Week #6 Rangitoto

Kia Ora!

Ok so I leave tomorrow really early for my plain to Queenstown!!! I will be on a two week semester break and touring the south island! I am tired and I have to get up early, so this blog may be short.

Last week I went to see Transformers on Tuesday. We went out before the movie to Food Alley. It is an Asian food court and I had some awesome Indian food. Everything there is sooo good and really cheap. Wednesday night we went and bought a tub of ice cream each. Then we all swapped. I got hokey pokey! Thursday we just hung out. Nothing too unusual. Friday I tried to crack down on some papers I had to turn in this week. I had one on Pacific Health Care that was due Monday and another for Health Care Ethics due Wednesday. So I spent a good chunk of Friday and Saturday doing those papers. I did find some time to go grocery shopping with Leigh and Victoria. We did our shop and find lunch routine. We find something like sushi meals for $5, then we eat them in Esquires (the NZ version of Starbucks) and order a coffee. Our shopping bags sit in the seat next to us as we gossip. Actually, we are really just planning our trips.

Saturday we went to Mission pay for dinner. Leigh and I split a meal with fish and avocado sauce, rice, and an entree (appetizer) of kumara chips. Everything was really good. Then we went and got ice cream. The ice cream was good, but not as good as everyone said (in my opinion). On our way to the bus, we took a detour and walked by the beach. Then we found a fountain to play in, then the kiddies park. It was a fun night. We came back and watched a movie. Something scary, I can't remember the name. I spent the rest of the night jumpy.

Sunday we went to Rangitoto. It is a volcanic island that you can take a ferry to. I saw Suzie Eckle on the ferry, she goes to Davidson. She will be in Sydney for the semester doing an American program. So, she hasn't started school yet. It was really funny running into her though. She had emailed me earlier because she had seen my name in the Waitomo caves guest book.

The Island was really pretty with lots of lava rocks. We got to see the basin of the volcano. Victoria said it hadn't erupted in 600 years. There were really cool lava caves and the view was amazing from the top of the volcano. Leigh, Victoria, Steven (a guy from Arizona), and I went. We had a lot of fun taking crazy group pictures. We had a really pretty day to go because this is the third time we have tried to do this trip. Every other time, we wake up and it is raining. After we got back, we went to a gelato place. It was amazing! I had Vanilla Chi and Italian Hokey Pokey. Sooooo good! I want to go back now, just thinking about it. Oh! and I took a Lava rock to add to my Waitomo cave ones.

This week wasn't too exciting. I turned in both my papers and planned for our trip. I got a cell phone today. Well, it is a communal phone because we will all be sharing it for the rest of the semester. We also tried to finish off all of our food, which is pretty funny. I did pretty well. I only have some salad mix left over and I might try to take that with me. I am just really excited about the up coming trip. We are going to have a great time! I even got a 1GB memory stick for my camera.

Week #5 The Bay of Islands

Kia Ora!

I had such an eventful weekend, I can't remember what I did this week. Monday was class as usual. I have signed up for the Auckland half marathon. Leigh and I are planning on running it together, or a run/walk, but we are both having issues with our legs. My foot is acting up and she is having all kinds of issues. It is really quite sad, our bodies are bailing on us. I've had to use the elliptical machine to keep from hurting my foot any more.

Tuesday I spent the whole day doing chores. Nothing too interesting. Then I went out to a movie with church. Riley, JS, Joel (a guy from Arizona), Max (not from my Arcadia group), and I met at Railway and took the bus together. It was a 40 minute trip to Sylvia Park. We saw Amazing Grace, which was awesome. After the movie, we split up and road with some church people back to Railway. I love this church because this movie event wasn't for a certain group of people, it was for the whole church. They rented out an entire theater and each person paid for their ticket through the church. It was a wonderful group activity because it promotes a fun way to interact with everyone.

Wednesday, Leigh and I went to the grocery store in the morning. We have made our grocery trips into a weekly event of shopping and finding lunch. While we shop we find something that looks good for lunch, then we check out and go to the coffee shop. Leigh gets her weekly coffee and I get whatever it is I get, then we have lunch. The last two weeks we had meat pies, this week we found sushi! I had a strawberry smoothie with mine. I know, very Asian. Then, later that night, Victoria, Leigh and I went to Foodtown again for ice cream. I got Hokey-Pokey (vanilla but butterscotch type balls, a NZ classic), Leigh had cookies in cream, and Victoria got caramel chocolate. Then we came back and traded. Sooooo good!

