocks, we could see evidence of past eruptions and part of Mt Ngauruhoe (although the rest of it was covered in clouds). The hike took us about four hours. The rain surprised us on the way back, numbing our legs and hands. Thankfully we were all smart enough to wear plenty of layers on the upper half of our bodies at least.  We stayed the night in a nice little hostel 15 minutes down the road. Sure enough, our legs were quite sore the next morning.

From the top, left to right: Robby, Steph, Frank (another American we met on our travels), Emily and me. Melia is taking the picture. After reaching the top of the cliffs, we wanted a dramatic picture of us looking into the distance. Robby, of course is always one to rise to the occasion.

Wellington

View of Wellington

Our next stop was Wellington, located on the southern tip of the north island of NZ. Funny story: the morning of our long drive to Wellington, we received a call from our rental car company, asking us where we were. Apparently, we were supposed to return the car to the company in Wellington the previous day.  We drove just a little bit faster than usual to make it to Wellington by 5pm. With minutes to spare, we safely returned the car. Afterwards, with luggage slung over our shoulders, we wandered the streets of Wellington for a good hour, looking for our hostel.

Giant Squid we met at the museum.

Wellington is the New Zealand version of Portland, Oregon. It has the same look, atmosphere, weather and people. There is actually another Massey University campus in Wellington, and now I partially wish I had chosen to study at that location rather than Auckland. It is a wonderful city. The three days we were there, we were blessed with good weather. Wellington also has a wide variety of shops, cafes, bars and pubs; a perfect place for a small town girl like me to go exploring. We visited the Museum of New Zealand, a massive 6-story building that houses countless artifacts about Maori culture and New Zealand history, art exhibits  as well as other interesting things. The highlight of course was the up close encounter with a giant colossal squid, the largest and only complete specimen on display in the world. 

My first experience with a flaming shot. My mother was not very happy to learn about this picture ("You could have burned your face off Michael!") Don't worry Mom, I wont do it again. First and last $10 shot.

Our last night in Wellington, we enjoyed the night life. I had my first flaming shot, (my first and last) and went to my first actual dance club. The next morning, bright, early and slightly hungover, we jumped on the ferry and headed for the south island. 

 Picton/Marlborough

View from one of the wineries.

We jumped off the ferry onto the streets of Picton. We had officially made it to the South Island! Picton is an adorable little town located at the start of New Zealand wine country. It had the best hostel and bakery we had encountered on the trip. A few hours after the ferry ride, we headed to Marlborough, New Zealand's prime wine country, known mostly for its Sauvignon Blanc. Nearly 100 wineries are located in Marlborough. We decided to take a small wine tour.  I think we went to seven wineries and had the pleasure of tasting some fantastic wines. Our one mistake, not eating enough before the tour. The five of us were definitely buzzed on the way back to Picton.

Wine tasting I think is something you need to do a lot to get the hang of it. The wine tenets at each vineyard were going on and on about the aroma and the taste and how dry or spicy each wine was. I would just nod my head and pretend I knew what they were talking about. But in reality, in the back of my mind I was thinking what the hell are you talking about? They almost all taste the same!  And then you have to swirl the wine in the glass and smell it and look at the color before you even taste it. Why can't you just take a sip and and be done with it? Shows how much I know about wine. But it was still a great experience. I will learn as I get older.

Well that is it for this post. My next post will be completely devoted to Queenstown; the adventure capital of the world!

Until next time!

    

New Zealand Holiday, Post 1

Kia Ora! Everyone!

Ok first of all, I wanted to say sorry for some spelling errors in my last post(that's for you Marsha Azorsky :) ). I normally triple check my blog posts before I publish them. Perhaps the draft didn't save properly. For all my old english and grammar teachers out there reading this, I am truly sorry. spelling and capitalization was never my strong point. Haha.

Well, I am back from one of the most amazing experiences of my life, my trip around this beautiful country of New Zealand. And oh my God was it eye opening! I saw and did so many awesome things that I can't possibly sum it up in one post. So this will be the first in a series of several posts about my trip. Alright! Here we go!

