Bungyyyyy!

This past weekend was filled with adrenaline producing fun. I began my weekend early Friday morning with an amazingly scenic drive to Queenstown. One of my favorite things about New Zealand is how blue and clear water is. We drove by rivers and little lakes and they were all stunning and bright. One of the rivers was as greenish blue as the turquoise Crayola crayon color. It was amazing.

It looked a lot greener to me but still beautiful

I also realized that I really love car rides. I think in the past two years I have taken to not liking car rides as much because most of them involve driving through New Jersey and then the PA turnpike which is a road work fiasco but I really love car rides in New Zealand because they are windy and beautiful and there are no sixteen wheelers or gross factory smell.

Upon arriving in Queenstown, Tucker, Kevin and I went white water rafting. We originally wanted to go black water rafting (so the same thing but in a cave) but they were not open. White water rafting was great and I wore a wet suit for the first time. The water was really cold but we all went for a swim anyways. I couldn't resist swimming in beautifully blue river water. We rafted for approximately two hours and through some grade 4 rapids (there are 6 grades, but no one really goes above grade 5), so in short, we were sloshed around for some time. Our guide was pretty awesome and he made the trip all the more fun by allowing us to turtle (flipping the raft). He also had us paddle really hard into a rock, which resulted in some Matrix actions where everyone in the boat flung forwards, except for Tucker who fell backwards and out of the raft. After the two hours we arrived at the other end of the river where there was a SAUNA. Oh gosh it felt so good to be warm.

Grade 4 rapid. So. Awesome. 

That night after a proper shower back at the hostel, we went out for Ferg Burger. I had a tropical swine burger that was delicious and possibly the biggest burger I've ever seen in my life. It was the size of my face, and i'm not really exaggerating much at all. I actually could not bite through the burger so I had to eat the burger from side to side, which ended up being something like "bite of lettuce and tomato" then "bite of beef and pineapple" (YES! there was pineapple!) and then repeat. Anyways, it was a delicious and filling meal, especially since I hadn't eaten since 9am that morning.

After returning to the hostel we played the post-it game, which I think is called 21 questions or something, but basically you write a person on a post-it and stick it on someones head and then the person tries to guess who they are by asking "yes" or "no" questions. I was some interesting characters including Sarah Palin, Tiger Woods, Lara Croft (from Tomb Raider), and Puff the Magic Dragon, and a few others. We played for hours and it was so much fun.

Seems appropriate for a bathroom at the bungy :)

Then comes the most exciting part of my weekend. THE NEVIS BUNGY. I had wanted to bungy jump since I knew I was coming to New Zealand and the time had finally come and I was scared out of my mind. I was not so scared about the actual jump but more so of something not being attached right or something like that. The ride to the bungy pod is about 40 minutes and the entire time I was just sitting silently on the bus thinking "what did I just get myself into?". When we finally arrived, they quickly put us in a full body harness and shipped us out to the bungy pod in a cable car that Kevin decided to shake and sway on the way over. In the pod everything went by so quickly. They put those towel like things around your feet and then had you wait your turn. I was second to go, after Kevin. It was my turn and I climbed into the chair where they attach the bungy cord to my feet. Everything moved so quickly, probably for a reason, so people wouldn't freak out. Once I was attached, it was off to the plank I go...

3, 2, 1... and I jumped. I don't know how I did it because I don't think there is anything in this world that could convince a person that it is a good idea to jump off a plank 134 meters (440 feet) off the ground while attached to a rubber band, but I jumped. The first two or three seconds was absolutely terrifying. I just kept on thinking "Sh*t %$*# AHHH! Oh no oh no.." and then after those two seconds my thought became "WHOAH HO HO! I'M FLYING!!!" and it was the greatest feeling ever, and then my third thought was "Whoah... why am I bouncing? Flying was fun..." But yes, the ground rush was amazing and there was a lot of adrenaline and it was honestly not as scary as I thought it would be. Bungy jumping is definitely one of the coolest things i've done here and I'm really glad I did it. There are pictures and a video of my jump on Facebook. :)

The hike. 

