Mid-Semester Adventure: so far

Right now I am sitting in a hostel in Auckland, and I have been travelling for about the last week. I thought I might simply record everything I have gone and done so far. Again, sorry guys, there's no SD slot on this computer so I can't post any pictures.

I already made a post about the first day in Rotorua. Smelly Rotorua. But to recap that first day I went zorbing and luging. Then I got to see an incredible double rainbow and a whole lot of smelly bubbling pits in the ground. The second day we went for a hike in a forest called The Redwoods, although they were no where near as impressive as the actual redwood forest. But it was a good hike none the less. We went out for dinner that night, and decided that we would go out for dinner once per city we stay at. After dinner we headed over to the some of the hot pools which gave the town its distinct smell, and spent a few hours relaxing in the hot water.

On Thursday the next day, we left Rotorua and made our way to the Coromandel Peninsula. It took a total of four bus changes to get there, but we finally made it to a small town called Tairua. It was a pretty quiet town, very similar to Ocean Park or Longbeach in the winter. And just like those two it was on the ocean. Jackie had a lot of trouble staying in a small quiet town, but I quite enjoyed it. I had myself some good walks on the beach.

On Friday we got up early and took the Coromandel Peninsula shuttle bus around to a couple of awesome sights. In the morning we took a fourty minute hike to Cathedral Cove, the site that you will recognize as the beach in the latest movie version of Prince Caspian. It had the white sand and the cave and everything. Unfortunately, it was cloudy out that day, and when we got there the tide was in so the beach was a little bit smaller. But it was impressive none the less. Then in the afternoon we took the shuttle to a place called "Hot Water Beach." The established spa-type hot pools of Rotorua might have been nice, but they have nothing on Hot Water Beach, which has been my highlight of this spring break trip so far. On this beach there is a thermal zone underneath part of the sand which gets exposed at high tide. You can rent ('hire' as they say here) a shovel for about $5 and then go out onto the beach near low tide and start digging. The hot water itself is a bit too hot to enjoy alone though so you have to dig your pool carefully so that it lets in some hot water but not too much. I would love to show you guys a picture of me relaxing the that perfect hot pool we built, but alas, I cannot yet upload pictures. They tell me that the Hot Water Beach is totally packed in the summer, and while I can believe it, I really think that it is a lot more enjoyable on a cool winter day than a hot summer day.

The next day in the coromandel peninsula was the least eventful of the whole trip. We didn't have any specific plans and we just relaxed in our costal town of Tairua. Three of us took a small hike up the mountain/hill thing that was across the tidal flat from our hostel. It was sunny and beautiful out that day. Everyone here who went to the South Island over spring break is on the wrong island. They are missing out on the sun and light blue, tropical-looking ocean.

Today is Sunday. We got up this morning and got on a bus to Auckland, and now here I am, at a hostel in Auckland.

Also: I only have one more minute of internet left so sorry guys, I did't have time to proof read the last half of this. Take care.

Rotorua!

Wow, that was a pretty incredible first day of this trip. Currently I'm at a backpackers hostel and they have a cheap internet connection. I am not doing much tonight so I thought I would share my experience today. I'd rather be taking a shower right now but my towel is still soaked from when I went zorbing. And sorry guys, I can't do pictures because there's no SD slot on this computer.

My day when something like this:

• Got up
• Went Zorbing
• Whoa!
• No really, whoa. Zorbing is exactly what it sounds like in the way that you cannot even begin to understand. 
• You roll down a hill in a giant ball. And there's water in the ball.
• Then we took the gondola up a mountain.
• From up on the hill we went luging. I thought it was going to be like the Olympic Luge where you are lying down, but instead these were kind of like go-karts with no engines. They went down the mountain on trails of varying steepness and sharpness of turns.
• When you saw a sign that said SLOW in big red letters, then you'd better slow down. You would most definitely flip over if you do not.
• At the bottom of the luge runs there was a chairlift that would take you back to the top. For a moment I wondered if this place was a skiing area in winter, but then I remembered-- it is winter.

Ok, those bullet points are getting a bit ridiculous now. After luging we took the gondola back down the mountain. We were originally going to go on a short hike in the afternoon, but once we got to the bottom we decided to go through the Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park. I got to see a real live Tui, Kea, and Kiwi. Kiwi's are bigger and flightless-er* than I had thought.

To get back to town and our hostel we decided to walk instead of take the bus. Rotorua is known for it's geysers, hotpools, bubbling pools of muck, and its smell. On the way back we took a detour through a park full of foul-smelling, bubbling muck. That was pretty neat, and once the smell was overpowering it brought back memories of Yellow Stone I didn't even know I still had. As we were leaving the park, we saw an incredible rainbow in the sky. Five minutes later, it was even better defined, and you could start to see a second rainbow. In another five minutes we could see the the whole rainbow AND the whole second rainbow. Normally I'm not too big on rainbows, but this is probably the best rainbow I've ever seen. It was kind of like this. No joke.

So for the first day of my spring break adventure (not counting the first day of travel), this was pretty awesome. We'll try and spend less money in the days to come though... which wont be as hard because we are hiking tomorrow. And then we get to the Coromandel peninsula the following day, so from there we will be doing stuff like hiking on the beach.

I better get off now because the computer is about to kick me off. Greetings from the beautiful, foul-smelling city of Rotorua everyone.


*I always knew that kiwis were flightless, but in reality they are more like a two legged mammals than a flightless bird. They ware about the size of a large US possum or midsized raccoon.

Touring the North Island

So I'm officially out on spring break now for the next two weeks. It's pretty awesome, or as they say here, sweet as bro!