Waitomo Caves/Hamilton

The first place we stayed in was Hamilton, which is and hour and a half south of Auckland. Nothing against the people that live there, but it is not all that exciting. Plus, the hostel we stayed at had some pretty strange backpackers walking around. And when I say strange, I mean creepy. We had to walk to the bathroom in pairs because we were so uncomfortable.  I would say we were much more cautious of the people we met while traveling after encountering those creeps in Hamilton.
But enough about the only negative thing on our trip. Our first big activity was probably the one most unique. Tubing down a river, in a cave, full of glow worms! And the beauty of it was, we hadn't even planned to do it! While checking into our hostel, we picked up a brochure that gave us information about the caves. Low and behold, the next day we were suiting up in wet suits ready to plunge into 50 degree water. Naturally we couldn't bring our cameras with us, but there were some shots taken by the guides with a special waterproof camera. Those should be coming up on Facebook shortly. 

Emily, Steph, me and Robby; ready for some caving!

It didn't really occur to me until we started descending into the cave that we were sinking down into complete darkness. With only our two guides and our head lamps to guide the way, we began the trek underground. The air was musty, cold, and thick. You could constantly  hear the eerie sound of rushing water, although you couldn't always see it. At one point, the guides had us turn off all of our lamps. There we were, in a cave, floating on a river of black abyss.  Only it wasn't. Above us stretched a long luminescent snake made of  thousands of glittering glow worms. I would say it was like looking at glow-in-the-dark stars that you put on your ceiling as a kid, because that is the only way I can begin to describe it to you. The sight was utterly breathtaking! Weaving between stalactites and stalagmites, jumping off cave waterfalls into pools of black nothingness, meeting glow worms and cave wetas (massive scary looking bugs), this was an experience unlike any other.

Hobbiton!

Bag End. This is one of two hobbit holes actually built to scale. The rest, are smaller.

Samwise Gamgee's house

Ok I am a self confessed Lord of the Rings nerd. And this part of the trip was clearly one of my favorites. It is also the part that I will most likely brag about when I get back, so to everyone back home, be ready. On our third day, we packed up the rental Subaru (we named him Jed) and with the help of the navigation system (we called her Penelope, because of her sexy female voice) we set off for Matamata, the location of the filming of Hobbiton. It was a little ways of a drive, but I remember looking out the window at the passing landscape and thinking to myself, wow! this looks exactly like the Shire! Rolling hills, sporadically spotted with big trees, sheep everywhere. I was even listening to the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on my iPod as we drove into Matamata (yes I have the soundtracks on my iPod).

Hobbiton was amazing. We had literally fallen into a LOTR movie! Hobbit holes were everywhere, each having their own unique look. There was the vegetable garden, the Party Tree, the Green Dragon Pub were we drank some homemade amber ale, and of course Bag End (Bilbo and Frodo's house).
Let me tell you right now, New Line Cinema sure was smart to make this a tourist attraction. I took so many pictures and it was so hard to narrow them down. But honestly, if you are a Lord of the Rings fan like I am, make this place one of your destinations in life.

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ~J.R. Tolkien

Look at us! Chillin' in a hobbit hole.

Rotorua
With Penelope leading the way, we said goodbye to The Shire and drove down to the famous Rotorua (Roto-Vegas) where we met up with Melia and our two housemates Nic and Kristian. Nic and his family live in Rotorua so we stayed with them for Easter Weekend. I have to say, what a wonderful family. We were so blessed to be in their company for a few days and we are so thankful for their hospitality. 

View from the Mount

The waterfall we slid down

Anyways, our activities in Rotorua included, lugeing, sliding down waterfalls, Zorbing, and driving to Tauranga and climbing the Mount. The highlight I think was the Zorbing! Picture this, rolling down a hill stuck in a giant plastic hamster ball with water in it. Well, that is essentially what Zorbing is. Limbs fly everywhere, water is splashed in your face, but is its so much fun! Cross that off of my bucket list!

