brief summary of the week

To summarize as briefly as possible:

• Sunday: finished watching HP7, pt. 1. Got excited for watching HP7, pt. 2 in a couple short months.
• Monday: actually went to every class (whoa), drank some delicious coffee to stay awake, read half of the book (after class) that we were supposed to have read for my class on Monday, came home, watched Big Bang, hung out.
• Tuesday: went to dance class - ankle was swollen. Whoa body, let's not. Let's just...not. Pretended I'd read the whole book for my tutorial. Came home, helped clean our nasty, dirty flat with Kelsi. Seriously she is the best for cleaning our vomit of a bathroom. Seriously I don't think our toilet has been cleaned all semester, and there are five of us living here.. and people have gotten sick in our toilet.. meaning it is now clean, HOORAY. Went souvenir shopping with Adi - tried to stay away from tacky things, semi-successful. Though the "genuine sheep skin nipple warmers" were hard to resist.. would be an excellent gag gift if I do say so myself. Oh well. Bought some souvenirs! (Not the nipple warmers though, don't fear that that will be your gift if you're reading this.) Maddi came over, we watched Hangover since I'd never seen it and apparently that's a crime. Got my lovely care package of clothing, my credit card, and surprise candy from my parents as well as some snacks Maddi got me in the States. Hung out until like 1am.
• Wednesday: actually went to class again (seriously, I'm on a roll!), then went to IH and got [illegal] free dorm food with Maddi, met up with Nicole to go birthday dress shopping, Njeri met up with us at a dress store that we spent over an hour in (which I bought two dresses there! ahhh I miss having clothes that fit me), tried to find boots (anyone who knows me knows that I despise shoe shopping of any form), got [illegal] free dinner from Maddi and watched the season finale of Glee! (love it. However Glee season 3, you need to step it up), walked home at like 11 and was sad because only one of my earbuds is working now so my music jamming when I walk places is skewed to the right, skyped Andrea, watched a bit of an important rugby game with my Kiwis, went to bed. Note: the dress I am wearing in the photo to the right is not the dress I actually bought. Maddi bought the dress, but I got a different one.
  
• Thursday: today. Woke up and it was raining, which means the PSV gate was locked so I took it as a sign that I should go back to bed, so I didn't. I did necessary computer things instead, like look up places to eat in Auckland and whatnot. I have Kapa Haka tonight, and then I'm going to see Hangover 2 after class.

And then tomorrow begins birthday festivities! Woot. Friday will probably be really chill, just hang out (I think we're going to watch Justin Bieber's Never Say Never? hahahaha) and then go to the pub and just hang out. Saturday the only thing for sure is that I'm going out to dinner and then we're having a masquerade birthday party at my flat and then town (so determined to go to town, it's not even funny), and Sunday.. who knows?

Ponsonby and a comedy show

So, I did end up making chocolate chip cookies. I forgot baking soda and burned the first batch but they were still delicious. I was pleased.

Thursday I gave more input in my dance class about what I thought we should do to adapt the combination and it was pretty well-received by my group members, which was cool. We still have some work to do on it but it was okay. Kapa Haka was a lecture-filled day - though I am sad because part of my poi seems to be breaking. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Thursday night I decided to be unlike myself and actually go to bed at a reasonable hour because I was completely exhausted. I ended up falling asleep later than I'd planned, though, because PSVers were being rather loud. I guess trying to go to bed at 9pm anywhere is pretty unrealistic.

Friday's dance class included PJ lecturing us for over half the class about.. well, I don't even remember. I was freezing and tired, therefore not paying attention, but I believe she was talking about things that don't apply to me so it's fine. Friday was a pretty uneventful day in general. I started to go stir-crazy Friday afternoon when the reality of how much time is actually left hit me compared to how much more of this beautiful country I have yet to see. But it was okay. I was going to go to yoga class but my ankle was sore so I decided that intense yoga poses might not be the best for an already-sore ankle. Instead, I ate Nutella from the jar while watching Glee with one of my flatmates for the night. However, Andrew really wanted to get out of the flat so we walked around in the Domain for a while and climbed a tree; we ended up on the steps of the Auckland Museum for about an hour, just overlooking the city lights from the high spot in Auckland that we were and talking about our childhoods? It was actually really peaceful.

a tree in Albert Park

Saturday, yesterday, was a more eventful day. I met up with an IES student to go to Ponsonby, which is a suburb/neighborhood in Auckland. We walked what seemed like forever in the drizzling rain and wound up finding many overprices clothing stores to window shop in, crafty stores to browse, entirely too many delicious smelling bakeries and restaurants, and other quirky shops. So I discovered that Ponsonby is not really a place for a student's budget to go. No, I cannot afford a $500 dress, no matter how fantastically beautiful and New Zealand designer it is. I enjoyed Ponsonby though and will probably make an effort to return before I leave.

cool mirror in a cafe we stopped in

graffiti! love it

Unfortunately, my ankle was still hurting me so after limping around Ponsonby Kristen and I took the Link back to Queen Street - where I bought two dresses for $15NZD. (Super stoked about those purchases.) We ate at Burger Fuel since I had a coupon and Kristen had never had it before, and then went to a comedy show since it was the last night of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.