After the bungy we went home and went on a hike up the gondola. I am really glad I did the hike but it was incredibly steep and I still had a cold and couldn't really breathe and I was kind of grumpy until I got to the top, and then the view was totally worth it so I was happy again. I look a little like i'm about to keel over though in the pictures taken after the hike. Anyways, Fredric, Grace and I hiked back down a little later while Tucker and Kevin went luging. We all took hot showers, played more post-it game and then headed out for dinner at a Thai restaurant. That night we played an epic game of charades. While bungy jumping was an AMAZING experience and white water rafting was also great, playing the post-it game and charades was also the most fun i've had in a while. Epic weekend.

Mooncakes, Croissants, Muffins, and Sea Kayaking. Sweet as... :)

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival was this past Monday and I attended a small celebration held by the Chinese Department. This celebration reminded me so much of the Chinese New Year celebration back at Bryn Mawr and Haverford. The Otago celebration took place in the Burns building, which is where I take Chinese. We were in the English department staff room, but the Chinese professors hung Chinese flags and lanterns all over the room and played Chinese music. We watched the Chinese 1, 2 and 3 classes sing songs and perform skits while we ate moon cake and dumplings.

Food science lab consisted of making Bolivian food. This is the last lab I needed to cook at so i'm pretty excited that from now to the end of semester I don't have class until 4pm on Wednesdays. After lab I wandered over to Julia's flat where Sophie entertained me with the idea of going swimming. Of course, I agreed and after stopping by my flat to gather my things, we were off to Moana pool. At the pool, my mind was once again scrambled. Kiwi's circle swim the other direction, and even though throughout the entire first lap I kept on telling myself "flip turn to the right, flip turn to the right" when I got to the wall, I flip turned to the left and into Sophie. The swim was great though, and I smelled like chlorinated goodness for the next three days.

I returned home for the Keg Race that was taking place in my complex. The actual keg race was over, as I was at the pool most of the time it was happening. It was Americans versus the rest of the world, and sadly I think America's excessively high drinking age was our downfall...

On Friday I woke up at 5:30am to go to the Friday Shop, a bakery in Roslyn that is only open on Friday's. While the baked goods were delicious, the walk was not as pleasant. It was only about 1.5 miles away but the entire walk was uphill, and rather steep at many points. I did get to see my first Dunedin sunrise though! Maybe it was my second sunrise, but the first one was while I was on a plane on my way to Dunedin so that was a little different. After the 40 minute walk, an almond croissant never tasted so good.

Victory Beach!

After my morning class on Friday, I went to Grace's flat and watched a few episodes of Prison Break before Grace, Tucker, Fredric and I went to Victory Beach and the pyramids. It was another beautiful day and I was happy to go back again. We then walked to the beach and wandered around for a while. While the beach was also beautiful, and the water blue as ever, I thought that Sandfly Bay was more fun since there were sea lions and sand dunes. On our way back we saw a baby lamb that was standing really close to the fence bahhing at us. It was really cute and all of us were taking pictures and videos of it. Then it began to downpour all of a sudden (not surprising, it's Dunedin) and so we all ran back to the car.

I went sea kayaking on Saturday morning on the peninsula. I was in a double kayak with Grace, while Kevin, Fredric, and Tucker had individual kayaks. We paddled with a guide for over two hours and basically went to the tip of Taiaroa Head which is as far out in the peninsula you can go. Although I had kayaked quite a lot in high school I had never been in a double kayak and never in one with a rudder. The rudder was controlled by pedals that you would press to turn left and right. I am so short that the guide had to untie and retie the pedals to the boat because they were still too far away for me at the shortest setting... Everything worked out though, and Grace and I were always able follow our guide, in more or less a zig zag manner. During the kayak trip we saw seals, and these black and white birds called shags. We also stopped on a beach for a few minutes where we saw a little blue penguin hiding in its hole. Kevin was really surprised that the penguin was actually blue. We then started on our way back but not before we looked around for albatrosses. While looking Kevin made up a variation of Row Row Row Your Boat that went along the lines of "Row row row your kayak gently down the ocean, merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but an albatross." I thought it was quite entertaining. We did see albatrosses eventually though, resting on a top of a hill. They were all just sitting, so from on distance they did not look too different from the sheep on hills. One of them stretched its wing a little and we could kind of tell how large it was. Upon arriving back at where we started we had coffee/hot chocolate and apricot muffins.