I tried to upload the video of us Zorbing, but the file was too big. Melia and I are in the Zorb on the left and Steph, Robby and Emily are in the Zorb on the right.

Well that's all for now. Next time I will tell you about my own path through Mordor and my first encounter with a giant squid!

Until next time!    

 

Ups and Downs

Kia Ora everyone!

Sorry I have been kinda M.I.A these last two weeks.  Procrastination at its finest ladies and gentlemen! I will do my best at summarizing the last two weeks. Things have been a little jumbled.
The week before last was the first week since I have been here where the weather was not immaculate. The sky finally decided it was time to give the Auckland area a good soak. It was rather cloudy most of the week and poured all weekend. Of course, it was the one weekend where we had planned to drive an hour west to Piha beach, a beautiful stretch of sand with a nice waterfall you can hike up to. But alas, I opened my curtains that Saturday morning and was greeted by a steady downpour. Well there goes our beach plans. 

Me and my friend Melia at the bar.

 

 

But that Saturday was not wasted. Later, several of us went out for a night on Auckland town. It was an early St. Patrick's Day celebration. Having just recently become the legal drinking age in my own country, the bar atmosphere was a whole new experience for me. And to all of you responsible and experienced adults reading my blog, dont worry! I only had a two drinks. It was way too expensive for me to even approach my alcohol drinking limit. (See Mom, I am a responsible adult :) ) I have to admit I was not used to severely intoxicated men wandering over and surveying our group of girls and our figures in a less-than-subtle way. Frankly it made me a little uncomfortable. But hey that is bar life I guess.

Emily, me, Steph, Melia, Nic and Kristian in the back and Kirsten. Kirsten lives the flat next to us and Melia and Steph live in the other Massey accommodation 10 minutes down the road.

Other highlights; I experienced my first little earthquake that Sunday. It was pretty minor, but it felt like a car or bulldozer hit the house because the whole flat shook. Everyone wandered out onto the street asking each other if they had felt the jolt too. It was small but still kind of scary. That was probably nothing compared to the earthquake that hit Christchurch two years ago.


This last weekend, Emily, Robbie, our friend Klaire and I hiked up to Cascades Falls, 30 minutes west of Albany. It was a short but pretty hike. The falls are tucked behind this cave like cliff. We thought we could have a nice refreshing swim in the little pool at the bottom of the falls. But, the water was ice cold. Klaire, having warm Kiwi blood in her, could not be bothered with the cold and swam toward the falls while the three of us sat shivering on the rock. But it was still a great opportunity to see some the Kiwi wilderness. But this is only a taste of New Zealand beauty compared to what we are going to be seeing in the next two weeks.

We are now getting ready for our 2 week trip down to the south island. We have made the courageous decision to rent a car and drive the whole way. Hopefully the driving will come naturally, we will just have to switch to the left side of the road. Locations along the way will include Rotorua, Tongairiro Crossing (Mordor), Wellington (Rivendell), Picton, Marlborough Vinyards, Franz Josef Glacier, Milford Sound and Queenstown. Activities may include Zorbing, cliff jumping, wine tours, cruises, jet boating, and much more. We shall see how smoothly the trip will play out, but I can barely contain my excitement. This trip will be the most memorable part of my entire experience in New Zealand.
Unfortunately I most likely be unable to blog about my adventures. But I have a plan! I will keep a journal and write in it each night. Then when I have access to a computer, I will copy it onto my blog. Problem solved! You guys wont miss a single detail!

I am going to honest. These last two weeks, the homesickness has started to settle in. The overall euphoric feeling of actually being in New Zealand has begun to wear off. Trust me, I am so lucky to be here. But part of me longs for something familier like the mountains of home or the warmth and comfort of my family and friends. I miss the fresh crisp and quiet air of the Rockies. I am not used to the hussle and bussle of Auckland. Thankfully this trip down south will help ease the dull ache for home. I'll get to discover the less populated beauties of New Zealand.

Mama B on the left and Swanson on the right.

Mama B cleaning her feathers.

