Home Away From Home

Upon my arrival to Parnell the first thing I did was unpack. Having spent an hour or two unpacking, my friends and I soon decided it was time to venture throughout our new town and gather the necessities. Up first was a stop to the New Zealand equivalent of Walmart, known as The Warehouse. It's a great store and it does have a bit of everything, just the prices aren't quite as good as Walmart's. So I quickly realized I was in need of shampoo and other toiletries, as well as a laundry hamper. After getting our basic necessities from there, my friends and I soon ventured further down Broadway and away from Parnell towards Newmarket. 

Newmarket houses the closest grocery store, known as Countdown, as well as a variety of other shopping outlets, malls, eateries, cafes, and banks. So, I quickly found the Westpac bank and separate ATM. Westpac has a deal with my bank so that I don't have any international transaction fees. I got some money out and proceeded to Countdown with my friends. A quick run through the store and I was able to purchase necessities to tide me over. Bread, salami, ham, cheese, mustard, and eggs. Oh and of course cookies. This first trip to the market brought two difficulties immediately to my attention. The first one, is that it is quite difficult to shop and know what I will like without brands that I am so accustomed to seeing. Although it was easily overcome, I believe that I am going to have to make some new brand loyalties and have most definitely found some amazing foods. My second difficulty is that eggs come in sizes 6 - 8, of course which I only discovered after returning to my flat and making scrambled eggs. So, at least next time I know to buy the 8s rather than the 6s. The evening concluded with a sandwich for dinner and me crashing extremely early. 

Sunday continued with breakfast and an exploration of Parnell. A 15-20 minute walk away are the gorgeous Parnell Rose Gardens, a public garden seated right next to Judges Bay. The bay has a little beach and swim docks so I hope to make it there for a relaxing dip before the weather gets too cold. Anyways, after exploring a bit we returned to our flats and had dinner. My friend Kayla and I walked to Countdown again to get more food and return in time for the Parnell Student Village Potluck BBQ. One of my friends, Serra, from the Bridging Cultures Program, lives with two guys who I am becoming great friends with. Jonne is a Dutch student from Holland. He along with one of their other flatmates, Evan from New Zealand, are hysterical and a great load of fun to hang out with. I spent the evening in their flat hanging out and discussing cultural differences and interrogating them on their cultures and what they know about American. 

Monday morning marked my first day of being on the University of Auckland campus. The walk there takes about 20 minutes and is filled with greenery. The entire walk, from the backyard of Parnell until the edge of campus is through the gorgeous Auckland Domain, a massive park next to downtown Auckland. The morning on campus was filled with a morning tea and international welcome/orientation in the business building. It is a gorgeous building but I only have one photo of it for now. You can expect campus photos later on. The lecture hall was the biggest one I've been in and easily seated near 700 people I would say. After the orientation my friends and I explored campus a bit and went back to Parnell. 

At Parnell I cooked lamb for the first time. I got 500g of lamb or about 1lb for $4NZ or about $3.50 american dollars. The lamb was pre marinated and tastes AMAZING! I know I will be buying more of this stuff. It is delicious! 

And Monday ended with going laser tagging and learning the bus systems a bit with Parnell students. Jonne and I went together and I got first place during the first round and he got first place during the second round. I'm sure tonight will be filled with more socializing and having fun.

From Rotorua to Auckland

After a day of caving we ventured back to Kiwipaka to eat an amazing burger from a New Zealand chain called Burger Fuel. And even better, we got to use something called a Doofer, a patented item only available at Burger Fuel. Basically what a Doofer is, is a piece of cardboard and you fold a few pieces together and it becomes a holder for the burger that fits around the bottom and keeps in all the drippings and mess the burger normally makes. Honestly, it's pure genius and I definitely want to take some home. Oh yeah, and we also had an L&P with our dinners. It's a Lemon and Paeroa which is basically lemon juice with carbonated water from a lake in the town of Paeroa. Somehow this too was a delicious Kiwi specialty. 

After the exhaustion from caving earlier in the day and the food coma from a massive burger hit me, I gladly sat back and enjoyed the talent show that my fellow travelers competed in. Unfortunately, the piano in the room was out of tune to an unplayable extent, so my talent is stayed hidden for the time being. 