The Burger Fuel Doofer: a contraption created to hold the back end of your burger while you eat it, probably because the burgers are so massive that if you were to attempt this without a Doofer, half of your burger would fall out the other side.

The comedy show was interesting. I saw a much different crowd at the show than I've seen in Auckland - kind of reminded me of a Fringe show audience, which was nice. Kristen and I were probably the youngest ones attending the show as well, so we made sure to sit a good distance from the front in case the comedian was going to pick on people. We did not want that to be us. The show was partly funny, partly not. More like amusing. I now understand more of what Kiwi humor is, and it's odd. I can't really describe it. Also, jokes about the US are not as funny to me here. In America, if a comedian were to make jokes about Texas it could be funny. Here I speculate that jokes about America are taken more seriously and do not help America's already bad reputation. I don't know. Just odd I suppose.

After the comedy show we were walking towards Kristen's bus when we were solicited by a few people from California who were basically trying to spread the word of God. Now, anybody who knows me knows that people trying to convince me to go to church and join their religion is not going to go well. So this woman asked Kristen and I bunch of questions. This woman didn't even know what Agnosticism meant.. and then she asked what we knew about Jesus (who asks this to people on the street?) and asked me, "nothing?". Well. Then I went on to tell her that a) I was raised in the Christian faith b) I'm from America so obviously regardless of what I've told her I would know something about Jesus and c) I took a college-level religion course last semester, so I'm not stupid. Also, that God is not a "He" and by referring God as only being a male that she is giving the ultimate power to men - so she should either refer to God as "God" or switch off between "he" and "she" because I'm just saying. If God is the ultimate power and God is a man.. well, you get my point. I was getting mad at this woman because she kept saying that she was just trying to spread the word, but I think really she was being a missionary but denying it so she would sound better. Which bothers me an extreme amount. Spread the word if you want but don't try to get to me to come to your religious convention when I'm clearly not interested. If I have conviction in what I do or don't believe, leave me be, because at least I have conviction, and whatever I believe isn't hurting anyone else so whatever! Okay. Going to stop writing about this now. Needless to say.. I was annoyed.

When I got back to my flat, I'd barely sat down when fireworks started going off! Andrew, David, and I ran over to the museum to watch them going off about 300 feet in front of us in the Domain. Some people were speculating that this was a celebration for the world not ending (hooray?) but it was actually for a wedding - the bridge a groom were on the roof of the museum. Well, that's a epic way to end a wedding, right?

I watched part of HP7, pt. 1 last night before going to bed. I was up late so I woke up late - meaning today has been pretty unproductive but that's fine.

CAN YOU BELIEVE I ONLY HAVE 5 MORE DAYS OF BEING A TEENAGER?!

Sometimes I run out of title ideas for my blog posts. Like now.

On Monday I woke up early and called my friend Katherine. I am learning that talking to people in the morning before my noon class means the likelihood of me making it to that lecture goes down exponentially. Fortunately, there are three people who live in PSV who are in that class with me and they offered to let me look at their notes. Sweet as!

I don't think Monday was very exciting though. Had class (where we talked about the hegemonic masculinity and its effect on gay men in NZ! which I of course found fascinating and got super into talking about), had a super boring lecture, came home, made dinner, watched some Grey's, went to bed. Maddi was supposed to come over and we were going to watch Hangover (since I haven't actually seen it yet) but she had to write an essay and by the time she was done I was too tired so that didn't happen.

Tuesday was tiring too. I had dance class but it was a different type of class than we've had in the past. PJ gave us a combination and then we numbered out in groups and adapted it in different ways - like size, retrograde (backwards) - my group was to make the combination into a low level. I discovered that I think I like doing that myself better. One girl in my group basically decided to do most of it - some of which is tacky and I didn't like - and any suggestions I had weren't well-received. It's not always about straight legs and lines.. at least not when I choreographed. I think I might play around with it a but more tonight so I have some ideas.