Thursday wasn't too unusual. I made my kumara and chicken meal again. It turned out well, but I burned the onions. Then, I had the Equippers Uni club. After the fellowship there is food provided and this time it was these really good cheese sticks. They had a breading around the outside with cheese in the middle and they put hot sauce on them. So good! and then you remember everything here is made from scratch. This was just one of the girl's creations. Leigh and I made kumara muffin bread when I got back. We got the recipe off our trusty kumara site, but we don't have a muffin pan so we decided to use my square pan. Once we got started, Steven came in to make brownies (out of the box, so not kiwi). I promise no raw eggs were consumed during this evening of trusty youth, with heaps of health, cooking together. Then Annie and Michelle came in to cook brownies, also out of the box. The brownies finished and more friends came into the kitchen. Then the kumara bread finished, sort of. We at the edges because it wasn't fully cooked. We had a double batch, so we put the fresh batter in the pan and the half baked loaf in aluminum foil with the oven at a lower temperature. This time they took forever to cook. I think the potato throws them off. Next time we are going to make cream cheese icing with cinnamon for the bread. Victoria joined us with a couple pieces of pavlova for Riley and me because we missed it after dinner. By the end of baking we had around ten people in the kitchen bouncing off the walls. It was so much fun!!!

Friday, Leigh and I atempted running. It was a long haul. At two, everyone from Arcadia met up for our activity weekend with Kate and Jane in the Bay of Islands. It was a four hour van ride to Jane's parent's house, where we stayed in caravans in their yard. Janes family comes in the summer and they pull all the caravans close to the water and camp out. Their house has a beautiful view of the bay and a wonderful location for collecting shells. Even the girls from Hawaii and California were impressed with the shells we could find. I have a whole bunch in my windowsill. In the picture, you can see a few paua shells and then some cool spiral ones. The paua shell is found in a lot of NZ jewelry and in Maori art. Jane's mum fed us so much! Friday we had lasagna for dinner, probably 3 times the amount I would normally eat. Then we had huge slices of pavlova. That evening we played catch phrase and watched Whale Rider (I highly recommend this movie). Kate and Jane are so funny in their banter. They are constantly picking on everyone, sweetening one person up then teasing them.

Saturday, we woke up at 6:45 for the sunrise. It was descent, but then I don't normally know what the sunrise looks like. We had muesli for breakfast: granola, cereal, yogurt, fruit, and a little milk. Then lots of toast with this great raspberry jam. After breakfast, we all piled into the van and headed out for an island cruise. It was heaps of fun. Everything was beautiful and the weather was gorgeous. I took so many pictures! Leigh and I, plus some other crazies, would jump into the air when the boat was about to go down a wave. Sort of like jumping in an elevator minus the possibility of it breaking. We were on the front of the boat having tons of fun going nuts. I was actually leading the hyper activities, which is a first and would make Nordo so proud. I began the jumping, pretend wind surfing, slow motion running, dolphin signals and many other goofy activities. Leigh and I now have sign language for palm tree, tree with five leaves, dolphin pod, and whale rider. Then there is always the feed me nutella signal! When we went out to the rock with a whole, they made us all get off the front of the boat. So my group stood on the back in the open. We would hang on to the railing for dear life because the waves were so big and if you leaned out you would be sprayed. Leigh and I are also known as the two gigglers, Victoria thought it was after we would eat, but now we just think it is mostly after food and other random times. I am sure this sounds a little familiar to my family. We have a good time! The boat dropped us off in Piahia, a little beach town with lots of food places and shops. Some of us ate at a fish and chips place, which I don't think I want to do for a while. That food is so greasy and I never feel so great after it, but watch me eat it like ten more times! Jane and Kate treated us to ice cream. Then we headed off to the Waitangi Treaty grounds. The Waitangi Treaty was signed by the Maori chiefs and Governor Bledesloe awarding New Zealand to England. The content of the treaty is still debated because there are many original copies signed by different chief, but they have different content. Also, many doubt whether the chiefs actually know what they were signing. The grounds were beautiful though with the original house that the treaty was signed and a Maori building. The treaty was signed in 1840 on February 6th. This is the only thing I really remember because we all fell asleep in the informational movie, including Jane. As we drove back, it began to rain. We lucked out until this point because all of our weather was beautiful.

We waited out the rain in our caravan trailers. I did homework by-the-way, for those who think I'm just on vacation (Dad and Joe, and basically everyone else). I have two papers due soon. After the rain ended, we had a putonk (or lawn bowling) tournament. Everyone had a partner assigned randomly to them. I was paired with Alesa, Jane's mum, and we played Alex and Sarah first and won. Then we beat Jane and Asia, which lined us up for a final round against Leigh and Keith (Jane's dad) in the morning. We had fish for dinner and potatoes and cole slaw. The food was amazing again, with ice cream and pavlova for dessert. Kate gave us a quiz on New Zealand trivia, everyone had partners but Victoria and I! Somehow it was decided that we knew too much and would be fine on our own. This is why I don't play trivia games: I can't remember the highest mountain because I get stuck on Mt. Mitchell and I thought the five dollar not was red not orange (thanks dad, not exactly why this is your fault but you know me...). Anyway, I missed the second round by a point. Overall, they said our group did better than most, but I'm not sure if they were lying to us. That is a possibility. We watched "The Piano," which is a horrible movie, just plain weird. We went to the beach where it was filmed on our trip to the west coast with Kate, but that didn't help its horrible plot.