Before I sign off, I wanted to introduce you to Unit 14's newest "pets". The male duck is named Swanson and the female duck is Mama B. They come waddling up to our back door everyday looking for some bread to nibble on. They know to single me out as the weakest link between the four of us because I am the one most likely to give them food. I suspect that my flatmates are not happy with me giving our bread to birds. But if you know me well enough, you know that if they look at me the right way, their is no way I will turn away a hungry duck.

Well that's all folks! I will blog about my south island journey as soon as I get the chance!

Until next time!

Michael

West and Wewaxation

Kia ora to all my friends and family!
This will be a rather short post. Nothing incredibly interesting has happened to me here in Kiwi Land this past week. My laziness got the best of me and I stayed pretty close to home last weekend. I hope not to make that a habit.

Emily and I on our tour of Auckland.

That's not to say I have not been productive. I have been turning into somewhat of a gym junky. Emily, Robbie, and I and our two flatmates have been going to the gym every weekday and lifting weights, heavy weights, something I have never really done before. Needless to say, I have expereinced all types of pain from my recent activities at the Massey Rec Center.
"It's good for us,"  Emily keeps telling me. Oh yeah sure! But still, I find not being able to come down the stairs without clinging to the railing because my leg muscles are so sore to be a not too pleasant endeavor.

Beautiful tree canopy on the way to the top of Mt. Eden.

I did have the terrifying privilege of driving on the other side of the road last night. Nic's girlfriend Liz asked if anyone would be willing to drive her car to the McDonald's just down the road. Jokingly, I offered, not expecting she would actually me let do it. Yet, there I sat several minutes later, in the drivers seat, trying to adjust to the blinkers being on the right side of the steering wheel and having to shift gears with my left hand. Liz was in the passenger seat, clearly not phased by a nervous American driving her car down the left side of the road. I am happy to say I made it to McDonald's and back without injuring anyone! An accomplishment in itself!

Rock partially made of shells that I found on the beach at Browns Bay.

Ok serious note here. Even though I have only been here for a little over three weeks, I still find myself not believing that I am actually here! I was walking up the hill to class today, and it occurred to me, like it does almost everyday that I have been here, that I am in New Zealand. I am living comfortably in a place thousands of miles away from my home and everything I have ever known. I remind myself that I am making memories and friendships that I will no doubt be looking back on for the rest of my life. My dad Walt studied abroad in Europe for an entire year when he was my age. And he is still talking about how much fun he had, decades later. Down the road, that's going to be me, reliving the moments I have now to my kids. It's scary to think about it. Even if it doesn't feel like it now, this journey here in New Zealand is something that will impact the rest of my life.
And I will leave you with that!         

Week 2: Settling In

Ok, second week down and I seem to  still be in one piece! Ha ha, I am just kidding. I'm starting to get used to the kick-back nature that is the Kiwi lifestyle. I find myself forgetting about all my stress and relaxing. I've even found myself  walking around barefoot outside on the streets. But this new-found laziness is very inconvenient considering we started classes this last Monday.

As I mentioned before, living in New Zealand is not all that different from living in America. But, as I found out this week, there is one distinct difference. The school system. Not to say that the structure of Massey classes (or papers, as they call them here) is bad. I am learning. But, I would say I've been a little spoiled while studying at Whitworth. Going to a bigger and more public university like Massey, I now appreciate my small liberal arts education a lot more than I have in the past.

Thought I'd add a picture right here. I get bored when I have to read a bunch of words with no pictures. So look! Its a Kiwi inside a kiwi! Yay!

Here is roughly how the system works. You take three to four papers (classes). The papers are made up of lectures and tutorials. The lectures are two to three hours long and are once a week. Tutorials are basically extra study sessions you can go to to review the material you learned in the lecture. Here is the thing though. For most of the classes, the lectures and tutorials are not mandatory! Everything including lecture notes and power points is online. So in other words, you don't need to go to class! Weird huh? For example, my housemate Kristian  attended 0 lectures last semester and still passed all of his papers. That is something you could never get away with at Whitworth. You also only get two or three assignments during the semester.  No busy work or reading quizzes for me this semester!