I splurged and let myself buy a cappuccino in between classes but I spilled some of it on my lap when having a particularly interesting conversation about gender and sexuality with another classmate before my tutorial. I just got a little too into what I was talking about, I guess.

Last night I had my alumni dinner! It was really cool. I think the purpose of the alumni dinner is to give Auckland uni students a chance to talk with some Kiwi adults. After a long delay in my bus, I finally made it to their home in Mission Bay. It was me and a Canadian girl [who I hadn't met before] at the home of a retired couple, Diane and Bob. Diane and Bob were really friendly, and after talking with them, are extremely well-traveled as well. They made us a traditional Kiwi dinner of lamb, kumara, and salad with some New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. I am starting to enjoy the taste of wine when it's not cheap wine. Wine is clearly something where quality matters. A lot. We also had dessert and coffee. I was there for just over three hours but it was really good. Surprisingly, I was the one that talked the least, I think. It was a really cool experience, and once I got over the initial awkwardness of it all, I became more confortable and Bob and Diane were really friendly. And Diane drove me home.

Today I woke up at the glorious hour of 10:30am, went to class, came home. Went to the grocery store. Realized my headband had fallen off so I walked back towards the grocery store to look for it - however today was rather windy so it was nowhere to be found. Oh well. :( I browsed through some clothing shops in Newmarket though which cheered me up - though I didn't buy anything. I also stopped at the Movenpick on the way back for some Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. Being an ice cream snob, I don't think Movenpick was as good as Cold Stone, but I will keep getting different flavors just to be sure. ;) It was still good though.

And now I'm at my flat. I have a lot of vegetables at my flat right now so I made this massive celery/cucumber/spinach/carrot/craisin salad for dinner and now I'm thinking about baking some chocolate chip cookies. I just want to bake! We'll see.

New Zealand and academia

Something I have learned about the university system in New Zealand is that instead of a 94 and above being an A.. an 85 and above is an A. Above 90 is an A+. A 50 is passing - not a 60. So, naturally, I was really excited because this means that I'll get a higher grade on my transcript for less work than in the States, right?

Wrong. I got an essay back and I got a 75 on it - which set of slight panic in my head, but then remembered that a 75 is actually a B. It's weird. Don't panic though. I'm not as studious as I normally am in the States, and I have little idea what grade I'm actually sitting at right now, but I will not be failing any of my classes. I'll probably be getting straight B's here, which is fine by me since they do not affect my GPA and let's be honest, I haven't worked harder than a solid B average.

It's just interesting because now I'm thinking about which system makes more sense. I mean, maybe they grade more harshly here in New Zealand. Maybe they don't panic over a C grade because A+'s are difficult to earn. Or maybe they're not hard to earn. I don't know. Just interesting.

Weekends!

Alas, I finished my essay. I may have been up until 5:30am and been extremely unproductive for about 5 hours in the middle of the night (i.e. sending people hilarious facebook videos) but it's fine. And my Kapa Haka assessment went well; I didn't even hit myself with the poi! Score.

Friday was pretty brutal though academically because I was running on six hours of sleep over four days and I really don't remember taking my assessment that well. Not sleeping does that to me. I came home and skyped with a few friends and did laundry. It was productive. Friday night some IESers came over and we went out for Indian food. It was alright, though I don't think I'd return given the choice. We had plans to go to town but we lost track of time so that didn't end up happening. Boo.

Saturday I think the lack of sleep finally caught up with me and so I spent a majority of the day sleeping. At night I ate some Burger Fuel hot chips and watched Sherlock Holmes - which, to no one's surprise, I fell asleep watching. Maddi made these delicious "brownies" - which weren't brownies in the conventional sense as they were cookies, chocolate buttons (they don't have chocolate chips here?), powdered sugar, and other gooey deliciousness.

Today I haven't really done much. I woke up at 12:30 (seriously, sleep = amazing, why don't I sleep more) and group skyped with a bunch of my dancer friends back home! It's Teige's birthday tomorrow so they were hanging out together and I got to talk to them for over an hour which was so supremely excellent. Huge fan. Then I made some lunch and watched Grey's Anatomy? Not super exciting.

But, I'm also doing research on: things to do for my birthday weekend, where I want to go skydiving, and trips I want to do over finals. So far I think I might skydive at the Bay of Islands - it's only $415 to skydive from 16,000 feet AND parasail at 1,000 feet. Which is a lot of money, but some places it's that expensive to only skydive. And I want to do both. I don't know when I'll get up there yet, but that's what I'm thinking so far.