Sunday, most everyone woke up for the sunrise just by chance, in other words nature called. It was spectacular!!! Pink and perfect! Nora and Joanna would be jealous. We had muesli for breakfast again, then we continued our putonk competition. Alesa and I won by three points in the end! Leigh and I received chocolate and home made olive oil as prizes. Jane led us in a mid morning hike up the mountain. We dodged cow pies most of the way up and tried to keep from slipping in the mud. I have a picture of the silver fern. When they are dead on the ground the bottom side still shows white. This is how the Maoris marked their trails, sort of like bread crumbs. The top of the mountain gave us a great view of the bays and the rock formations. The area we were in was a typical location for a Maori village. You can still see the ditches that the Maoris dug for different reasons. When we were back at the house, some of us went in the water... to our knees. We wanted to try swimming, but Victoria was the only one who really got in that far. She didn't even get her head wet. There is something to be said for water that is colder than the wind when you get out. We had chicken, sausages, avocado, and cole slaw for lunch. It was Alex's birthday, so we also had a home made orange cake. Then we had to pack up to leave. On the drive back, I slept for an hour and a half.

Week #4 Waitomo

Kia Ora!!!

This week was heaps of fun! Monday I went to a bar called Margarita's. They have dollar beer night, so a lot of people go. I tried Tui, but it was really gross. I don't understand how anyone drinks that stuff. Tuesday I spent the whole day studying for my "midterm" on Wednesday. My Maori and Pacific Health Care class is team taught. Right now we are doing the Pacific Health half and we had our midterm on that. Later in the semester, I am assuming I will have another midterm on the Maori health. The exam was pretty simple, all short answer. I was done really quickly. Wednesday night we went out for sushi for Sarah's birthday (a girl from my program). Leigh and I split two types, chicken teryaki rolls and salmon avacado. It was soooo good! Michael and I split an order of egg rolls, but they were not like any egg rolls I have ever seen. They were litterally eggs cooked in a roll, a little like an omlet and sort of sweet. Thursday I made kumara mash (sweet potatoe mash) with onions and chicken cooked in honey mustard. I was really proud because it was really good. It is probably one of my favorite meals and will be repeated many times.

Friday we left for Waitomo! Leigh, Victoria, Riley (a guy from Florida), Kevin (a guy from New Hampshire), and I went together. We stayed in a hostel in Turangi near Mt. Ruapehu because Victoria and Riley went skiing. We stopped on the drive for dinner at a take away place. I had a burger and kumara chips. They put mayonaise, carrots, and lettice on it again with my tomato sauce and cheese. There was also sour cream for my kumara chips. I decided mixing a little sour cream and tomato sauce is the perfect thing to dip the kumara chips in. But, you don't want too much because kumara tastes so good. We also stopped to stretch our legs at one point. Most kiwi towns have a public restroom, so we stopped at the one in a little town. While the guys were in the restroom the girls decided to go see if an ice cream place was open. It was, but it was a little farther from the car than we expected. We got two scoops for $1.60! Hokey Pokey ice cream the New Zealand favorite!!! It brings back taste memories from third grade I swear! By the time we got back to the car and told the guys to go get some the lady closed shop! We felt so bad, but they seemed ok with it. Riley and I switched seats for the rest of our ride. To explain the car, it is a tiny toyota. Three people in the back seat, Leigh is about my size and Riley is taller and has broader sholders but a normal six foot guy. We overlapped on shoulders in the back with the outside shoulders touching the windows. A little cramped, we were nice and cozy. The 4 hour car ride was great though. We sang, joked, and just talked. The hostel was pretty cool too. We had a "dorm room" with four bunk beds. There is a community kitchen, dining room, and lounge. There is also a climbing wall and cafe associated with the hostel, but not attached.