The following morning we ventured to a nearby town to help with a local conservation effort and removed invasive species from the wetlands. Being wetlands, it was very muddy, but armed with a spade, we went around the area uprooting walnut trees and removing branches and such from each tree. After the hour of hard work, we were given a tour of the area and a further explanation of what the goals of the project were. Finally, we departed from Sanctuary Park and went to a gorgeous, and Kiwi famous surf beach, called Mount Maunganui (in the background). The entire beach is located at the foot of an old volcano and the scenery is unreal. Greenery, perfect clouds, and teal blue water made it a perfect way to cool down. Oh, and I got orange chocolate chip flavored ice cream in a home made walnut cone and it was good. The New Zealanders really have their ice cream down too. They have special sugar cones that are designed to hold 2 scoops next to each other rather than on top, so it's a skinny handle with an almost rectangular top. 

After the beach, we went back to Kiwipaka to shower and prepare for our last evening in Rotorua before heading to school. That evening, we went to a nearby Maori village, the Tamaki Village. After being shown several demonstrations and given explanations of different aspects of the culture, a performance of the parts of their culture and dances and song were done. It was all quite amazing, and of course the Haka was part of it. Following the presentation, we were shown where the Hangi dinner was being prepared. Traditional Maori feasts were cooked in a Hangi, an underground pit heated with hot rocks and filled with meat and vegetables wrapped in foil and covered with dirt. And while the food and Hangi certainly looked impressive, eating it was even more amazing! It was delicious! And the New Zealand meringue-like dessert of pavlova covered in passionfruit was quite yummy too. 

And I guess that brings me to my accommodations for the semester. I'm now sitting in my dorm, with full ethernet access in Parnell, which is essentially the Soho of Auckland. While not having internet made me very aware of how dependent upon it I am, it is very nice to have back. I still don't have internet throughout the city, but luckily most of the time I will have it. Instead of extending this post any longer than it needs to be, I will discuss where I live and what's around it later. OH and soon I'll answer the question I know you all want to have answered. But for now I need to catch up on my sleep. Repetitive 7am wake ups do not go well with me. 

Kiwi Adventures around Rotorua

The remainder of the week is spent in Rotorua (which means two lakes) and filled with daily Kiwi adventure. The first thing that we discovered here is that the area has a high amount of geothermal activity as it's on the ring of fire, and as an effect there are boiling ponds and boiling mud. Oh and the entire city wreaks of sulfur.  

After a lunch at our accommodations, a backpacker's called Kiwipaka, we started the first activity of the day. As a side note, backpacker's are basically hostels with public kitchens and bowls/plates/utensils/cookware, and usually a bar and restaurant; ours also has a pool and inexpensive wifi. The first real planned activity that we did in Rotorua was to learn the Haka, and the version that we learned is the one that the New Zealand All Blacks do. In general a Haka tells a story in Maori, and they were often used as war chants to prepare the soldiers for battle and gather their ancestors' spirits for support and to realize why they are fighting. The version of the Haka that we learned was about a ruthless chief who hid in an underground pit and was protected by a farmer and his wife. After learning the words and motions, we were given Maori garb and face paint and did the Haka. 

On Wednesday, we had our independent days of adventure. Everyone signed up before we got to New Zealand for their different activities. Choices varied between bungee jumping, skydiving, mountain biking, zip lining canopy tours, and my choice of white water rafting. Loaded into rafts of 6 people plus our guide, my friends and I ventured down the class 4/5 rapids river, the Kaituna River. The highlight of my first rafting experience was the 7m (21ft) drop about half way through. Each rapid was just as adventurous and exciting as the big drop. Besides swimming down a rapid, we positioned the raft forward into a rapid so that the first two rows (of which I was part) were completely pounded by the waves. We also went up a rapid slightly so that we could come down and get the raft completely on its side and not flip it, and lastly we stood in the raft down one of the rapids. It was quite a tiring experience, ending with carrying the rafts up from the river. Yes, I am on the raft in the photo to the left.

After rafting the day still wasn't over. We ventured to Ogo in Rotorua, a company that does one of the most iconic Kiwi activities, zorbing. If you don't know what it is, it's essentially going down a giant hill in an inflatable human hamster ball. I opted to do a wet zorb and the 350m sidewinder track. Basically that means they add some water inside the zorb and the track is like giant zigzagging switchbacks down the hill. So with my fellow zorb companion Joe, we got in the zorb and experienced exactly what it means to be inside a washing machine as we collided into each other and tried to stand up and gain some sort of control. Doing either is basically impossible it seems. 