I think I'm going to do the Auckland bungy water touch for my birthday weekend. I'm trying to think of other things that would be good to do for my birthday - let me know if you have any suggestions. :) I turn 20 in 13 days! YEAH. So stoked.

Going to take this as a sign

Well, I'm honest. I'm going to skip my dance class today. I was looking at the schedule and I can miss four classes and I've only missed one so far. And there are nine classes left after tomorrow (which is our assessment so it's not a typical class). And I know I won't be able to miss those classes because we have nine classes to learn for our third evaluation - not all that much time. I was up really late last night (like, outrageously late for a school night) and so pretty sure I got maybe four hours of sleep, so getting up was rough. As I was getting dressed I was thinking, "this is going to be the longest dance class of my life".. I have a paper due tomorrow and am only 200 words into it (it has to be 1500) and I need to do that so I was stressing. And so tired my eyes are stinging. Then, I went to the gate at the border of PSV to leave for dance class and literally sat there for five minutes trying to turn my key far enough to open the gate to have it not work, at all. I thought about going to one of the further-away gates or hopping the fence, and then decided that I am allowed to miss class and this is a sign that I should be working on my paper instead. We won't be learning anything new today anyway, and my assessment group is meeting tomorrow morning at 9am to go over spots, so if PJ does change anything I'll find out then. And one girl in my group is also in Kapa Haka. So, hence the reason why it is 9:40am and I am not going to class today! Going to be productive though and work on my paper. It's a beautiful day outside but it's also really quiet so I should be able to focus better. Plus I have the guilt that if I didn't go to class I have no business not doing schoolwork. Yep yep. So I'm taking all of these things as a sign that I should stay home, not go to dance class, and work on my paper instead.

Tuesday night I intended to work on my paper but it didn't really happen. And yesterday, Wednesday, I woke up to pouring rain, but walked to class in the lessened-up drizzle and came home. I had intended to start my paper right away, but when I got back I found out that one of my flatmates had been hit by a car when walking to class that morning? He was really shaken up and wanted to sleep (he got whiplash and a concussion along with some minor bumps and bruises but overall he's okay) and my mama bear/caretaking instincts kicked in and so I hung out with him for a couple hours before starting my paper. It was a slightly productive night, but not nearly as much as today is going to [need to] be! Wish me luck!

Procrastination!

I'm sitting here, trying to force myself to stop ignoring the paper I need to have written by noon on Friday. Part of me doesn't think it's going to be very hard to write, the other part is simply distracted by the other things going on in my life here as well as thinking about what's happening at home.

Home. I am so jealous of the people who are done with academics by now, or within the next few weeks, for the summer. I still have three and a half weeks of classes left. I have had numerous skype dates with friends over the past few weeks, and a couple more to look forward to this weekend, and it's so strange to be here while hearing about the drama, dullness, and joy of life back in Minnesota. Sometimes I wish I had a friend who knew me inside and out here, or that I could go visit my grandmothers on Mother's Day instead of just calling them (the highlight of my day yesterday was getting to talk to them).

But then I think about it. My experience would be so different if I had someone to lean on. I would have been too comfortable to try as many new things and meet new people and take it all in if I had come with even one person who I knew pre-Auckland. I'm becoming more self-sufficient and I think I'm growing as a person being here.. not that I can really measure that on myself, but I'm positive it's happening. Independent study abroad may be one of the best choices I have made so far in my life.

That being said, here is what I've been up to in the last couple days. On Sunday I watched Jurassic Park: The Lost World with my flatmates and ate some of my delicious black and white brownie pie. I must say, the special effects for this Jurassic Park were better than the original (which was on last week). I think they're showing the Jurassic Park series as a plug for the dinosaur exhibit that's coming to Auckland next month. The commercials for that are on at every commercial break, I swear.

Yesterday I woke up, and even though Mother's Day was the previous day for me, it wasn't for the mothers in my life so I called my mom and both of my grandmas. I talk to my mom basically every week but it was so nice being able to talk to them on the phone - and they were all so surprised! It was excellent and probably the highlight of my day.

Afterward I went to class, and then met up with some other IESers in Newmarket for dinner and ten pin bowling! I'm not exactly a pro at bowling (though I started off really well.. don't know what happened) but it was fun anyway. And I didn't have to pay for it. :)

Today was just dance class and my Italian tutorial (in which we talked about mobbing, exciting I know) and then I skyped with Sam for a while. And right now I'm procrastinating on starting my paper. I have assessments in Kapa Haka and my dance class this week, on Thursday night and Friday morning, and I have absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be working on my paper other than I don't really care. Clearly, being motivated to do work is not my strong point. It's not usually at Gustavus either but it's exponentially worse in Auckland.. promise I'm not going to fail anything though. I'll probably be up late on Thursday though. :-/ Oh well.