I am going on a bus trip around the North Island for the next 11 days, so I will be in and out of internet coverage sporadically, but I will update my blog when I can. There are four of us going together, and here is the trip as we have it planned:

Monday 23rd: Leaving Palmerston North and arriving at Rotorua. Rotorua is famous two things, smelling bad (due to sulfur geysers) , having a lots of extreme activities like louging and zorbing. I am very certain I will enjoy one of these two.

Thursday 26th: Leave Rotorua for Tairua in the Coromandel Peninsula. A lot of people have told us that we should not miss the Coromandel Peninsula

Sunday the 29th: Tairua to Auckland. We will stay in Auckland for a couple days.

Tuesday 31st: Leave Auckland and arrive in the Bay of Islands. We are staying in the Bay of Islands for three full days, and on one of the days we will take a trip up to 90 Mile Beach, which is about the northern most beach here in New Zealand. I will also be celebrating my birthday while in the Bay of Islands. I find that I quite often get to celebrate my birthday in an interesting places, and this year will be absolutely no exception. I'm sure the Bay of Islands will rank higher than something like Friday Harbor, but it will have tough time dethroning The Enchantments.

On Friday the 3rd we take a bus back to Auckland, and stay there the night, and then that Saturday we will take the bus back to Palmy.

Whenever I can I will upload pictures and info.

I also have a lot of homework to do over this break, and today I did not get anywhere near as much work as I hoped done. I did however, get a chance to talk to a lot of people from back home. I skyped with my parents and talked to Chris and Micheal (and Paul) who were at my house. At various points in the day I also got to talk to Drew, Ed and Alex via skype and facebook. As much as I am settled in here in New Zealand, I'm really excited for spring semester at North Park and I can't wait to see everyone back home. Hmmmm, I just implied that I thought of Chicago as home.

Ski Trip Cancelled

Due to weather. The Alpine Club was hosting a trip to Mt. Raupehu this weekend. We were planning on staying at their hut, and skiing on Saturday and Sunday (in my case snowboarding). Unfortunately, we got word on Friday that the trip was cancelled because the weather was so bad that most of the runs were going to be closed on Saturday.

The reason I am writing a whole update about this is that I took the news of the cancelled trip rather personally. I was more than annoyed and felt as though I had been left behind in a way. There have been weekends before where everyone has gone off doing things and I have been left alone. This weekend most people are gone a tramp. I know that having a weekend to work on class work is probably a blessing if I want to get any sleep next week, but it didn’t exactly feel like that. This is the time of year when assignments are really piling up because spring break begins in a week.

Part of the reason for my reaction at the trip being cancelled was disappointment because I had been very much looking forward to it. I am the sort of person who secretly wants to throw temper tantrums when things don’t go my way, though apparently I’m told society frowns on that now. But it wasn’t disappointment alone caused my response. I realized that even though I had been feeling secure for awhile and loving it here in New Zealand, part of me is still a little vulnerable.

I really have been feeling a lot more secure and settled in, and I have realized it in the last couple weeks. At the end of last week I wrote this and intended to flesh it out and make it into a whole blog post:

Wow. It has been a month already. How crazy. It’s felt longer though, in a lot of ways. It’s hard to remember that it’s still summer back home. Cars are driving on the correct side of the road now. I’ve even started using words like “carpark,” “keen,” and “reckon.”

One night this week I was walking back to my flat in the evening, and just as I got out of the woods I looked up to see what I see every clear night: the sky ablaze with starlight, the Southern Cross front and center, the Milky Way laying a dull blanket upon brightest part of the sky, and Venus, blazing on the horizon. And I realized then that I longed to stay in New Zealand for a more than a single semester. It wasn’t just the starlight though, it was everything. The people—kiwis and international students, the Alpine Club, my flat, the air, the forest, the sheep, the weather, and everything in between. I know that one day I will have to leave and return home, but that seems like such a strange and alien idea to me now.

And yet, if I were truly settled in, and beyond all the emotional ups and downs of adapting to a new everything, then I wouldn’t have taken the news of a cancelled ski trip quite as I did.

So I guess this is my progress report. I’m pretty well adapted to living in New Zealand now. Almost.

What my life looks like... literally

How is it down here?

I get asked that question whenever I talk to anyone from back home. How are things there? How’s it going? A question like that cannot be answered in a single sentence. I attempted to give one answer to that question in my blog post “How my doing is going” two weeks ago. Not too much has changed since then. I had school work, I’ve watched movies, I’ve talked with my flatmates, and I’ve gone tramping. Actually the tramping itself merits a blog post and I will give it one later this week. It was an awesome–-and wet—tramp to some hot pools. I have facebook images of it up already.

But now however, I would like to attempt to answer the question “How is it down there?” from a different angle. I am going to show you a little of what Massey University looks like, and I am going to show you what my house looks like.

I live in a little log cabin in the woods. Kind of. To get from campus to my flat I have to walk through a park and up the hill. As seen here.

There are 16 flights of stairs, and maybe 150 feet of elevation. Suffice to say, even without specifically exercising I am keeping fit. Now for my flat itself. There are about twenty flats up here total, and there are five people per flat. Each person gets their own room and there is a common area for cooking and a living room. The living room sees little use however, because mostly people keep to their own rooms. It is a lot warmer in your room than in the common room.

Here is my flat:

However, once you go inside the flat you see just how ‘log cabin-esque’ it is. It’s actually pretty awesome. My room:

As you can see, we don't have a drier, we only have racks to dry clothes on. It means that I have to do my laundry at least a day ahead of time.

And the flat even has a back yard!

I know this is a pretty picture heavy blog post, and if you’re on dial-up, well it’s probably time to upgrade. And if you’re a Massey student who’s gone over their 10 gigs this month, well, learn to live without youtube.

Massey is pretty standard as far as universities come. I have to walk through this main concourse several times a day to get to class.

Here are a few more images of what the university looks like.