Me and Grace! The water was soo green and pretty.  

As for rugby updates, Australia took on Ireland last night, and Ireland won 15 to 6, I believe. Today England is taking on Georgia, and the game is in Dunedin, so I'll update you guys on that madness soon. 

Moves Like Jagger

No Hulu in New Zealand? True statement, but have no fear, I still managed to finish two seasons of Prison Break in a week. If you do the math (2 seasons = 44 episodes @ 45 minutes each) you will have figured out that I spent much of my week admiring Michael Scofield (Prison Break character for those who don't know). But Michael Scofield and his crew did not stop me from going to class and definitely did not get in the way of adventuring.

After class on Thursday I met up with Ebony who was Dakota's kiwihost when she was here in New Zealand two years ago. Together we went to Everyday Gourmet and chatted while drinking delicious hot chocolate. Ebony also treated me to a wonderful chocolate mouse. It was adorable and delicious.

Teapot after glaze and firing! :)

After hot chocolate I went back to my flat where I received an e-mail that my ceramics and glass work was ready to be picked up. As excited as I was to go retrieve them I also would have liked to have gotten the e-mail a little earlier as I just walked from main campus which is about half the way to the Unipol. Anyways, I really wanted to see how my pieces turned so I set out on the 20 minute walk again. While I was taking the two classes I did not think I made that many pieces but once I started gather them I realized that I had quite a few. The man working at the Unipol was nice enough to give me a box to carry them in. I took my box, happy with the results and started to head home again, only to meet up with a rain storm. I had thought it might rain so I brought an umbrella but as I was carrying the box I could not hold the umbrella so I just kept walking though the rain. I decided to stop at Julia's flat because it was closer than mine. I walked in right as they were finishing dinner looking like a wet dog dripping everywhere with my large paper box. I dried off a little bit, poured the water out of my ceramic pieces and had a nice conversation with Julia's flat until the rain stopped. At that point I went back to my house, changed into some dry clothes and set out again with Julia to the Urban Factory where there was a free concert playing. Phoenix Foundation and Thomas Oliver Band, two New Zealand bands were playing so I thought i'd go expose myself to some kiwi music. The music was pretty good, but it was sooo crowded. I'm usually pretty good with crowded and hot places but at the concert everyone seemed to want to walk around so it just ended up being a lot of pushing and shoving. It was a good night though, and there were McDonalds chicken nuggets afterwards, which made me happy.

I wanted a normal picture of this sheep, but then it ran away to pee behind a tree, so I got a picture of that. 

Road to the pyramids

On Friday, Sophie, Miriam and I set out to explore the pyramids and Victory Beach. We took the bus to Portobello, driving alongside the water and up windy roads that gave us beautiful views of the peninsula.  The beach was about four miles from the bus stop and although it took us a little over an hour to reach the pyramids the walk was beautiful. There were almost no cars and it was a dirt/gravel road. It was beautifully serene.

We climbed the little pyramid

View from the top of the little pyramid

On top of pyramid

We reached the pyramids, after walking past what seemed to be endless sheep farms. All the sheep had just recently given birth so there were a bunch little lambs running around. Needless to say, we stopped a whole bunch of times just to watch and take pictures of them. We climbed the smaller pyramid to see the stunning views of mountains and the small inlet that we were walking by. At the top of the pyramid we could see the beach which was about another 20 minute walk. We wanted to go to the beach but were afraid we were going to miss the last bus at 6:45pm, so we started to head back to the bus stop. We missed the bus anyways, by about five or ten minutes, and after multiple failed attempts to hitchhike  (don't worry, its a common thing here) we decided to call some friends. My neighbor Fredric came and rescued us.