Cinco de Mayo through the weekend

Cinco de Mayo burrito. Delicious

So our Cinco de Mayo celebration was awesome. I ate the most massive burrito ever. There was taco meat, obviously tortillas, two types of guacamole, lettuce, tomato, cheese, more refried beans than four people could eat, sour cream, salsa.. seriously, SO GOOD. We watched this really weird "Embarrassing Teenage Stories" or something while eating dinner and then played an awesome game of Cranium. However 2-person teams were harder than anticipated. One thing that's interesting about Cinco de Mayo (I may have mentioned this already?) is that nobody really knows what it is here. However, most Americans that I talked to celebrated in some way or another so we weren't alone in festivities.

Friday was Indo-Fijian dance again and I was told I had good facials while performing by the instructors! That was exciting. I was so incredibly exhausted during class and my knee was bothering me, so instead of going to ballet that night I decided to take a three-hour nap and see Thor instead. Thor was entertaining - it went between being good to laughably bad, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Maybe don't pay to go see it but do see it sometime.

When I was down Parnell Road toward downtown to the movie theater, all I was thinking was how lucky I am to be living here. I love this place that I live. The little shops everywhere, the beautiful Auckland Skytower, the awful hills everywhere, the lively nightlife, the nice (though brutally honest) people, the warm weather.. I love it. I really do. I have no complaints about IES or about Auckland - besides humidity and the hills (I have a love/hate relationship with the hills in Auckland).

Saturday I went to the Parnell and French Farmer's Markets. The Parnell one was okay, but nothing compared to the French market. And the French market was even bigger than it has been when I've gone on Sundays! This may become a weekly occurance for me. I splurged and got hummus, as well as bananas, spinach, green peppers, and a spicy fruit bun. I love farmer's markets. Later that day I also got to talk to my parents.

Meagan and Caitlyn came over and we bought things to bake! We bought Devil's Food Cake and Cheesecake (both powder from a box) and they were delicious. We had a "Sneans and Sheens" party at my flat (probably the lamest theme ever, I didn't come up with it) which was a good time playing spoons and just generally hanging out.

cheesecake from a box!

Today has been pretty uneventful. I skyped with my Gustavus dance friend Hollie this morning for a couple hours, then went for a run, then did some homework. Oh, and I made some avocado and lime guacamole, which was really delicious. Now to talk about the ridiculous amount of refried beans that are STILL in my fridge from Cinco de Mayo..

dance class, skype?

Yesterday, Wednesday, after looking at the lecture notes for my lone class I have on Wednesday, I decided not to go to class. (We're starting on the topic of gender, and being a GWS major.. not necessary for me to be there.) It was SO NICE to have a day during the week not in class. Makes me wish I had a day like that at Gustavus next semester.. I had decided that I wanted to go running and go buy a sweater instead of class though. However, due to the delayed start time of skyping with my parents, I was unable to do both since clothing shops close much earlier here than they do in the states - usually at 5pm. After talking to them I went running (seriously, I hate running. I'm always thinking "this would be so much more fun if I were dancing right now") and did some other work-out type activities which I must admit, I felt awesomely sore/out of shape after but hopefully inspired to do it more often. Note the "awesomely". I made a delicious stir fry and skyped with Andrea (who is my future roommate who's studying abroad in Spain right now and just got back from a fabulous mid-semester break in Europe as well) for a couple hours. Then I was super stoked when I realized that Glee was already online by 11pm my time so I watched that and went to bed.

This morning I woke up late so I ran halfway to class. Got there super sweaty. I enjoy that we're doing more back exercises. (My back is feeling better, by the way.)

Tonight some of my IES friends are coming over after Kapa Haka and we're making burritos to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! I'm really excited. AND tomorrow I think I might go take a ballet class in the city. I haven't been before but I am really craving to take a ballet class. I hope I'll still feel inspired to go tomorrow.

Life is again mundane

Besides the fact that I'm in a different country around the world where the people speak with Kiwi accents and are from a different culture and I had to make a post-it note to remember when my skype dates with the people I normally would see everyday day are. Besides that, mundane again. At least in comparison to the last three weeks of my life.