In the evening, I and my friend Nathan went swimming and met several Maori teens who are here with their families to watch a tribal competition. Nathan and I spent at least an hour being quizzed about American culture and what we knew about Maori and New Zealand culture. It is quite amazing to discover crossovers and differences and I'm sure that these won't be the only ones I find. I also am really looking forward to the many interactions and conversations with locals to discover more about life here.

On Thursday, we bused 2 hours away to go spelunking in the Waitomo caves and then eat a late lunch on a farm. The caving expedition that I chose was Haggas Honking Holes. We geared up in wetsuits, boots, headlamps and helmets and were given a basic rappelling lessen. We hiked down a few stairs in the heat and as we approached the cave's entrance, could feel the cooling relief coming from below. A short ladder and some scrambling down wet and slippery rocks past stalactites brought us to our first of three rappels. The rappel was about 18m (54ft) and brought us into a massive underwater cavern. We continued to follow the winding and narrow limestone corridors, past more stalagmites and stalactites as icy water flowed past our feet. The stream slowed and we entered another smaller cavern with some deeper pools of water that we waded through and reached the next part of our decent. After rigging my belay device I did two abseils into a series of smaller passageways. These abseils, although shorter, involved going down waterfalls which pounded our faces as we lowered into the unknown abyss. Finally before a bit of army crawling we reached a cavern and everyone turned off their headlamps. In this cavern we discovered the beauty of the ceiling covered in dozens of glow worms. A little bit of rock climbing, ladder crossings, and some more tight squeezes with lots of cold water and we reached the ladder to find sunlight. Another interesting fact point is that we actually drank the water that was dripping in the cave since it has been so filtered by the limestone. 

Kia Ora from Aotearoa

The flight to Middle Earth was something I was not looking forward to: 13 hours in a plane. Worse yet I had come down with a cold a few days before and the worst day of it was the day of or before my flight. So the thought of sitting cooped up in a plane seemed very miserable. Luckily enough, while checking in my bags I requested an aisle seat, and the seat I was given just so happened to be a bulkhead seat (an aisle of course) and there was no one sitting next to me. This, plus the NyQuil I took at the flight's start - and my resulting 8.5 hour sleep - and the plethora of free movies and TV shows made the flight pass rather quickly. 

The way the program is set up for this week is we do a "Bridging Cultures Program" through which we are introduced to Maori and New Zealand culture to help lessen the effects of culture shock. The group of students that I am living with for this week are the 18 others who will be studying at the University of Auckland with me and then the remaining 34 students who will be studying in Wellington.

Upon my group flight's arrival into Auckland, we met Richard and Paul who are our Resident Coordinators for the semester. As we loaded the bus we discovered how truly materialistic Americans are, all with jokes and smiles about it from Paul as he and Richard helped to sort bags into essential and non essential bags for the week. Needless to say, many of my companion's essential bags seemed to be bigger than their non-essential bags. While I'm sure that moving such heavy bags didn't help, we also discovered the heat of a New Zealand summer and Paul warned us of the thinning ozone layer above and the need for sun screen.

It is amazing to discover the laid back atmosphere and culture here. Everything kept taking longer than anticipated. And whereas an American group leader may have freaked out and worried, Paul didn't seem to worry or have a concern. Finally after customs and loading the bus and traffic we arrived to our hotel in Auckland. It seems Auckland, much like LA has a horrible public transportation system. However, more similarly to San Francisco, the city is extremely hilly from its volcanic activity. We were given a short walking tour down to the waterfront, a part of the city that I will most definitely explore again, an explanation on Kiwi phrases (some are Maori and some aren't), and then advised on where to get a phone and given some free time. It was before being set free to explore a bit that Paul and Richard cautiously warned us, while teasing us Americans, to look Right - Left - Right before crossing the street. Needless to say, I can understand why they warn us of this. I'm working hard to look Right first. 

Anyways, for free time, a few of my new friends and myself bought our dinky little phones, found the New Zealand Sky Tower and watched someone bungee jump off of it. The Sky Tower is the second tallest tower in the world we were told. And lastly, we found a coffee shop, Aunt Gloria Jean's in which we got free Wi-Fi to catch up on email briefly. We were given a quick dinner, and then more free time. Between coffee and seeing menu prices and shop prices we discovered how truly expensive everything here is because most things are imported. Luckily, these expensive costs do include tax and tip already. But I think prices can be a later blog post. This week is so jam packed with exciting orientation activities! 

Back to the story though… After dinner, I walked back to the waterfront for sunset with a few friends, showered, and got in bed at 21:30 for the 6:45 wake up call. Jet lag hits hard. 

Cher Bros