Me and Sophie. The beach was about 20 minutes from where we were.

Another view from the top of the pyramid

Walking back around sunset

Later that night I went across the street to The Baaa (a bar) to watch the All Blacks vs. Tonga rugby game. It was the opening night of the World Cup so The Baaa was equally as crowded as the Urban Factory concert. The All Blacks won.

After the game I went to a party in town with Julia and Sophie. Somehow I was able to make myself look presentable after having walked/hiked eight miles that day. The party was fun, but again was crowded and lots of people moving around. It was in a tiny space, and there seemed to be way too many people. I only stayed for a little over an hour before I decided to head home to have some bonding time with Scofield.

I slept in on Saturday morning but did go out to the botanical gardens in the afternoon for a picnic. It was relaxing and since the weather was really nice there were a lot of children and their families out having picnics too. All the seagulls were there too, waiting to be fed. I went grocery shopping later as I needed to get food so I could make flat dinner on Sunday.

I was planning on having a chill night watching Prison Break and going to bed at a reasonable hour, but ended up watching the England vs. Argentina game on TV and then going to town again. England vs. Argentina was pretty epic, there was even a streaker running across the field with a security guard chasing after him. Since the England vs. Argentina game was in Dunedin, there were a ton of people around when we headed towards town after the game. The stadium is within walking distance of the school so you can imagine how many people were walking on the streets at 11pm. It was kind of like New York City, without the lights and tall buildings. We went dancing at Metro, the bar I had gone to a couple times before, and it was great. Grace had to convince me quite a lot before I agreed to go but i'm glad I did because dancing was fun. I think Metro may be my favorite dance spot so far. It turned out to be a really good night, and when I got back I was strangely awake so I finished season two of Prison Break.

I spent most of Sunday in the kitchen, first cleaning it, then baking a cake, then preparing for dinner, cooking dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner and then watching the Wales vs. South Africa game on the TV in our lounge which is in the kitchen. The game was really dramatic, lots of piles of people as usual. It was an extremely close game but South Africa won 17 to 16. It seems that I will be watching a lot of Rugby these next few weeks.

As for my title, it doesn't really have anything to do with my post but I just really like the song. Actually, it is conveniently playing in the background right now. :)

Rotorua! 9/1/2011

Another morning began with packing the chilly bin, but this time we were heading south to Rotorua. The drive was about an hour and a half and even more scenic than the drive up to Auckland. I also managed to stay awake longer this time.

We first stopped at Agrodome and watched a sheep get sheared. The sheep was sooo woolly.The sheep shearer basically brought it out of the pen and made it sit while he shaved her.  This sheep was pretty young and was only being shaved for the second time and kept on kicking. The whole process was really quick and soon the sheep was bald and about half the size it used to be. The sheep shearer told us that within a day the sheep skin would double in thickness to compensate for the lost wool. We all got to feel the raw wool, which is actually really soft and oily. Sheep have this oil called lanolin that is boiled out of the wool when the wool is being processed. Then this lanolin can me made into all different types of products like lotion and soap. He also explained to us that the wool from the sheeps stomach will never be as clean as wool from the sheeps back no matter how much you wash it so it goes in a different pile and is made into dark colored things, like black wool socks or sweaters.

              

After the sheep shearing we went to the ZORB. For those of you who are unfamiliar with zorbing, it is when a person (or in our case, 3 people) climb into large inflated plastic hamster ball filled with warm water and then rolled down a hill. The squishy ball we were in is also encased within a larger squishy ball so we weren’t bouncing the entire way down. Instead, it was a warm, smooth, and slippery roll. We chose the wet roll option because all three of us could go into the same ball and by doing so it was a little cheaper. There is a dry roll option as well but you are strapped into the ball and you roll down the hill with the ball instead of sloshing around inside. I have heard that the wet roll is more fun, and also, I barely made the height limit for the dry roll which is 160cm. Zorbing was super fun and it was totally worth the wet feet I had for the rest of the day.