Yesterday was nothing to brag about. I got my test for sociology back (did decently, woot), went to class, watched a movie for class, came home and made macaroni and cheese in the microwave, went to bed. Today I went to dance class and sat out for half of it (I woke up this morning and my back was killing me. I tried to stretch it in every way possible and tried to take class but my back wasn't having it. I think it's because I woke up and was sleeping really strangely..), went to my Italian tutorial, came home, had an impromptu 3-hour skype date with Whitney, made dinner, watched Hell's Kitchen (seriously, that show stresses me out - too much yelling) and Shortland Street, went to the Chocolate Boutique with one of my flatmates (delicious chocolate mud cake and a zebra truffle), came home and downloaded a TON of music. I'm especially excited about the new Adele and Atmosphere CDs I downloaded - though listening to Atmosphere only reminded me that I'm missing Soundset (the outdoor hip hop festival over Memorial Day Weekend that I love and have gone to the last three consecutive years), which made me a little sad. Maybe bittersweet is a better word because on May 29th, it will be my birthday weekend, and I'll finally be twenty. I've already decided that this birthday is going to be great since my last two birthdays weren't and I am going to not just have fun on my birthday but all weekend. Maybe I'll go bungy jumping again :)

I apologize for the not-very-exciting factor of this blog. My life is back to being less exciting, at least during the week.

And if anyone who didn't get my email (sorry!), if you have any recipes, please email them to me! I'm a desperate college student and appreciate any and all recipes! Pasta w/cheese and tomatoes cannot be what I eat every other day!

And for some New Zealand information that seems like common knowledge to me now:

1. Not all Kiwis have been bungy jumping. For example, I am the only one in my flat of three Kiwis and a Canadian who has.
2. Kiwis listen to almost as much American music as I do - and their top 40 is pretty much the same as the States.
   
3. I was told (in my Italian class today) that Americans have big houses with large backyards - this is one of the many American stereotypes. I then raised my hand and said that my house and backyard were not as big or as green as that in the film we watched. Not saying my house is teeny, but thought I'd point out that not everyone in America is wealthy and lives in spacious suburbs. Then again, if you know me, I don't plan on living in spacious suburbs anyway.
4. 21st birthdays are a big deal here. I've yet to totally understand why, since unlike the States, there is nothing new that you can do when you turn 21 here.
5. I don't really know how everyone feels about Osama's death, but my flatmates were pretty pleased with it. Immediately following, I got emails from to US Embassy and IES giving me warnings about potential anti-American terrorist attacks and what I can do as an American overseas to avoid such acts. Great. Love hearing I need to hide the fact that I'm American now. I don't think I have much to worry about in New Zealand, but still. Not very reassuring.
6. Auckland actually had a tornado today. Tornados pretty much don't exist in New Zealand? It touched down on the North Shore, which isn't near Parnell or the CBD, but a man died. Scary. First an earthquake in Christchurch, then a tornado in Auckland? And then I was told there's a 5% chance that a volcano will erupt in Auckland in the next 50 years and cover the city? WHAT IS WITH ALL THESE NATURAL DISASTERS.

And finally, back in Auckland

It has seriously been so nice to be home in Auckland the past few days. Two of my flatmates aren't here, so there's only three of us at the moment, but that means less people cooking in the kitchen and whatnot. Wednesday, when I got back, my goal was to go to the grocery store but that definitely didn't happen. I caught up on Glee. It was great.

Thursday I did Indo-Fijian dance in class! It was sweet as. I really wanted the instructor to talk more about the hand movements and the cultural context, but oh well. My wrists were killing me afterwards. I ran home from class that day because it was raining. Also, I have gained some weight while here, which I'm pretty sure is very normal while studying abroad, but I've decided I'm going to start running. We're going to see how long that lasts, since my goal was to go again tonight but it got dark around 5:30. Grr. And Kapa Haka on Thursday night was fun. Worked more on the poi. Poi is seriously really difficult though. I keep hitting my forearm/head when it comes to spinning the poi fast. And then three of us flatmates who are here watched the sixth Harry Potter movie, which was sweet.

On Friday dance class was shorter because everyone else was leaving for the weekend for another Dance Studies course so I got out earlier! I went to Tai Ping for some fruits and vegetables and then got to skype with my friend Chelsea. It was an excellent and productive day. At night, we threw a Royal Wedding party at my flat so we dressed up (sort of) and wore crowns. It was fun. I was sad because I wasn't really watching the wedding (I could care less) but I wanted to see the "I do" part and I missed it. :-/

girls in tiaras!

Yesterday I didn't do much besides update my blog, but then my flatmates and I plus Maddi watched the fourth Harry Potter movie last night. I would say we're on a Harry Potter kick, but it's really the only movies that we have. I didn't bring any movies here and my flatmates don't have that many.