Saturday, we drove Victoria and Riley to bus stop at the bottom of the mountain. They had to buy tickets up to the mountain and then back to Turangi because we had to take the car. Then Kevin drove us to Waitomo to meet a group of our friends at the caves. We stopped on the way in Te Kuiti for lunch, mmm.... meat pies! Then we went caving at 3:00. We had 12 peopl (10 from our group) and 3 guides. They bused us to a place to change into wet suites, gum boots, and hellmates. Then taught us how to absale down and attach ropes to our belt things. (obviously I picked up the terminology) We practiced on a hill then headed to the cave. I was really cold for the first little bit because it was windy and raining out. One of our guides was Fish, he was really surprised when we knew what The Warehouse (their Wall-Mart) was because he thought we were normal tourists, not students. Then got mad at me because I said Maori wronge (he is Maori) and turns out he is only 19!!! yikes!!! Gavin was another one of our guides. He taught a few of us in the back to say Tomaki! when something is really cool. he goes "say Tomaki!!! Brother!!! or Tomaki!!! Cousin!!!" so I always said Tomaki Cousin!!! All of us that heard it were screaming it the whole time. Once we were in the cave we split into a group of 4 with the third guide and a group of 8 with Fish and Gavin. They said that because of the rain the water was 80% higher than normal and about two cm from the cut off point. In other words the demo pics show little ripples of water and it is up to people's chests when they are crawling and our pictures show the water up to our chins when we are crawling. We also had some intense waterfalls that we had to absale down on the ropes. Fish would be at the top of the waterfall attaching us in and Gavin was at the bottom getting the group ready for the next thing. Fish told us to yell once we were half way down. A few times he didn't like how loud the person was and would do different things to them. He sat blocking the water for Max (from the Arcadia group) until he was at the bottom then stood up and he got pounded. He dumped his boot of water on Erin (I can't remember where she is from) and rushed some extra water on Leigh by lifting his foot. Both of them would basically jump down the absale points by running down the walls and stuff. There was one point where we had to absale down into what seemed to be a dead end because there was so much water. Except really there was a tiny whole we had to go into but it was blocked by the waterfall. So you get smashed by the water while you are climbing head first into who knows where. Then you had to turn around in the little tunnel and slide down the tiny waterfalls until you came to a tunnel you had to crawl through. Fish was in the tunnel by the waterfalls to help us through, but it wasn't too reassuring. There was another point when the entire group had to go down the rope into a tiny pool and we all had to fit. I was the third person in and it was up to my waist. This was the only time I was really cold. We also got to go into some caverns with glow worms! At one point we turned out our lights and looked at them all. Fish called them "carnivorous, shit-burning, horney maggots" and that is a quote. They use chemiluminescence to get rid of their waste!!! haha go figure, Advanced Liquid Logic should refer to glow worms instead of fire flies next time, maybe it will sound cooler or just confuse people. While in the cave, we would scream Ayyyyy-ohhhhhhh!!!!!! or "Hey you guys!!!" Fish would get caught up in it then realize this is what the tourists were doing and try to switch it into a song. haha!

When we got back out of the cave it was dark. The hardest part was walking up the hill out of the sheep pasture. We got back into the building with our clothes and showers. I slipped two small rocks down my wet suite to take home when I was in the cave. So, when I took off my jacket they fell on the floor. All three guides saw it and Fish was like "ohhh... theif! theif!" I turned red then he said "they're just rocks you can take them" so I grabbed them up and went to shower. Everyone who saw it said my face was priceless. haha! oh well, I'll never see them again! and I've got my rocks. We got back to the main building at 7:30 and bought the picture CD. Then headed back (2 hours) to Turangi. Everything closes at 7-8ish so we stopped at another cafe/take away place. I had the Hawaiian Burger, which includes the usual kiwi toppings plus pinapple and beats! It was pretty good. Then Leigh and I split some more hokey pokey ice cream and a fried Moro Bar (like a Milky Way, but Cadbary). I had to drive back (wooo hooo! left side) because Kevin was too tired.

Victoria and Riley had a fun time coming back on the bus and had no problem getting into the hostel. They dried their clothes, made dinner and fell asleep. Kevin is the only one with a cell phone, so when they woke up at 11PM they didn't know where we were and freaked out. We had no way of finding out which room they were in and they had no way to find out where we were in general. So they walked to the hostel we were at the night before (we had to switch because there was no room) and got there right when Alex and the other group drove in (they were saying at that hostel). Alex had a phone so they called us and he drove them back. Everyone had a great day!

Sunday we decided to head back slowly. It was nicer weather than Saturday, but still scattered showers. We stopped at Lake Rotopounamu and took a couple pictures, but it was raining so we didn't walk around it. It was the day of rainbows! So while we were chasing them all back to Auckland, we stopped at Waitomo again and did a short walk there. It was the beginning of the Waitomo walkway, which goes through a cow pasture. This is the only point where our whole group did not seem too thrilled with what we were doing. Two people didn't want to ruin their shoes and two were completely happy, I was stuck in the middle because I new I had been playing tour guide and picked the walk, so I felt bad. It was fun though. We cut back on the road though and tried to wash off our shoes some in the public toilets (bathrooms). The rest of the ride back was still lots of fun. A little quiet because everyone was tired but still fun. All in all, a wonderful weekend!