After zorbing we took out the chilly bin and had lunch at one of the nearby picnic tables. As we ate our sandwiches we watched other people zorb down the hill. Afterwards, we went to the Skyline Gondola and rode up to the top of the hill. It was raining while we were on the gondola but we still got to see the lake and the town underneath us. On the top of the hill we went to the luge track. Luging is basically bumper cars on a windy path going down a hill, with very little bumping, hopefully. Luging was really fun too but because it had rained right before we got there we all had wet bums afterwards. On the track there were also pit stops where you could stop your luge mobile and take pictures of dinosaurs. I didn't stop but I definitely saw big dinosaur statues. I felt like Yoshi from Mario Kart, I even had a green helmet.

We then visited the free hot pools. This is where Rotorua lives up to is smelly reputation. Even before we got out of the car we could smell sulfur, which is kind of like sewage and rotten eggs put together. The hot pools were all fenced off because they are all really really hot. Some were filled with boiling water and others were filled with boiling mud. Now how often can you say, “Mmm yeah, I just walked by a naturally boiling pool of mud.” And despite the unpleasant smell, it was really pretty. At the end of the walk way there were two public hot pools for people to go into. We went for the covered one only to find two naked men there, so we resorted to the non covered one. We soaked our feet there and the water was amazingly warm and comfortable. We sat there enjoying the warmth until we realized that the two naked men were probably druggies. One of the men took out a bag with some unknown white powder and started to sniff from it and at that point we all left in a hurry. I didn’t even put my shoes on and walked back to the car kiwi style (aka barefoot). Luckily the broken glass from Castle street didn’t make it all the way to Rotorua.

Yes, that is boiling mud

We then started to head home, but not without stopping in the small town of Tirau where I took pictures of the big corrugated iron dog and sheep. Again, I hopped out of the car kiwi style (shoeless because my shoes were still wet from zorbing) and ran across the street to these large inanimate animals that are actually shops. Ellie snapped a few pictures of me and then we were on our way again back home.

When we arrived back on the farm we were greeted by Ellie’s dogs, Blue, Scruffy, and Bess. These three are the most well behaved dogs I have ever met. Blue, who is actually an orange dog, gets a little jealous if you don’t pet him first but he is quite sweet. Scruffy and Bess love attention. Bess is obsessed with playing fetch, and Scruffy doesn’t really know how to play fetch but will play defense with Bess. All this means is that Bess will run after the ball and Scruffy will run after Bess to make sure she doesn’t get to it. Very amusing, sweet, and well behaved dogs.

From left to right: Scruffy, Blue, Bess

That night, Ellie made some delicious lasagna. It had veggies, mushrooms, and pumpkin in it. And instead of ricotta cheese, she used a mixture of cream cheese and cottage cheese which in the end tasted about the same as ricotta cheese. Delicious. Ellie's sister Rachel came over for dinner and brought over a lemon meringue pie. After some conversation and a hot drink we all headed to bed as we all had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning for our flight.

"Jump inside my mouth! I won't bite..." 8/31/2011

Soon after waking up and eating breakfast, Ellie, her mom, Julia and I found ourselves packing the “chilly bin” for the day. Chilly bins are what we US folk call coolers. We were headed to Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium in Auckland. The drive was a little over an hour and was very scenic, for the parts that I was awake for. We arrived at Kelly Tarlton’s a little after 11am and the first thing Julia and I did was run to the SHARK BUS! After taking many pictures of everyone with the shark bus we went inside to pay for our tickets and to explore the underwater world. Kelly Tarlton’s is named after Kelly Tarlton, a kiwi marine archaeologist and diver that decided to turn some disused sewage storage tanks into an aquarium thus the aquarium is entirely underground.

Julia and I jumped into its mouth...