And today I've spent a good chunk of the day finally finishing my blog posts about my South Island trip, but now I am FINI and am going to go cook dinner. What shall it be tonight? I know, question of the day. Try not to lose any sleep. Also: it's May?! How/when did that happen?

South Island adventure: Arthur's Pass and Christchurch

Whew. On the last leg. I am pushing through to write about all this, and I'm almost done with my South Island adventure!

On Monday we woe up to fog and rain - not exactly what you want when you're planning on doing a 6 hour hike. Maddi, Meagan and I picked up the other two from the hostel and we ate breakfast (we had one styrofoam curved plate and a spork in which we all used to eat our cereal) before deciding to do Scott's Trail - a less steep trail than Avalanche Peak, and will get better views without needing to climb to the top. I really wanted to do some hiking - I basically forced everyone to come with - but it was an awesome hike. The rain stopped pretty early on and it cleared up, with the exception of clouds here and there. The trail was similar to the cross-island walk we'd done in Rarotonga because it was very steep, almost like nature's stairs, and we had to cross streams of water several times. Nearing the top was exhausting because we'd climbed something like 800km? And when I say top, I mean half to two-third of the way to the top because it was cloudy and we decided we didn't need to go further. We'd made it past the tree line for lunch, and then we headed back down the trail. Going down the trail was scarier than going up because there was a lot of loose rock on the trail and I almost wiped out a few times. But I felt so incredibly accomplished climbing that high. And it took four and a half hour regardless. No, we aren't the fastest trampers but it was still a long day of tramping. I can't narrow down my pictures so I'm going to post a bunch:

sweet as trees

SO steep

legitimately ate lunch in a cloud

feeling pretty accomplished/beastly

so steep

crossed this waterfall/stream

my hiking boots were SO dirty

Anyway. We kept driving towards Christchurch (our final destination), and made a quick stop at Castle Hill. Beth had been there over her Christchurch orientation and some epic battle scene in Narnia was filmed there as well. It was fun to walk around and climb on the massive rocks. I wish it hadn't been so cloudy so we could see the mountains better, but oh well.

It was so nice to get to Christchurch. We stayed in Ilam Apartments, in Beth's old flat (before she was transfered to the Auckland program) which was beyond awesome. Her flatmates were really nice and we stayed there for free (we brought them tim tams though) and while I was on the floor, it was the most glorious thing to be in a home atmosphere and stay someplace for more than a night. I felt like such a nomad. We got to cook dinner without any scary hostel people and everything. It was superb.





On Tuesday I got up and returned the rental car to the Chch airport, and then after that it was unknown what to do. Maddi, Nicole, and I decided to wander towards the Botanic Gardens. On the way there, Nicole and I decided to get haircuts (much cheaper than it would have been in Auckland) and we stopped and window shopped in the Westfield down the road. Eventually we got to the Botanic Gardens which were beautiful. I can't even imagine how beautiful the flowers must have been in summer. We spent the most time in the rose garden.

We were right next to the city center so we decided to go check it out, even though we knew there wouldn't be much to see anymore. The city center was so quiet. There was a fence going around many of the buildings with piles of rubble in front of the buildings. It was really difficult for me to see. I haven't ever seen anything like that in person before so it was quite shocking to me. I don't think I talked for the hour we were walking around. It really reminded me that when disasters happen, just because they're not on the news 24/7 doesn't mean things go back to normal. I even live in New Zealand, and while I don't exactly read the news very diligently, I don't hear much about what's going on Christchurch anymore. Yet the people of Christchurch live in the aftermath of the earthquake. The woman who cut my hair said she hadn't been to the city center since the earthquake because there's nothing to do there anymore; apparently there were a lot of fun bars that were destroyed. It was just so odd because there were buildings with tons of damage next to building that appeared undamaged. So strange. I don't really know what else to say about seeing the destruction other than that it was shocking. So I will leave it at that.

this is what the cathedral looks like now (could only get a few blocks away)

these were taped on a fence in many languages

After seeing the city center, we head back to Ilam to make a delicious dinner of chicken, broccoli, green beans, and rice. Seriously fabulous. And then another endless game of Uno. And then I felt a 4.1 aftershock - kinda cool, the room was shaking but just barely. (Apparently there had been one earlier that day too, a 3.9, which I think was when I felt like the floor felt strange in the mall but it was nothing.) And bed!

