Sunday, August 12, 2007

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.




















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