The first aquatic creatures we saw were penguins. It was penguin feeding time and the penguins were all shuffling for their fish. During this time, I did the polar plunge, which was to hold your hand in icy water for 30 seconds. This reminded me of my biology class at Bryn Mawr my freshman year where my lab section turned some lab we were doing into this massive competition where everyone was sticking their hands in ice water for as long as possible. I held my lab sections record at a little over 7 minutes before the TA made me pull my hand out. A person in the next lab section beat me though, because the TA didn’t make her take her hand out, probably because they saw that my arm was fine and didn’t fall off after 7 minutes…

After the penguin feeding we wandered around playing with little (or big) gizmo’s that they provided. Julia and I climbed into a plastic sharks mouth and pretended it was eating us. We played dress up with the costumes provided but since they were made for 3 year olds we kind of just wore the head piece and the rest kind of just draped over us like a cape. There was also a chalkboard where we could draw fish. Here we have Abe the American fish, and Kiwi, the kiwi fish.

 

We then took a ride through "Antarctica” which basically was us sitting in a trolley and going through the penguin tank so we could see them up close. We saw some giant penguin babies that still had their baby feathers and they kind of looked like large kiwi birds that could stand upright.

This is not a baby penguin. 

Could I pass for a penguin? .... maybe?

At around 1pm we headed over to the really huge open top tank to watch a stingray feeding. Stingrays are huge, but really cute at the same time. They kind of climbed all over the feeder for their fish. Om nom nom…

The big cape-like thing is the stingray

After that we briefly looked at the other fishes before needing to find our own noms. We drove out to the beach where we could see Rangitoto island and had our picnic lunch there. At lunch we also met Ellie’s Aunt Jenny. Then Julia, Ellie, and I went to collect shells. There were so many pretty shells!

This is not a shell. It is a rock, but there used to be oysters stuck on it. Oysters have shells...

We started to head home after shell collection because Ellie’s dad had to get home to feed the cows. We got to ride the tractor again, and this time we also visited a neighboring wild pig and some calves. After feeding the cows, and ourselves, Ellie, Julia, and I proceeded to have a conversation of epic proportions before heading to bed. Epic does not even begin to describe it. Julia and I have concluded that Ellie would make a great Mawrter. 

I tried marmite... meh... 8/30/2011

Tried marmite. Not very good...

Tuesday morning began with a visit from Win, a family friend of the Robson’s. Win is a unique elderly lady with lots of personality. Before she even presented herself we heard from outside on the patio, “So where are those Yanks!?!” It was pretty great. Win brought some New Zealand apples for me and Julia and took a couple of pictures with us. She then told us stories while we had hot drinks. When asking Ellie’s mom what the agenda was for the day, and hearing that we were going to visit the clay brick factory, her response was, “Shiiit, Can’t you take them somewhere more interesting?” Personally, I thought the brick factory was pretty cool, we saw the last batch of bricks being cut for the day and the best part was the brick moving machine named Luigi. Luigi wore sunglasses and a sombrero.

Luigi

Pile of reject bricks

After the brick factory, we went to have a late lunch, where I had a butter chicken pie and apple pie. Both were delicious. I also got a ginger beer (ginger ale) in hopes that it would help my aching throat. It did, after much fizzy pain. Then my throat went numb for a while. We then went grocery shopping as we were having a family dinner that night.

When we returned, Ellie’s dad had come home from work and after introducing ourselves he took us on his tractor to go feed the cows. This was where all the fun began. We rode on the back of the tractor while we went through their farm to the cows. I learned that Ellie’s family is considered “hobby farmers” because they have a relatively small farm, something like 25 acres. To me, this was the biggest farm I had ever seen. Also, it was the most moo cows I have ever seen up close.  We threw bundles of hay for the cows. Then Julia got to drive the tractor. A little while later it was my turn to drive. Joy! There is not driving on the left or the right or anything, it was driving in the CENTER! Also, tractors are much like driving manual and I have only ever driven automatic, but it wasn’t too bad after the initial lurch. I got to drive back to the house where we then met Ellie’s sisters, Rachel and Venita, and their husband and boyfriend. We then had a lovely dinner with beef and veggies, and blueberry and apple cake with boysenberry ice cream. After they left, Ellie’s mom made me some Lemsip tea and we headed to bed soon after.