Other than starting classes, this week has been pretty ordinary. On Saturday Emily, my two housemates Nic and Kristian, and Robbie (he's from Coeur d'Alene, YAY IDAHO!) took a day trip to the west coast. We went to Muriwai Beach, which was unlike any beach I'd ever been to because the sand was black! And hot! But it turned into a beautiful and relaxing day filled with sand castles and time spent in the waves.  This picture right here is the view from the top of a cliff on one side of the beach. You can see the gannet colony where there are hundreds of gannets nesting on top of the rocks. There are more pictures on Facebook if you want to see more. I do have to make a confession and say that I did not take these pictures. I regretfully forgot my camera that day, so I must give the credit to Robbie, who took these pictures with his iPhone.          

I have not talked much about our housemates. Here is Unit 14, Millennium Village. The taller one with the rugby ball is Nic and the one on the end is Kristian. (for those of you who don't know, Emily is on the other end) We have a great group. Both boys are very friendly, as are most of the Kiwis I have met here. Interestingly enough they have mainly two hobbies (or addictions you might say). One is going to the gym, which you can probably tell by their figures. The other is playing League of Legends or World of Warcraft, which I can relate to, having a boyfriend back home who plays LOL all the time. I also mean this in the nicest way possible. It's not like that's all they do or anything :)

But it has been great, we have had a lot of laughs in our flat and more is to come. 

I think that is all I have to say at this point. I am going to try and blog once a week. Once I start traveling around, I will probably blog a little more. Until next time!

Week One: The Adjustment Period

Kia ora!
That is hello in Maori, the traditional language spoken by the native Maori people of New Zealand.

Well I did it! After a horrendous 13-hour plane ride, Emily Kerins and I made it safe and sound to the land of Kiwis. So much has happened in this first week alone. We arrived to hot, humid and sunny weather; a little different than the snow and ice we had been experiencing back home. Tired and jet lagged, we started our journey from the airport through the largest city in New Zealand. As any small town girl would say, Auckland is huge! Home to over 1,300,000 people, it is certainly a change. 

Besides the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road and there is no such thing as pickup trucks, it seems like any other city. The main landmark of course is the Sky Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere. This picture is taken from the drive over the Auckland Bridge. Big I know!





One lost suitcase (Emily's) and a shuttle ride later, Massey University campus came into site, 20 minutes north of Auckland. We are staying in the student accommodation called Millennium Village, Unit 14. It's a cute little flat, as they say here. Four bedrooms, 3 (small) bathrooms, kitchen, a living room, laundry, the works.  Along with Emily and I, two other Kiwis (New Zealanders, for those of you who don't know) share the flat with us, Kristian and Nic. I will tell you more about them in my next post.

The rest of this week has been orientation week. Being in college for two years already, some of the meetings were full of information I already knew. But there has been some perks to orientation, including Mix and Mingle Night at the Ferg (the on-campus bar),  sports day and a beach party. One particular highlight of this week was the Foam Party at the Ferg. Picture this; standing on the bar dance floor, lights and music blasting, chest deep in huge mounds of foam and bubbles, the kind you see in bubble baths. Not even 30 seconds after jumping in, I was soaked in slimy dish-like soap. Needless to say, i felt very clean after showering after the party.

So far, things are not too different here. I would have to say, the Kiwi atmosphere is much more laid-back and relaxed. Most people here do not even wear shoes. It is not uncommon to see Kiwis walking around barefoot in the supermarket. But, New Zealanders are as friendly as can be. The accent is always fun to listen too, and Emily and I have fun trying to imitate our flatmates. But one thing is for certain, do not mistake a Kiwi with an Aussie. Bad things will happen!

I am a little nervous about starting school in a different country. Their school system is very different than our American school system. I start school on the 25th. So we will see how this goes.


I have so much more to write, but sadly I must draw this post to a close. I don't want to bore you guys with tons of details. I will write more soon.

 

Until then, Ka kite ano!

Michael