I was so antsy to get back to Auckland the next day. I just wanted to be home where I had my own kitchen and bed and had at least a few more items of clothing to pick from. But the trip overall was completely fabulous. If I had the chance in nicer weather I'd definitely want to do one of the multi-day Great Walks in the Fjordlands, but it's definitely a reason for me to come back to New Zealand in the future. Also, I plan to visit the north part of the South Island next month sometime because there are things I want to see that I wasn't able to see on this trip. There's just so much to see and do in New Zealand. It's overwhelming. For being such a small country, too. The South Island is really beautiful though. Really made me want to go camping to. Hint, hint.

Also, I obviously didn't put up many of my pictures. If you're interested, you can check out my facebook albums, there are three: part one, part two, and part three. Have fun!

South Island adventure: glaciers and rocks

The next day we got up at 6am (well actually we left at 6 - I was up a little after 5) to drive towards the glaciers. I was driving so after a few cups of instant coffee I was feeling more awake. Though going outside and realizing that the sun hadn't even started to rise yet was less pleasing.

The part of the drive that was done in the dark would have been gorgeous had it been lighter outside. However, driving while the sun was rising was very pretty. We stopped twice - once because I ran over a rock and was paranoid that something fell off of the car/we had a flat (neither of which were true, fortunately), the second to take a picture of a lake at dawn. I became much more confident in my driving on this long drive - a good thing, as I was probably driving for six hours that day and it was both dark, foggy, and rainy for the first bit of the drive. The weather on the West Coast was really bizarre. However, the West Coast was pretty cool to see the Tasman. At one point we stopped and there were all of these rocks that people had written on, and we had our first taste of annoying black sandflies.

We finally got to Fox Glacier around 11am. First impression? Not that impressive. I had been thinking that it was going to be like a mountain of ice and I was clearly wrong. It was a bit of ice in between two mountains. We did this short walk to a lookout. It had been raining so the trees were really pretty though. We walked to the outlook of the glacier, but there was risk for flooding so we weren't allowed to go any closer - the massive signs about how people have died ("DON'T BE THE NEXT VICTIM") were pretty convincing. We decided that we'd seen enough of Fox Glacier and decided to continue on, excited that Franz Josef was supposed to be more impressive.

driving on the wrong side of the road/car!

Fox Glacier

the hazards of a glacier

this 2-d man was very informative about the glacier

However, first we decided to do a Lake Matheson walk, which is supposed to give an excellent reflective view of Mount Cook. After getting halfway around the lake, we decided to turn around because it was a cloudy day anyway and we wanted to see Franz Josef - a half hour drive up the road.

what we should have seen

what we did see
(okay, it's not that different but still)

The drive between the glaciers was a winding road on the mountains - really fun to drive! Then we walked 45 minutes to get to 100m from Franz Josef in the pouring rain. Franz Josef was much cooler. And there were tons of ice chunks in the river because it had been raining so much. Super cool. It wasn't really cold outside, but the air at the glaciers was a different kind of cold. I don't really know how to describe it.

We were all excited to go to the grocery store and have some legit dinner. We thought we had a stove, so we bough pizza crust and pizza fixins. Wasn't it a surprise when we got back to the motel and discovered there was no oven! So we made pizza in the microwave. Pretty exciting. We were all in our comfy clothes, eating pizza and tim tams (cookies) and talking about our lives. It was awesome.

my microwave pizza!

it was such a long, exhausting day.
someone took this to make fun of me, but whatever.

The next day, Easter Sunday, was not the greatest day. A bunch of things happened that I won't into detail about, but basically we kind of got caught up in a lie and Nicole wasn't able to make it to church and tensions were high. Finally we got out of the motel and drove towards Greymouth. We stopped in Hokitiki for an average lunch of fish & chips (the low price should have given away that it wasn't.. um, top notch) and then decided to see the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. It was only a half hour north of Greymouth anyway. I don't really remember how the pancake rocks were formed again (something to do with water level and sediment or something?) but they were pretty cool. And seeing the blowholes, which were geyser-like, was awesome too. I'm not really a rock person, but I can appreciate them in small doses.

Pancake rocks!

That night we were limited on food options because we learned that practically everything is shut down on Easter. Grocery stores included. Anyway, we drove to Arthur's Pass, where Beth and Nicole stayed in a hostel and Maddi, Meagan and I decided to sleep in the car and save money. We thought we'd be able to cook in the hostel but the three of us were rudely kicked out (seriously, they threatened calling the cops and pressing charges when we hadn't even protested or anything) so it was sandwiches again! Sleeping in the car wasn't too bad though. I slept in the back so I got to lay flat - albeit in the fetal position the whole night, the back seat isn't that big - but it worked and was worth the money I saved.

(sleeping in the car)

Break time. Only a couple days left to write about!